Thursday Thoughts

This week has been...interesting.  I don't really like to say I have ups and downs because I really don't.  I'm not one to think of life as a "roller coaster" or any other picturesque description.  I suppose if I were forced to put some sort of adjective on it...scratch that, I don't have one that fits.  This is my first week back in the office after  the Holidays.  It has been a great couple of weeks.  Time with family is always good.  It is just as good to be back in the office.  One thing that has been neat past couple of days is that I have been streaming PASSION 2012 on my computer while working on different things.  It is amazing how God speaks even through something just barely audible playing occasionally through my head phones.  There has been some neat conversations with different people trying to figure out this following Jesus thing but there has also been some very difficult talks with friends who are going through the unimaginable.  Top that off with a new dog in the house (don't ask), first holiday season without the old man, the family weekly schedule and things have been...well....interesting.  One thing that has been a constant lately is that I continue trying to keep everything in the proper perspective.  I read last night 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 and it is a good "prospective keeper"-
Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.  

What if you lived like this.....

OK. So this week has not started out very encouraging. Just when we were getting ready to put Julie's car into the shop for a fix up before vacation, my car had a geriatric temperature aggrandizement episode yesterday.....it overheated. Not a big deal, but it may be the heater core. Not positive on my diagnosis but that's the way car things happen to me. It's always the big one. So long story short, my car will be in the automotive hospital tomorrow morning. Exciting I know. As riveting as this story is, that is not what is really on my mind. My thought are currently about the effect of having one of our two cars break down has had on our family. What should have been a relaxing Sunday evening turned out to be a calendar duel to try to figure out how we are going to get everyone where they need to be when they need to be there. This should not be a problem. So this is the thought that I have been marinating on: What if we lived our lives like we only had one car? Think about it. How much different would our daily schedule look if we only had one car? What if we only did the things that we could accomplish with the use of only one car? For us, things might change dramatically. Here are a few possibilities: 1) We might actually be at home on occasion. Sometimes we go.....because we can. 2) Our kids might not be in team sports all year round. 3) We would see more money. Less gas, less repairs, and less insurance. 4) We might get to know people better because we would have the need to hitch a ride with them on occasion. 5) We would get more exercise. Maybe we could walk the 1/2 mile to Kroger's instead of driving. 6) We would have more room in the garage. 8) We probably wouldn't be able to make every church activity. Maybe we could have some church activities in our neighborhood.
I think you get the picture. Definitely something to think about. So what about you? What if you lived life like you only had one car?

by HIS wounds

Friday @ 11:35pm

What an odd title for a post. Friday @ 11:35pm? Weird huh? It's not a title that lends itself to much creative thought. The only thing that I can really say is that 11:35pm is about the time that I usually finish my nightly (or almost nightly)study and prayer. Many thoughts are still floating around in this big ol' head of mine tonight. First of all, it has been a good week. Church stuff is good. Our church has had several events this week dealing with and leading up to Easter. It has been particularly good to attend them and not have an active role in the programs themselves. It has been neat to simply load up the family together and... participate. We have been having good talks on the ride there and home. I really love getting the chance to talk about spiritual things with the kids. My daughter has really been asking a lot of questions about heaven and what happens when we die. It is a lot of fun. The only thing, she really wants to believe that our dearly departed family dog will be in heaven. I have had many conversations (and I mean many) with her about dogs in heaven. I think that she asks me so many times about the dog subject in hopes that I will say something different than I have before. Yes, I have told her that heaven is not for animals. I know that many of you are wondering why I would tell a four year old such a harsh statement. Well, all I can say is that when those questions come up, I try to take the opportunity to lay some groundwork for the future. To me, heaven is not like Santa's workshop at the north pole and I want them to know that.
This was also the week of spring break. Julie is awesome with finding things to do with the kids to make the week special even if we don't have the means to go on a big vacation. Yesterday, I was off so we splurged and spent the day at an indoor waterpark. It was great but I am still water logged. I think we will do that again next winter. We got a great deal by getting tickets online.
Tomorrow is Saturday and we are doing a whole family prayer walk at church. I have to do a landscaping job most of the day tomorrow so we probably will not get there until the evening but I am looking forward to it all the same.
The next couple of weeks are going to be crazy. As always, things kind of come in clumps. Nothing major, just a few things out of the ordinary. Should be fun.

this song makes me hungry.

NUMBERS

Politics aside, I have been amazed at the numbers that have been thrown around lately in the media. Think about this number.
ONE TRILLION: 1,000,000,000,000 (yes, that's twelve zeros)
It's hard to put one trillion into perspective so here are a few examples that might help. If at the birth of Jesus Christ, you began to spend one million dollars each and every day, you would STILL NOT have spent one trillion ($1,000,000,000,000.00) dollars. Hard to imagine? How about this one. With one trillion dollars ($1,000,000,000,000.00), you could buy every every man, woman, and child in the United States a gold season pass to Kings Island......each year... for the next 32 years. With one trillion dollars ($1,000,000,000,000.00), you could buy a 1995, loaded Jeep Grand Cherokee (with only 150,000 miles) for EVERY man, woman, and child in the United States. It really boggles my mind but if that didn't bring this whole one trillion thing into perspective for you, think about this one: With one trillion dollars, you could buy the world a Coke (insert old Coca-Cola commercial song here). In fact, you could buy every single person in the entire word (world population estimated in January 2009) not one, but one hundred and ten, 20 ounce bottles of Coke each. How would you like to have those Coke Reward Points?

Sleeping Disorder

I think that I am suffering from a sleeping disorder. It is currently 1:33am on Saturday morning and I am not sleepy. This has been going on for about eight days now. I stay up until about 2:00am and then get up at about 7:00-7:30am. The strange thing is, I'm not really that tired in the morning and I seem to function fine through the day. I am currently watching an episode 48 Hours. It is about someone who killed someone else for life insurance money. People are nuts. I will say that I have made the most of my "extra" hours. I'm not just sitting up watching infomercials. I am still spending time doing some personal Bible study as well as reading the first of several books for a study I am doing with a group of fellow student ministers. I have tried getting some exercise to help get me back to a normal sleep schedule but it hasn't helped yet. I have taken a run a couple of days in a row. I'm a little sore, but not ready to sleep.
We had D-group tonight. It went OK. Hang on a second....they are doing a forensic reconstruction of a face from a skull......................................................................ok, I'm back. Wow that stuff is crazy. Anyway, I'm not sure what to think about my "sleep disorder". I did look up sleeping disorders on the Internet and from what I gather, I don't have much to worry about. Eventually, I will "correct" and fall back into a normal sleeping schedule. As long as I am not talking goofy or seeing things, I should be ok.
A funny thing happened at dinner tonight. We decided to go out for dinner to celebrate the kids report cards (both the boys received almost all A's...they do not get that from me). Mio's Pizza just opened up by our house so we thought we would give it a try. It was packed. When our pizza came, the waitress informed me that the cooks were still trying to "get some of the kinks out" and went on to say that they made our pizza... without the sauce. They did bring us some sauce on the side so things worked out. It was actually pretty good with the sauce on the side. They also gave us another pizza with sauce actually on it to take home. Good deal. We'll go there again.
Well it's 2:03am, time to hit the hay. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.