Our home is one of the millions without power after Hurricane Ike. We  could not get any tv news or get online or (for some reason) even use  our cell phones except to text, so we couldn't get any info on when  the power might be restored.

After 48 hours of no A/C in the Houston humidity, we received news  Mike's secretary at his office in Southern California that she had made reservations for us at dog-friendly hotels with wireless internet in San Marcos and Austin for the rest of the week if we wanted to get out.

I was most concerned about missing more days of work after my sick leave, so we drove to Central Texas yesterday and will stay there until at least Friday if the power doesn't come back on at home. Our next-door neighbor has a generator so he is staying in Spring and will call us when the power comes back.

People are saying it could be two or three weeks before power is restored? I can't credit that, but when I call the power company, I just get a busy tone, so who knows? If it should turn out to be the case, we may drive west over the weekend and wait it out with my mum in Phoenix.

We were very blessed by God not to suffer any real damage in the hurricane. Parts of our neighborhood looked like a war zone because so many trees were down! Many of them broke in half, but some had completely uprooted, and their huge knot of roots had forced up sidewalks in some places. Of course some trees couldn't help falling on roofs and fences -- but we were spared all that, thank you Jesus!

Ugh, all this happened while I am still recovering from surgery.

So, I could not be much help to poor Mike in loading up our stuff and dog to leave home, and I cannot help him with the driving, and really all I can do is sit like a lump because I am stiff and sore and achey and couldn't ever get back to the doctor for my 2-week check-up because of stupid hurricane Ike and I am down to my last few Vicodin but the dr can't call in a refill because his offices have no power and who even knows where he is and ...

I appreciate your prayers.

2008 is like year of the whammie for Jax.

I have to have some more surgery. I have hideous fibroid tumors so large, once they are removed, I hope I will be able to enter them in the county fair. I would surely win some kind of prize, right up there with largest pumpkin and squash.


If you never looked at the categories of entries in the county fair then that last line will not even seem remotely funny to you. I am laughing to keep from crying.

At least this go round, my husband is home to look after me! You will recall for February's emergency gall-bladder surgery, he was gall-ivanting around the Caribbean while I went under the knife uh, laser.

I am grateful he is here as this surgery will doubtless be worse since it will be the knife and not the laser, the tumors being too ginormously big to remove laparoscopically.

So, yah, if you pray, say a prayer for me next Wednesday 27 August. The tumors themselves are harmless except for their bulk could damage other organs that I do need, like kidneys.

In a couple weeks when I can sit up at the computer again, I will come back and tell you all about it. I am sure you want to hear it!

Manning begins Chapter One with the assertion that something is radically wrong in the Church today. He feels that the Gospel of grace is given lip service, but in practice, Christians behave as if it is their own efforts which can save.

Our efforts to walk with God center on a program, like spiritual calisthenics, where we work on closeness with God the same way we work on our golf swing.

"We focus on overcoming our weaknesses, getting rid of our hang-ups and reaching Christian maturity ... many Christians live as if only personal discipline and self-denial will mold the perfect me," he says. Then when we discover that we cannot pull ourselves up by the bootstraps, we get discouraged.

Still, this cycle of trying and failing can't be judged wrong simply because it is discouraging. The reason we can judge that it is, in fact, wrong, is that it flies in the face of the character of Christ.

He came for sinners. He loves the messed-up people. He doesn't care one way or another about your efforts to be righteous -- except when those efforts get in the way of what He wants to do in you, which they can, and do.

"The Good News means we can stop lying t ourselves," Manning says. "The sweet sound of amazing grace saves us from the necessity of self deception. It keeps us from denying that though Christ was victorious, the battle with lust, greed and pride still rages within us."

As sinners who have been redeemed, we can acknowledge our faults rather than trying to cover them up, and realize that it is in such honesty with self and God that we find our fullest acceptance in Christ.