Last Saturday, "nobody" (that would be my 16 year old daughter) left a small pile of toothpicks in my beige carpeting.  I didn't see them when I was dusting and stepped on one and drove it straight in about a half inch into the underside of my big toe.  These aren't the flimsy flat toothpicks...these are the substantial round ones.  It wouldn't ( Read more... )

I've been thinking about image.  And images.

Photographs are such strange images, when you think of it.  They transfer something that is three dimensional to a flat piece of paper, or a screen.  I rarely like any photographs of myself.  They rarely look like the person I feel like inside.  Ripening said that if I spent time with a good photographer ( Read more... )

There is this Derek Webb song called Mockingbird.  The chorus goes:
and i am like a mockingbird
i’ve got no new song to sing
and i am like an amplifier
i just tell you what i’ve heard
oh, i’m like a mockingbird

I have an artist's heart.  I love creativity and thinking big, wild, colorful thoughts.  But the humbling thing to realize is that I have never, ( Read more... )

I am recognizing more and more how against the grain of human nature it is to truly be a person of faith.  Faith in spiritual things, I mean, because certain kinds of faith are really quite engrained unless something happens to destroy them.  To believe in things that cannot be seen, or to believe in what I see and hear but cannot prove that I see ( Read more... )

I haven't posted in a month.  Not because I didn't have anything to say.  I just said it elsewhere, for the most part ( Read more... )

(Someone asked me what rest looks like for a fighter...)

What does rest look like for a fighter?  I guess it depends on whether or not the fighter is removed from the battle.

Sometimes a fighter gets leave, a chance to rest away from the fight.  That's rare, but it happens.

But most of the time a fighter has to learn to rest in between skirmishes ( Read more... )

Fierce prayers.  I like that.  I am sure I could use some fierce prayers.

I wonder what I look like in other people's dreams?  People who haven't had physical eyes on me?

Funny...that actually leads straight into something I've been thinking a lot about lately.  And that is what we'd look like if we could see ourselves according to who we are in our ( Read more... )

This word was given to me Sunday:

No weapon forged against you will prevail,
       and you will refute every tongue that accuses you.
       This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD,
       and this is their vindication from me,"
       declares the LORD.   Isaiah 54:17

Yeah.  That's a good word.  The whole chapter is a good word.

I've had a ( Read more... )

Another fun morning in surgery.

Sometimes she uses words that take my breath away.  Both of them do.  It's like the shock of ice cold water...or the plunging of a steel blade into the softness under my ribs.  Sometimes it nearly doubles me over. And other times it actually does.

Word curses.  Jealousy.  Slander.  Betrayal.  Abandonment.  False ( Read more... )

    I've figured out that when I go to the Healing Rooms and they pray for me, I can go about a day and a half before I start to wilt.

That's pretty humbling.

Because it's not like I'm being passive.  I'm stepping up to the best of my ability.  And I'm grateful to get that much, because two weeks ago I could only make it a few hours.  A day and a ( Read more... )