refreshments
Before I dive in to this post, I’d like to remind you that speaking in code has begun. Thus, things will come across less naturally than you’re used to, but I believe in you. You’ll get it.
This past weekend Father blessed me with a trip to College Station, TX where I took part in some serious refreshments. I’m not talking about vending machine refreshments (though Chicken E was delightful), I’m talking about the kind of refreshments that you can’t see. The kind of refreshments that would fall under the old adage “the best things in life are free.” Who wouldn’t want free refreshments?
If you’ve been reading my blog at all in the past 8 months then you are probably more aware than you ever wanted to be that I’m less than satisfied with my current living situation. Not roommate issues, and not I-hate-my-job issues; I’m good in those areas. It’s the community here in Dallas that is so pathetic. That being the case, it probably comes as no surprise to anyone that I felt it necessary to visit the town that offered me the most beautiful, fruitful, and by the Book community that I’ve ever experienced.
It is such a blessed feeling to walk in to a house or a c and have the people inside those structures genuinely happy to see you. To have relationships so deep that people sincerely miss you; that they are filled with joy to the point of physically showing their affection with hugs. People from ages 3 to 70-something doing that… there just aren’t words. Add to that mix the fact that these people are all like-minded and spur me on to know my JC better… Why did I ever leave a place like that? (I know Heather claims she asked me that before I left, but I beg to differ).
So thank you Father for caring for your dumb kid enough to give him people like that. Thank you Hendrick’s, Duty’s, Smith’s, Couch’s, EJ, Kevin Hicks, Kelly Nall, Chuck, T-Black, T-Kunk, B-Pat, Joe, Julie Anna, Kate, and everyone else that made my weekend so dang special. I’m sure most of you will never read this post, and I’m certain that none of you know how special you are to me, and that I blame on public schooling for failing to teach me how to adequately express my strong feelings in words. I don’t deserve people like you.
book review vol. nine: Disappointment with God
I can say with absolute certainty that the sum of the time it took me to write this review and the time it takes you to read it will be less than the amount of time it took me to find the picture that greeted you when you opened my blog. I wasn’t happy (and I’m still not) that the cover you’re seeing is different from the one I saw all those hours I spent inside this book. Nevertheless, the words inside are the same, and they are some good words indeed.
I love Philip Yancey. I always put him on my list of people I’d like to have lunch with. Philip, if you’re reading this, I’m free whenever you are. Anyway, this book is called “Disappointment with G-d: Three Questions No One Asks Aloud” and it was perhaps the most appropriate book for me to have read during this season of my life which can adequately be described as either disappointing or dissatisfactory.
Yancey explores in a encouragingly honest fashion the three questions he claims, correctly, that people don’t ask aloud. Is G-d silent? Is G-d unfair? Is G-d hidden? I’m not going to tell you what he has to say about each of those questions, but if it sounds like something you’ve perhaps asked yourself at some point in your life, then this book is certainly worth your time… especially since it’s only 5.99 on Amazon. And if you’d like to see the cover of the book as I saw it, you can just click that link at any time. I didn’t want to use the picture with the “Search Inside (TM)” atop it. You understand, right?
A huge chunk of the book is dedicated to study and exploration of the book of Job. Not a bad choice when it comes to discussing disappointment huh? So I suppose I also recommend this book to people who haven’t yet fully reconciled the events of Job and made them mesh nicely with their theology.
So again, another not-very-reviewy book review. I think I’ll recommend this book to all my friends who graduate from college and a year later find themselves pretty unhappy with where they’ve ended up. Thanks Jon for such an awesome C-mas present. You know me.
there’ll be more where that came from
I sent my contact in China an email just seconds ago that basically said, “I’m in.”
That means that they’ll process all the necessary paperwork on their end, I may end up having to get a physical on my end, and then Father willing, I’ll be over there hanging out for a year.
Pretty crazy to think that this blog was started solely because I was going to China two summers ago, and now, you could very well be receiving a year’s worth of posts from that very nation.
Since this is now a very very real option, we’ll go ahead and start the whole speaking/typing in code. You know the drill, no churchy words… including church. Use things like Father, Dad, C, pr, rsvp, and others that you may come up with.
Feel free to continue pr-ing for me and the Chinese people involved for the next… well… until I tell you otherwise. I want Dad’s will to be done. I want Him to be happy, ya know? You can pr for that.
Happy Anniversary!
Let it be known that on this day, April 1, Kyle and Melinda Oliver were wed some 20 or 30 something-odd years ago! Thank you, parents, for being such a good model of what a godly marriage looks like. Also thank you for letting me look as terrible as I want, and loving me anyway.