Another Week

This is being written from yet another hotel room. I've been in this town for a month now, and this is the third hotel I've stayed in. The first two were paid paid the company, so they were a bit ''upscale''. This one is being paid for, by me, so it definitely is not. One of those 'by-the-week' extended stay joints, populated by four-illegals-to-a-room, single moms on the lam, and a remarkable collection of empty beer cans in the trash. For $30 a day, I guess that's what you expect. Generally, once I get out of work, I head back to the room and stay there until the 04:30 alarm goes off. Sometimes I stop at Wally World and pick up the el-cheapo food stuff to eat, but for most of the time, that's as exciting as it gets.

We recently ''celebrated'' our wedding anniversary with phone calls. This is not what I'd call a romantic way to celebrate the milestones of our life.

With a relocation comes the need to establish oneself. Get the right car plates, driver license, find a bank. Those are easy, if a pain. Find a new church. Now that is hard. Those of you in church leadership need to give the matter some prayerful consideration. As one in the midst of the matter, I can assure you that it is a stressful and difficult matter. Too many churches are more or less family reunion/weekly social club arrangements. Oh, God is involved surely. But it's a rather closed society, limited by family ties, or social condition, or race, or background, or other criteria.

Love endures

This is going to be a tough week. Most people realize that Monday is the 5^th anniversary of the 9/11 attack perpetrated by the devil-worshippers of Islam. It will be all over the TV, the papers, the magazines, the outlets for the claques of the appeasers of our age. But tomorrow, September 10, is also our wedding anniversary and we are 365 miles apart. This will be the first, and I hope only, time we will be apart on this day. It’s hard to have to endure that.

The proximity of the two dates will always be an oddity for us. Five years ago, on Sept. 10^th, 2001, I received one of those rare gifts: my beloved wife sent flowers to me at the office at my employer in Fort Smith, Arkansas. From the looks on the faces there, such had not happened before there, and my stock rose perhaps. It didn’t last. When we got out of our every-morning early meeting the next day, the time when some informality was the rule before we really got down to the events of the day, the phones were already ringing and computers went on-line to Fox News, Drudge Report, and other reliable sources. (not much of the ABC-CBS-NBC-CNN, I note, we’d learned about the folly of trusting propagandists) and saw the events unfolding. Needless to say, the day’s events overshadowed any ribbing about flowers.

What a contrast! One day dedicated to love and devotion and strengthening our life together, the other a reflection of the effects of the evil that is Islam. Ideas have consequences. In a 24-hour period, we saw the truth of that.

Much has happened since those days. Blood and death and destruction, surely. I’ve had two employers teeter on the brink of collapse out from under me, have moved twice now over three states. Yet God is good, and still rules, and the woman who loved me enough to send me flowers just called a few minutes ago, to my little hotel room, to say, once again, ‘’I love you’’. I’d rather have that than riches and fame.

Love one one hand, and hate and evil on the other. Jesus the Christ, Yeshua ha-Moshiach as love, or Allah the demon-god of evil. Easy choice.

Grace and peace.

A good day

This is an amazing picture, and precious to me beyond words. A bit of background: I never knew either of my grandfathers, they died before I was even born. The male link to the family past that they represented was severed.
Yet here we see FOUR generations, little Max, his father Tony, his grandfather Ward, and his great-grandfather Eber. This is, to me, a memory beyond price. No matter what the future brings, the memory of that day is one to be treasured.

This is written in a hotel room more than a thousand miles from the spot of this family gathering. I know that it is possible that we will never again all be together on this earth. And while Heaven will be wonderful, that day provided a small glimpse of it. God is good, and that day was just one of the many blessings He's given me.

And a further update .....

Posted from temporary quarters in Montgomery, Alabama
Well, yours truly has made the trip, nearly 400 miles south and west into the heart of Alabama, leaving family behind for the moment.
It looks to be a nice area, though it is always difficult coming into an area you've really never been before, dealing with people you've never met, and losing all of your familiar surroundings. The family is far away, and we want to be sure this move is a good one before we move everyone here. Without going into detail, our last move, two years ago, had the manufacturing plant that had hired me as a manager suddenly close the plant while we were in the middle of the move. I can say with great sincerity that this is not an experience to be desired. As a result of this, we're inclined to be a bit cautious.
At the same time, we need to get established. Just finding a church -- look, finding a Southern Baptist church in Alabama isn't the hardest thing to do. But finding the right one, the one that God has assigned for us, that is the difficult part. We have been enormously blessed in our last few churches, 2nd Baptist in Tennessee and 1st Baptist in Greenwood, Arkansas , that we look forward to the next with great anticipation. Any person having a suggestion is welcome. I am staying, temporarily, in a hotel, pending the completed move. We are thinking either the east end of town or perhaps out towards Wetumpka, a bit out of the city's congestion.
And pray for us. We do not do well when separated.

Moving update

Just as we were hoping to get this blog up and running on a regular basis, we are going into a period of uncertainty. I will be leaving in a few hours and, leaving the family behind for a period, heading out from the mountains of East Tennessee to the rolling terrain of Montgomery County Alabama. It is always wrenching to leave behind those you love, the friends that have come to mean so much to you, the roots you had begun to put down. It is also exciting to look forward to the new places, the friends you will make, the people that God will put in your path. We have faith that all of this has not taken Him by surprise and that somehow He will be glorified in our lives. May it be so.

Sunday night we said goodbye to our church family at Second Baptist Church in Clinton. Brother Mike once again referred to me publicly as a Job character. I don't know about that, Job is described as being a righteous man, and what little of that applies to me certainly is not a product of anything I have done on my own, but perhaps little glimpses of Jesus in me. May that be so as well. Personally, I feel more like Abraham, going from one place to another, not knowing where he was going but having faith in the One who called him.

So come along with us. The next few months are likely to be interesting. Anyone having some insights on a new church home for those of us of the ''Bapti-Costal'' persuasion is invited to comment.
Grace and peace.

News

This will be brief, and I hope to post more on this later.
We will be moving soon. I have received a job offer which will require us to pick up and move, once again. Our pastor told me that I remind him of Job; I responded that I feel more like Abraham, going from one place to another in faith alone, not knowing what the Lord has for us. The official job offer letter is due to arrive any minute now by one of the express package services.
Pray for us. Our journey over the last few years has been bumpy, part of the by-product of the hollowing-out of American manufacturing, and partly as a result of a vow taken to go wherever the Lord sends us. I know that He is in command and that the landing will be a good one, but the flight has experienced some turbulence.

Today's Reading

Psalms 50, 51, 52 Acts 27:1-25
There are those who publish abroad the message that the Christian life is one free from struggle and strife. It's never been clear to me where this originated. By human standards at least, Jesus didn't get much out of His time on the earth. Neither did the apostles nor most of the Church through most of the intervening centuries. Today's reading in the Acts of the Apostles reminds us of this. Paul is a prisoner being sent to Rome for judgment and eventual execution. Along the way, he is on a boat overtaken by a fierce storm, a storm that eventually wrecks the ship. This is not a description of the circumstances any of us would seek out, yet Paul accepts it all, knowing that the storms of life are not necessarily a sign of God's displeasure with him. He is confident, knowing he is in God's will, and has no reason to fear nature nor man.

Compare this with Psalm 51, the repentance of David after he sinned with Bathsheba. David knew right well that he was out of God's will. That's a very bad place to be, and all of us have been in that spot. Punishment had not - yet - come upon David. It would, of course, later.
All of us go through storms, difficulties, problems. They may be a sign of being out of God's will. They may be a sign of being in God's will. They may, even, just be the result of living in a fallen world.

We need discernment in order to know whether our worldly situation, good or bad, is a reliable indicator of our spiritual health.

In the beginning ...

Beginnings are always delicate times, and since this is the very first posting here, one wants to be careful.
This is a blog that accepts moderated comments only. The reasons for that should be evident to anyone who has been around been around the 'Net for any length of time. To steal a concept from Lucianne Goldberg, ''this is a salon, not a saloon''. Even more so, this is intended to be a family-friendly Chistian site and we intend that the Almighty be honored here.

I have my own beliefs and opinions on a variety of matters. I have been wrong before, and possibly will be again. Discussions are intended to generate light, not just heat, and I am willing to enforce that principle. Flame wars are intended for other venues.

Since I will be asked, a few personal references. I am an engineer by training and inclination, with some twenty years in manufacturing operations. I live in the area of Clinton, Tennessee with my wife and the second of two daughters. We are members of Second Baptist Church in Clinton. Anyone is welcome to join us there on Sundays, and visitors will certainly be made welcome, particularly as we move into the new buildings around the first of September.

But if not .....

Faith, family, country, and technology