Profound and Sometimes Preposterous Ponderings of Pete

Pastor Jodi Van Rhee of the Adventure 4 Square Church in Draper, Utah gave a wonderful sermon today which God had give to her to give to us. For those of my readers who don't know, her husband of 28 years, Eric, died 2 weeks ago.  We deeply loved Eric and Jodi, still do, and are mourning the loss.  Jodi told the congregation not to apologize for grieving the loss of Eric.  There were other things that God had for us but I am not addressing those here.  I remember when our daughter Rachael died, several people told us that they felt that they did not have the right to grieve about her.  The right?  We told them that grief is not a right but a part of being human. It is a part of life. It is a gift.  Rachael touched people who were and were not related to her.  They loved her deeply as did we, her family.  How wonderful for us to know that our daughter was the kind of person that would evoke a deep grief in those she left behind.  It means...

Ever been drowning in a sea of debt? Some of it built by you, and much of it due to circumstances beyond your control?  No matter what you do, it does not help and you can't seem to climb out of the hole. You are in danger of losing everything - your house, your vehicles, your utilities, things that are necessities.  You want to scream and shout and at times, maybe you do?   You go through the processes (sometimes lengthy and often tedious) of getting disability, food stamps, and government assistance all the while feeling ashamed because politically you have spoken against the abuse of these systems and feel like a hypocrite even though you legitimately need to use them. Yet somewhere deep down inside, there is a tiny spark of hope that it will all be OK? Or maybe you are disabled, can't work, you want so much to provide for your family but you can't. If you are a man you feel as though you failed to be who and what you were raised to be and maybe as a woman your abil...

Today, a good man, a godly man died.  Pastor Eric Van Rhee of the Adventure Four Square Church in Draper, UT.  There will be many people speaking or wanting to speak at his funeral and so I will speak my tribute here.  Eric was my Pastor, he was my brother in Christ, but most of all he was my friend and I loved him dearly.  He accomplished many things for God and in every way put God, his family, and his church family first.  There are 5 things that Eric did for me that I need to say here. 1. He restored my faith in the church. 2. He showed me that even as a Christian who screwed up royally, and I did, I can be used by God. 3. He taught me how to love the Word of God and how to study it. 4. He restored my faith in myself and helped me to see who I was in the church. 5. He stood next to me and watched with me as my daughter breathed her last breath. He did so many other things for God and for our church and for the 4-square church in America, but the...

One of the things I struggle with is worry. I wake up in the night with thought bombs and can't get back to sleep.  I know what Christ said about worrying and what Paul says about being anxious for nothing. I have jokingly said when nothing comes in I am anxious.  God has been working very hard with me on this point of late.  The problem is, that along with the revelation, he tests me.  I freely admit that I have failed these tests many times.  So he keeps schooling and testing.  I am up to a D+/ C-.  C-! I have a Masters in Physical Chemistry which is the Physics of Chemistry and yet, in the important stuff, God's school, the best I can do is a C-.  Which by the way, is an average. Believe me, it is not for a lack of trying.  It frustrates me, my wife, my family.  I get overwhelmed, and grumpy.  It is not something I like about myself, and honestly, without the Holy Spirit, a saint of a wife, and understanding children.  I wou...

Why do I blog?  I only have a few followers of my blog and I get a few "likes" on Facebook. So why bother?  I ask myself this once in a while. Matt Walsh blogs and he gets thousands of followers, both likers and haters.  My wife, Corinne, blogs. My Life and Fortune Cookies (shameless plug for my wife). She gets hundreds of views and likes. I admit, my wife has more friends, is a better writer, speaker, and is much wiser than I. So why?  I started the blog shortly after my daughter Rachael died.  I needed an outlet to grieve. So I posted my poetry and miscellaneous thoughts.  Every now and then God gives me an insight that I share.  Those insights have become more and more my focus. Yes, I still use it as an outlet, but now I prefer to use it as a tool.  So what if no one ever reads it.  I know that a few will. Maybe I will impart some wisdom from God to them.  Maybe I will make them laugh, cry, or even enrage them against me.  I...

Last week, St. Elijah's monastery in Iraq was destroyed by ISIS.  It was the oldest Christian monastery in Iraq.  It was about 1400 years old.  At first, I was outraged. "Another terrorist act by ISIS!!"  Then I was saddened by the loss of an ancient piece of archictecture. But my final emotion was laughter.  ISIS' hatred of Christianity led them to destroy a building.  A building.  Those of us who are true believers and followers of Christ know that He does not reside in a building but in our hearts.  ISIS is so uninformed.  Do they really believe that destroying an ancient artifact is the same as destroying the faith?  I would be saddened if there were people inside at the time.  If I was the government of Iraq I would be very angered.  Not only did they destroy a historical national treasure, but they also destroyed a tourist attraction which eliminates money from their coffers. ISIS may be shooting themselves in the feet. ...

     One of the big stinks now being shown all over Facebook again is breast feeding.  My wife has breast fed all of our children and breast milk has been established as the best food for a growing baby.  Even the misogynistic old school ob-gyn doctors agree on that.  What makes it even more amazing is God created women and their mammary glands in a such a way that the chemical composition of the milk automatically changes as the baby grows and his or her nutritional needs change.       So what is the big deal?!  My 12 year old daughter told me about a meme she saw where it compared almost naked Kim Kardashian and Miley Cyrus to a fully clothed blanket covered mother breast-feeding her baby asking the question why the former is OK but the latter is not.  So it came to me to what it boils down.  So obvious.  No one will call it.  Sex and jealousy.  Breasts are supposed to be for sex, in a man's mi...