Glowing Rectangles

http://www.theonion.com/articles/report-90-of-waking-hours-spent-staring-at-glowing,2747/

It's true! It's true I say!

Thanks Irene!

As you may know, Hurricane Irene blew through the East Coast late last week.

The Scriptures say we should "in everything give thanks" and so I'm grateful for

• the team at work truly coming together to build contingency plans and give Hurculean effort to expedite a project planned for the weekend
• four friends from church who came from an evacuated area in NYC to stay in my apartment (particularly when both roomies were out of town, it was nice to have friends close by!)
• the opportunity to spend some "quality time" & "quantity time" with these same friends :)
  
• God answered our specific prayer for minimal damage to New York City
• that the most damage in my neighborhood was the below (ie not very much at all!)

Quote on Suffering

Well worth a think...

"The chief pang of most trials is not so much the actual suffering itself as our own spirit of resistance to it." - Jean Nicolas Grou #Bible http://is.gd/zHbTUY

Reflections

Twila Paris has a song titled "Could You Believe." I heard it one morning this week and was challenged once again by the lyrics -

"I am meant to be a pure reflection of the truth
So above it all I pray that I will not obscure the view"

There is a process for metal being refined, it is essentially this: the metal is heated so much so that it melts, impurities are skimmed off the top, and the process is repeated until the metal is so pure that the metal worker sees his own reflection.
My hope and in fact my prayer is that I am cooperative with God (the metal worker in our analogy) so that when the heat is on, I'm separating myself from the impurities of selfishness and self-interest to be, truly, pure in heart so that I can love and serve freely, reflecting Christ.
And yes, it's tough enough I need divine intervention if it's to happen!