“Our life is made up of time. Our days are measured in hours, our pay measured by those hours, our knowledge is measured by years. [...] And yet time eventually runs out and you wonder in your heart of hearts if those seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years and decades were being spent the best way they possibly could.” ― Cecelia Ahern, Irish Novelist

Hello and welcome to today, Wednesday, March 4, 2015. Early in the morning we will be taking the wife in for her surgery. There's always some apprehension in these types of situations and even more so when you've been doing your version of the 'one flesh' deal for over 50 years. The other evening at a dinner with family the subject came up about age, aging, and mortality. I told them there's a utility available online that can give you an idea of how long you might live. That was a turn off to many of the dinner participants. They were more interested in talking about looking younger than your age than considering the fact that we all will one day draw our last breath. I explained my views. I will be 69 in August of this year. That's only eleven years from 80. That online calculator gives an estimate based on my gender and birth date that says, on average, I should expect to live to age 85. That doesn't bother me at all. What does concern me is the challenge to use the time I have remaining in a meaningful way. Who knows? I may make it to 100. The wife might make it even longer than that. We don't know. What we do know is the One who does and I know the wife's desire and my desire is to make our remaining time together be of a positive impact to honor God and to make a difference in the lives of our family and others. Meanwhile, we have this little surgery to deal with and I ask for prayers as we work our way through this process. Thanks. And, Amen.

I was reading this twitter feed that had the designation: #EncourageEveryoneIn4Words. Some of those posting had some interesting encouragements. Here's a few samples. (I left out the absurd and those involving drugs, celebrities, and other foolish notions.) ~ You got this bro. ~ You are alive, today. ~ Work hard stay strong. ~ Broken crayons still color. ~ God is always there. ~ We gonna make it. ~ Cheesecake has no calories. ~ We can do this. ~ It's never too late. ~ Just keep on swimming. ~ Things will get better. ~ Don't stop believing. (I know it's 3 not 4.)  ~ Someone cares about you. ~ This too shall pass. ~ We're in this together. ~ Smile. God loves you. ~ Jesus heals the broken. ~ Someone had first put up one that listed how to offend someone in four words. This was a response intended to encourage instead of tearing down. As believers that is a major emphasis of our calling, the building up of others. That's the idea behind the Bible word edify: "Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing." (The Apostle Paul's inspired admonition to the local fellowship of believers meeting in Thessalonica, Greece, 1st Thessalonians 5:11)

Sadly, truth is that even within the local family of believers this is not always practiced as it should be. This situation has led to the recognized comment about how that we within the Christian community are the only army that shoots our own wounded. That's certainly not a good thing to be said about people of faith. It's has to do with the ongoing battle between selfishness and selflessness. That's a tough one because it hits us all, including me. But, we are always well advised to seek to do better especially as it relates to our influence on others. Astroworld closed down a number of years ago but we still have the roller coaster ride called 'local weather'. Rainy and cold, rainy and foggy, rainy and muggy, rainy and very warm, back to rainy and cold. That's all within 72 hours. I heard a radio host broadcasting from the east where the snow was piled up telling a lady from Florida how much he hated them for their good weather. He asked her to tell him one thing that would make him feel better about his harsh feelings for her state. She told him that if it made him feel any better she did actually use her seat warmer in her car that morning. He let out a great sigh of relief and told her that all was forgiven. See what I mean? When all else fails we still have the weather. Take care and may God bless each one is my prayer. Amen.  ...More later.