simply grateful

I suppose I should have ran when it started.  I sat in a class with some 150 others, listening to the speaker pontificate upon his assigned topic.  He was assigned a hard time slot, from 1-2 pm, to keep his students interested... or at least awake.  Heavy eyed from the lunch we just finished, I tried to keep focused on the topic at hand.  When I heard the rumbling I immediately thought an air-conditioner had gone bad and was creating the racket.  The ceiling began to shake and I was sure of it... one of the units on the roof was self-destructing.  I began to realize that my assessment of the situation might be off when people started taking cover under the tables in the room... a few headed towards the door that led outside.  Heather and I bolted for the door.  I heard several say it was an earthquake as we congregated in the parking lot.  Not yet convinced, I fixed my gaze skyward looking for the faulty air-conditioning unit on the roof....

 God knows your name.    God has a purpose for you today.   Those were the two “lessons” that I wanted Makayla and Elijah to take away from our “devotion” talk yesterday.  I find that if I try to share with them what I am learning in my devotional times, it makes me boil it down to one or two basic take-aways.  (and also holds me accountable for doing my devotions).  So as I walked them to school yesterday morning I told them the story that I read in my devotional time that morning.  It was the story of God calling Ananias to go to Saul, following his conversion.  In verse 10 the Lord called Ananias by name, (hence point 1).  In Acts 9:11-12 the Lord then told Ananias to “Rise and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold, he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.”   (hence p...

Sorry for the long delay in blog entries.  Over the past month we have driven over 3,500 miles and visited 11 states.  We have arrived safely at our training and are learning all kinds of new things.  The kids are loving their time here!  More entries to come soon!

Recently I read Colossians 1:13-14,  “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,   in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”  As I often do, I started to tweet a thought from my devotional time:  “What we are saved from is not nearly as great as what we are saved to.”  Twitter is good for it’s purpose, bumper sticker size updates on our lives and thoughts.  The problem is, sometimes what God is saying to us cannot and should not be whittled down to 140 characters for simplicities sake.  You know folks, not everything needs to be tweetable!   “What we are saved from is not nearly as great as what we are saved to.”  As I began to dwell on that thought, I began to think about what we are saved from.  I quickly remembered the point in my journey before I choose to follow the Lord.  Were there good times?  Certainly.  Friends?  Yep.  Did I attend ...