If We've Ever Needed You, by Casting Crowns

Our contemporary song for this Sunday at Drennon...

Water's Edge, by Robert Whitlow

Yet another new Christian novel I saw and liked because of the cover the last time I visited Lifeway.  Downloaded onto our Kindle, I read this one in just a few days and loved it.  I'm not huge on legal thrillers, because they don't interest me much, but I'm really big on novels that chronicle the spiritual growth of a character.  This one does that for sure.

The main character is a young lawyer who comes back to his small hometown to tidy up his father's affairs after his untimely death.  There, while staying with his retired pastor great-uncle, he's drawn into the circumstances around the death and the various people it has touched and affected.  Over the course of the novel, Tom Crane has to face his spiritual status, which up to this point has been nil.

It's interesting that in this particular novel the main character's spiritual awakening or transformation isn't miraculous, sudden or 100% perfect.  Tom experiences more ups and downs after starting to sense God's presence in his life than before, and goes from joy to despair to joy again the last half of the novel.  I like the honesty of this portrayal, as opposed to some novels that make it sound like everything is perfect after conversion.

I saw at the end of the book that Robert Whitlow has written several other novels that I can try.  I'm sure I'll run into Robert Whitlow's work again in the future.

Little Serendipities

Sometimes it helps to have some little things happen to brighten your day when you're not feeling up to par.  Monday morning I was awakened by a text message.  It turns out my wife and I had overslept enough that we were going to be hard-pressed to get to our respective schools on time.  The text was from one of our parishioners, who sent me a scripture, Colossians 1:9-13:  "⁹ For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, ¹⁰ so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, ¹¹ being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, ¹² and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. ¹³ For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves."  That certainly helped my day go more smoothly.

This morning, as I was looking for an extra box to use from my art room closet, I found the little clay cross in the picture above.  I haven't seen that cross for years, and I don't really know where it came from.  I think it was a Christmas ornament given to me long ago.  How it came to be in my art room closet at the bottom of a junk box, I don't know, but I'm glad to have found it.  I normally carry a small wooden cross I got on a recent REC weekend, but today I've added this larger, more substantial one.  It helps to have this constant reminder in my pocket, that Jesus is with me wherever I go and whatever I do. 

To be awakened with scripture when oversleeping one morning, then to find a beautiful little cross the next morning--that's quite a nice little serendipity.

The Deepest Waters, by Dan Walsh

Last week I finished reading a new book by a new author (to me), and I just loved it.  This one is based on a true story from 1857 concerning a shipwreck and a displaced young couple trying to get their ways back to safety, totally separate from one another out in the Atlantic Ocean.

The best part of this truly moving story is the true aspects of the story seem almost like miracles, or at least "God things".  The circumstances leading to the couple being reunited all happen in such a "coincidental" manner than you wouldn't believe the story possible if the author wasn't just writing a story around true events.  The story itself is very faith-affirming, showing that occasionally really good things happen to really good people, and also that others who are not so nice can sometimes grow and learn to be better and more godly people.

I'd recommend this novel to men and women both.  It's a seafaring adventure, which should appeal to male readers, but the love story that provides the backbone of the adventure should also appeal to women.  (Sounds like a stereotypical review, which I don't intend, but my point is that the traditional male/female tastes are covered for all readers.)

It's very much a Christian novel, and one I hope many Christians and non-believers read.  I'll have to read Walsh's other three novels at some point too.

Winter Wonderland in March

The scene from our driveway this morning before leaving for school.  We awoke to about two or three inches of snow, on March 5 of all times.  Last week we had seventy degree weather and a nearby series of tornadoes, now we have the winter wonderland/white Christmas we didn't have back in December, January or February.

What a beautiful sight.  I don't take too many pictures--not enough, really--but this morning I pulled out the camera and took several shots.  Both of the area around our property and alongside the lake.  We didn't get a blessed snow day from school, but the sight was something to behold.



Kenya Trip?

Yep, we're going.  I told Reverend Chris Barasa Lusweti last Sunday afternoon that we'll come to the Leadership Conference in October in Eldoret.  Harriet will speak to the ladies and JR will work with the orphans at the adjoining school.  I will speak to a group of new ministers being commissioned to "go out" and enter new pastorates.

We have been blessed in the past to work on other mission teams, as close as the local prisons and Louisville and as far as Chicago, Washington DC, Belize and Brazil.  This will be our farthest trip, for sure.  As Harriet said this morning at church, when God calls you, you say yes.  A trip all the way to Africa is a scary prospect, but an exciting one too.  More to come...

Yours, by Steven Curtis Chapman

A great song to sing together on a Sunday morning when we're talking about missions.