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...