"With God in charge, I believe everything will work out for the best in the end." ~ Henry Ford

Good morning and welcome to Wednesday, September 30, 2020. I always appreciate those who take a few minutes to peruse my prose each day. I see where one of my Santa Claus brothers posted this morning that we have 86 sleeps until Christmas. To be honest, for folks who typically are already into Christmas in a big way, for us, thus far, this year's celebration is hardly a blip on our radar screen. We have a couple of events on our schedule where we are supposed to show up as Santa and Mrs. Claus. Even those are mostly a 'wait and see' at this point and time due to the pandemic chaos that appears to be hanging on. We are blessed to know the real meaning of Christmas, therefore, the coming into our world of the Jewish Messiah and Savior of all those who respond in faith still undergirds our faith as we continue to deal with each day's challenges. Some say the rancorous presidential debate clearly reflects our nation in decline. It certainly demonstrated an absence of civility and decorum. We are having a bah humbug season and even the debate seems to fit the narrative. Most mainstream media sources believe Biden was helped but who would have thought they would have said anything different than that? I did read where the betting odds went up in favor of Biden coming out of the debate. Oh well, there is good news in this sad time in our history. It has to do with God and His ultimate control over His creation. I recommend we all trust Him to work all of these things out as we do our best to honor Him even in these difficult times. Amen.

Best I could tell, we were within 5 degrees this morning of breaking into the 40s. That is a very nice way to start our day here in these parts. I have been sleeping without my sleep apnea machine, (CPAP, continuous positive airway pressure therapy), for the last several days. The mask I wear broke and became unusable. I have new parts coming, but, everything takes time these days. Meanwhile, I have no idea if I am sleeping well or not because I don't have the computer report to look at each day as recorded by the machine. Our medical insurance provider farmed out the in-home medical equipment to a third party and I have to go through them to get parts. Once they place an order it goes back to our primary insurance provider for approval. Once it is approved they call me to collect the co-pay. Once that is done they ship. The turnaround promised is 6 business days. I tried to explain how it was broken and even though I had tried to rig it I couldn't use it until I received the new mask. I already knew the people I was talking to were only there to take the order, but, I suppose it made me feel better to share my concerns. And, I won't even go into how long you have to wait to talk to the person who orders the parts and supplies. That's not necessary because we all know exactly what that is like in today's menu-driven automated phone system world. (Your call will be taken in the order it was received, please stay on the line.)

We have a new light in our neighborhood. It is set on a pole, seemingly in the middle of the ballfield just down from our house. The first time I saw it in the wee hours of the morning I couldn't help but think about the proverbial, "make sure the light at the end on the tunnel is not an oncoming locomotive". I understand that some of the neighbors who are nearer to the playground have complained about it shining into their homes. I suppose it was added as an additional security measure. I don't know what the wattage is, but, it does pretty much light up a good portion of the area. I hope we don't have any planes attempt to land as a result. The word translated into English for 'light' is found 442 times in the King James Version of the Bible. It is often used to describe the difference between good and evil, dark and light. As an example, here is how Jesus descbribed Himself as found in the Gospel of John Chapter 8, Verse 12, "Once again, Jesus spoke to the people and said, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.'" (as rendered in the Berean Study Bible) And, we can all be thankful He is! Amen. ....More later.