A theme might be to see how many things can we fix this week. You might ask, “Where is the compassion?” I promise I do care more about Cole than money, but this week is unprecedented  for us (see other blog post for this week). Here Cole lies waiting to hear what the results of his x-ray will be. Cast or no cast? At last it is a buckle fracture and we have to immobilize his arm for four weeks. He is going to have fun with that. NOT!

So I hope I can help Cole grasp the hope behind the pain. This week I am learning a thing or two about this.

I am standing by the freeway, at what was suppose to be my commute home, watching a tow truck hoist my car onto it’s back. It appears I lost my water pump.

At 1pm today Lisa called to tell me the home air conditioner broke. At 3:30p I was told the a/c motor needed to be replaced. Thankfully the repair man had one in his truck. By 5pm our home had cool air again.

This morning I was reading 66 Love Letters by Larry Crabb about Lamentations. Larry shared the difficulty in reconciling the treatment God’s people were experiencing in Jeremiah’s (the author of Lamentations) day with the fact that God allowed it. If God permitted that kind of treatment of His people then what about now? What can we expect?

A quote from Larry’s text came to mind as I watched my car get ready for a piggyback ride was this,

Do not live to arrange for your own satisfaction. Confess the evil of your arrogance. Repent of your self-provision. Trust Me, in every moment of suffering. I do not mean you harm. My plan for you is the prosperity of enjoying Me, of dancing at My party. You cannot dance in the ditch of denial.

These recent calamities have jarred me into attention. Am I living for the security of reliable cars, for cool air, or to be debt free? Just how much of my life is all about me anyway?

Larry Crabb writes that if we are listening we will hear this in the love letter of Lamentations,

Every moment of suffering represents a strident but merciful call to repent. And every moment of suffering presents a painful opportunity to hope.

I don’t have reliable cars and I have debt. I have cool air for the moment, but it could fail anytime. What I do have is hope, and strangely enough I have peace with that hope. It is enough. How about you?

Reading Romans (5:3-5) and James (1:2-4) are not really happy verses. After all they pretty much guarantee we will have troubles. There is a good side, and that is these verses also promise that these troubles will develop us in promising ways. I am glad sort of. I mean I like these truths when I am not in trouble for then I think, “Hey there is a purpose and fruitful outcome to be gained if things go south.” However, while in the trouble itself all I can think about is, “How and when do I get out of this.”

I am looking for an exit now with regard to one of our cars. Ever since we returned from our summer travels it is like a vacuum on our financial resources. A battery, work on the A/C, and maybe now a bad transmission. Ugh. I want out.

I can’t say what I am learning, except that I have a choice. One choice is to fret, stew, complain, grow anxious, worry, and maybe even panic. The other is to remember the Lord may well be in all this and therefore I don’t want to miss what He is doing. I can choose to move into the mystery of what lies ahead with confidence that my God is Jehovah Jira and He is faithful.

“Father, give me the faith to make the later choice.”

This was not my smartest move, but the Net is a very dynamic place after all. After publishing an update newsletter featuring our blog, including images of each page, I did something I have longed to do, and that is update the site. This included changing the look of the site. So if you are coming here for the first time because you saw our recent newsletter this looks different, but it is the right place.

The site “look” I had before was two years old and for me I needed the change. I did not mean to throw anyone, but I do love this new site built on a template called Standard. It includes a lot of technical advantages that I won’t bore you with, but at least for me it will be more enjoyable to use. I hope your experience is enhanced as well, and I think it will be once I implement all the bells and whistles. As is everything on the net, it is a work in progress.

Thanks for bearing with me and humoring me a bit too.

I discovered that my subscribe and contact forms are not working. I am working to get those fixed. I apologize for any frustration this may have caused you in trying to connect with us.

We were greeted with a large luau sign on the front door beckoning us to come on in. Next was a beautiful display of food for our eyes to feast on. Finally we enjoyed the embrace of our friends who make up one of the Mariner-ships of Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church called The Masters Yacht. We enjoyed a wonderful evening of fellowship with them.