Strep

ugh... strep. I feel very bad. On the flipside, we bought a house.

Stress

Someone recently said to me that buying a house ranked third as the most stressful events in a person's life-- after the death of a child and the death of a spouse. More than changing jobs, getting married, serious injuries, graduating from school, etc. It's probably no coincidence that I'm now reading my second book in a row related to the topic of stress. The first one, "What Matters Most," by Doug Fields was specifically for youth workers to be encouraged to pay attention to the warning signs of busyness and to be able to say "yes" to the things that matter most and learning to say "no" to more busyness. The one I'm reading now, "The Rest of God," by Mark Buchanan talks about restoring sabbath--the rest of God--into my life.

I have a lot to learn. Lord, help me say "no" to my own need to be busy and free me from my stress... so that I can embrace more of You.

puzzle pieces

I have a son, Ben, who loves puzzles. This morning I noticed him hold up a piece of one of his many puzzles and say to his mother, "Hey, I found the piece that was missing yesterday!" The thing about his statement that was so amazing was that he recognized that particular piece separate from the rest of the puzzle... he picked it up out of a pile of many random pieces. I'm not sure how his brain processes puzzle-working, but if you watch him work puzzles, it seems as though each piece of each puzzle is memorized... and, in particular, how it connects to the rest of the picture.

He is so thoughtful about a puzzle... and I'm not sure that I'm even that thoughtful about the most important pieces that make up my life. Do I put that kind of care into "giving thought to" all the parts of my life? What about the pieces of my life that go unnoticed and neglected? Could I pick out each piece, tell you about it, and explain how it's connected to the bigger picture? Probably not. Maybe that's part of where I want to go through this thing.

Here's one piece. My daughter. I have a beautiful baby daughter that my wife, my sons and I thank God for every night. We also pray that she will be safe and healthy and that God would provide people to love her and care for her right now. The problem is that she is still in China; she is an orphan and needs a family. But we haven't been told we can go get her yet. In fact, we haven't even been told her name or given her picture... but she's there right now waiting for us. And we are waiting (not so patiently) for her, too. I try to explain to Ben that we are waiting in line and it's not our turn yet... that we have to wait until we get to the front of the line to go to China to bring her home. Though I don't know the first thing about her, I love her and my heart aches to think about how I long to hold her in my arms. If my life is a puzzle, she is definitely a "missing piece."

a beginning

I guess I should explain my title a bit... "giving thought to my ways." It's a partial quote of Proverbs 14:8, which in full reads, "The wisdom of the prudent is to give thought to their ways, but the folly of fools is deception."

I guess I want to avoid being a fool-- according to this verse, being one who deceives himself. I don't want to be lying to myself and blindly going along living an "unexamined life." I want to be wise by "giving thought to my ways," thinking about where I am going. Does the path I'm walking lead to a place I want to go? If I keep heading this way, will I like where I arrive?

Unfortunately I am not like Casey or BJ. I am intending neither to read through the Bible in one year nor to blog everyday... but, maybe at some point in this journey, I'll discover some things that will help me draw me nearer to God.