I woke up on July 9th , walked into our kitchen and announced to my kids, Rhesa and Ryland, “Today is my ½ birthday, where’s my celebration?” “Come on…I’m 56 and a half and I want a party.” They looked at me as if I was “one fry short of a Happy Meal”. ☺ I sounded, like a little kid, I’m sure.

Legendary NFL Head Coach Vince Lombardi, was known for his motivational quips and quotes:

“Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.” Another one,

“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will”.  So true! But the one I believe to be the most notable is his statement that , “Winners never quit and quitters never win”. I actually grew up hearing that quote, from teachers, my step-dad, even my band teacher.

It was just one of those mornings. Not a bad, “just one of those mornings”…but a good one. I woke up earlier than I had planned and decided to go workout; something that I had really neglected to do faithfully these past few months. I don’t know what it was but I just felt like it was going to be a great day. I rolled down the windows in my Buick Lesabre, turned up the radio and was on my way to Planet Fitness.

If you find me in a freshly cleaned room, dimly lit lights with instrumental music quietly playing in the background, while drinking my favorite beverage (any guesses), reading a book, you know that I’m in a VERY.GOOD.PLACE. A place somewhere deep inside my thoughts and reflections. A place where “God is”. A place of comfort and refuge.

I am like a desert owl of the wilderness,
    like an owl of the waste places;
I lie awake;
    I am like a lonely sparrow on the housetop.

Psalm 102:6-7 (ESV)

It seems to me that we are the most connected yet disconnected generation ever. We have so many avenues and tools to keep us “in the know” about the affairs of other people and yet we ourselves are not known. We are strangers many times in a crowd.

God bless America, land that I love
Stand beside her and guide her
Through the night with the light from above

From the mountains to the prairies
To the oceans white with foam
God bless America, my home sweet home

Every now and then when I am reading about the Israelites in the Old Testament, I get a little
frustrated with them. Reading story after story of how God showed up and showed out in their
lives. Deliverance from slavery in Egypt via the Red Sea! Water from a rock! Food raining down
from heaven (no need to grocery shop)! Personal guidance and protection from God Himself!
“Come on People, what more do you need?!” “How dumb, (sorry kids) can you be?” I think to
myself, “If I had all THAT…all the miracles and power and stuff…I would totally trust in the
LORD!”

I was preparing to wash our family van…not the little mini-van but our big 15 passenger van
that has the duty of driving us all over the United States. I grabbed my bucket, soap, towels and
glass cleaner. I knew that I was in for a looong process of scrubbing off smeared bug juice and
cleaning up petrified French fries and old soda pop spills.

I was on my computer looking up a sermon by one of my favorite preachers. I clicked on the
YouTube picture and waited for the sermon to load but soon realized it was a sermon about
this preacher. It was another preacher railing on him and misrepresenting in so many ways.

A couple of weeks ago at our church Gathering, in a sermon on Generous Living, I mentioned
that fear/anxiety is the enemy of generosity. It really got me to thinking about anxiety and
worry in general. I’d like to think of myself as a person of faith and trust in God but I have to
admit, there are a lot of things that have been causing me anxiety these days. I find my
thoughts wandering and my heart racing as I call to mind, things out of my control.