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cooked goetta and eggs for breakfast. Going to visit Chris Challis in the hospital at 1pm. It's 1212 now.

for prayer, please remember chris. we've been really reticent to say anything, but his relationship with Christ was really distant... He really denied the faith a lot in his life after he got moved into the apartment... Its a mess...

We have been "waiting in the wings" for God's next move, and here it is-- a shooting?

It's this kind of thing that really awakens us all to the gravity of forsaking God. We could be dead tomorrow. How well ought we be listening to the voice of God?

You know what I do? I listen to my Bible on CD using my iPod shuffle...

haha you know what? someone got on the comments of one of our blogs recently and lambasted me anonymously for having an iPod. i love it!

they went on about how i have a minivan, an iPod, a laptop, and a whole lot of other things!

a minivan that is waaaaay out of our budget. yes. a mistake? Naaw. A SIN. that's prolly more of a fit...

an iPod? yeah. a shuffle half-gig full of worship music and scripture to keep me growing! a hundred or so bucks well spent...

three years ago or more, a thousand dollars was donated for a computer for me. I've used that same amount to trade my way through three units, landing me in an ancient, ailing apple laptop... i am proud that it's been broken for months, and that I"m presently typing this on a tiny pda tha was donated by a great friend... this unit is also from the year 2002... it's worthless to the market today...

ipod, laptop, minivan-- how about this huge house? What splendor and luxury, the way the rain always comes in through th walls, lately. We need a carpenter so badly.

yeah, it's nice to be criticized for something ridiculous, because there's so much truly cutting and really needed criticism that's filet-ing me daily, here.

thanks for leaving the daily struggle to keep my tongue in check--i fail so often...

thanks for overlooking my neglect of my family to do the work of God...

thankd for not bringing up my struggles to manage my sexuality in a righteous and self-controlled way, in the midst of a pornographic generation...

thanks for not mentioning my TV watching, neglect of prayer, lack of attention to the Scripture, profane talk, coarse joking, and the rest...

Why is it that you are so willing to point out superficial stuff when there's such an abundance of real material for accusation and criticism?

here's a tip when you're trying to lambast me:
make sure to point out the juicy stuff... don't leave it to just the van and the ipod and the computer...
talk about my struggles and victory over pornography...
talk about my strained marriage and wife who works so hard while I am preaching and teaching for free...
talk about how i am incapable of fixing hte house...
talk about how I leave my kids with a nanny for 12 hours a week, so Ican visit the hospital, pray, read scripture, and prepare for the needs of teaching...
...also I have to do all the errands in those hours, too...
talk about how I got fired from a United Methodist Chuch for"notbeing a fit".
talk about how I dabbled in Catholicism... or how I won't become Roman Catholic...
talk about how our church is made up of nothing but a bunch of cat-dragged-in Christians...
talk about what a failure I am on this earth...

and I'll just keep nestling in the feathers of My Father's wings. Because I am beloved of Him.

and that is all that will ever matter to me.

I'll be dead soon enough, and the only thing left will be how He has loved me.

We will all be dead in a matter of years, unless Christ returns and we're among those who witness the resurrection adn are caught up at the trumpet blast...

...so how ought we live? I'm locating my hypocrisies in Northside, where I can love the walking dead close up... i do it poorly, stumbling over my own selfishness. stumbling and selfish... hypocritical and failing... but not only those things.

...soooooo beloved.