Pleasantries

 Yesterday while I was on FB a new friend from the Czech church in Celakovice started chatting with me.
She thanked me for sharing my testimony.
Her father-in--law had thanked me as well after camp when we went to his house for dinner.
I thought it was just pleasantries.
But no.
Three years ago her husband's brother had commited suicide and their mother found him.
She was pregnant with their second child, her husband went to help his mother.
Church people told them that since the brother committed suicide that he will not go to heaven.
I had said in the story that I shared that there were probably some church people that said Stephen did not do good enough to go to heaven.
It struck a chord with them.
I shared with them Ephesians 2:8
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.
She said they were still sad and it was hard to be happy.
But she wasn't the only one who had  lost someone recently...
One of my students had also lost a brother five years ago in an auto accident and left behind a three year old son.
I wasn't sure before I left which testimony to God's grace I should share.
Several times I felt like I had affirmation that it was Stephen's story but I just wasn't sure.
Josh decided the day he was supposed to give his testimony that he was supposed to share our hurricane story. He had new perspectives on that time in our life after going through the Tim Keller Idols book that we discussed each afternoon at camp.
Not only did we share the gospel with those who were not believers yet but I my hope is that we encouraged those who were already believers, strengthened their faith and spurred them on to finish the race set before them.

On a roll

We thought we were back down to a one dog, (Bayly) family, my dream dog had gone on to better fields. Yesterday I asked the kids if they wanted to have Gretta back and if they did would they make some lost dog signs. Should've taken a picture of them. Josh and John-Thomas put up the signs last night and this morning I got a call. She was in the condos behind our back yard.

When we got home, Gretta got a chew bone and went to Elise's bed to enjoy the warmth coming in her window. We make Elise's bed every day and then put down the pink blanket you see to keep a little of the dog funk from permeating her quilts.

With that little bit of encouragement I tackled calling Royal Carribean to see if they ever found my car key that I may or may not have lost on our 15th Anniversary cruise in December. The key...and only the key costs upwards of $50-$100 to get remade...no little trip up to Wally world or Home Depot to have a duplicate. We have been holding our breath for a month now that we wouldn't lose the one key we had. Let the breathing resume, they finally had the key off the ship and would ship it to us as soon as I gave them a credit card number.

We still don't know if our landlords are going to sell the house we live in....they have another place for us to move in so it's not like we would have to go find a house, but...whine, complain, moan, pessimism, pride, insert any and every bad attitude and I think I have gone through it in the last 4 days.

Heard John 14 :1-7 on the radio today and have continued to think on it. Unfortunately everytime I go to copy and paste in blogger it won't let me and I don't feel like learning why.

Thanks to Gloria, I have done laps for the second time. Once last week and again today. Though I am not feeling in the zone, I'm not sweating either. But, I think my asthma was a little in the way today. A lady got in my lane just as I doing my last lap, otherwise I had the lane to myself for 3o minutes. This lady had little hand swimmer thingies and ones for her feet, is this something I should have as well, will it maximize my swimming, will it make my shoulders hurt less, will it make my gut go away? These are a few things I would like to know. I did try doing the kick board today and I tried to not let that be too embarassing, it felt like I was basically treading water and not really going anywhere fast. Maybe next week will be better. Once a week is all I'm aiming for right now in addition to my jogging and walking. How about you, are you making progress or on a roll with anything in particular?