Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.



Have you noticed the shift in our society? When a funeral procession passes, where are the compassionate citizens who pull their cars over and get out with their hands over their hearts to symbolize the grief that is passing in front of their eyes?




This past weekend I noticed a funeral procession approaching me on a 6 lane divided road. I began to pull over and was nearly run over by the cars around me. Not one other car attempted to pull over to show respect to the poor people on the opposite side of the road. No one even slowed down. No one pulled over.


It struck me that I have not been in the presence of a funeral procession in a very long time. Maybe years. Consequently, I have not had the opportunity to teach Princess how to show respect in such a situation. Maybe the other drivers around me were in the same situation? Maybe they had not been taught how to honor the mourning in their midst. Maybe my principles are grounded in rural America where you simply stopped what you were doing to stand silently for a moment and reflect on life and death. To mourn with those who mourn.


Maybe my strong belief about this is grounded in the fact that the person in that hearse has passed into the last stage of eternity. Life on this earth is eternity ... just one segment of it. As eternal beings, we have already begun eternal living. We get caught up in the "dash" of life. 1964 - 2008. Reality reminds us that the "dash" ... the hyphen in between the birth and the death is where a fraction of our life is spent. When a hearse passes me, my heart aches with the knowledge that " ... wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."


As the funeral procession passes me, I want to stand in the presence of the loved ones with my hand over my heart to tell them that I honor their grief. I honor their loss. I honor the fact that their loved one has passed to the majority of their eternal existence. I would love to stand alongside others who acknowledge the loss, grief and passing.

Quick Update

I have been exceedingly busy lately. We have not moved the office yet due to issues with the phone system. We partially moved in yesterday and should be fully functional by Monday or Tuesday.

My health has been great despite daily migraines. While talking to friends Saturday night, it dawned on me that the chocolate is causing my migraines. I decided to cut the chocolate and have been off of it since Sunday morning. My head is already better although I know it will take a few weeks to get all of the chocolate out of my system.

I am also having migraines because of stress. I posted a couple of months ago about my right knee popping. Nothing has changed, it still pops and I can feel something inside which makes me think some cartilage has torn off. I haven't been on the treadmill much since the popping began as I don't want to aggravate the condition. Thus, I am not burning off the extra stress that piles up inside of me.

Bible study has been great. There is no organized study, just a continued read of Proverbs and Ephesians. Love them both!

My friend with cancer has her own wigs, so Princess' hair is not needed. We still have the hair in a zippy bag waiting for me to decide where to send it. Locks of Love does not use all the ponytails that they receive, so I'm reluctant to send it to them. I'll have to do more research. In the meantime, we will use her ponytail for her project at school in April. We all love her new hair and it's care is so much easier.

We had a big software release this week. This is the release that will ship on all the HP computers next year. It needs to be done correctly. All "bugs" need to be known and as many of them fixed as possible. Our distribution has increased/changed so much where software bugs were simply an annoyance before, now the bugs will show up as so numerous as to remind a person of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Gotta squish the bugs before they are distributed. :)

She did it!

Princess had two of her closest friends spend the night on Wednesday night and then we picked up a third friend on Thursday. They all had fun and then at 1:15 we went to the salon for her hair donation. My stylist is the owner of the salon and she did a super great job on Princess. These are the pictures of before and after.

One of the things I told the girls is, "When you go through something eventful in your life, be sure to have your girlfriends with you. They can cheer you on, encourage you or lift your spirits." I so want these girls to continue to learn the true meaning and value of friendship ... that they are never alone ... that they always have each other. We celebrated friendship in a pre-teen way with going to the salon together and then going for ice cream afterwards.

Life is good!

Psalm 8:2-4

Because of Your adversaries, You have established a stronghold from the mouths of children and nursing infants, to silence the enemy and the avenger. When I observe Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You set in place, what is man that You remember him, the son of man that You look after him?

Cancer

I have a precious friend who has been diagnosed with breast cancer. Within a week or two she went from finding the lump to being diagnosed and then finding out it is now in her lymph nodes as stage 3. This past weekend she got the results back from the bone biopsy. They had to do a series of tests to determine if they could even give her chemo and one of them was the bone scan. Something showed up on the scan and so they scheduled a bone biopsy. Are you cringing with me? Sorry. Anyway, we were all praying so hard for God's Will, and yet begging Him like little children to make the bone biopsy clean so that she can have the chemo.



WooHoo!!!!! The biopsy came back negative on Friday, so she started her chemo yesterday after work. She is a doctor and will continue to work. She goes back to work on Thursday.



Her daughter is one of Princess' dearest friends. "Daughter" (as I will call her) will be with Princess on Thursday when Princess cuts her hair. Princess has been growing her hair out to donate. We will keep her ponytail for our friend. I know it takes 3-4 ponytails to make a wig, but there is a way to make a "ponytail cap" with one donation. We'll see. I can totally see my friend just using a bandana though.

New Office

We move our office this week from our home to a new, groovy office. It's actually a house that we are leasing from dear friends. It's a large home set on the banks of a beautiful creek. There is plenty of room to grow our employee base from 2 to 8 or so. We really could fit a large number of people here, but we have capped it at 8. We plan to lease the property for a year and then re-evaluate. We feel so blessed to have such a beautiful space to launch the company into this next phase of growth. The number of countries that we serve has grown to 90 countries. Surprisingly, the US is not our largest region of the world. This job is so fun and at times I wonder what I did with all of my time before I worked. Work has forced me to be very disciplined and purposeful with my time.

These are pictures of the new office. Princess will be very blessed to spend her summer here instead of in some office building, that's for sure! She can fish, explore, swim and play in her nooks of the house. The pantry has a hidden area that is very much like the wardrobe in Narnia. You pull on a section of shelving in the pantry and it opens as a door into another small room behind the pantry! Very cool.

Biggest Loser

Ok, it's been a busy week, but I have to take a minute to pontificate on last Tuesday's episode of the Biggest Loser. The whole pride thing on the Blue Team is very telling. "From the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks", so says Jesus. Him being the authority on everything, I take Him at His Word. The issue of pride with the Blue team has taken a nasty root and grown. The tattoos were sad enough, but the arrogance being displayed by Roger and Dan are evidence of the attitude of their hearts.

Having said that, I do love the loyalty on the Blue Team. Good stuff. They display an excellent example of team spirit, competitiveness and loyalty.

I really want to opine about the Blue Team crying. Many people say it was over the top and embarressing. This also is very telling. Why is it in our society that we demand that men be relational with accurate verbal expressions, remember anniversaries and buy flowers, yet we stomp on men when they show emotion??? Where, oh where, is the logic?

If society wants men to be considered babies when they cry then we need to follow the logic to its bitter end. Either we encourage thoughtful communication, good verbal skills, gentle expressions of affection AND showing tender emotion ....

Or we encourage no tender emotion, no gentle expressions of affection, poor verbal skills and silence in place of thoughtful communication.

Which will be have, Society? Choose this day. This split personality man that our society has created is confusing to men and women alike. It's not a godly example and the Christian community should be ashamed for contributing to this sad World View that crying is lame and a man who buys flowers is to be celebrated.

And, as Forest Gump says, "That's all I have to say about that."