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Lent is engaging me this year. I began preaching a sermon on Lent the first Sunday of this Christian calendar season.  The sermon was a beginning - encouraging us to get invested in a Lenten project.  I personally said that I give up worrying.  Sounds like a high goal.  Abstract.  My wife chose a goal where she could write on a list each day whether she had accomplished something. At first I brushed off whether there was a way to achieve my goal.  The idea was good, and over the years I have seen how worry has taken over my life.  With the great stressors of these past years, I could predict that anxiety would increase.  Yesterday my wife asked me how I was doing with my Lent goal.  I stopped to consider.  I had actually set aside a particular worry in the past few days.  I had done so, in part, because I had determined to do so - at least at the back of my mind.  With that prompting, I have now moved my intentionality further forward.  I am consciously asking myself how worry is being set aside in my life! A little prompting can go a long way!

The discussion around the table focused on many things.  Family, life, fun, church, decor and much more. One topic hit home to me.  I brought up the question.  We were a group gathered because one of us is deathly sick.  Not dead - not even dying in the sense of confined to bed and one respirators and life giving support.  But the cancer is there and symptoms were there - and a next stage might be approaching. When we begin our lives after high school, when we marry and have a family, when a new career arises . . . our inclination is to plan ahead for adventure.  We want to achieve something.  We want to make a mark.  We want to have security. When end of life becomes a focus, the priorities change.  We are now planning for another adventure.  We want to find a way to be peaceful with our lives.  We want a way to surrender control that we have gained in our adventure of life so far.  We want a way to step into the next days where our worth is no longer based on our achievement. In one sense the end of life issues are just the upside-down of the beginning of life issues.  God's answers are sprinkled in the Bible and seen in those who follow him.  This is something I want to explore more over this next while.

Today is a road day.  Headed to Saskatoon to visit my sister-in-law who has cancer.  Going along with other relatives. These are good times of fellowship around rotten times of health.  May God give strength and wisdom, fun and future in the midst of all that happens!

What fun to hang out with others. In the midst of much that has needed to be done lately, the opportunity (less often than I would like) does arise to spend time with different people all in one day.  Yesterday was a five visit day.  I find I come home with the most interesting comments from these visits. One person commented that they were not going to die yet.  Another that they felt like they were sixteen.  Another that my sermon had pushed them to make a tough decision.  Another that town politics is part of the life of a small town.  Another that Kindersley is still monocultural. What a variety of comments.  They are not unusual comments.  In fact, they could have come from any number of people.  You could name someone who would have made similar comments. The difference is that each comment comes from a very specific context.  Each person lives in their own world, and my opportunity is to enter that world and encourage them.   Towards godliness.  Towards hope.  Towards a true sense and understanding of God revealed in Jesus and enlivened through the Holy Spirit. There are many things that Christians do in this world.  One is just that - in our one on one times with others we share life as fellow human travelers and we share our hope in Jesus.  That is a sacred calling.  Found in the mundane of life!