Life In Greencastle

Count your blessings: one, I have new life and the richness of those who love me. Two, there is work for my hands to do, and a community to empty myself into. Three, a son with cheeks like peach-skin slapped by a northern wind. Four, food in abundance. Five, deliverance from my own bondage. And the doe and her fawns walking through Hutcheson's valley: six. My daughter sitting on my wife's lap - looking fresh into my eyes, hers a deep, cobalt blue: seven. Too many. I have more than enough.

For the second consecutive year, I traveled up US 31 to South Bend, Indiana on a beautiful fall day. I traveled with Curtis Lawrence, and we went for the sole purpose of watching the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team take the field. Now, I must note that it was my childhood dream to attend Notre Dame. Even loftier, it was also my dream - like many young boys growing up in Indiana - to suit up for the Fighting Irish. Surprisingly - even with such hopes - I had never actually visited the campus. For the first thirty years of my life, I never set foot on one of the more storied and celebrated college campus and football meccas in America. That absence was broken, though, when I made that first trip up to South Bend last year. Let me tell you: even after all those years of waiting, the campus and football stadium at Notre Dame lived up to all the out-sized expectations I had. Like most places of prominence, Notre Dame Stadium really cannot be described through words. It is so...

In the last few years, God has continually brought my attention back to Paul's prayer for the Ephesians. I have mentioned this prayer on a few occasions, and there is a good chance that it will come up again in the month of November - especially since we are looking at the "riches of our faith" this month. Here is the prayer: "I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power." - Ephesians 1:17-19 Paul's prayer is - in essence - a prayer for healing, for blind eyes to open and see a new reality. Paul's deep hope is that the Ephesians can see with "faith eyes" - seeing w...