Catching Up

This is kind of the "catch all" entry to write about things I've been meaning to, but just haven't had the chance to get around to it the past month.   Things have been extremely busy at work with the additional issue-laden projects I've been assigned.   However, I am grateful that we have been able to make progress as issues do get resolved one-by-one.  With all the busy-ness, though, time does fly; and we are already into the Holiday Season.   I do wish, however, that retailers wouldn't just jump right to Christmas, and just about bypass Thanksgiving.    I actually think that because Thanksgiving IS less commercial, that it can be more meaningful to celebrate; for, the true meaning of Christmas is often so difficult to keep in the forefront with so many other competing attentions.  Still, this is one of my favorite times of the year.

One of the things I did want to write down, was a story told by the worship leader during service.  A missionary went to talk to an orphan child after one service, and found that the child did not even know his name because he lost his parents at such an early age and no one around knew what they had named him.    The missionary was then inspired to write the song "He Knows My Name".  What a beautiful and wonderful encouragement it is to that orphan boy to know that even though he didn't know his given name, but, GOD knew his name!

I also wanted to write about the Fish Women's Night Out event.   This time, it was a little different, in that it focused on various ministries; and the speakers were representatives of those ministries sharing some of the stories of their outreach.  It was interesting to hear, and I was particularly impressed with the story of how 31 bits was started and the work they are currently doing in helping women in Uganda.   Also, when I heard that Joni Eareckson Tada also had to recently fight breast cancer, on top of all that she has suffered with being a quadraplegic, I can only say that it shows what an amazing person she is that God feels that she can handle so much.

Also, we had a guest speaker a couple of Sundays ago.  He is a brain surgeon, and  I was impressed with how he is able to use his knowledge and experience from work as practical examples or evidences of truths in Scripture.  His message was on Compassion - that self-compassion was more effective than self-criticism in helping us to maintain self-control.   It is physiologically shown that we can reach depletion of our self-control when bombarded, and we need to recognize the signals of our limits.  Also, that our critical voice fails us when we start to feel bad, because we want to feel good again; so focusing on the benefit is a more effective source of motivation.   Guilt can actually be healthy in helping us recognize that we have made a mistake, leading to confession.  However, guilt is not the same as shame, which makes you think that you are a mistake instead.  We can deal with failures through confession, receiving forgiveness, and then using that to be more compassionate and understanding toward others.