via Runran

I came across a paradigm of leadership that was challenging and relevant: a mixture of patience and servanthood. To further illustrate my point, I have attempted to write this blog post 3 times due to the amount of interruptions by needy, exhausted children.

Our morning started off with a hectic rush of being late to a rifle shooting class for children taught by an ex-Navy Seal. The shooting range is located in a different, unfamiliar town and the sign was not easily marked. I punched the coordinates into Google Map (outstanding app btw) and compared them to the directions my wife printed ahead of time. Both lead me straight to a house that happens to be on the same longitude as the shooting range. The owner was friendly enough to point me in the right direction after indicating that I was not the first person to come to his house looking for the range. On the way to the range, I missed the turn and ended up driving to the next town. An hour of time and half a tank of gas later, we located the shooting range (and saved it in the GPS for future use).

Needless to say, once we found the place, I was stressed and frustrated. However, those feelings were long gone after watching my oldest son, Caedmon, shoot his way up to first place. The instructor was patient and taught the kids tactical maneuvers while giving them a range of firearms to shoot with including an assault rifle, .22 gauge rifle, and a lever action rifle. I won't pretend to know all their names, but I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed the learning experience.

Once I got home, I spent about 15 minutes before my wife pulled up, asking to go fix her flat tire. She was driving on a spare and we needed to change it as soon as possible. Sam's ended up not having the right equipment, so we drove over to Wal-mart, where in we walked out an hour and a half later. For those of you with out a toddler, you won't understand the magnitude of stress a parent goes through in order to entertain them for that long.

We eventually make it home, wherein the living room and kitchen are a disaster. My wife surprised me by renting the Hobbit (still can not believe I missed it in theaters. I am an uber LOTR fan). So, I picked up the rooms and headed outside for yard work. I postponed watching it, because Caedmon expressed interest in watching it with me. The plan was to come in, take a shower, pour a glass of iced coffee, and enjoy Middle Earth meekness to the max. When I came in from yard work, my wife had put a movie on for the younger two children. Essentially, I had cleaned their mess up so that they could watch a movie.

Needless to say, more frustration. I decided to take a shower and see what happens with the rest of the day. That's when I picked up the Every Man's Marriage book and looked over the notes from the last chapter I read. A note over the paradigm of bondservant leadership was highlighted:

A leader cannot be separated from submission and a bondservant of love must serve as a paradigm of leadership.

With this in mind, I questioned my motives of the day. Not all of the moments of service were done with joy, but I don't think they have to be. Rather, they were done with love and that is the motivating factor that distinguishes servanthood from self-service.

I took my son to a shooting class that I had no interest in attending because I love him. Was I frustrated? Understandably so. But it was rooted in love and was genuinely about spending some time with him. The same is true of cleaning and not saying a word about the movie (until a blog post they probably will never read). I love these little people so much that the paradigm of leadership in my family can truly become servanthood.

Sheena Iyengar is what some would call a "choice expert".  In a recent study, she presented two groups with various choices of jam.  Group A was given 6 different jams to try from, while Group B was given 24 different jams.  Turns out that Group B thoroughly enjoyed having choices, but Group A was 10 times more likely to actually make a purchase.


Those new to leadership can harness this phenomenon to make better choices, become more efficient and therefor more productive in their current capacity as a leader.  Whenever I was first placed in supervisory roles, I wanted to be a team player and so I would listen to every possible solution under the sun. As a result, I was often overwhelmed by the volume of opinions and found it difficult to whittle the pile down to one decision that was fair and in the best interest of my team as a whole.

The better path to take lies at the heart of Sheena's research. Rather than approaching the masses for their opinion, preselect a handful of solutions based on your experience and expertise on the matter. By doing so, you limit the scope of the project that you are working on and are more likely to keep on track with the project. Furthermore, you have still included the team on the decision making process.

Found via Give People Less Choice

1. Thinking:  One word comes to mind: more. I need to blog more, exercise more, pray more, read more. 
2. Enjoying: The new seasons of Grimm & Once Upon A Time, loving on my 2 year old before he gets too old for daddy's kisses, learning the Judaic roots of my faith, iTunes Festival
3. Feeling: wholly inadequate. Hurt my back this weekend and it has put behind on a lot of housework. 
4. Wearing: Levi 569s jeans, white ankle length socks, Sunday school t-shirt (they require the teachers to wear)
5. Needing: to go to the dentist & probably several things from list item 1. 
6. Wanting: several new tunes, a couple of books, & things on my Amazon Wish List.
7. Listening: True Story podcast, Mumford & Sons, Andy Grammar, The Script, OneRepublic, Fun., Green River Ordinance
8. Making: programming a logic puzzle game on an HTML 5 platform & customizing my blog
9. Eating: love the new Panda Express in town. Could eat the Peppered Chicken literally every day.
10. Drinking: random assortment of cold teas. I just raid the pantry and try different combinations. This week's flavor is an orange flavored green tea mixed with a regular blend.

And what about you?

If you have kept up with my blog through the years, then I am impressed by your resilience & profoundly interested in what kept you coming back. I have thought about my first blog (http://massivetruth.xanga.com/) what brought me into the world of blogging before and it was the sense of community, relationships formed with complete strangers, and intriguing look into the "private" lives of other. Tonight I found myself going back down that ally looking for the friends & blogs I once read. Sadly, most of them have not been updated in years.

So I am leaving it in your hands now? Any good reads out there?

I was teasing (read: annoying) my wife the other night, when something unexpected happened. I told her I would stop with my sarcastic criticism for a kiss. She instantly plastered a hand on each side of my face, pulled me in, and kissed me. You would have to know my wife & a little bit about Excel spreadsheets to know where I am going with this post.

So let's back up and review an Excel spreadsheet. Fortunately for you, I have one readily available for analyzing and making spiritual analogies with. Mind you the names on the spreadsheet were changed to protect the innocent:

In this particular sheet, there is a column for departments. I have highlighted a cell that demonstrates the whole point of this post. You see in that column there are a list of displayed values. In this case, the displayed value is "NM Shelf Land". However, that is NOT the actual or real value. The actual value is a VLOOKUP formula, which I am not going to get into. My whole point is that there is a displayed value and an actual value. In the words of Optimus Prime, "There's more than meets the eye."

Now let's talk about my wife. If I could define her love language in three words, they would be: gifts, talking & sarcasm. If I could define my love language in three words, they would be: physical touch, physical touch & physical touch. You see it with my kids all the time. I am constantly picking them up, hugging them, kissing them, rough housing with them etc. Notice how my love language didn't make her list.

So the displayed value of her sudden kiss was simple a sweet kiss. The actual value was leaps & bounds beyond that, because Amanda gets me. It was my wife connecting with me in a way that I understood.

I think there is room for an analogy here in our spiritual walk as well. When we attempt to cultivate spiritual growth, we more often than not lack the patience to see the actual value. We get caught up in the displayed value: going to Bible study, saying a prayer before each meal, etc. Paul puts it this way in 1 Corinthians 3:

For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings? What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.

The actual value of our actions are in the hands of God. Those small acts of kindness do not go unnoticed by the Creator. So the next time you think about giving up, look for the actual value in your actions.

There were several people in the room with her right before it happened. Someone told a joke and she laughed. During her last laugh, she moved her hands up to brace the sides of her head and quietly said, "Something is wrong." She immediately collapsed and was gone. An aneurism took her life in an instant.

That happened on  Tuesday of this past week. On Monday, I had stopped by her office to talk to her about a project that we were mutually working on. In fact, I had received an email from her Tuesday morning before it happened, confirming an appointment we had set up. While she wasn't close enough to be a "friend", she was certainly one of the people at work that I had befriended. And just like that, she was gone.

It made me realize the shortness of life, the frailty of our existence, and how incredibly wasteful I have been with the limited number of breathes I have been given. It put everything into perspective.

Our days are numbered. The writer of Ecclesiastes (most likely Solomon) put it this way, "There is a time for every thing. A time to live and a time to day." So these words have hung heavy on my heart all week. It is my hope when the trivial problems of life invite themselves in, that I think about what Solomon was trying to say and put everything back into perspective.

Over the course of my life, God has expressed His grace through various friendships that have sheltered me from the damage of a dysfunctional family environment. Some of these friends I hear from through assorted social media outlets, while others are just a memory longing for another tangible connection. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but a starter to those I wish I had kept in touch with:

Katrina Celeste Stutts. I am sure her last name has changed since our child hood. Nevertheless, Katrina was my very best friend growing up. We both lived in the trailer park together, where her family sold mobile homes. These memories take me back to LaGrange, GA where summers were filled with roller blading and Super Mario Brother 3.  Man we loved that game! Katrina was a solid foundation of friendship (nothing romantic) in an otherwise unstable world. I just enjoyed hanging out with Katrina. I also remember thinking she was rich because her family owned a double-wide trailer.

Spanky. I don't know his real name. He moved into the same trailer park and probably was more of a bad influence than anything. Nevertheless, he was a good friend. I remember distinctly one time where he got a new pair of Nike shoes. Back then at our school, you were "cool" if you owned a pair. My family couldn't afford them, so we were never in the "in" crowd. So, when Spanky bought a new pair, he gave me his old pair. The other kids at school asked if they were Spanky's old shoes and he denied it to save me the embarrassment. He also took me to Florida, all expenses paid, to go to the beach one summer. Great memories.

Gary Beagle. Actually had the opportunity to reconnect with him over Facebook. We lived in the lower income housing together in Mineral Wells, Texas.  He introduced me to comic books and really started my collection. My favorite memory was covering an entire wall in comic books by hanging them from their sleeves (some sort of sin to collectors, I'm sure). He was a best friend and was someone I could just hang out without any worries. His mom, sister, and brother-in-law kind of took me in and felt "at home" at his house. Eventually, Gary was sent to a boys ranch and we lost touch.

Mason Matthews. He's the whole reason I went to Wayland University. The summer before we went to college, I was over at his house constantly. His mom made some amazing home made bread. Again, my fondest memories are just hanging out. Oh, and dorm wars. Mason always tried tying me up while I was sleeping in bed. I repaid him kindly by sliding bologna under his dormitory door while he was gone for the week.

Calvary Baptist Youth. So many memories of my friends over at Calvary. Many of our youth group are on Facebook, so I am able to keep in touch. This group of friends was a solid rock during high school. They took me in and loved me through my Junior and Senior years. We spent Saturday nights doing a Bible study that we lead, many nights on the trampoline, and my last night with them was a bonfire out in the country. I honestly could never thank that group enough for memories, encouragement, and constant friendship they showed me.

Chris Brown. Perhaps the one friendship that changed my entire course of life. Chris was my absolute best friend through High School. The guy constantly paid for me when we ate out, was constantly encouraging me, and was closer than a brother. We did so much stupid stuff together from making stop action videos to countless hours of Command & Conquer and programming IQ Tests in BASIC. I remember listening to Jesus Freak for the first time with Chris and many memories in the swimming pool. In fact, I lived with the Browns through out the last year of High School. The whole family (love you Kara, Vicki, & Calvin!) took me in, fed me, celebrated holidays with me, and honestly made me feel like one of their own.

So what friends come to your mind while reading this?

How often have you found yourself using the phrase, "why is God putting me through this?" Often it is during the trials of life and we rarely see it as an opportunity. Instead it is just another thing added to the insurmountable pile of responsibilities. This perspective is distorted.

God doesn't "put" people through things. Christ always "leads" (being the King of Kings and all). So instead of asking why he is putting us through something, we should ask why is He leading me through this?

That change of words has a powerful implication. Instead of you blindly stumbling through the obstacle, feeling beaten and worthless left to your own devices, you are in fact empowered to follow in His foot steps, treading on a solid foundation laid out by His experiences. Christ put it this way:

"If the people of this world hate you, just remember that they hated me first. If you belonged to the world, its people would love you. But you don’t belong to the world. I have chosen you to leave the world behind, and that is why its people hate you. Remember how I told you that servants are not greater than their master. So if people mistreat me, they will mistreat you. If they do what I say, they will do what you say. People will do to you exactly what they did to me. They will do it because you belong to me, and they don’t know the one who sent me." - Jesus Christ qtd in John 18.

Aside from the awesome alliteration, this post has a point. A friend at work humored the other day when he retold the first humiliating act of disobedience by his 3 year old daughter. They were in Toys-r-us at e time. It was time to go and his daughter failed to see eye to eye. When he called her to come, she took off running and screaming down the aisle. In attempt to coax her into calm submission, he would slow his pace down and with trepidation attempt to get close enough to grab her. Sensing her impending doom and the interruption of her playtime, she bolted again. This went on for several minutes, until he was finally able to catch her. The story ended with his daughter kicking & screaming as he carried her out the store with an overwhelming sense of embarrassment and anger.

I laughed seeing the humor in the situation because a parent of three children, I have been in that situation before. However, as our conversation continued it took a different angle regarding perspective. Turns out that his daughter's rebellious act lead us to see where we are in this relationship with God.

God exists outside of our timeline and has eternal perspective every time He imposes His schedule on our lives. More often than not, we behave like my friend's daughter because from our perspective He is just "taking away our fun". We do not feel like leaving the store right now because we don't "need to go eat" or run more errands. We are so limited in our view of things that it is near impossible for us to see the forest for the trees.

The next time my life is impacted by some life event, I want to take a step back and realize that there is more to this story than just leaving the store. There is an entire world out there with a million schedules, angles, perspectives on life. There is only one perspective that rises above it all. HIS.

I have noticed something beautiful about my family, particularly in regards to my children. They are being raised in a drastically different "kingdom" than the one I was raised in. It is a kingdom where love is expressed day in and day out through numerous hugs and kisses, an incredible home school experience, and various celebrations of their uniqueness in photos and letters. That is not to say that they are without their short comings.

On any given day you are likely to hear the oldest complain about how the middle child is incredibly annoying. The middle child will inevitably come up with some ailment that prevents her from doing chores. And the baby will without a doubt make our lives difficult by pulling dishes from the cabinets and books off the shelf.

Yet, in both lights, our children consistently living within our own little kingdom. There is nothing they can do that would ever cause us to caste them out because they are our children.

Along these same lines, it is interesting that Christ focused so much on the Kingdom of God. And when he did he used the sharp imagery of children. They never live in fear that they have been caste out of love's grasp because it is not with their nature. Furthermore, they don't act like they belong to another family. Likewise, the presence of God's kingdom in our own lives should a parallel reality to that of the kingdom's we live in this world. It is here, present, and we should respond accordingly.

So how do you respond to the kingdom of God being near?

So I committed to writing to a new blog and blew it on my first week! Sorry guys/gals. It has been a tough week with me going to bed completely exhausted. We've dealt with our stove top going out to short circuited wire, a wheat weevil infestation in the pantry, general nausea and fatigue, and running out of dishwasher soap (and therefor doing them by hand).

So the last one is something my wife would refer to as a "First World problem." I agree. There are more that are far worse off than I. However, it explains why I completely wiped on starting the blog up again.

There is a reoccurring theme in my blogging world. One the one side, I want to be the blogger I was 5 or 6 years ago. It was a time when I was connected, had more hits on my site than I could ever imagine, and I had no problems coming up with interesting subjects to blog about.

On the other hand, I feel like this blog is past its prime and there is nothing new or original left to capture. However, every time I go to press the delete key, I feel the pain of letting go. I still want to be connected. And every time I read a good article and comment, I want an identity online. A place to stay connected without the worries of traffic.

The problem is that if you don’t have fresh content, your readers will not come back. My blog suffers greatly from a lack of content. Usually when I have an idea of something to write about, I don’t have the time. So where do all these people with fantastic blogs find time?

1. The first is finding balance. You always have to give up something to get something. To have fresh content on your blog, you have to give up time you would spend doing other activities like reading before you go to bed.

2. The second key is finding inspiration. In order to generate thoughts, you need something to think about. When you come across an article that stirs you, email it to yourself. This way you will have it in your inbox as a reminder to publish your thoughts on your blog.

3. The third key is linking. I saw my blog explode when there was a community around it and I was able to link to other thought provoking blogs. That’s the beauty of the internet!

Granted most of my readership is probably not reading the adventures of Drizzt Do’Urden. However, I came across a very interesting quote from the fictional hero of the Forgotten Realms:

“I would never pretend to understand another people well enough to demand that they change their traditions, yet how foolish it seems to me to hold fast and unyieldingly to those mores and ways without regard for any changes that have taken place in the world about us.” – From the Crystal Shard, Book IV

Drizzt was an enigma to his people. He was born a dark elf, living among an evil people where backstabbing and child sacrifice were common place. The dark elves or Drow lived far below the surface in the deeper parts of the earth. All his life he was taught hatred and self-interest, but he felt compelled to distrust the harsh teachings of his peers. Instead, he fled and eventually found himself among the “surface dwellers”. There he found the same harshness when others tried to kill him simply because he was a Drow.
The quote above is in reference to barbarians who lived among the plains of Icewind Dale. Despite centuries of civilization, trade, and growth, the barbarians still wonder as nomadic tribes and their only desire is to wipe out the other races. Drizzt was hoping to find something more than the dark past he left behind and stumbled upon a mixture of love and selfishness.
I think the quote is applicable to the Church today. We sometimes get so wrapped up in our culture that we become barbaric. We trample over any one or idea that we deem “unbiblical” without really having a case for doing so.
Well, enough of the geeky talk.

Head over to the Web Designer Depot for a moment: http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2011/02/the-7-personality-types-of-bloggers-today/
I wondered after reading this article where my tiny little blog fit in the spectrum. Most of it could be filed under the Lady Gaga syndrome. I have been keeping a journal of some sort since the 6th grade. Blogs were a natural extension of my journaling habits.
Over the life of my blog, there has been fluctuations. At one point, I had 400 hits a day. This is miniscule compared to the uber bloggers out there, but it boosted my ego a little. I can remember back in 2004-2006 when it felt like there was a community of bloggers that ran in the same social circles as I did. That was my favorite part. Watching Christ transcend technology and bringing together people. I even had the privilege of meeting a few of my fellow bloggers.
Since then, some have moved on to write books. Others have started ministries. A few quit the blogging world as they moved on with their lives. I have just stayed in limbo. Actually, I went crazy, deleted all my blogs, and then came to my senses to start them over again.
Now I find myself pensive. What could this blog be? Will it ever reach that point where there is content that is thought-provoking without shoving it down someone’s throat?

Wow, the past month has gone by in such a blur. It seems like everything in my life is new:

• New home
• New job
• New furniture
• New iPad
• New Dragon Age (thx Kenneth)
• New town
• New truck

With all this "new" stuff, it is hard to keep up with life. We are still living in boxes! 

"Is this a mistake?" It is a question that I have asked myself many times over the course of this month. I found myself asking it again a few minutes ago. I finished giving my last final (my final final if you will) of the semester and maybe the last one for the rest of my life. As students passed in their completed exams, a couple of them dropped a few notes of encouragment such as "Thanks for the class" and "I enjoyed this course." I had one student told me that this class was the highlight of their week because it was so interesting. As I walked across campus, I thought about these statements and in the back of my mind the question popped up. Should I have accepted the new job?

This would not be my first time to leave Wayland. I left back in 2007 to pursue a full-time career in web programming. After about 2 years of working from home, I came back to Wayland asking for my old job back. My supervisor graciously accepted me back. Within a matter of months, I was surrounded by people who loved me, encouraged me, and was genuinely interested in my success as a supervisor and an instructor. On top of returnign to friends and familiarity, I was also given the opportunity to teach several courses and I loved every minute of it! There is something about connecting with students, building new friendships, and meeting all the interesting people who will most likely go on to be brilliant contributers to society.

However, that chapter is closing. I will be cleaning on my desk exactly one week from today and I wonder if I have made a mistake. I am moving on to a new company in Midland, where I will be working on the IT help desk. I do not know if I will be given the opportunities to teach or if I will have the strong and loving support system that I have at Wayland. To be honest, I am a little scared.

At the end of the day, I just have to trust that "good" will come out of this move. I am doing what I feel is best for my family and I look forward to the new people I will meet in this journey.

My wife asked an interesting question at lunch today; A question that the nerd in me could not resist researching:

What is ketchup? And why is it sometimes called "catsup"?

Ok, that was 2 questions, but interesting nonetheless. As soon as time freed up at the library, I pulled out reference books on food history and dug until my curiosity was satisfied. What I found was the history of this famous condiment was convoluted by its own definition.  Ketchup is “a general name for a range of salty, spicy, rather liquid condiments.” The ingredients vary by country, region, and local culture, ranging from pickles, mushrooms, soy and the form you are most familiar with, tomato ketchup.

What about the name?
Honestly, it is just a naming convention that was “lost in translation.” Dutch traders are said to have brought the oriental sauce to Europe and in the process, consumers varied the spelling as a by-product of poor annunciation.  The roughest translation of the word dates back the Chinese word for a fermented fish sauce by the name of “kêtsiap”.

What does this have to do with Christianity?
My research reminded me of the roots of my own faith. The term "Christian" is world-wide and the definitions vary as much as the grains of sands on a beach.  It has been prostituted by culture and reworked into a mold of beliefs that are redefined by each individual believer.

That being said, there is a core set of beliefs and an authentic history behind the term that outlives the notorious misuse of the label. Christians were first such in Antioch according to Acts 11:26:

"And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians."

It was actually a derogatory term used by society to poke fun at the "little Christs" who actually believed in this whole "Jesus Guy". It is the equivalent of calling others “Bible Thumping Fundies”. Back then, the first believers wore it with pride. It meant that their beliefs and practices were demonstrated in such a fashion that their neighbors associated them with Christ.

Mary Randolph’s Tomato Catsup

I couldn’t resist posting this recipe dating back to 1831:

Gather a peck of tomatos, pick out the stems, and wash them; put them on the fire without water, sprinkle on a few spoonsful of salt, let them boil steadily an hour, stirring them frequently; strain them through a colander, and then through a sieve; put the liquid on the fire with half a pint of chopped onions, half a quarter of an ounce of mace broke in small pieces; and if not sufficiently salty, add a little more – one table-spoonful of whole black pepper; boil all together until just enough to fill two bottles; cork it tight. Make it in August, in dry weather. – The Virginia Housewife 1831.

*Davidson, Alan, and Alan Davidson. The Penguin Companion to Food. New York: Penguin Reference, 2002. Print.

I finished reading this amazing, yet nerdy book entitled Say Everything. It is written by Scott Rosenberg and details the history of the blogosphere as we know it. Gizmodo, Blogger, Twitter, Google, MySpace, YouTube, Engadget..they are all in there. Scott does a wonderful job of taking the reader through the history of modern blogging from its very roots to the things we think of as standard today.

At any rate, this isn't a post about the book (I am horrible at book reviews). This post is about a quote I found in the book. A nugget of resurrection if you will:

Blogging gave my knowledge-grazing direction and reward. Writing a blog entry about a useful and/or interesting subject forces me to extract the salient features of the link into a two- or three-sentence elevator pitch to my readers, whose decision to follow a link is predicated on my ability to convey its interestingness to them. - Cory Doctorow

It breathed some life into what I had already felt. Over the past year, I kept changing the design of the blog. And once the thrill of the new design was gone, so was the luster to post. It needs to be rewired, rebooted, started over with a new internal structure. Granted it will be more random than my periodic Fantastic Fridays and religious thoughts (they will be there two). I hope that in the end you will find it as enjoyable as I do writing it.

I am very close to giving up on blogging. I have been blogging for over 5 years. When I started out, I had time, energy, ideas to cultivate a growing community around the blog. I was passionate about design and being a part of so many different lives that I ran into online. Now, I just feel burned out.

Not sure what to write any more and even if I was sure, I don't have enough time to really blog. At least not the way I once blogged. There are so many memories attached to blogging, that I am hesitant to give it up. I met so many people through the blogging world and have really enjoyed the relationships cultivated.

I am not throwing in the towel yet, but I am close to that point.

As I was walking across campus today, I recalled a dear friend who passed away several years ago. Her name is Sam. She was in her 20's when she had complications with her health that led to a sudden, unexpected death. Sam was a fiercely loyal friend with an infectious smile and a distinctive laugh. Sam was a true friend and I miss her. However, I wasn't sad when I thought of Sam today. Instead, I had a genuine laugh on the inside and thought to myself, "I will see Sam again".

I will see her again after this life is over. It was a simple thought, yet a profound one. Death seems so final for most of us, and has felt that way many times in my life. Often, it is the death of a relationship, a bridge burned, another chapter finished. I feel this way every time I say good bye to a student worker for the last time. I have the privilege of spending 4-5 years with them and then they are off to start a new life. Most of them never return. It hurts and I cry a little on the inside. Then there are the physical deaths, like my friend Sam. Her mortal body will never breath life again. Her existence this side of heaven is indeed over. The last chapter written.

But the book was not closed. One of the joyful things about life is that it is eternal. Eternal in the sense that once I shed this earthly suit, I will embrace the rest of eternity in Heaven, within the presence of God and in the company of my friend Sam. So if God allows you to read blogs up there, know that I thought about you today Sam. I will see you "shortly."