what did they do before squeegees?

Yesterday I reacquainted myself with my apartment. It's quite a nice place, really. I forget that when I get lonely and ratchet up the busy-ness to compensate. I actually did quite a few "spring-cleany" things: washing bedspreads, lampshades & windows. I used to clean the outsides of the sliding doors with Windex and a gajillion paper towels, but it's so dang dirty out in that great outdoor world that it would take forever. Then I got a cheap little squeegee thing and it takes me some soapy water, a few minutes and no paper towels . Ahhhh! (see how clean that window is?!)

Today I went to two different church services. One at my regular church, and one at "the bar church" to hang with some friends. Really had a great time at both - I hadn't been to my church for quite a few weeks with all the different weekend stuff that's been going on, and it's so fun to see and catch up with "my family". John's talk today was on Nehemiah 8: "No Spiritual Well-being is Complete without Scriptural Input." I got to thinking about that... do you agree? He acknowledged that people may have different spiritual pathways - ways that people feel closest to God (through nature, solitude, activism, serving others, etc.) - but that without regular times of listening to/learning about/connecting with God through written scripture, we shortchange ourselves in our ability to be close to Him. I do try to read the Bible every day, but he challenged me to try to be a little more purposeful about it. I just looked quick and found this (looks like there are heaps of them out there ) I think I'll try the Story of the Bible one, even though I'll be starting in the middle since it's August, and see how far I get! If you have any interest in doing the same, that would be awesome - you'll keep me going, and we can talk about it as things stick out to us!

Part of the challenge of the above, for me, is to have the humility to actually acknowledge that I really might need something like this. I've been hearing stuff like the above all my life, right? Well, at the bar church, the talk was on humility. Greg had his sister-in-law, who's been in recovery from drug addiction for over 20 years, come up and talk about how humility is a huge component of staying clean and sober. In our "quick fix" world, it's so hard to acknowledge our own brokenness, our inability to fix ourselves. The addict mindset is an "I can handle it" one. (Yeep!) But for ongoing recovery, we desperately need to acknowledge our inability to (on our own) handle the things that can literally kill us. Without getting overly personal (after all, I'm pretty new to this idea of blogging to update my friends on where I'm at! I don't want to OVERshare!), I can say that when I feel most numb, most rootless, least equipped to deal with the confusing things that my life throws at me, I am usually farthest from my last good, intentional time spent with God and His people.

Tonight we have our St. Louis trip reunion. Josh is actually coming up for it - woo hoo! Apparently he found a friend who was willing to drive up with him. Also, my friend Paula is getting back from a week of being with her family - one of her nephews died last weekend. So I think Erin and I will try to stop by and see her and Dave as well.