klink

Perhaps I should give an update to my life. Halloween is rapidly approaching and right behind it is November. It's hard to believe that we are this far into 2008. I'm trying my best to become a good pastor. I want to be competent in as many ways as possible. This particular week I have my sermon done fairly early. I completed it early so that I could continue to work on my thoughts for the week of prayer that I'll be doing next week at Burleson SDA School. I'm going to be talking about characters from the bible. My goal is to highlight some of the experiences of these characters when they where younger. I've entitled my series: Lessons from the Little Ones. Hopefully it will strike a few chords with the little ones that listen to it. Liz is trying to make the best of her situation as she takes care of Alexander and helps coach Matthews intramural soccer team. Lately she has been having a tough time being separated from family. I hope that she is able to find some wa...

Perhaps I should give an update to my life. Halloween is rapidly approaching and right behind it is November. It's hard to believe that we are this far into 2008. I'm trying my best to become a good pastor. I want to be competent in as many ways as possible. This particular week I have my sermon done fairly early. I completed it early so that I could continue to work on my thoughts for the week of prayer that I'll be doing next week at Burleson SDA School. I'm going to be talking about characters from the bible. My goal is to highlight some of the experiences of these characters when they where younger. I've entitled my series: Lessons from the Little Ones. Hopefully it will strike a few chords with the little ones that listen to it. Liz is trying to make the best of her situation as she takes care of Alexander and helps coach Matthews intramural soccer team. Lately she has been having a tough time being separated from family. I hope that she is able to find some wa...

We have had quite a lot of things happen recently and honestly our lives are still in flux. Liz took her NCLEX on Friday of last week. Unfortunately she did not pass. She is very upset about this and views this as a personal failure. She had a lot of pressure on her because we need to her to work so that we can pay on our student loans that are coming due. We needed her income. However we do have some money saved up and we might be getting some more money from Karen's estate soon. Liz will be able to take the test again in 45 days or so and then we will be able to reassess her job prospects. However because Alexander is not taking a bottle and we are having trouble finding someone who can care for him on a changing schedule Liz will probably not work until January. This solves the problem with childcare and the bottle and it also means that we will be able to visit our family for the holidays.

As I become more comfortable with being a pastor I am finding that my schedule is filling up. Perhaps it is only temporary, but at the moment I see several weeks ahead of me that will be very busy. I think that I need to be involved in activities that will further the gospel. However sometimes I feel that the meetings that I am required to go to are more for the amour-propre of others. I also need to explain that this journal will be a mix of my private thoughts and biographical detail. This journal is a place for me to exercise my thoughts as well as keep an intermittent written record of my life.

Right now it's dark outside and while I'm mostly referring to the fact that it's nighttime I'm also referring to the fact that I can't see very far in my life right now. It's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just that for the past four years my life has been a series of events. These events have expectations. That means that I'm either experiencing the events like: getting married, graduating, having a baby, moving and starting my career or I'm anticipating these events. Now that these things have happened the beacons of my existence are smaller and harder to see. I think though that I need to keep looking where I'm going. I don't want to end up in the wrong place.

There has been a movement away from conservative values in this country. The leaders of this movement have been academia, the media, the entertainment industry, and the political left. However the "right" has been moving left as well. How do I know this. Well, in order to establish that there has been movement we have to establish the starting point. In this case the starting point is the the three legs on the stool of conservatism: strong national defense, fiscal restraint and social conservatism. The first two legs of the stool should be on the government's explicit agenda.

Karen died last week after more than a year of battling lung cancer. About six months ago it appeared that she was in remission, but in June the doctors confirmed that the cancer was present in her lungs and adrenal gland. A few weeks ago she started having problems with shortness of breath again and she was readmitted to the hospital. Her lung collapsed and she rapidly deteriorated. As her condition worsened Kathy and Bob felt that Liz, Matthew and Alexander should come up to spend time with her. They flew up early on Friday the 26th of September. She died on September 29th. On the following day I flew to Michigan and joined Liz and many other family members as we prepared to have a celebration of Karen's life. On Thursday evening we had a party at Kathy and Bob's that was heavily attended by many of Karen's friends. I know that it was very hard for Liz to lose Karen. She was her mother. Karen was a wonderful woman. It never makes sense when you lose someone you love and ...