A stressed week

The last few days have been stressful. My Auntie Mary wasn't home when she should have been but we weren't sure that she was out. When all the agencies (four of them) who are involved in her daily care call, I end up being the co-ordinator. I was trying to decide whether we needed the police or not. Thank God for helpful phone operators who referred me to a supervisor who was inspired to call the person giving her a ride to a doctor's appointment. Why a doctor's office doesn't have a human being to answer phones I have no idea. Anyway the panic was aleviated after 2 hours.

The same day my doctor emails me and tells me I have an adrenal incidentaloma. Actually I didn't see those words. All I saw in the email was a growth on my adrenal gland and a discussion whether in was benign or malignant. Well currently it is 6mm and therefore tiny and it needs to be monitored to see if it grows or not. There isn't a panic at the moment rather this is quite common and it will be a matter of wait and see. But I'm going to see the doctor next week.

This week I had my dental hgienist appointment. Mostly everything was OK except the problem molar was 9mm pocket. Actually 4 or 5 is normally bad! She took X-rays and was going to talk to the dentist. Well the same day as the other stuff she phones and advised me that the dentist was suggesting extraction! It's the last molar on the bottom right side, so I was worried. Nothing would left to chew on. Well we're going to wait and see if I can improve my hygiene and that it begins to heal! A real call for prayer because the expectation is that it will not.

Also this week is Iris' english exam results. She needed an average score of 6 and I got the call to say she got a 7. Our relief is unbelievable because all the other stuff of the week is pushed aside and we now know we can have a future together. With only 2 weeks of preparation I feel God's hand is with us.

Burning

Often we are preoccupied with the question "How can we be witnesses in the Name of Jesus? What are we supposed to say or do to make people accept the love that God offers them?" These questions are expressions more of our fear than of our love. Jesus shows us the way of being witnesses. He was so full of God's love, so connected with God's will, so burning with zeal for God's Kingdom, that he couldn't do other than witness. Henri Nouwen Bread for the Journey

Paul Richardson's book and his life is invigorating, inspiring and scary. The challenge of faith at the edge demands creativity, dreaming, and risk taking. All very logical and all demanding a step or maybe a jump into space. But we can have confidence. "Assimilate it [God's Word] into your life so that you can plunge into your days with unbounded freedom." May God give us this confidence and enable us to burn without being consumed. After all faith is nothing until it is exercised and sretched.

A personal challenge

A Certain Risk: Living Your Faith at the Edge by Paul Andrew Richardson

Of course getting our priorities right in life is important but Richardson moves everything to a new level. In fact you might say my understanding and more important my way of living is challenged in the edgiest way possible.

As the Spirit opens your eyes, what will he allow you to see? He will show you greater possibilities that you have ever dreamed before.(158) To be sure, many leaders have an important role as visionaries and communicators. Yet, as we come closer, we will always discover a band of people who have stepped out by faith in response to the dreams the Spirit has planted in their hearts.(38) The agony of faith ...is stepping out beyond the edge of human capabilities and trusting God's Spirit to lift us into his dreams.(113) Faith is the flash point between God's creativity and your participation in his creativity (100)

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