After about 10 days of overcast cloudy skies, we finally were able to see some sunshine yesterday and it has carried over to today. The forecast says it should continue most of this week. My wife is happy...she was getting a bit blue.
Speaking of blue, today is historically the most depressing day of the year so I have made a commitment to remain upbeat all day...no matter what.
My weekend went rather well, despite the poor weather on Friday and Saturday. I found out Friday that the BiC I have been counseling with got a job with a very large construction firm. He could hardly contain himself he was so excited. I hope his excitement does not burn out too quickly...he needs this job in more ways than one.
Saturday I had breakfast with a few of my BiC's at the local IHoP, which was pretty tasty. I am not usually into those kinds of places, but it actually hit the spot. We ate and chatted for about an hour then I headed off to my "emergency" trustee meeting. The meeting that was scheduled for one hour took three (!) but it was not a bad meeting, just a lot of detail regarding a lease that we are drawing up with the school that sits that uses some of our buildings on our land. At the end of three hours, we had a good agreement that we hope the school will sign.
After the meeting I came home and let the dogs out, washed a few dishes and began my normal Saturday chores. My wife was out with a SiC shopping, so I had a few hours to get things done. By the time she had made it back, I was nearly done. We ate dinner but since it was raining we did not do much else. I was rather selfish and spent a lot of time in the office working on a Linux install (okay, one of many...see my previous post for details). I made a commitment to get back to spending more time with her...I can tell I have been bad about that lately.
Sunday started out on the wrong foot with my wife and I having a disagreement on some things that took longer to talk about than I had hoped. While I missed Sunday school, we were able to make service on time. We heard a good message that punctuated by back pain that plagues our associate pastor. He made it through, but you cold tell he was hurting.
After service some of us met at Genghis Grill in McKinney for some Mongolian stir fry. It was not busy when my wife and I showed up, but by the time the rest of the crew made it there, it was packed. The service was slow and I did not feel like getting a second helping, even though I was still a tad hungry. Better to go without than stuff myself. After we had finished and paid the bill, my wife and I headed home. I needed to let out the dogs and my wife was going to visit an older female member of our church who is a nursing home.
I spent the rest of the evening puttering around with a Mepis install (see previous post) and walking/feeding the dogs. Nothing was on TV that I wanted to watch and we did not have any movies that we hadn't already seen, so I read some and then hit the hay. I was a lot more tired than I had realized. My wife stayed up to watch TV, but her allergies were giving her fits...she was sneezing left and right. She did not come to bed until late and she did not sleep well.
I woke up feeling very good with the exception of some pain in my middle back. I took a couple of Aleve and did my normal routine. The BiC I have been counseling called at 6:30 AM, but I was not ready to talk to him yet, so I pushed it to VM until I could call him back. He did not leave a message but I knew he wanted to talk so I called him once I got on the road. He had an issue he wanted my opinion on regarding tithing and I simply told him that tithe means 1/10. God wants us to give cheerfully and if we give 10% and complain about it, he would rather not have it given. It is all about love. He then got a bit legalistic and asked if he was supposed to tithe on his gross or net salary. My opinion is that since he uses it as a tax deduction, it only seems fair to tithe on the gross. Then he asked about he business allowances (vehicle, Internet, etc reimbursements) and I told him he was just muddying the water. I told him if I were in his place, I would tithe on his gross only, but cheerfully. If he was blessed again and he could afford it that he could make an offering. I then told him that it whatever he decided, he had to do it consistently and cheerfully. Period.
With that I was at work and so was he, so I hung up and headed into the office to see what fun things waited on me. I was surprised to see that things were not horrible, but they were busy. The largest group of issues is WAN related and that is not something we have to worry about, but we have a couple others still open from the previous week that are still open, albeit being monitored.
This week I have a couple of meetings and gig to do for a BiC who lives nearby. Not overly busy so I think things will be okay. The BiC will get my discounted rate for our church members so he should be okay with the bill when he gets it. Speaking of which, I need to get with my neighbor and see what she needs me to do for her laptop. She told me around New Years she wanted some paid profession assistance, but she has not called back regarding exactly what she needs.
1 comment:
i have many questions come to me about tithe and offerings. some of the things about it seem kind of legalistic. so i just tell them to listen to the spirit. and be cheerful about it. After all you can't go wrong if you listen to God's spirit. I have a lot of questions myself about the subject, but i enjoyed reading your post. thanks
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