So which is it?

I had the opportunity to attend a friend's wedding this weekend in Pittsburgh, PA and enjoyed being with good friends from college and of course seeing my friend get married. In the various circumstances connected to the wedding (travel, time of from work, interractions with friends, disruption of normal routine, and returning to a full week) I have this sense of our weakness and frailty. As I think about my own life and look at what is going on with others there is this amazing mix of strength and weakness. There are these good things happening. Life is progressing, positive change, developing relationships, God at work - but I also see how one or two things could bring it all crashing down. Sometimes I look at life and see this stable, growing construction where our lives our being fashioned into something grand, and other times all I see is this house of cards ready to topple. (It is difficult to communicate this without relating the specifics of mine and other people's struggles - something I don't do on the internet.)

When I am feeling the tension between these two poles Hebrews 11 helps stabilize me. It talks about God's great story of joining the followers of Christ with men and women who by faith, followed God. There is all sorts of weakenss and fraility in the lives of these people, yet they are brought into this great big story of God saving the world. Here's one of my favorite parts... "Therfore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city."

PASSED

Just wanted to pass on the news that I received this week that I passed my National Counseling Exam!! Yahoo!! I wasn't expecting to hear yet so when I received the envelope I felt like I was back in high school, waiting to find out if I got into a particular college. Thank you all for your prayers and encouragement! The picture reflects a little of how I feel.

Boston and mixed resolution

This Saturday we took some teenagers from church (it ended up being 3) to Boston. It was a fun time traveling around the city but somewhat strange to look back on the day and realize we had not necessarily accomplished a lot. I'm still figuring out what sorts of activities work for this youth group and are worth the time/effort of planning. The three pictures are: boston in general, ride on the water taxi, Quincy Market.

There are two other areas of life we're we are woking on resolution: Hillary's knee and our day off. In talking with some different doctors, doing some reading, and thinking about Hillary's symptoms it seem like she has not re-torn her meniscus, but potentially has arthritis. We're still talking over our options and running the details by some various people, but it seems like we won't be headed towards surgery on her knee.

The other matter we're trying to figure out is how to spend my day off. Sundays and part of Saturdays I'm busy doing work type stuff, so I take Thursdays off instead. This works fine overall but it gets complicated when I think about what it means to rest. It is real easy to not stop moving on Thursdays - working in the yard, painting in the house, running errands, and trying to do something fun with Hillary. Sometimes I can wake up on Thursdays, not looking forward to the day. But, if we don't do some of this stuff on Thursdays then there isn't a good chunk of time to do so. I'm not sure about doing the yard work, house projects, and errands on Sunday because that is the Sabbath - even though I "work" doing church type stuff. So far we haven't come up with any clear solutions.

birthday, camping, and the attributes of God

This past week was Hillary's birthday and we had a fun time celebrating. The picture on the left shows us at Rocky Neck State Park which is near Old Lyme, CT. We stayed at a B&B in Old Lyme, visited some art galaries, ate ice cream, bought used books, went out to dinner and enjoyed spending time together. The Old Lyme - Old Saybrook area is down on the coast of CT and has some beautiful homes and neat things to do, but it is much smaller than we thought. We sort of ran out of things to do, so we came back and did some gardening in our yard.

After celebrating Hillary's birthday, I also had the opportunity to go camping with some friends Friday to Saturday. Jim, a close friend from college, is getting married in two weeks. For his bachelor party six of us met in the Poconos (mountains in PA) and had a great time hiking, cooking, haning out, and just being outside - despite the blase weather.

A third thing, which has been enjoyable is teaching on the attributes of God. Sunday mornings I have about 45 mins with the teens to try to describe realities like God's asceity, omnipotence, omnscience, immutablity, and goodness. These aren't topics I normally get to reflect on, and it has been stimulating (intellectually and for my faith) to further consider who God is.