Notes Take Flight

Relationships can be such a beautiful thing.  Having people we feel connected with, who cherish us as much as we cherish them, is such a blessing.  Unity, I'm guessing, causes God to smile.  This is what we were created to do - loving unity. Isn't it heartbreaking when a relationship "breaks?"  The pain and sorrow that one experiences when this happens can be so debilitating and isolating.  How do we survive such heartache?  What do we do when we feel like we would be better off dead? With Christ, we have a hope that sustains us.  We still feel the horror of being separated from the people we love.  There is still the mourning of someone and something lost.  Yet the joy of our hope gets us through the pain.  God does not always spare us from the anguish (1 Thessalonians 5:3).  He does promise us eternity with Him (1 Thessalonians 5:8 - 10), when we put our faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God (John 3:16). In everything we...

Calvin and Hobbes has been a favorite comic strip in our home.  It is the inspiration for my word pick this week.  "Precocious" could be the word this week, but I haven't settled on it just yet.  What about "propulsion," for all of Calvin's escapades to outer space?  Or maybe "tentacle" or "bloodsucking," in honor of all the monsters under the bed?  Then there is "subvert," for the many conspiracies he figured out.  Or "cynically enterprising," for his determination to play along with the Santa C. phenomenon.  Okay, I am sticking with "precocious."  What a precocious, adorable little dude!!

Adoration is a word most are reluctant to use for anyone outside the immediate family.  Girlfriends might use it for one another, when there is a supportive connection amongst them.  It implies some level, more below the surface of a casual friendship, of intimacy.  A mother could easily use it for her children.  Couples deeply in love express it in a way which is evident to the observer, without saying a word.  I often wonder if we expressed it more to our friends, with authentic caring, would this change the world?  God loves us with this kind of affection.  Who else would send their child to die so that we could be with them?  That takes some extreme level of adoration.  This life here is an exercise in accepting or rejecting that adoration, and being an adoration conductor.  Light up a life with adoration today.  “When you are in the final days of your life, what will you want? Will you hug that college degree in the w...

One night, I pressed some friends to reveal what they were on the "Type Theory" scale.  Anger ensued, and changed the friendship.  Another friend witnessed the transaction.  He, thankfully, had the foresight to inform me that some folks do not want to be defined by this theory.  I completely understood.  After contemplating my own experience with "Type Theory," it occurred to me that I had been placed in a box, trapped in this negative space.  Limited.  That box gets pretty uncomfortable.  "Type Theory" is just a tool, not a definition.  Think of it as the hammer, not the nail.  There are so many varieties of nails.  Words have such power.  We can lift one another up with words.  We can also be torn down by words.  We can use words to describe perspectives.  Words require some digging into true meaning - they don't always tell the whole story.  Words can entertain us.  Words can evoke change.  Wo...