Update 2/15/10 Day 99

Dear friends,

The best thing to do when you act like a complete idiot is to admit it. I was driving home from Walmart with Hannah and David in the car. We had to stop because one of those humongous tow truck thingy's was trying to get a car up on its lift. The police had their lights on. On the left side of the road was an establishment, and it looked to me like there was a gravel parking lot in front of it. My kids told me just to turn around and go the long way home, but as I said, this is a story about being an idiot. I did not heed my children's good advise. Instead, I thought I could pull over to the gravel area, go past the whole mess, and continue on my way home. Well, it wasn't gravel, it was grass (hard to see in the dark, but remember, idiot is the operative word). So instead of waiting like the rest of the non-idiot population, I pulled in to the gravel, oops, grass area and was promptly pulled over by East Greenbush's finest. Extremely embarrassing too, since I love the East Greenbush police, and it hurts to have one of them tell you off (even though they're completely right). They had to phone my license in to see if it was legal. I wanted to crawl in a ditch, thinking Officer Ernie or Officer Mike heard that. I even told the policeman (who kind of stuck the knife in when he questioned if I needed corrective lenses), that I would gladly sit and wait till every car moved to do penance for my stupidity. He let me go, and off I went , grateful not to have a ticket but feeling about 2 inches tall. So there you have it. I'm not patient enough to wait like everyone else, I can't tell gravel from grass, and my 12 and 14 year old's are way smarter than I am. You got the whole confession. This is what you're dealing with, my friends. Lest you have me on a pedestal.

An old temptations song was running through my head today, and I believe the Great One was singing it to me:

"There ain't no mountain high enough,
Ain't no valley low enough,
Ain't no river wild enough
To keep me from getting to you..."

That sounds like a song Jesus would sing to us. It wouldn't be just words either, because he sure enough proved it by laying aside the vast, glorious, wild, beautiful heavenly place to land smack dab in a dusty, backwards Palestinian town. He comes to set people free from the law, and the agony of guilt, and the crushing power of death, and He winds up on a devise of torture being mocked and ridiculed. But I know while He experienced all the bitterness of Hell (so we wouldn't have to, by the way), that in His heart he thought..."ain't no mountain high enough, ain't no valley low enough..." When I'm tempted to be completely discouraged by the sorrows of this present darkness, I am surprised by joy when I recall again the relentless love of God. No matter what. No diagnosis, no relationship disaster, no stock market crash, no car crash, no anything can keep Him from getting to you.

Steve drove a car today. No kidding. And here's the irony. We started in the Columbia High parking lot, the spot he was airlifted from on November 8 to get to Albany Med. I didn't realize it at first, but once I did I thought, "now doesn't this just give the enemy of our souls a kick in the butt". He did great, and went out on the main road without a hitch. It was a psychological hump to get over. And over it he went. "Ain't no mountain high enough..."

I did lace up those skates today, and had a beautiful time with my youngest, dodging in and out of "traffic" on the rink at Hudson Valley. David and I both compared skating to flying. We did it, Pastor Gordy! And there's more to come.

I continue to be humbled by the love of the many people who have prayed for us over these 3+ months. Now I ask you to give some of that energy to a dear friend just diagnosed with lung cancer. I keep her name masked for her privacy, but you don't need to know it, do you? You are the kind of folks who knock and God opens the door. I think I know this. Let's pray, with fervor, because in the process we will see the Great One.

"Pray the largest prayers.
You cannot think a prayer so large
that God, in answering it, will not
wish you had made it larger.
Pray not for crutches, but for wings!"
Phillips Brooks

Thank you again for sticking with me even when I'm an idiot. Thanks for your incredible love and effort on this pilgrim highway. We keep climbing. "Ain't no mountain high enough..."

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann