Working Vacation

We're having a great time at the beach. Kessedi and Emmet have already done some beach combing, Kessedi surprised me at the pool by learning to swim in about five minutes (I still didn't let her take the floaties off), and of course the grandparents and grandchildren are enjoying each other immensely.

I know there aren't many people who think "I can't wait to get to the beach and reread those pastoral theologies that I've been meaning to pick up again!" but I am (Heather says overly--see photo) optimistic that this week will afford me some time to sit and (re)learn from some great pastors. Hey--some of my best friends and advisers are dead guys.



Some work is actually getting done (it helps that when at 4:30 a.m. you ask, 'who wants to go to Whataburger and have internet?' you are generally met with unintelligible moans and well-wishes to 'be productive') and steps in (stairs, beach, reading, etc.). All in all, we've barely been here 24 hours, and every one of us is having a fantastic time.

For photos with actual people in them, you will have to visit the family photo site (phone or email me for password if you need one). Well... back to work!



This photo is the 'home' office of the working vacation (the mobile office is Whataburger).

Thanksgiving-Eve Update

I suppose it's about time for an update. Heather seems to be much better. I started falling ill on Saturday, which means that she probably infected me right before she started her antibiotics on my birthday. Thanks for the birthday gift, dear.

Compounding the illness is that whatever I did to by ribs/back on Sunday has produced three consecutive restless nights, and it's hard to heal if you cannot sleep. I am thankful that this is the first morning that the rib/back pain was not progressively worse. God is merciful! He knows how little I can bear; there are people in my congregation who have borne more in their lives than I can imagine bearing myself.

So ill, in pain, and with little good sleep, I have the following to do--in order of priority--ahead of tomorrow's feast day:

• finish studying passages and outlining sermons for morning and evening of this Lord's Day
• prepare the prayer meeting lesson for tonight
  
• do a month's worth of updating to the church website
• overhaul the family website, and move photos to a secure location
• pray for the congregation
• pray with the congregation

A note about feast days. A friend of mine saw me in the RTS library, and as I am known for having a conscience that "broad" evangelicals find odd, he asked me warily... "Do you have anything against celebrating Thanksgiving?" I answered "I have no problem with private celebration of many days, so long as they are not considered holy or religious in nature, but I think that the church as a church should observe only one day, and do so 52 times each year." My good friend exhaled a big sigh of relief, smiled, and wished me a Happy Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving indeed to all who read this!

Sick Again?!

It's really not as bad as it looks, and I say that because it looks bad. "Strep" is one of those dark, ugly, cruel-sounding words, but either Heather is being very stoic, or she is bearing up well under it. For my birthday, we went out to eat, then picked up some antibiotics for her. I guess antibiotics for loved ones is how birthdays go when you are old.

Personal note: if anyone is planning on reading The Silmarillion because you like LOTR, don't. The narrative is a completely different style, and the content is all mythology that would be very difficult to sort out without being very interested and intellectually sharp. I plan to keep plodding through it, but I sure hope that The Children of Hurin turns out to be better. Of the other books that I am reading, I would recommend Awakening by David Robertson on the life and ministry of M'Cheyne. As biographies go, it seems a little disjointed, and pastors/elders may find it more useful as it inspires them to ministry, but I think all Christians will find it helpful and enjoyable.

The children are doing great, though their souls don't seem to have yet recovered from being out of the routine for so long; and, with mama ill, we may not be fully back into things until after the Lord's Day. Pray for them! Pray for us all. I am actually eager for the Lord's Day and another week.

Well, a glance at the clock tells me that if I am going to make a good end of this week, I had better get myself wet enough to call it "having taken a shower" and get into the office. Time waits for no man. Well, I suppose it waited for Moses once, but that's a different story, and holding up my own arms has never seemed to slow it down.

Hope everyone has a great day!

Eleventy-First, Less Eighty

Today I am officially eighty years short of what Bilbo Baggins called his eleventy-first birthday. Thirty-one years ago today, the order and balance of the world was rocked by the arrival of a screaming infant into a hospital room in Royal Oak, Michigan (note to self: don't use "city of birth" as a security key question on any financial sites).

We had a delightful time with our church family last night at prayer meeting. We did chat about spiritual things, and we did have prayer, but we also had a reunion and a very large, very good chocolate cake. So it wasn't so much as a birthday party or a prayer meeting as it was a prabirthyerday pameerttying. What a joy to sit around the table and knit our hearts and minds together before God once more. If God does take us to Iowa, it will be a sad parting.

But life is full of sad partings. Isn't that what birthdays are about? They are celebrations of God's continued faithfulness to us, and the inclusion in His perfect plan of one more year for us to share together. At some point, His perfect wisdom will be to call one of us out of time into eternity, and then another, and so on until time itself ends, and there are no more birthdays. So today's arrival in my life is a reminder that for those of us celebrating, we have not had to endure the sad parting of death for yet one more year, and perhaps with regard to others it is a reminder to me of the sad parting that we have had. For them, 30 would be the last birthday of mine that they would share here.

So what are we doing today? I hope to get a total of 10-12 hours of work in, but I probably will not, because Heather is ill. Heather, by the way, gave me the best birthday present that I have received in recent memory (the 2002 gift of my first child cannot be exceeded):

Shameless Plug

Update: I forgot to put the most important thing in my original post: CLICK ON THE BANNER AND ENTER (I get an additional entry for every referral entry, and I won't begrudge it to you if you win).

Below you will find a link for a giveaway contest at Tim Challies's website. The winner gets an ESV audio bible and audio recordings of some great Christian books and sermons. I entered primarily for the Pilgrim's Progress audiobook. If I don't win, I'll just put it on my Amazon.com wishlist.

Iowa Trip's Eve

We are leaving for Iowa tomorrow, and I was even more ill yesterday than I have been, which means that I have canceled going to Presbytery today. This is fine, as I am not a member of the court, nor have I been summoned to appear before it for any reason on this occasion.

That gives me the rest of today to catch up on various things, but it also means that I won't have any high speed internet today. Which boils down to: no new pictures today, sorry!

A couple of fun things...

Karissa is happily using and interested in her multiple-toy bouncer. She loves being upright, rather than sitting or laying. She loves all the toys on it. This is fun because (a) she's not supposed to enjoy or be able to do any of these things for several months, and (b) it's fun to watch her have so much fun! Maybe I'll snag some photos or a video of it to share with you all.

Conversation between me and Emmet recently:
E: "What are you doing daddy?"
J: "Pulling out my nose hairs."
E: "Why?"
J: "Because the older I get, the faster and longer the hairs inside my nose grow, and they tickle and itch."
E: "When I get to be a daddy [that's how he says 'when I grow up'], I'm going to pull out my NOSE HAIRS."

Fathers out there, your children are watching you. What are they learning to hope they will be like when they "get to be a daddy"?

For the record, I explained to Emmet the disadvantages to pulling out nose hair and showed him how daddy should deal with his nostril forest by using a special trimmer to cut down the trees.

Pray for us today that we will be ready physically and spiritually for our trip tomorrow!

Blargh

I feel like I've been hit by a bus (my worst morning since I got ill), and yet there's so much to do today.

The rest of the family seems to be well. They have a day of packing for our trip ahead of them.

I have to leave in a moment. It looks like a Firestone waiting room will have to suffice for my mobile office today. I hope that the tire can be fixed and does not have to be replaced. As the title of the post says, "Blargh!"

By God's mercy, may tomorrow find me praising and thanking Him for how well everything went today.

What Are You Reading?

It's the Lord's Day, so I thought I might spend a few moments encouraging and inspiring anyone who happens to come upon this. I could use some encouragement and inspiration. I have a 6:40 a.m. flight on Wednesday, and Presbytery all day on Tuesday, which means I have a week's worth of work to do tomorrow, but this morning I woke up to a flat tire on the car, which will have to be attended to in the morning!

How thankful I am for this day. As we read Genesis 1 (we are reading through the Bible at breakfast now) last week, I noticed how it basically lists the Sabbath as God's final creation. Even in our unfallen state, we were in need of a Sabbath ("The Sabbath was made for man"). How much more now that we are fallen? Any other day, the sight of that tire would have been devastating. But this day being what it is, it didn't even cross my mind to get upset or try to deal with it. Roughly 1/7 of my life is spent in complete holiday from all earthly concerns and pleasures (once you start taking vacations from earthly pleasures, you realize how pleasant it is to get away from them!), and I have the wisdom of my God to thank for it.

I'm still ill, and I have some travel time this week, which means it will probably be a good reading week (not the same thing as a good studying week).

It did make me wonder... what's everyone reading? If you answered "nothing" or you mumbled "just stuff for work," before you read the rest of this post, please walk to your television set, unplug it, and walk it to the curb.

Here are some books that I finished this week. One is a book on understanding and preaching the Old Testament, two are epic adventure fictions written by Christians (the kind of thing you read to a 3 year old boy to inspire him to honesty, courage, discipline, and strength), and one is an exposition of the armor of God passage in Ephesians 6 (good bedtime reading for children who get spooked by things in the night).



The Word Became Fresh
Author: Dale Ralph Davis

Beyond the Summerland
Author: L. B. Graham

The Fellowship of the Ring
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien

Stand Firm
Author: Peter Jeffery

Daily(?) Update - Saturday Again!

Kessedi is 5--had a birthday this week. Emmet is 3, going on 10. Karissa is 4.5 months and doing great. I was ill all day yesterday, probably thanks to a flu shot on Thursday. Heather is doing well (I think). There's the personal updates.

We have internet now! And a home phone line. For privacy purposes, the home number won't be listed here, but those who are friends and family can contact us to get it. I know that the photo page is hopelessly out of date, but we'll take care of that soon (I hope, God-willing, as time allows, etc.).

We're straining toward the Lord's Day with a lot to complete by the coming evening, so this post will be short. With Presbytery on Tuesday and a trip to Iowa on Wednesday, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed, but what's new. It's good to have my sense of weakness reinforced... good for humility; good for trusting God instead of myself, etc.

Pray for us!

James