Model A troubles

Just before New Years, with the help of my neighbor Don and his White Ford Excursion Diesel and flatbed trailer, Colin and I moved my 1928 Ford Model A tudor sedan from a remote storage garage to a neighbor's garage near the house ostensibly in order to be able to work on it more and get it running sooner. Since that time, I have cleaned all the accumulated crap out from inside the car, and taken the flattest tire off to repair the tube. Model A tires and tubes are a lot harder to work on than bicycle ones or maybe I just don't have the right tools or skills. Beyond that, over a year ago, I removed the carb because the float was stuck open and fixed that. It's ready to be reinstalled. Over the winter, we dropped the pan on Steve's A and cleaned it thoroughly... What a mess. I want to do mine before starting it Then there's the rusted gas tank, the out of round wheel(s), the damaged floorboards... Suggestions? Volunteers?

memories

OK. I started this the week of April 9 and am just now getting around to finishing it...

This weekend will mark the 25th anniversary of my mom's departure from this earth. Even after that much time, I still struggle with the Wisdom of my God in taking her when He did. She missed our engagement, the wedding, the births of both our kids, countless birthdays and Easters and Christmases...

But I have missed that knowing, motherly, listening ear and those gentle words or questions that were most often her counsel to me... I have missed her steadfast example of what looked like facile faithfulness both in ease and in difficulty, of what looked like a very natural faith both in blessing and in testing, of her radiant, humanly-inexplicable joy in the midst of the pain which ended in her home-going

I am comforted with the fact that for the believer to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (II Coprinthians 5:8) which assures me of her current location and (by the grace of God alone) our future reunion... but I still wish I could talk to her (or Dad) today.

He Is Alive!

I have chosen the Title today because, first and foremost, we have just celebrated Resurrection Sunday (more commonly known as "Easter") in which we declare that Jesus is the only person to live on earth, die and resurrect never to die again - and from that comes the opportunity for every person accept Jesus as their own personal Savior and then to confidently look forward to an eternal home in heaven some day.

However, I also chose the title to diffuse speculation among this blog's readers that I was dead. Busy, yes. Dead, no

I am also keenly aware that I have no other creative outlet and thus, although I hope to bless and encourage you, this is cathartic for me in very selfish terms.

Our Growth Group has just finished Andy Stanley's excellent video series Five Things God Uses to Grow Your Faith. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see them all so I borrowed the DVD for some self study. Lesson one was called Big Faith and is teh intro to the series. The cornerstone of this message to me was this: only once in Jesus' recorded earthly ministry did Jesus effecrtively say, "Wow!" It was not because of anything anyone DID or GAVE. It was because of the FAITH of the (Gentile) Centurian whose servant was gravely ill. Andy essentially asked us to imagine what our lives would be like if we exercised that kind of faith every day:
- the kind that is confident that there is a personal God Who knows my name and will be with me every step of the way and Who will hear every one of my prayers and Who is attempting to work out His best plan for our eternal blessing in our lives every day
- the kind that always chooses to believe the above... even (especially) in the absence of objective evidence
- the kind that allows us to confidently say, "I will trust Him" out loud if necessary that the unbelieving world might be drawn in with us.

I am challenged