A Long Drive

Have you ever been tempted to jump in your car and just drive?

I don't mean just make loops around the city on your beltway...I mean drive in one direction until you hit a large body of water?

That's where I'm at today...by this time tomorrow I could be in Alabama or the Carolinas maybe?

It's a good time of the year to start at the south end of the Appalachian Trail!

Craving Clarity

For anyone who has followed my blog over the past year or so (hi, mom!)...you know that I have often cried out for clarity. It seems as though my life's path has been ambushed by ambiguity many times since we first ventured out of our ministry in Westerville. And here I sit again, at a crossroads of dismal discontentment.

However, I stumbled across some words (actually, I read the words quite intentionally) from Brennan Manning yesterday and again this morning in his book Ruthless Trust.

I don't have it with me now so I'll just have to paraphrase. He was actually quoting a man named Kavanaugh who had gone to Calcutta and asked Mother Teresa to pray for him. She asked him what he wished for her to pray and he said he desired clarity. She went on to refuse that prayer and prayed instead that he would trust God unfalteringly. She accused him of craving clarity over a trusting acceptance of God's provision.

It really struck me because I've prayed so many times for clarity and perhaps God continues to tell me...it's not clarity that I need but trust.

How many of my decisions over the past three years have been made out of a mistrusting heart? Have I really been taking my life and career into my own hands because I don't trust God (or the church) to provide? Now that God is bringing me face to face with my sin of mistrust, what will I do?

I'll start by praying for trust and being grateful for the wonderful love and grace the Father has lavished on us!

Daily Countdowns

So everyday right now consists of a countdown for me. I'm either counting down the hours until I see my family again...or I'm counting the hours until I have to leave my family again.

an emotionally exhausting existence

It's times like these when I crank up the Coldplay...

When you try your best but you don't succeed.
When you get what you want but not what you need.
When you feel so tired, but you can't sleep,
Stuck in reverse.

And the tears come streaming down your face.
When you lose something you can't replace.
When you love someone but it goes to waste,
Could it be worse...

Lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you.

Death By Coffee

I remeber a few disturbing scenes over the years in which people are buried alive.

One death occurred in a grain elevator.

Another was covered with dirt or concrete.

The image in my mind right now is of myself in the bottom of a giant coffee bag. The beans were piling up slowly at first...so I was able to keep my footing and stay on top of the java. But the bag is filling up fast, and I can no longer manage the flood of beans. I am suffocating under a mound of coffee.

Help!

A Lesson From Espresso

As I have always contended, we can learn many valuable lessons from coffee. This week's lesson is on the principle of over extraction.

If the water spends too much time with the ground coffee, over extraction occurs. What usually causes this problem is the adjustment of the grinder in an espresso machine or coffee grinder. When the bean is ground too finely, for the amount of time spent with water, the coffee over extracts and becomes bitter.

This Bean has certainly been overly grinded and over extracted over the past week! The test now is not to become bitter in the process.

Spending so much time away from my little beans (daughters) and momma bean (wife) has proven to be more challenging than I had anticipated.