Ice Pellets

I am not complaining, simply stating the way things are....icy, wet and everything is cancelled! While consulting a couple different weather sites on-line this morning, I discovered a couple terms that were unfamiliar: ice chunks and ice pellets. So happens that I was talking to my mom on the phone during this and she said "do they not know the term sleet?" Little did we know that when I walked on that dangerous patch of earth (100 yards or less) between my house and the church, I saw this "pellet and chunk" stuff coming down from the sky. Huge pieces of stuff coming down.

WOW!

So, I raise my cup of coffee and say a hearty cheers to those weather experts out there while I bundle up with my fuzzy socks and attempt to put together a sermon on the quentessential disciple Peter and his confession to Jesus "you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!"

Also, there will be no pictures of this weather phenomenon because my camera would not adequately capture it.

Stuck on Todd Agnew

My i-pod "menu" button is not funtioning. Thankfully, it is stuck on my new favorite CD, "Better Questions" by Todd Agnew. I highly recommend it. Those of you out there that are more techy than me, what do I do when my i-pod malfunctions? I have never heard of an anyone else breaking their i-pod, am I the first? Am I really so much of an i-idiot that I will forever be listening to only Todd Agnew.

Here are some of my favorite lyrics from the CD:

I'll admit I'm glad I'm not John the Baptist
In a jail cell waiting for my day to die
'Cause at least down here I know what we're chasing
And it's hard to trust Your dreams
Are so much better than mine

Chorus 3
If You wanted me to die to myself
Why'd You make me fall so deeply in love with life

Chorus 4
If You wanted me to surrender
Why'd You make these hands able to hold on so tight

Chorus 5
And if You wanted me to be like You
Why'd You make me like me

Look at toddagnew.com for more or buy it in the store or on i-tunes.

Special Visit

One of my dearest friends came to see me. She now lives in China, so it was such a precious and rare treat. Thank you, Kara, for being faithful to Jesus! I am one among many who are eternally grateful!

Praying for Our Enemies

"The first thing we are called to do when we think of others as enemies is to pray for them. This is certainly not easy. It requires discipline to allow those who hate us or those toward whom we have hostile feelings to come into the intimate center of our hearts. People who make our lives difficult and cause us frustration, pain, or even harm are least likey to receive a place in our hearts. Yet every time we overcome this impatience with our opponets and are willing to listen to the cry of those who persectue us, we will recognize them as brothers and sisters too. Praying for our enemies is therefore a real event, the event of reconciliation. It is impossible to lift our enemies up in the presence of God and at the same time continue to hate them...Prayer conversts the enemy into a friend and thus the beginning of a new relationship. There is probably no prayer as powerful as the prayer for our enemies. But it is also the most difficult prayer since it is most contrary to our impulses. This explains why some saints consider prayer for enemies the main criterion of holiness."

Henri J.M. Nouwen, Compassion