It's Monday again - woo hoo.

I've got so much to do this week, and all it makes me want to do is go back to bed for a long nap. It's beautiful outside, as long as I can watch it from inside where the A/C is working because it's way too hot for this time of year. And I'm sore all over - from the golf on Saturday, from the illness last week, from getting out of bed when I knew I shoulda just stayed asleep. Get the feeling that I want to gripe a little?

Actually, I'm doing okay. It's just that the negatives seem to outweigh the positives right now and it's easier to vent a little and move past them than to actually try to do something about it. I can't change the weather, and all I can do for soreness is stop walking around so much, take a few Tylenol, and let it work itself out. In the meantime, I'm finding that this is the perfect testing ground for the next thing I've been reading in UPRISING, the McManus book that is very challenging but that I also can't seem to finish. After talking about integrity and courage, I'm now finishing a chapter that's focusing on GRATITUDE as the basis for real forgiveness and love. So right now, in soreness and sweat, I'm really grateful for all God has done and is continuing to do around me.

• I'm grateful for my wife - and grateful to her for being the person she is, the complement she is to me so much of the time.
  
• I'm grateful for my job - this place where I've got a looming deadline and long hours staring me down, and yet it's also the refuge from the heat and a place where people are super-nice and so willing to help each other out.
  
• I'm grateful for our church - where I can ask the hard questions and not have to hear mamby-pamby cheap answers (most of the time), and where people are really seeking God together, growing in Him in the Kingdom in the midst of this world.
  
• I'm grateful for friends, those located physically near and those across the 'net - really gives me a place to flesh out in community who I am in Christ, among people who don't judge, but who also want to see me grow and to grow together.

I might add to that list, might not - don't want to get pithy with it, but I am grateful for God's mercies, His guidance, His hand of discipline and providence. And today, I'm thankful for Monday, since it's reminding me how wonderful He really is - so much so, that Monday ain't no big deal.
- posted by Rick @ 09:51