Today's Readings and Stuff -- Monday, 26 August 2013

Monday.  We are planning to get heavily into packing today.  Always a difficult time, we've been through this so many times.  For the first time in many years, we're doing a long-distance move on our own.  Since 1992, we've moved across state lines four times.  Each time, my employer arranged with professionals to do the heavy lifting.  Those days are behind us, and this move, perhaps the last we'll ever do, is being done by us.  And the changes in our life over the last 21 have been profound.  Tough to be making decisions about those things that remind us of the days when our daughters were small.  Or the memories of our now-departed mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, cousins, friends.  We've stood along so many graves, married off two daughters, been there for a raft of births, proms, divorces, all the stuff of life.  And each with its own memorabilia.  To be moved, or not.

Yesterday was a busy one as well.  We have a guy been staying on our couch for a while.  Diabetic, HIV+, gay, not too smart.  I was getting out of the shower when Dear Wife started screaming.  He was well into a diabetic coma.  911 call, ambulance, rescue squad, police, whole nine yards..  It appears that he had one of his gay buddies pick him up last night when we were in bed, and they were out drinking.  He came in and hit the insulin, without eating and without checking his sugar levels.  The result darn near killed him - when the medics got here and took his vitals (we'd briefed them) his sugar was down to around 29.  Not quite dead, but real close.  They pumped glucose into him and that brought him around.  Enough that they decided to leave without transporting him.
Needless to say, I didn't make it to the morning Bible study I lead.  Did make it to the 11:00 service. 

Then we had a long-planned get-together at pastor's house with the other deacons and their families. A very nice time, and we enjoyed it greatly.  But Dear Wife has become somewhat averse to being out of the house and around people, and by the end of it she was more than ready to leave.
So Sunday was not exactly a day of rest.  Worthwhile, but a good bit of stress.

The morning's Old Testament reading for today is Psalms 128, 129, 130, 131. 

Psalm 128  

1	Blessed is every one that feareth the LORD; that walketh in his ways.
2	For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.
3	Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table.
4	Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the LORD.
5	The LORD shall bless thee out of Zion: and thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life.
6	Yea, thou shalt see thy children's children, and peace upon Israel.

Psalm 129  

1	Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth, may Israel now say:
2	Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth: yet they have not prevailed against me.
3	The plowers plowed upon my back: they made long their furrows.
4	The LORD is righteous: he hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked.
5	Let them all be confounded and turned back that hate Zion.
6	Let them be as the grass upon the housetops, which withereth afore it groweth up:
7	Wherewith the mower filleth not his hand; nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom.
8	Neither do they which go by say, The blessing of the LORD be upon you: we bless you in the name of the LORD.

Psalm 130  

1	Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD.
2	Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
3	If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?
4	But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.
5	I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.
6	My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.
7	Let Israel hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.
8	And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

Psalm 131  

1	Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me.
2	Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child.
3	Let Israel hope in the LORD from henceforth and for ever.

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The evening reading is verses 25-40 of chapter 7 in 1st Corinthians.

I Corinthians 7:25-40 

25	Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord: yet I give my judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful.
26	I suppose therefore that this is good for the present distress, I say, that it is good for a man so to be.
27	Art thou bound unto a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife.
28	But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you.
29	But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none;
30	And they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not;
31	And they that use this world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away.
32	But I would have you without carefulness. He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord:
33	But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife.
34	There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband.
35	And this I speak for your own profit; not that I may cast a snare upon you, but for that which is comely, and that ye may attend upon the Lord without distraction.
36	But if any man think that he behaveth himself uncomely toward his virgin, if she pass the flower of her age, and need so require, let him do what he will, he sinneth not: let them marry.
37	Nevertheless he that standeth stedfast in his heart, having no necessity, but hath power over his own will, and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin, doeth well.
38	So then he that giveth her in marriage doeth well; but he that giveth her not in marriage doeth better.
39	The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth; but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom she will; only in the Lord.
40	But she is happier if she so abide, after my judgment: and I think also that I have the Spirit of God.