Before I start in about myself, let me remind you of a couple of folks who are in considerably worse condition than I am. One of them is my brother-in-law, Paul Rudy, from SE Wisconsin. He has finished a successful stem cell transplant therapy, to cure B-cell lymphoma, but they won't know until February if it killed the cancer. I was reading his blog the other day, and he quoted something he read in A.W. Tozer.

"To the child of God, there is no such thing as accident. He travels an appointed way. The path he treads was chosen for him when as yet he was not, when as yet he had existence only in the mind of God.
"Accidents may indeed appear to befall him and misfortune stalk his way; but these evils will be so in appearance only and will seem evils only because we cannot read the secret script of God's hidden providence and so cannot discover the ends at which He aims....
"The man of true faith may live in the absolute assurance that his steps are ordered by the Lord. For him, misfortune is outside the bounds of possibility. He cannot be torn from this earth one hour ahead of the time which God has appointed, and he cannot be detained on earth one moment after God is done with him here. He is not a waif of the wide world, a foundling of time and space, but a saint of the Lord and the darling of His particular care."

If that last sentence does not set your heart on fire, it's been raining on your kindling wood. And now a C.S. Lewis quote, from an e-mail from Paul's wife (my sister Elaine).

"We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be."

I think that one gets to the heart of it, because deep down, we're all cowards. But we have to believe God will give us courage. And he will, but not until the moment we need it.

Another person I've been praying for a lot is Rhonda Dering, from Redeemer Presbyterian in Winston-Salem. She has leukemia. I've temporarily lost her blog address, but she is in Duke Hospital and the last I heard, the human prognosis was not good.

As to my situation, I am slowly gaining strength. I had a wonderful Sunday, which started at my church in Greensboro, Korean First Presbyterian Church of Greensboro. I think you know I don't speak Korean, but we do have both an English ministry and a Korean ministry. We've recently been blessed with an outstanding pastor for the EM side, a man who prays and a man with a vision. We are in the process of formulating a small group program, about which I am very excited.

From church, I went to a Christmas party at the jail, where we split into four groups, each of which did a half-hour worship service in four different living areas. Part of our worship, as volunteers, was to distribute gifts and candy. We also sang, and prayed, and preached; and just blazed before their eyes, alight with the Holy Spirit.

And then it was on to "Night in December" at Redeemer. This is a talent night where folks from Redeemer let it all hang out. I promise you, if you didn't know better, you wouldn't guess this is a PCA church! The music was scintillating, every bit as good as (but not better than) the KFPC adult choir. And there was even a skit about a place called "Possum Lodge," where one of the fellows was wondering why he got exiled to the porch for buying his wife a silver-plated socket set for their twenty-fifth anniversary.

I really think this is about all you've got time to read, but tune in some time soon when I will tell you about the rest of the week.

See you later, alligators!

--Chuck E.