RevGals Fri. 5

Weekly, RevGalBlogPals has a meme for us. This is the first I've actually participated in and is very apt for this time in my life. Let me know your responses to the following. Mine are.

1. How important is the "big picture" to you, do you need a glimpse of the possibilities or are you a details person? Primarily a big picture person who doesn't worry about the details, sometimes even though I should.

2. If the big picture is important to you how do you hold onto it in the nitty gritty details of life? Lots of prayer and communication with friends who help me keep on track, particularly if I am comparing myself with others too much and second guessing myself.

3. Name a book, poem, psalm, piece of music that transports to to another dimension ( one....what am I thinking....) "I am a Servant."

4.Thinking of physical views, is there somewhere that inspires you, somewhere that you breathe more easily? When I'm sitting, reclining on the swing on our deck. I can hear the birds singing and hear what God is saying through creation and his word.

5. A picture opportunity... post one if you can ( or a link to one!) See above picture.

Let us know in comments if you play. And for even more visits to your blog, post a direct link in your comment using the following formulation:
<a href="the url of your blog post goes here">what you want the link to say goes here</a>
For a complete how-to, click here.

Food for thought

Michael Kruse has an interesting post on religious affiliation. How much like the culture should we be? Take a peek and tell me what you think.

Photo from flickr.
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Pain doing its work

I came home a week ago Sat. from rehab after knee replacement. It hasn't been easy--physical therapy exercises, pain, little sleep, pain, reading, pain, praying, pain...you get the idea. What sleep I have been getting has been interrupted with pain.

Henri Nouwen in The Inner Voice of Love, wrote:

There is a deep hole in your being, like an abyss. You will never succeed in filling that hole, because your needs are inexhaustible. You have to work around it so that gradually the abyss closes...

There are two extremes to avoid: being completely absorbed in your pain and being distracted by so many things that you stay far away from the wound you want to heal.1.

Pain can be all consuming, whereas it is God that should be all consuming.

Yet again, I am confronted with that which I am unable to do in my own strength, reminded of who I need to look to. Our faith walk is not always easy, but in the tough times we learn upon whom we can and must lean. That's the lesson for me, what about you?

Photo from Flickr.
1. Henrie J. M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love (New York: Doubleday, 1996), 3.