1. I'd promised myself I was going to start using more pictures on my blog. However, I don't understand the whole photo-sourcing things on blogs when I look at the Wiki sites where you can pull pictures. It doesn't work like MLA or Turabian, therefore I don't understand. My photography skills aren't good, but at least the images are all my own. However... I'm really bad about actually getting the pictures taken. You see the downward spiral, don't you?
2. The kids have been getting up early again. Just a few blessed weeks, they slept in until 7am or later. Now it's all early mornings. It's seriously cramping my style. But then, I can't complain when the early morning is filled with laughter and squeals as they play "Lion" with Daddy. (Basically, Lion consists of Nick roaring and chasing the kids, then suddenly running off to hide for them to come find him, where it starts all over again with the roaring.) Yesterday was a particularly happy morning as I made his sandwiches for work and they played for several minutes before he had to go out the door. I love this life as a family.
3. P90X really is kicking my butt. I've lost so much of what I gained last time. Let it be a lesson to me. Today is the first day I haven't woken in a great deal of muscle fatigue and pain, and that's because I could do very little yoga yesterday. My muscles just won't support me. 4am is kicking my butt, too. Nick has a vacation day today, so we're working out during naptime, and we slept in. Suddenly, 5am isn't such a bad time to get up. Unless, of course, your not-yet 2 year old is crying to get up....
4. Can I just say that it's been a rough week? I'm trying very hard not to complain or go on about the bad things, but to focus on the good things. Still, it needs to be said: it's been a very rough week. So much on the heart. One of the young men in our congregation is in ICU with a blood clot on his brain; please, please pray for him. My grandfather was in the emergency room, unresponsive, yesterday. He's ok now, but we are realizing more and more that his remaining time here on earth is coming short. Our congregation lost a very sweet lady this week. I think she was ready to go. From those closest to her (my parents are among those; my mom greatly misses her friend), she'd begun to take on that look, deep in her eyes, like she was really in another place, that her heart and mind were already in heaven. It made me think about the way we should really live. Shouldn't we all be so heaven-minded that our hearts are already there? Not so much, obviously, that we forget to live, as Paul admonished the Thessalonians. But how often, how many of us are still so focused on this earthly life that our coming after-life is a bit of a foreign concept? As rough as this week has been, I'm reminded that it's only temporary. The other side of the coin is apparent, too: as much as I sigh at night, grateful that the day is done, time is fleeting. There is so much kingdom work to be done. Am I about the Lord's business? Am I so heaven-minded that I see the gaps of the people who do not yet have one foot in the door, i.e. know their Lord?
5. After such a weighty question, I'd like to leave the Quick 5 on a high note. Isaiah 12 is such a beautiful chapter. If I were a painter, I'd want to paint something like that. If I were a singer, I'd want to sing an aria worthy of it. I'm just a humble "writer", and not even one good enough to truly pay it homage. It's like the first warm day of spring, after a cold and dry winter, that day when suddenly you feel like you've come alive again, just like the flowers and fields and trees. It's the refreshing shock of cool when you jump into a pool on a hot sunny day, or the soothing warmth of a hot chocolate, sprinkled with marshmallows, after a day in the cold and snow. It's like that. The passage gives us a picture of restoration, of a person and a people once estranged from God and brought close again. Once, they were under God's wrath, and now they are wrapped in His comfort and salvation. Instead of cursing, they sing praises to His name. This is the difference between holding onto our sin and surrendering to His good will. Isaiah wrote it to Israel, but it is true for anyone who would declare Him Lord. Please, take a moment to read it here and to meditate on the rich goodness that comes from the Almighty Lord God. May it fill your day with comfort and peace and the beauty of our LORD:
Isaiah 12, from the NASB:
Then you will say on that day,
"I will give thanks to You, O LORD:
For although You were angry with me,
Your anger is turned away,
and You comfort me.
"Behold, God is my salvation,
I will trust and not be afraid;
For the LORD GOD is my strength and my son.
And He has become my salvation."
Therefore you will joyously draw water
From the springs of salvation.
And in that day you will say,
"Give thanks to the LORD, call on His name.
Make known His deeds among the peoples;
Make them remember that His name is exalted."
Praise the LORD in song, for He has done excellet things;
Let this be known throughout the earth.
Cry aloud and shout for joy, O inhabitant of Zion,
For great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel."
Amen.
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