August 1 – “The incurable optimist”

Another busy work day yesterday.  The True Love Waits weekend is coming up this Saturday.  I’m sharing the teaching load with our youth intern, so I still have quite a bit of preparation to do.  She is almost as big on pre-event planning as I am, so that means these next few days are going to be really full.  I finished the general picture of the teaching sessions.  Now I have to go back and flesh out each individual small group time I will have with the guys while Kelly teaches the girls.  We also have to plan out the detail stuff like food and sleeping arrangements, the worship times, as well as whatever extra fun stuff we want to do.  How hard could it be?  We still have three days.  And I only have the Sunday sermon and the Thursday Bible study to prepare for beyond that. 

Maybe I can get some of it done during the ride to Houston today.  I’m going to get my first shot of the new medication attempt from the rheumatologist.  Yeah, shot.  WooHoo.  I’m so excited.  At least it’s a sample so I don’t have to pay for it.  And it just may work.  I am after all an incurable optimist in the mornings.  Maybe incurable is not the right word to use there.  Maybe irrepressible.  That sounds good.  Or incorrigible.  Oh, well.  I just hope it works.

The bank sent some more yard guys out yesterday to mow the grass at the abandoned house next door.  Different ones again.  These guys at least made an attempt to trim back some of the trees and bushes.  I went out to talk to them.  They said they were specifically hired to trim everything away from the house.  They thought it was rather silly, though, since the new posting on the door said that the city was going to tear house down.  Good point.  But they were going to do what they were getting paid to do, so he pulled out his trusty camera and chronicled the effort.  If they keep this up, maybe it will look nice when the bulldozers get here. 

Psalms 18:33-36 says, “He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights.  He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze.  You give me your shield of victory, and your right hand sustains me; you stoop down to make me great.  You broaden the path beneath me, so that my ankles do not turn.”

Father, that sounds like a great verse for the Olympians, especially the part about not turning their ankles.  Keep them all healthy as they compete.  Amen.