greetings. wow has this ever been a different week. before this week i had worked just over 105 hours during the first 9 weeks of the year. this week i clocked in at 58.75 hours! i could have worked more but there's too much to do! God is good!! He's brought me to about 16.5 hours average per week. if He blesses me this way too much more i may be able to get all 1040 hours in early and then be a full time missionary somewhere for the rest of 09. we'll see what He has in mind. it's cool because last week i had made a decision not to seek work in the borough moving lawns and shoveling snow (i'm hoping, more and more, to be enabled to work very close to home so i leave as little negative environmental footprint as possible). i probably could have had the work but as i prayed about it just did not have a peace. it seemed like the Lord was saying quietly, 'haven't I been providing well enough to meet your needs?' so i decided no and then He sent two apartments to do along with the rest of leidy's second floor to complete and sent them in a way that all three worked together perfectly. praise Jehovah Jireh! may i completely entrust every detail of my daily life to His care and seek FIRST His kingdom and His righteousness.
yesterday went down to the high school state quarterfinals (only 8 teams left in pa.) at the villanova fieldhouse to see penn wood win a thriller over pennsbury and york win a thriller over parkland. i'm supposed to help at a banquet next saturday night but maybe i can sneak in the state championship game at hershey, we'll see. this was the first game i went to this year as a paying customer (went to a few at souderton after halftime when you get to go in for free). as this game was coming up i was praying about if it would be alright to go and seemed to be getting a 'its ok'. then just as eddie and i were leaving to go down i went out to get the mail and found a customer refund check for $10 from jefferson hospital where i had the two shoulder operations 2.5 years ago which cost nearly 20k...and they send me a $10 refund? right on that day.. it seemed to be a God-thing. kind of a kinky little quirky way of saying, 'i love you and i want to show you that in a special way here by paying your gas, tolls and game ticket ($6). God is good! basketball has been losing a bit of its special glow but 'in Him' it had a special glow yesterday!!
God has been dealing with me over a long time about mom. during the divorce proceedings i was looking at mom in a very judgmental, negative way. she was the evil one who had done wrong and was solely responsible for the divorce. i was the pure, holy, wronged party in the whole affair. somewhere past the half point of the 8 year period since the divorce was finalized God began to reveal to me that it was more i who had driven mom out than her who had left. the responsibility gradually came to rest, in my thinking, more and more on me and less on mom and in accepting this i also came to realize that it probably would not be appropriate for me to remarry. it has been wierd in this area, as in many other areas, that i live in a double-tiered reality. on the one level are the normal human feelings and thought - in this case the aching loneliness and longing for the companionship of one who shared the same view of reality and what is of greatest importance in life and being able to care for and enter into that person's life in a way that would greatly bless them at the same time as having their full-hearted support and help and encouragement in the reality that God had appointed me to live. on the other level - almost a looking at all the human part as if it were the longings of someone else combined with a supernatural presence keeping me from it as well as helping me cope with the loss of it. this has been my experience i would say at least for the last several years here. then on friday i sat down to spend time with the Lord and was focusing on matthew 5 as part of my current meditation on/study of the sermon on the mount. just as at so many times and in so many ways during this last 8 years God has just APPEARED to deliver a potent, life-changing truth to me so imperceptibly (the closest thing i can think of is when a nurse is talking with you - and you are dreading getting a needle - and she is pleasant and joking maybe and ..THERE..the needle is in and the shot is over before you were even expecting it). and this was the needle He gave friday night so quickly, so deftly, so skillfully...steve, you did not just (neutrally) drive your wife away from you, you did it criminally and wickedly!!! the needle came when my eyes rested on the next verse. matthew 5:31-2,'and it was said,"whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of dismissal", but I say to you that everyone who divorces (lit. SENDS AWAY) his wife, except for the cause of unchastity (i was looking at this in an entirely convoluted way 180 degrees away from the truth as mom was divorcing me and i had not been unchaste!!...how blind in sin i must be so much more than what i could ever believe!!!!), MAKES HER COMMIT ADULTERY; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery'. don't get me wrong. mom is not sinless. but i not she clearly bare the primary responsibility for our divorce. out of time.
hope you have a good week. love, dad
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment