Wading through life

Remember a recent post of mine, Something is fishy, where I referenced a serious van accident involving Taylor University students? Well, in a very disturbing turn of events, there was a case of mistaken identity between one of the female students who died and another who was seriously injured and still recovering in the hospital.

What this means is that for the past five weeks, one family thought their daughter was dead but she was alive, and the other thought theirs was alive but she was actually dead.

I can’t imagine being in that situation; it only happens on daytime TV.

Please keep the VanRyn and Cerak families in your prayers. Such developments have to very confusing.

• The offical story is here: http://www.taylor.edu/community/news/2006_05_31_accident.htm
• The VanRyn’s blog is here: http://lauravanryn.blogspot.com/

Today’s Dictionary.com Word of the Day is pleonasm.

1. The use of more words than are necessary to express an idea; as, “I saw it with my own eyes.”
2. An instance or example of pleonasm.
3. A superfluous word or expression.

I maybe practice this in my blogging from time to time, but tend to steer pretty far away in my speech.

More and more, I’m starting the think of LEGOs like I think of duct tape: one can’t quite ever exhaust all their usefulness.

Check out Stickman’s LEGO USB memory stick mod.

Note that one should have “no discernible fears for the safety and well being of your digits and extremities when applying tools to rather small, hard plastics…”

I was supposed to go the home of a guy in our church tonight. On the schedule was the inaugural hang-out of our men’s fellowship. Actually, I guess they still did, but I didn’t go because it was temporarily called off due to inclimate weather and tornado warnings. And I got roped into other things by the time the green light came back on.

Anyway, Scott and I did more work around the house, prepping it for our mid-June, on-the-market goal. His parents stopped by to help paint and since the bathroom was the work site, we took the shower curtain down for a washing.

I had to unscrew the shower curtain brackets, so I picked up a nearby screwdriver and started twisting. Typical to other things in our home, whoever put up those brackets did a shoddy job, using unecessarily long and inappropriate screws. So, the chore became more forearm-tiring than I expected. Quarter-way through the final screw, my arm was burning.

Of course, there are two cordless drills in our home. They would have made short work of the project. But the hand screwdriver was right there–and I knew it would work… sorta. I worked until my hand cramped and I couldn’t screw anymore.

So, I left the bathroom and found Scott’s drill stilling there 15 feet from the bathroom. I popped in the phillips head and finished the job in a flash.

The Lord used that flash for a mini-Sunday school lesson.

How often do we as the Church–Christ’s body–do things the hard way? How often do we go for the convenient method (the screwdriver was right there…), or the old-fashioned method (screwdrivers have worked for years…), or the strength-of-man method (I don’t need a power tool to get this job done…)?

The power of the Spirit is right there for the Church… but we like our screwdriver. Muscle-cramping or not, slow going or not.

The job won’t get done without Him.

Here’s something you don’t see every day: Bible stories illustrated in LEGO’s.

http://www.thebricktestament.com/index.html

Be warned that this guy isn’t necessarily Christian… and the Bible isn’t necessarily rated PG…