DAY 1: NO IDEA by Sophie from Birmingham

DAY ONE: NO IDEA by SOPHIE aka "BOOMAMA" (visit Sophie's personal blog at http://www.boomama.net/)
One Saturday about a three and a half years ago (February of 2005, I think), when our little boy was almost two and had been SUCH A PILL on the way home from the grocery store that I decided that he needed to run in some wide open spaces, I looked to my right, saw the sign for the park near our house, and slammed on my brakes at the last minute so that I could make the turn. I wheeled into the parking lot, unbuckled Alex from his carseat and let him run around the playground.

I thought for just a second that the little man and I had the whole place to ourselves until I saw a familiar-looking guy pushing a stroller in our direction. And after a few minutes I realized that Stroller Guy in the park was actually one of the Preacher Guys from our church. Specifically, it was Kevin Wood, who I'd never met before, and since neither of us is what you would call "shy," we introduced ourselves and chatted for about an hour while our boys played on the playground. Our conversation set some ministry wheels in motion, and I'm forever grateful for that - but that "chance" meeting was really about so much more than we could've ever imagined at the time.

For the next year or so my husband David and I listened to our friends Emma Kate and Brad as they began to talk and pray about the possibility of God starting a new work in Tupelo. Emma Kate and I had been best friends since college, and she would often ask me questions about my “preacher friend Kevin and his sweet family” (Emma Kate tends to err on the side of curious, you know). Meanwhile, back here in Alabama, our “preacher friend Kevin,” Traci and their kids became increasingly special to our family. We fell into the habit of going out to eat before church on Wednesday nights, even though we occasionally had to eat some inferior pizza because Hey, here’s a newsflash, Kevin can be a little, um, CHEAP.

Oh, I kid because I love.

And also: BECAUSE IT’S TRUE.

So one day - I don't know why - I burned one of Kevin's sermons to a CD, put it in an envelope, and sent it to EK and Brad. It's funny to me that, unbeknownst to him, Kevin made his first trip to Tupelo embedded in a little four inch CD, and that virtual visit made a pretty big impression on some people he'd never met.

By May of 2006, there was a small group of people in Tupelo that was meeting regularly to pray about God's direction for a new church. They mentioned that they'd love to hear the story about how our church in Birmingham got started, so my friend Sandra graciously invited "the Tupelo crew" to her house for lunch one Sunday so that they could hear the history of our church from some of the founding members. Since I had to leave church early that Sunday to help get lunch ready, I missed the end of the service. But when Emma Kate walked in Sandra's door about an hour later, she looked me square in the eye and said, "Hey. Kevin prayed."

I said something to the effect that yeah, he's a preacher and preachers are apt to do that thing you call praying - and EK grabbed my arms and said, "No, Sophie. You don't understand. Kevin prayed."

When I saw the tears in her eyes, I knew, just as sure as we were standing there, that Kevin was, in her heart, God’s man for their church in Tupelo. The rest of the group that had been meeting and praying together felt the same way.

The only problem was that Kevin and Traci had no idea.

There are people at Trace Crossing who can tell the rest of this story better than I can (I’ll let Kevin tell you about the time I bamboozled him into coming to our house for dinner with Emma Kate and Brad), but even now, when I look back on all those seemingly separate events and see the way God connects threads of our lives that we think are unrelated - and how He uses those threads to create a beautiful, unexpected tapestry, something far more than we could've imagined - well, it blows me away.

"Many, O LORD my God,
are the wonders you have done.
The things you planned for us
no one can recount to you;
were I to speak and tell of them,
they would be too many to declare."
Psalm 40:5

Thank you, Lord, for the people at The Church at Trace Crossing. Thank you for your faithfulness, your guidance and your provision as you’ve established this faith family. I pray that Trace will continue to be a place where your Word is central, where people love, live, and lead for Your glory. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”