Pronunciation!

I don't know why it's a pet peeve of mine when people mispronounce words.  It's probably not fair of me to get annoyed because I'm likely mispronouncing the same word in their ears.  Also a lot of times it's just a dialect thing - Canadians and Americans pronounce certain words differently.  Nonetheless, here are some words that I commonly hear mispronounced, or that my wife and I argue over how to pronounce:

Syrup - I pronounce the 'y'.  Many don't.  Clearly there is a y in the word, it should be pronounced.

Sudbury - Similar to my issue with the pronunciation of syrup, Sudbury is spelled with a 'u', not an e.  It's Sudbury, not 'Sudberry'

Mature - this is a dialect thing I think, but it's probably the one I get most irritated with.  It drives me crazy when people give it the hard 't' sound, instead of a 'ch'.

Schedule - I pronounce it 'skedule'...which happens to be the right way (in my opinion).  It's not shed-ule'.  Again, probably a dialect thing, but still gets under my skin.

Athlete - notice how there is no 'e' between the h and l?  Hence, an 'e' should not be inserted when saying the word.

Lieutenant - 'leuiftenant?  Seriously, is there an 'f' in the spelling?

Garage - it's not a 'Gare-aj', it's a garage.

Thunk - that's not even a word!  'Thought' is the past tense.


There's a lot more, but those are the ones off the top of my head.  Whew...I feel better now.

Sunset

I had aspirations of kayaking a ton this summer, but due to some unforeseen circumstances I haven't been able to get out nearly as often as I was hoping.  However, I did get out last night.  The plan was to do some hard kayaking and get some energy out.  Instead I was captured by nature, and just sat and watched.

Unfortunately this video is really pixilated.  It shows up wonderfully on my computer, but won't upload in better quality.  You might have to use your imagination a bit.

I was out for about an hour and a half.  This is a bit of a succession of how the sunset took place.  Unfortunately it was just my cell phone camera, so it doesn't appear that stunning.  In real life though, much of the sky was red...it was beautiful.

Death Penalty

This is a pretty weighty subject...

My wife and I have been watching Prison Break on Netflix, the first time I've seen the show.  It's very well done, very entertaining, but I'm having personal difficulty watching it because it touches on a subject I have strong feels on...the death penalty.

What do you think of it?  I have always been against it, and still am.  I understand why it exists and why some feel that it's the proper course of action for justice, especially when it is a particularly heinous crime.  I also understand that putting someone in prison for life is a drain on taxpayer dollars.

However, in my opinion, who are we to decide when a human life should end?  A human life is a human life, and no matter what a person has done with that life, none of us has the right to make that decision - even if it's in the name of 'justice'.

It also seems like a rather large contradiction that we condemn the killing of one person by killing another.  Some would call that justice, but I'm not so sure I see it that way.  Yes, the bible says an eye for an eye, but what about grace in the new testament?

On the spiritual aspect of it, does not Christ forgive us over and over and over...and over?  We all deserve the death penalty if we put our lives at God's standards.  And yet, here we are still alive - and with life forevermore for those who believe.  We deserve the death penalty, and yet we're not getting it.

Another issue is wrongful convictions.  It does happen, despite our justice system's best efforts and intentions.  How many cases have we seen of people being wrongfully imprisoned for decades?  How terrible would it be to put an innocent man to death?

Finally, there comes the issue of remorse, of second chances.  I can't understand putting someone to death in general, but especially not when that person is remorseful and has turned their life around.  Think of the good that newly changed person could do, and how they could stop so many others from making bad decisions.

I realize that I have never been (and hope I never will be) a victim to the point that the perpetrator deserves the death penalty.  Perhaps it's easy for me to say all this when I've never been wronged like that.  That being said, I'd like to think that my stance wouldn't change.  I'd like to think that I would have God's strength to love and forgive.  The stories that stand out to us are not those of a a death row inmate being put to death. They're the ones when the families who are wronged plead for the life of the person who harmed them, instead calling for their head.  That's grace. That's forgiveness.  That's what Christ has shown us.

Some cool stuff happening

One of my jobs at LIFE is the Ministry Relations Coordinator.  Essentially that means building, maintaining, and growing relationships with churches.  Part of that sees me travelling around central Ontario and visiting pastors.  I love this part of my job.  Pastors are great people, and their passion to spread Chris is obvious. What I really love though, is seeing how churches are making a difference.  Yesterday I travelled to 89.3 and visited with 4 pastors.

I started at Victory Christian Centre in Port Perry and met with Pastor John Benschop.  He told about the amazing doors that have opened in Cuba.  He has been invited back several times by church leaders and country officials to teach them.  They've seen healings, miracles, amazing works of God.  In fact, he's going back later this year where he'll be meeting with the country's Minister of Religion.  He's asking for two stadiums to hold two MASSIVE outreaches.  Very cool.

I then went to Selwyn Outreach Centre in Peterborough.  Wow.  Like, wow.  They've given away over         $5 million in missions in the last decade or so.  They find a need and they fill it.  They've built ministry schools in South Sudan, churches and buildings in Kenya, Brazil, India...the list goes on.  On top of that, they invest locally - tens of thousands of dollars into reaching the lost in Peterborough every year.  Pastor Brian Mahood is a really passionate guy.  Really cool stuff.

On to Calvary Pentecostal in Lindsay.  Pastor Joel is new at the church within the past 4 months.  He's excited for what God has in store.  He's excited about local missions and reaching his community.  He's excited to move the church forward and do unique outreaches that sweep the city off its feet.  We talked about a few of them, but I don't want to let the cat out of the bag too early.  I'll just say, it's some seriously cool stuff.

I rounded out my day over coffee with Pastor Anthony Does at Bethel Lindsay.  Such cool stuff in the works at Bethel, some really big plans.  They have an awesome piece of property, and what they're hoping to do with it is really impressive and could be a great outreach.  Again, I have to stay cryptic because it's not my place to say what's in the plans, especially when it's not set yet.  But again I'll say, very cool stuff.

It was an encouraging day visiting all these pastors and seeing what's happening.  Some neat stuff is going on in Port Perry, Lindsay, and Peterborough - and around the world through 89.3 churches!  Stay awesome 89.3.

God's love

I had a conversation with a friend two nights ago who said that he believed he had 'gone too far for God'. We chatted and I shared that that's actually impossible - we can NEVER go to far for God.  Look at Romans 8:38-39 - For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We can't be separated from God's love.  It's a simple as that.  No matter what we've done, how many times we've done it, and how bad 'it' is, God will take us back.  In fact, one of my favourite things about God is that HE'S waiting for US to come back. Look at the prodigal son.

Whether it was before you accepted Christ or after, I think we've all been there.  Before we come to know Christ, we can think that we've done too many bad things.  We can think that God would never take us because we're too 'bad'.  "God could never love me, I've done awful things."

After we accept Christ, it can be the same type of denial, but in a different way.  It's often in the form of a sin we struggle with.  We know we shouldn't do it, and yet we keep falling back into it.  And when this becomes a pattern over days, weeks, months, years, we think that God can't still love us and forgive us because "I know better and yet I'm still sinning."  Yes, it's not good, and yet He knows us better than we know ourselves - He knows we are human and that we will fall.  That's why there's grace.  (*This is not an excuse to sin or fall into grace-abuse.  It's simply a reminder that we can't out-sin God's forgiveness.  We can incur His discipline, but we can't get away from His love.)

I realize this is a generalized statement, but if you're to take one thing away from this blog, it's this - that if you're feeling far from God, it's not because He won't take you back, it's because He's waiting for you to return to Him.

It's a love-hate thing...

I can't wear white.  My favourite t-shirts are blank white shirts,  but I inevitably get something on them - every time.  Today I decided to be adventurous - white golf shirt with tan khakis.  Bad idea.  I'd been wearing these for less than an hour before all this happened.

 

 

 

 

 

The pictures don't do it justice, it's much worse in person.  And there are a few more spots that you can't see in the pictures.  To be fair, I'm not usually this bad.  My wife made a cake over the weekend and I didn't realize there was still some purple icing on the counter...but admittedly, I realize that this is still an exceptionally large number of stains...

 

Eating in the winter is the worst because my sleeves always get stuff on them.  My wife always has to warn me about my sleeves, but it's usually too late by then.  And that last bite...the last bite always has my name on it...

 

The best part of my day has been a surprise visit at work from my sister-in-law.  She brought me:

 

 

However, with lots of jelly-filled and chocolate timbits, my situation today is only set to get worse...

 

 

Miserable

This is going to be quite a vulnerable post.

I have had a miserable week.  I have been in a miserable mood, and have had no motivation to do anything.  The reason is quite simple - my wife and son have been away all week, visiting her mother.  I'm so glad she could do that, but when we planned this a couple of months ago, I never thought I would be in such rough shape.

This is the first time we`ve been apart for an extended period of time.  A few people said to me, "Ah, nice!  You'll enjoy your week as a bachelor!"  Far from it.  It has been the total opposite.  This week has felt like one of the longest weeks of my life.  I've counted every second (It's only Monday??  It's only Tuesday???).  The house has been a mess, not because I can't clean it, but because I've had no motivation to.  I have missed or mis-scheduled three appointments, all of which were written in my day planner, and yet I somehow still missed.  I've slept terribly all week.  My brain has been completely muddled, I've been depressed and lonely, I've been bored, and no matter how hard I try, I haven't been able to concentrate or think straight.  I`ve fallen behind on a bunch of things I need to do.  It's affected my personal life, my work life, my spiritual life, everything.

It was a slope, I've noticed.  It started after coming off the high of being on vacation last week and having a fantastic time.  Coming back to reality is hard.  Coming back to reality alone is harder.  Coming back to 1,000 things on your plate that have to get done is not encouraging.  And while the slope began gradually, it quickly became slippery and steep.

And the worst part is, Satan knows when to attack.  A friend of mine once told me about a message he heard  from Charles Stanley about temptation - HALT.  Watch out when your Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired.  I`ve noticed those to be very true in my life, that Satan attacks in your weakest moments, when you are most vulnerable.  This week was no different, and the attacks were intensified.  I`d like to say I had a great week with the Lord, but that`s just not true.  I had good moments of reading my bible and praying.  But I also had bad moments of depression and overall...blah.

If there`s a couple of encouragements I can take from this week, it`s that 1) I know that I truly love my wife and son, and 2) I know I need God`s help more and more, always.  I also know that we all have these weeks from time to time - it`s part of life - and I take refuge in the fact that it will get better.

My wife and son come home today.  I can`t wait to get some traction on this slope.