My lollipop moment

Drew Dudley's TED talk on Everyday Leadership was the best 6 minutes I spent today.  His definition of leadership is attainable for EVERYONE.  This is the epitotomy of TED talks, to be able to convey a strong idea in such a tightly tuned sound bite that it just hits you in your gut and leaves you changed.

And it got me thinking about my lollipop moments.  Not the ones I don't remember where I've made lasting impact on others, but the ones where someone has done that for me.   And have I thanked them?  A few, yes.  Most? No.  And the ones that changed me in the ways that most matter?  Definitely not.

So this post is for Kurt Buhr.  He is the friend who over the course of many months repeatedly asked me to come to church.  He did this in a patient and unassuming kind of way, in a fashion that made me hear God calling.  He helped me back on my path to God over 2 years ago now.  He was one of the people who went out of their way to make me feel included in a very large church, where its easy to get lost in the crowd.  While I'm not the Christian I want to be, I'm definitely much closer to it now than I was thanks to Kurt.

Christmas Eve this year, I attended the 11pm service with my sister.  And they performed a skit in which this woman is struggling with the overwhelmingness of life and cannot figure out why she still feels empty.  And she is visited by Jesus (in the guise of Kurt Buhr).  Sometimes I find these skits can be corny, but Thursday night was just what I needed.  I've been struggling for months feeling a gnawing hole inside myself.  I have tried to fill this ache with worldly things, for a while it was purchases.... then it was men...  and I was sitting in that chair on Christmas Eve at a loss with what would make me feel whole.

And during that skit, Kurt again gently reminded me to choose Jesus.  I do.  Thanks Kurt.