Stories and other stuff

I wrote the other day about taking stock of my life.  I listed some realities and some of those became painfully obvious the past week or so. Today's Our Daily Bread  devotional was like having salt poured into an open wound.  It hurt.  It hit me right where I am because it's something I failed at, got a second chance at, and now have to let go of for a season. Sometimes when you follow God, you get hurt.  Over the past month, there have been a number of hurts, failures, and setbacks.  It's those things that caused me to look at the realities of my life.  Faith walks hand in hand with reality; they don't exist on different planes.  Here's what I mean by that... My back hurts.  I have every confidence that the One who created me is capable of healing me.  I am still seeing a doctor and a physical therapist.  Faith tells me God can.  Reality tells me that He's gonna use something other than Divine intervention to get the jo...

Sometimes even I can't believe what happens around me, let alone TO me.  Today, even though my back is killing me (couldn't hardly sit through church, but glad I did and will get to that by and by), I thought it wise to write some things down and kind of do a reality check. I'm reading a book called Daring  written by Paul Louis Cole.  I've met Mr. Cole on several occasions and he's an interesting man to know.  I like the book, but got stuck on page 131 this week because I needed to answer several of the questions he posed to the reader. The first one was an admonition to recognize the season of life you're in.  My life is in a rainy season.  God gave me someone to have in my life a few years back and He told me to love her.  He told me all about her (hence the meme about loving the broken, hard to love, etc...yesterday) and I loved her until....and because of the until, I decided I didn't need her in my life.  And then I fell in love with her...

So the key to understanding me is simply this..... You can't. Not even I understand how or why some of the things that happen to me do.  Today's story is one on my Facebook page from earlier this evening.  Long time readers of the blog will understand the connection between the meme, the inspirational post that was randomly in my news feed, and the story about the Rosies. That happened.  I shared it. And this:  As I was waiting to turn on to 193 from the South Gate, the car in front of me, leaving the base, waiting to turn left as well, and the only other car in the traffic lanes at eleven p.m. on a Saturday night had Oregon license plates. Of course it did.

I'm reading a book I've had for over a year.  Finally.  But I got stuck on a section of it I can't get past without actually taking the time to evaluate where I'm at in my life and my walk with Christ.  I've been kind of doing that the last couple of days; maybe not so much out of want, but out of need. One of the things I needed to do was evaluate what the season of life I'm in is.  Applying the principles of the four seasons didn't seem to work.  I would like to think I'm in the 3rd quarter of life physically and time-wise.  But what season? After careful thought it came to me:  The rainy season. It's been raining in my life for quite some time and sometimes it takes a toll on me.  Things happen that really hurt.  A lot of things happen I just don't understand.  A long talk with God whist walking around the duck pond last night kind of cleared things up for me. Sometimes God is going to use me in a situation and I'm gonna get h...

So I was having not the best day yesterday.  I never said my life was easy and sometimes living out my faith isn't as easy as I'd like it to be.  One of the things I write the blog for is to tell my story.  Earlier, I told you the front half.  Here's the back half. I don't do pity parties very well.  It's just not something God wants for, nor allows me to participate in.  A lot of times, that's my problem.  It's hard to empathize with someone who isn't strong.  So sometimes God has to introduce some strife into my life to make me realize that He's the strong one.  Not me. I took a nap today.  My body rested.  My mind didn't.  After that didn't work out so hot, I got up.  I went outside and noticed the curb needed sweeping.  There were weeds growing in my gutter that were tall.  It was full of leaves and pinecones.  Not anymore.  I took care of it.  My back has been hurting and the lawn has kind...

If you walk into my house, one of the first things you're greeted with is part of a Scripture verse from Joshua 24:15, which says "...as for me and my house, we will serve the L ORD. The entire verse reads this way: Joshua 24:15New International Version (NIV) 15 But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. Do I mean it though?  I mean, really, do I mean it?  Especially when it's hard. I've had to do a lot of thinking about money (and mostly the lack thereof) this week and the reasons behind it.  I had a bit of an unexpected setback, through no fault of my own, and it forced me to stop and take a good long look at some of the things I believe about me, and about God's Word. I hate money.  I really mean that.  I hate ...

One thing I never got over from being a kid.  I never learned how to order chinese food properly. When I was little, this was chinese food: A container of sweet and sour spare ribs A container of ham fried rice A container of chicken chow mein--with crunchy noodles A container of ham fried rice A container of egg foo yung A container of fried shrimp That to me was how you ordered chinese food.  Until some friends of mine made me understand you order the dinner, or your order the combo. When you got sweet and sour from the Oriental you got little bites of meat on the bone still, and there were chunks of pineapple and green pepper in the sauce.  They didn't mess around.  And there was nice layer of grease that separated from the sauce when the leftovers were refrigerated.  The sauce used to kind of congeal like jello when cold.  It was so good! There is one place in Salt Lake that you can still find sweet and sour spare ribs:  The Kowloon ...