a good day, despite the facts...

It's cool when you read a Bible verse that you've heard a million times before but this time God decides to reveal something new to you about it. That happened to me today. Actually, I guess I didn't read the verse; Bro.Keith mentioned it tonight during the service. But at any rate, it was cool.

On another note, I was reminded tonight how important passion is to a meaningful Christian life. Some close friends of mine are quite discouraged right now about the lack of passion in those around them because it is affecting their ministry. One of them asked me for advice tonight and it was hard to come up with anything to tell them, but we had a good conversation about it and talked about a few ideas. I'm praying that things look up for them soon. Starting Tuesday, I'll be away again, so there's not much I can do to help them except pray for them and keep suggesting whatever I can think of.

"The facts" about today, for those who need to know, is that my grandad died this morning. So here's the story. He got put in the hospital the Monday before Christmas because he had a stroke. They did an MRI and found that he had a tumor on his brain, which caused the stroke. Tuesday they did surgery to remove the tumor. Surprisingly, he made it through the surgery. Since then, he was recovering pretty well. They moved him from the hospital to a rehab center this past week. Saturday morning, however, he choked, and apparently that put him in a far worse state. His heart was beating on its own, but everything else was being run by machines. Mom and her family were going to have to make a decision today of whether or not to keep the machines going, because that's not what my grandad wanted. This morning my mom got the call saying he passed away though, so in a way they were relieved not to have to make that decision. The family's all doing pretty well, but it's emotionally exhausting to have everyone and their brother ask about it, or call the house, or come by to visit, or say "I'm sorry about your grandad." I know it's all in good heart, and I would do exactly the same, but it does get tiring. And it's not even like it makes us upset to talk about it; it's just that it's the same thing over and over again all day long. It could be happy news and I'd be sick of it! But that will all pass soon, so I guess I should just be thankful that so many people care about us enough to mention it. Anyway, that's all. Thought you should know.

I'm ready to be in St. Augustine again!!! Can't wait till Tuesday! Until then, haircut and pictures and Erica tomorrow. Later.