Reese Pieces by Robert and Mindy Fugarino

Below is something called a "Reese Piece." Reese is a nickname for Karyssa, our 5 year old daughter. Some of you have met her. Some of you soon will. Each Reese Piece is a brief exploration of some way we sense God has spoken to us through her. God reaches us through the experiences and relationships of daily life. This seems obvious, but we find it's something which is still easy for me to forget. It is our prayer that "Reese Pieces" will encourage you to look for the ways the Lord is trying to reach you through the life you live each day and the people who populate it.

20 October 2011

Dear Friends (Both Known and Unknown),            

Back when the earth was young and life was much simpler, I went to the University of Houston for undergraduate school. As an adult I have season tickets to the football games. Reese loves to go, at least as long as the snacks keep coming.

            Like a lot of schools, when the Cougars score a touchdown, there is a tradition of the mascot doing a pushup for each point. It works cumulatively, so, for instance, after the Cougars score their second touchdown of the game and get to 14 points, the mascot will have completed a total of 21 pushups. On and on it goes. Since the Cougars have scored no less than 38 points (approximately 131 pushups) at a home game this season, it adds up pretty fast.

            Most games I toss Reese up in the air for each pushup the mascot has to do. Reese’s weight has shot up to 48lbs, but I’m thankful I can keep doing it, at least until she and I get bored with it.

            I am not a tremendously strong person, but I have lifted weights fairly regularly since grade school. This skill (if you can actually call it that) allows me to toss the Reese. It is one of my favorite things to do with my negligible strength. We both laugh a lot.

            Obviously I didn’t realize twenty years ago that one of the ultimate reasons I was lifting weights was so I could toss my yet to be conceiveddaughter into the air at college football games. Truthfully, the reason I lifted weights back then was vanity.

           It is funny how God can work with that sort of thing.

 Moses killed an Egyptian and fled Egypt into the desert to wander and ultimately find a new life. Who knows all the reasons Moses did such a thing when he was young?

 But, what is for sure is that years later when Moses was 40 years older and God spoke to him from the burning bush, God used those experiences for a new, glorious purpose. God sent Moses back into Egypt. Once there, God used Moses to lead the slaves out of  Egypt and into the desert to wander and finally find a new life.

Back when he was young, Moses never would have known that even his mistakes were equipping him for his ministry with God. But that was what was happening

            Saul knew the story of Moses and the laws of God backwards and forwards. He had a passion for them and the God Saul believed had given them. Saul would even take to the road aggressively pursuing what he believed were his God-given passions.

He lived out those passions by tracking down followers of Jesus. But, one day Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus, claimed him, and took all those skills and passions and allowed them to find a new purpose. We know Saul, of course, as Paul. And we likely wouldn’t know Jesus without him.

            Years before, Saul/Paul had no way to know that he was being equipped to share the good news of Jesus. But he was.

            In John Irving’s novel A Prayer for Owen Meany, the title character is an exceptionally small boy with a commanding presence who believes God is going to do something through him someday. As students Owen and his best friend John practice what they call “The Shot”. As fast as they can Owen grabs the basketball, John tosses Owen above his head, and Owen dunks the ball. Who knows why they do it? For fun? For challenge? To keep from getting bored?

            Years later Owen and John are called upon in an airport bathroom to use “The Shot” to heave a grenade out a high window and save a group of school children.

            As we look back over our lives we may find the tools God wants to use to bring a little bit of Christ’s love and joy and hope into the world. Those tools within us may surprise us. And, way back when, we might have bought those tools for completely different and lesser reasons. We might not have realized we were being equipped. But we were.

            Oh, well. God is funny like that.      

Peace in Christ,

Robert

Previous Reese Pieces