The xanga craze appears to have dissipated.  Nonetheless, I suppose I should post.  I'm no longer a bachelor seminary student who drives slow and runs around with a plastic gun in the dark.  Currently I am a mission board-less missionary married to the best girl on earth (author's opinion, if it offends you go find another site) working temporarily for a company that employs me to drive very fast and run around with a real gun in the dark.  

Since I don't (yet) have exciting missionary stories to tell from the junta country and I don't feel inclined to tell my exciting married life stories to the general public, you get stuck with work stories.  Be grateful I'm not a bank teller. 

2:45a.m.  so it should be quiet for the next three hours until I get off.  Never think that.

3:00 a.m.  "I've got a vehicle running down North Main at a outrageous rate of speed!"  Interestingly, I was more offended by his failure to say "an outrageous" than I was by the suspect.  Really, how much can go wrong at 3a.m.?

3:21 a.m.  WHAM!!!   That's what can go wrong.

In between?  Oh, let's just say that 21 minutes can be a really, really long time.  Really.  Especially if you're driving at between 100 and 110 miles per hour.  Movies don't tell the half of a real chase.  You've got blue lights throwing everything into weird syncopations, the undulating howl of the siren, the frustrations of holding together a car that has been driven 22 hours a day every single day for all of it's 124,973 miles that it has covered in 2 years on the street; there are thoughts like when (not if) he wrecks, will it end there or will we smoothly step into the next phase of this dance, that being where everyone pulls out guns and blasts away kids at a carnival game? 

and then, he rammed me.  He crossed 3 lanes of traffic to hit me head on, while I was sitting stationary and operating all emergency equipment (very important, keeps me from that terrible bane of the public employee called "liability").  We charged him with assault and battery with intent to kill.  What a bugger.

I went home and crawled into bed.  Days like that remind you how precious your wife is and how much it means to be walking in the way He has laid out for you.

“Sorrow is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart.”

– inspired Scripture

The mind has a way of punishing a person for the way he has lived.  Who was the fool who said that bad dreams stop when you “grow up?”  In the silence of the night, in the pauses during the day;  a word during conversation, a sound, a scent, a scene flashing by from the interstate, a hymn.  Valkryie.  Kaylo.  The graveyard on the hill.  The scribbled picture from the little girl.  Wal Mart receipts.  The flag.  A nuclear bomb in Florida.  A com room in a plush hotel with rows of computers connecting field agents to their operations.  These are things that mean nothing to you; these are a sampling of the things that trigger the old reactions in me. 

I was there.  You will never take that from me.  No, even if I wanted to give them up, I cannot.  They are part of me.  Such are the glories of life, of being made in His image.  Words fail, because words can never express the depth of worship and adoration I desire to give to my Lord, which in turn is nothing compared to that which He deserves.  For a few days I smilingly admitted that life may not always be simple.  There are minor complications.  Yet in the end, life is simple, for me at least.  I have been given a few years to be an encouragement to my fellow travelers, a blessing to my sister Christians, a challenge and joy to my brother believers;  I have been given the Light to take into the darkness.  This business of pushing back the darkness, of warring against the enemy is serious, but with serious duty comes serious joy.  This has nothing more to do with happiness and warm fuzzies than love has in common with infatuation.  This is real.  When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot thou has taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul… 

The enemy wins when I lose the rich joy that God has poured into my life.