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Thursday, September 23, 2010

rainy day

I sit here this morning and drink my coffee and look out the window at the rain and think about all the stuff I have to do today. I have a couple articles to write, a sermon to finish, lots of misc odds and ends to do here and there. In the middle of that will the the question, phone call, visit or whatever else happens in on my office. I get so caught up in the stuff that I think I often miss the time. Outside my office window, I can see the trees and many of them are changing, the rain isn't horrific and it's cloudy and misty. It's that calm rain, it's peaceful and quiet, the type you want to sit on the porch with coffee and just relax. I'm not relaxed. I seldom relax. My back is often tense and knotted up, sometimes I have some heartburn and I seldom feel at ease. Why? I don't know. Maybe it's because I am high strung, maybe I am really stressed, maybe I lack faith or perhaps a sin issue has me all tied in knots.

So this is the part where I am suppose to write something inspiring or some lesson or something like that. Don't have one. We read and write and look for the 30 minute tv-show answers so we can get our life all wrapped up and solved nice and easy. It's not like that. Life is hard and messy and sometimes issues drag on until they break us. Sometimes we don't learn the moral, sometimes we don't win the day, sometimes we just suffer through until it kills us. What I have gained from all this is that God is and must be sufficient, my family should be cherished, my friends should be celebrated and enjoyed and I must find the grace in the moment.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

my suitcase of sin

Sometimes I feel like as I climb the ladder of sanctification, I find a suitcase and it's filled with something. Pride, anger, resentment, all sorts of different things. I grab the suitcase with one hand, but I can no longer climb the ladder. I am hanging on the ladder with one hand and the suitcase with the other and I am stuck. I think Paul experienced this, because I echo his words "what a wretched man I am". You know what I'm saying? One day I'll figure out who to toss the suitcase.