I completed three levels of spreadsheet and database design in 2002, through continuing education at my local college. I am not all that quick at keyboarding, especially when it comes to navigating. A student next to me tried to be helpful by telling me to — or informing me I can — double click to open a file. Well, what if I don't want to double-click? What if I want to take all that time to wander off to the "Open Icon" instead? My finger is not as adapted as some to that precise double-click action, in which both clicks have to be so close together or it doesn't work. I examined my attitude and mood, my reaction to this helpful gesture. Why does everything have to be so fast? How much farther can we go? How much more can we demand of these bodies of ours?

My mind muses on this dilemma again as I struggle with quarter and half notes in choir, and flats that sound too flat for my taste. Yet I struggle to comply with a bodily reaction that says, "I can't keep up with this pace!" My reflexes and responses are less than sterling. I don't read music as much as guess at it.

I won't discuss changing lanes on the highway.

I was determined to make sense of this pattern, and, as I paid attention to it, the above Scripture came to me: "we will all be changed — in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye". How have we all experienced "the twinkling of an eye" when Christ has healed us, saved us from accidents, delivered us from our own sad attitudes into the presence of God!

This Scripture gave me a new attitude toward double-clicking, and a renewed determination to nail down those notes. Whenever I address these issues now, I tackle them with the assurance of God's work within us "in the twinkling of an eye." Each of us can do the same.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank You for the grace to work in our fast-paced society in which small quick movements have very large impacts. Transform us continually "in the twinkling of an eye", as we await that glorious day, which Christ promised to us so long ago. Amen.

Matthew 8:14-15 – When Jesus came into Peter's house, he saw Peter's mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on him. (NIV)

In the course of two months, I have had two separate illnesses, which had me pretty much bedridden with fevers. I realize that I had been ill before that and had been trying to let my own immune system handle the problem for some time. In other words, I haven't been quite myself for a while. I recently recovered to such an extent that I am reacquainting myself with my own personality, as creative ideas begin to resurface, and I feel that I have the energy to pursue them. I began to embrace the land of the living again. Emotions seem more intense with this refreshed energy.

Right after this recovery, the sermon on social justice that Sunday morning so deeply affected me that I was overcome with an urge to embrace the minister and his wife upon leaving. I was moved with the burden of issues which they had been carrying on their hearts, unknown by the rest of us. Even a hand on the shoulder seemed too much for them, as I was struggling with deep feelings I couldn't quite identify. I felt like I had committed a great taboo in even contemplating more than a shake of the hand.

The following day, after a meeting, I attempted to give a goodbye hug and kiss on the cheek to an elder I have known since I was a child. Her husband had died this past year. But the act seemed appropriate only to me. She pulled her head away so the attempted kiss on the cheek could not be planted.

With these two events in mind, I looked up today's scripture verses.

Jesus touched the man with the intent to heal. He touched the hand of Peter's mother-in-law to heal her. Jesus had a need and a desire to heal. That was His intent. He didn't say He would go home or go to a mountaintop to pray, when He was present right before a person.

Some of us are chronic huggers. Some of us are offended by hugging at any time. Others of us muddle along somewhere in between. But our focus must not rest there. What we need to embrace at all times is the pure intent in our actions for that special moment of healing touch and blessing.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, You gave us Jesus with the intent that He might touch our lives. He did, and continues to do so. Awaken our hearts and minds to know how to touch one another with the same quickening power of the Holy Spirit as Jesus had. Amen.

Jeremiah 17:9 – The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (KJV)

From time to time, I reveal just how absent-minded I can be. Last night, in a game of euchre, I played two hands quite badly. My mind was on the two young people who had just come to our new door to ask for the old door that we had propped up on the telephone pole, as a free-will offering to the world. I repented of my inattention and lack of focus, and my playing improved, much to my pleasure, since I love the game.

My absent-mindedness can have no bounds, it seems. I planted an herb garden this year. I knew that I would forget what the plants were and what they were all for, so I not only took photos, I also charted them on paper, and wrote down what they were for. I recall that, in the spring, I'd go out and gather a few leaves of spearmint and a leaf of catnip to make myself an invigorating cup of fresh, hot herbal tea. But, having incarcerated myself in the computer room this summer, as well as escaping the excessive heat outside, the herb garden went out of mind.

Later, I went out to harvest some spearmint, and came to where the catnip had been planted. The tag was still firmly in the ground. I removed the best leaf for the plant's sake, but noticed a gaping hole where I had put the Echinacea plant. Only when the buds flowered a few weeks later did I realize that it had been transplanted perfectly to the spot two feet away where I had planted the catnip. The catnip was nowhere to be found. My husband doesn't believe an animal did it. At least the Echinacea leaf did me no harm.

I am struck with how vulnerable our minds are to distraction and preoccupation. It is only through God's great and abundant mercy that we haven't fallen into an open manhole on the street, or fallen victim to some other bizarre occurrence, although we have had our share of mishaps! God was gracious to see us through.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, we are frail and weak in our own strength. You are our creator and we thank You for Your guidance, through the beacon of Jesus Christ our Lord, so that we do not wander off Your path. Thank You for the Holy Spirit to guide us in the moments when our minds and hearts start to drift off. Thank You for keeping us safe and strengthening us with Your power. Amen.

The sun was hot, not a breeze to be had. As we approached the fields of strawberries, we were informed that this field's official picking season was over in half an hour. We were told to go to their stand when we were finished picking. The field smelled like strawberry pie baking. Time and time again, clusters that looked promising from above were old and mushy from not having been picked when they had ripened. Row upon row of matured strawberries would have made for a wonderful experience of Sky High Strawberry Pie.

In the heat, I started to think of these long-gone, unpicked strawberries as mature saints, sitting in rows of church pews, with so much experience and spiritual growth untapped for others to learn from and be blessed by. Thinking about the scores of people who could have had marvellous Sky High Strawberry Pie but for that not-so-little detail of the strawberries not leaving the field, my heart flew to the youth within our churches. How wondrous it would be for them to be blessed with spiritual Sky High Strawberry Pie! If only we could do more than sit in our pews and go to our committee meetings. Oh the wonder of letting ourselves be "picked", truly befriending two or three youth, becoming an extra sister, brother, grandparent, or unofficial godparent, and mentoring the people we pledged to aid in their spiritual growth the day they were baptized!

Alas, we think that it is the job for the apostles, preachers, and other such leaders, not for us pew-sitters. But it is exactly the job for us. And as we mentor these youngsters, they too become "ripe for the picking", as a living sacrifice of love to others. We, across the generations, will have become joined and knit together as one body in Christ, doing God's bidding on earth, and not just being pew-sitters.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, hear our prayer. Each generation doesn't know how to approach the other. Open the doors of opportunity, and open our mouths in encouragement and blessing. Enable us oldsters to inspire the youngsters to have the vision You would have them embrace for their lives. May we, young and older, be a feast of loving-kindness and encouragement to all we meet. Amen.

My church has been facing, and continues to face, a few funerals this season. They are honourable deaths of saints who founded and built this congregation when my older brothers were baptized in the school around the corner from where the church was later built.

However, these funerals began to get under my skin, because my husband is almost twenty years my senior and I am far from ready to see him go. Each funeral was a reminder of his relatively impending death. This summer will be our third anniversary, and, although I may be more of a seasoned bride than a new one, nonetheless, I still feel a bit of a bride. Then he came home with a virus.

His head, to quote his expression, felt like a pumpkin. He felt achy all over for about four days. I treasure each moment with him, almost like trying to bottle it up for future solace. Now he feels better, and I have inherited the viral battle in my body's own way. My kidneys have begun to ache.

I recall the bread of adversity and water of affliction when I was but a child. I had chronic kidney infections until I had surgery at Sick Children's Hospital at the age of nine years. The scar tissues remain, and whenever toxins or active bacteria or viruses come my way, my body reminds me of those days when I could barely lift my feet and certainly could not walk or run fast, for the pain I would be in. I feel gratefulness for having lived, since I could have died, and for a mother who was insistent with the doctors. Priorities in life's struggles come into perspective once again.

I have had the ache in my kidney off and on for a week now. I have tried to slow down. The best I've done, indeed could not avoid, is to fit in a few naps. I shall be fine. I know the drill. These are strangely holy moments for me, difficult to explain. My awareness of who I am in my relationship with my heavenly Father comes into sharp relief. My fretting over what I have not yet accomplished in life is blown away like so much smoke, an illusion of the mind.

So much of our fretting is just that, an illusion of the mind. Thank God for holy afflictions which draw us out of such illusions and bring us into the reality of our life in the loving presence of God our heavenly Father!

Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank You for the peace You grant us in spite of ourselves. Enable our hearts to rejoice, as when people go up with flutes to the Rock of Israel, to hear Your majestic voice deeply and powerfully within us. Bring us to a place of resting in You, cleansed by the water of affliction. In the name of the Master, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

My brother, my mother, my husband and I drove up together to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on the Queen Elizabeth Way, to have a little celebration in a restaurant with my two daughters and son-in-law in a downtown restaurant. The heavy traffic travels at 100-120 kilometres per hour, a leap of faith for anyone at any time. On this particular trip, we sensed something was wrong with the car. I began to pray for angels to keep the car together, to make the trip safely, and to get the car to the service station on Monday in one piece. By the time we were on the way back to our home in St. Catharines, I was not the only one praying in that car as it shimmied and shook.

So we got home safely, but not so soundly. My husband had lost his wallet in Toronto. Phone calls to Toronto and to my daughter's don at the Knox College residence were immediate. We continue to pray. The don, when she received the message a few hours later, went out with a flashlight in downtown Toronto, and found it in the Knox College parking lot, none the worse for wear, except a little wet. She put it safely into my daughter's room in residence.

The challenge after church the next day was obvious. My husband and my daughter also admitted that they were praying for the car. This time, I had to drive us back to Toronto. On the way back home, I prayed for angels to keep the car together, to keep the wheels on the axles, and to maintain the integrity of the tires.

The next day, my daughter and I dropped off the car at the service station. The bearings had to be repacked, and the right rear tire was almost off. Praise God for our safety. Miriam and I walked home in the cold and rainy weather.

By afternoon, my gums started to swell and some other interesting symptoms ensued besides. As a nurse, I started to treat the condition. By the next day, I knew the situation was beyond my ability to treat it. I went to an after-hours clinic that night to see my doctor, the only time available for four weeks! Praise God! It turned out that, unbeknownst to me, I had developed a lung infection stemming from an untreated ear infection. Instead of things getting out of hand, I was wondrously cared for. If I had not walked in that cold and wet, I would have realized my condition too late to be efficiently and effectively treated.

These experiences are concrete examples of angels ministering to us, yes indeed! The angels come and attend to us as we worship God and serve Him only.

Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, we love and worship You, and You alone. We serve You, and You alone. Thank You for all Your loving care towards us, Your children. Thank you for divine strength to see the days through in Your grace. Amen.

In my continual quest to beat down my mountain of books by making notes and passing the books on to Christian Salvage Mission, I came across this quote by Robert Murray M'Cheyne (1813-1843):

Every wise workman takes his tools away from the work from time to time that they may be ground and sharpened; so does the only-wise Jehovah take his ministers oftentimes away unto darkness and loneliness and trouble, that he may sharpen and prepare them for harder work in his service.

How that darkness and loneliness and trouble feels like Israel's 40 years of wandering in the wilderness! But think of that axe head as the Word, sharper than a two-edged sword in our lives, filling us with the Spirit and the Spirit's anointing and vision. That darkness, loneliness, and trouble (Oh my lord!) sits on us until we go back to where we first lost our vision (the axe head) and God provides what we need (instructs us into obedience so the axe head of our vision is restored).

When we lose the vision and presence of God in our life, that darkness cues us to search, with God's intervention, for what we have lost. If we go back to where we last remember we had it, back to where we remember God's voice, and begin again under divine instruction, we'll be glad we did.

Prayer: Help us, Lord, to seek Your face diligently every day. Without You we cannot find our way out of the desert of the soul, out of the darkness, loneliness, and trouble we feel. We know that the joy of our salvation is not just a feeling. Bring us into Your intimate presence, make us thirst for you more, and quicken the scriptures in our hearts day by day. Amen.