excited to have been so wrong...

generally, this would be the type of thing that i would excitedly want to share with my wife. i can't do that just now, though it may be possible in some future that God still has for me. so i share it here, because i know it's not just for sitting on. every time i sit on my leg, it falls asleep, and then i can't feel it. i don't want to stop feeling this.
was reading yet another post in my archives, this time only because i stumbled across something in the bible this week that proved that i was not, in fact, nearly as important as i might have thought i was.
this is not to say that i am not worth something. quite the opposite, in fact, if you read on. it's just to say that i was, unrecognized though it may have been, living under a delusion of my own power, of my own influence over things that are so much bigger than myself and in such better hands.
so anyway, the blog i'm talking about, in case you wish to take a look, is http://hawkhandsaw.blogspot.com/2005/10/lost-coin_23.html#comments
(scroll up)
although the part to which i'm referring is specifically the bit at the beginning, the story of the coin.
and where i thought it was.
yup, there i was, thinking about something as incomprehensible as my own salvation, something so immense it required the death of the Son of the God that created the world, and, for a reason i will never quite understand, believing that it was in MY hand.
again, not to beat myself down, for i am something to be rejoiced over in the eyes of my Creator, but why would any kind of responsible Deity ever put something that overwhelming in the hands of a human? a flawed, sinful, and generally not-as-careful-as-necessary human? why wouldn't He instead put that treasure, and the life it saved, squarely in the hands of his Son, who has overcome the death, the world, and the final level of legend of zelda for nes?
wait, He DID.
john 10:28 and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.
29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.
30 I and the Father are one."

so. if nothing else, we're in good hands. allstate's got nothing on Jesus. and His Fater is greater than all. ALL. and that's the hand in which rests our salvation.
which doesn't mean that we're exempt from doing anything about it, naturally. after all, we are called to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. but i think a big chunk of working that out is just to realize that regardless of what we do with it, it's still ultimately in His hands. because we're in His hands, too.

Just good to know, isn't it?

on another note, have been thinking about life, about changes, about consequences, and about the weather.
that's right, the weather.

it's a beautiful day today. the sun is shining beautifully, the sky is beautifully blue, the air is crisp and clear.
yesterday, by comparison, was terrible. huge amounts of snow, ice, wind, making even the smallest trip seem like it would take forever, causing accidents, getting people stuck.
i was lucky, i didn't get stuck anywhere, i didn't hit anyone (even when i was driving while trying to scrape the forming ice off the inside of my windshield and my rear-view mirror). but it was still ugly, still difficult, still undesirable.
so today, we have another chance. winter isn't over. life continues. just now there's a bunch of snow everywhere. and we can sit back and get stuck in it all over again, stuck in how awful it was, in how much work there is yet to do, how cluttered our once simple lives have become.
or we can pick up a shovel and start to get the mess out of our way so that we can move forward again. we might be driving a little slower now for a while, we might feel like we're not making any progress... but eventually, the streets will all be cleared, and we will once more have all the freedom that we take for granted most of the time.
and life will go on.

my life has had a lot of days like yesterday. i have snowbanks i can't see over, i have streets that are undrivable, at least for the moment.
but God has a fleet of graders the moment i take the roadblock off. God has all kinds of shovels, and he's willing to lend one to me. he might not give me the snowblower, he certainly won't just make the snow go away all on it's own, because it's not summer yet, and that's not who He is. but he'll stick a shovel in my hands, and if i break it, he'll give me another one. and once i get moving, once i get shovelling, it's not really so hard after all, the air is still crisp and clear, and i'm feeling more alive than i have in a long time.
and the snow moves. i toss piles into the patches of light, and it melts. slowly, but surely, it melts.
there is less snow all the time.
the car is waiting.
i can't wait to drive out of here and rediscover all the things that the snow was keeping me from seeing.
i don't know why it had to fall in the first place, but that doesn't matter today... it's here, and so am i, and there is nowhere to go but forward or nowhere.
i'm tired of going nowhere.
today, i dig.
tomorrow i drive.
or maybe the day after. or however many days it takes.
i will drive.
i will get my life back.
i will get my wife back.
i will go where God wants me to go.
right now, He just wants me to shovel. so i shovel.