10.2.13 Letter to Friends

Bless the Lord, O my soul.

    O Lord my God, you are very great.

You cause the grass to grow for the cattle,

    and plants for people to use,

to bring forth food from the earth,

    and wine to gladden the human heart,

oil to make the face shine,

    and bread to strengthen the human heart.

The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly,

    the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.

People go out to their work and to their labor

until the evening.

O Lord, how manifold are your works!

    In wisdom you have made them all;

    the earth is full of your creatures.

I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;

    I will sing praise to my God while I have being.

May my meditation be pleasing to him,

    for I rejoice in the Lord. (parts of Psalm 104)

Dear Friends,

(note and apology: if you have gotten a few emails automatically alerting you to a new post that was not there, I am still learning how to post using my tablet and for some reason I keep “publishing” my drafts instead of saving them for later, sorry about that)

Are you enjoying the Fall weather? I certainly am.  I do believe that September and October are Pittsburgh’s best months; crisp clear days, cool nights, warm sunny afternoons, and less rain than you’d expect.  We had a wonderful time at Footprints Farm with the Swartzfagers.  Their three kids were a real delight and it was fun to camp at Ohiopyle

and work Friday and Saturday at the Farm

.

Tessa especially loved playing with Elsie, Isaac, and little Hannah .

 Ellen and Jeremy Swartzfager are such wonderful hosts and the 150+ people who came by the farm had a great time.

It was a fun weekend over all.

We came back Saturday so we could visit a church here in the city that may have an associate pastor position available for Mike.  We are not sure whether the position is really open to Mike so more about that as it becomes available.  Pittsburgh Theological Seminary  is running a story about our family right now on their website (click here to see website), it’s not completely accurate (oh well) and we all look a bit worse for wear in the picture, but last night a church in Texas sent Mike another job offer after reading the article.  Now Texas would require a real ACT of God to get us there because we’ve lived in the tropics and aren’t interested in 180 days of air conditioning. However, I have learned never to say “Never!”, but I do feel comfortable saying, “Not likely!”

It is hard for me to live in this moment of uncertainty.  I read the end of books so I know who lives and who dies and who gets married (please don’t hate me, I’m weak-willed).  If it says “spoiler alert” I am more likely to read it. I hate not knowing how things will turn out, it’s one reason I love being a Christian. In the big picture I KNOW God will win, redemption, consummation, perfection forever with Christ Amen! But in the interim, like what will we be doing a year from now?  

Fog, mist, uncertainty 😦 I trust God has this under control and it has been our pleasure to serve Him the last almost 20 Years (no kidding! it will be 18 years of marriage in May!) but as I said I am weak and it is hard to wait patiently, work diligently with what I have on my plate at the moment, and enjoy each day as it happens.  As master Oogway says, in Kung Fu Panda:

oxox In Christ,

Nicole