wonders and reflections in God's presence

Thanks to the revgalblogpals … I’ve decided to honor this week as Thanksgiving delurking week. I admit … I am more a lurker than a blogger or commenter, so this will be good for me to thank the people I have been getting to know so well through the blog world.

This week, I will leave a comment on all the blogs I read, saying “hi” or just “thanks for blogging” or whatever the spirit moves me to say.

If you’d like to join the delurking thanksfeast … put this image on your blog and announce Thanksgiving Delurking Week, starting today and going until November 26th.

We have two tickets to see A Christmas Carol at the Alley Theater in Houston on Tuesday, November 21, at 7:30 PM.  Anyone want them?  First come, first serve.  Call my cell, leave a comment, or email. 

So, I was hooked up to a thousand electrodes and wires.  My brain was wired, my face was wired, my chest was wired and even my legs and finger were wired.  Then I was told to go to sleep!  Ha!

Well, I didn’t.  Not more than a few minutes all night long, and certainly not enough to “study”  Not in a hospital room that is made to appear like a hotel room.  Not with a bad bed, no air circulation, and someone videotaping me all night long.  Not with other people with severe snoring problems in each of the other rooms.  Not when they are all trying so hard to be quiet you could hear a pin drop, or keys typing on a computer pad, or the police car outside, or the telephone ring, or the building creaking because it’s the first day it’s been really cold all year.

They tell me I’ll probably have to come back.  For another night of trying to sleep … I’m just a little fatigued.

This weekend Dwayne and I are traveling to Pennsylvania.  We’re flying in the morning to Buffalo NY with a layover in Newark NJ and then a 2 hour drive to Warren PA.  Please pray we have safe and non-eventful flights and travel.

In PA, I will be meeting with Dwayne’s nephew and his fiance for pre-marriage counseling.  Being pastor or counselor to your own family is awkward at best and ineffective at worst.  I have been praying alot about this … please pray that I can find the right balance between aunt and pastor, a helpful blend between family member and professional.  Because this nephew and his brother and sister were all born before we left that area when I went to seminary, we feel especially close to them.  Twenty-something years have passed, and we haven’t kept in as close contact as I would have liked, especially since moving to Texas 8 years ago … but I still feel like these young adults are “our” kids.  Born ten years before Katie, I remember holding them in my arms when they were newly born; they were present when our first cat gave birth to four kittens; they would spend the night at our apartment in Jamestown as toddlers; they would spend a week or two with us almost every summer we lived in Michigan.  Now, I’m offering advice and counsel as the middle child prepares to enter into the covenant of marriage.  God bless him and his fiance, and, God, please bless me with the right words to say and issues to raise.