Five seconds left in the game. Do you believe in miracles? YES!

(from the movie Miracle)

Well, the main hot and heavy relationship I'm in now is with the Creator. And we had a fight last night. I did lotsa yelling and complaining and analyzing. They say make-up sex is the best kind. Now, I wouldn't know about that, but today was a golden day.

Sure, crap happened, namely when I took my car to get tires put on, the thing that closes my driver side window broke. Nice timing, wouldn't ya say? It took them at least 45 minutes just to get my car window to stay shut. And to fix it will cost another coupla hundred. Nice. And so I got my car at 2:30, exactly 1 half hour before I needed to be on the desk, at work. So you might say it's not surprising that I forgot that when I got the car back, the first order of business was driving to Oakland for some drugs.

Yeah, that detail is the one I remembered while standing in Borders, after work, at about 6:30 pm, when the Oakland Pharmacy was already closed and would be until Tuesday for the MLK holiday. And you know what? I handled my end with grace and a level head. And He delivered the miracle--not only did my doctor get my email (I went back to the library to do that), call in the Rx to Giant Eagle, but he also called me on my cell phone to let me know he had. Doctors like him do not grow on trees, let me tell you.

So I came home, in the starting rain, and watched the next in the series of Sarah Louise's cinematic countdown to the Winter Olympics: Miracle, based on the 1980 USA Hockey team. It is now pouring rain, and tomorrow, we're slated for snow. But today, it was 65 and sunny and I smiled through every moment. I grinned from ear to ear, mostly.

I used to date a philosopher who loved Nietzsche. Nietzsche was the one who said "That which does not kill us makes us stronger." Man, if wrestling with God gives me more days like today, and the eternal ones in the hereafter, yeah, I'll yell in my car and write in bold letters in my journal: "What is the point of me praying?" and "Am I just a glutton for pain?" As the preacher says in Ecclesiastes, "Meaningless! Meaningless! Everything is meaningless!" (Ecc. 12:8)

*****

My bonnie lies over the ocean, my bonnie lies over the sea. My bonnie lies over the ocean blue, so bring back my bonnie to me... (Traditional song)

*****

Remember him--before the silver cord is severed, or the golden bowl is broken;
before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, or the wheel broken at the well... (Ecc. 12:6-8)

LET EVERYTHING THAT HAS BREATH PRAISE THE LORD. PRAISE THE LORD. (Ps 150:6)

Psalm 150 is one that I wrestle with. Not many wrestle with it; it is pretty much straight praise. But I have my own baggage, and it has special meaning to me because I've heard it so many times, so many ways. Last year I heard it in a song and my life was never the same. May I continue to grow, not stagnating in my will, but growing to thrive in Thine own.

My soundtrack today:

Chopin's Nocturns; Y108; BOB-FM; and the extremely eclectic Elizabethtown motion picture soundtrack.