Today’s Quote 3/8/07

IT IS A GOOD THING to learn early that God and suffering are not opposites but rather one and the same thing and necessarily so; for me, the idea that God himself suffers is far and away the most convincing piece of Christian doctrine.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

The Kidney Stone Chronicles

It’s amazing how quickly the body gets use to a state of “there’s no way I am going to work out today.” After my kidney stone attack several weeks ago, I saw my reasons for not working out progress this way:

Week 1: I can’t work out this week. I just had surgery.
Week 2:  I can’t work out this week. I just had surgery, and I am not sure I am okay on the inside. (Pass me another helping of ice cream).
Week 3: I can’t work out this week because I have too much work to make up for after surgery. (Gee, did somebody else help themselves to this bag of potato chips? It was full this morning at breakfast).
Week 4: I can’t work out too much this week because I just had surgery and the body needs to adjust to the routine. (Hmmmm, donuts!!! There’s nothing they can’t do.)
Week 5: Admission of the truth – I will eat anything that is not frozen to the bottom of the freezer.

So it’s back to the gym.

The Prayer of Jael

From Tallskinnykiwi.

Jael and Sisera turned up in my daily readings this morning. Quite a gruesome story from Judges 4. “Then Jael wife of Heber took a tent peg in one hand and a hammer in the other. She crept up on him, drove the tent peg through his temple into the ground while he was asleep from exhaustion, and he died.” Which reminds me of the Prayer of Jael, or at least what I imagine she prayed . . .

“Oh Lord,
please let this #*!!@#!* SCUMBAG die quickly
and not bleed all over my tent.
Amen.”

I know its not as perky as the Prayer of Jabez, but there might be a lot of people who would benefit from a small group experience based on this prayer.

Choose your knife

Once again, Noel Heikkinen keeps me laughing.