The nice thing about blogging is that even if you run out of things to say, life keeps happening and you can still have small thoughts about the in-between stuff.

I looked in the mirror the other day. I'm 34 years-old by the way, soon to be 35 and halfway to 70. I'm about mid-way through life, I figure, so why doesn't this mark "middle age?" Anyway, I took comfort in a small, little-known secret to happiness in the later years that you can comb your eyebrows to cover any bald spots that open up on your hair line. If you can't grow them long enough, it still might work if you transfer some hair plugs from your ears. Why they don't advertise this as an option on those hair club infomercials is a mystery to me.

I've been receiving more than the usual amount of hate mail lately. One "anonymous coward" even had the timerity to suggest that God cursed me with my disabilities because of my stance on a specific issue. Could anyone actually believe that God would be that petty or vindictive? That kind of single-issue god fits right in with those soldier funeral protestors. Oh well, I guess I'll just trust that those who seek God with all their heart will find Him. It's not up to me to fix people, just offer the truth.

All of this sounds ridiculously small when I consider the news that two very good missionary friends of mine unexpectedly lost their infant son last Thursday. As is the case with severe grief, they're understandably out of contact and my wife and I have knots in our guts over what they're going through. They are really neat people with a heart for God and somehow they lose their only son after three daughters. As a dad, that gets me especially. As a father, having a son is like reliving your life, exposing them to all the new and wonderful things like ice cream and football, exploring and building, and all the cool things of being a boy, including getting enough courage up to go down the really big slide at the playground. It's no longer available to my friend and I'm grieving with him. How do you even begin to grasp that kind of loss? Where do you begin to breathe again after this awful plunge? I wish I was asking these questions for the first time or even the second, but I'm not.

My niece is staying with us again. She's had the umpteenth surgery to try to save her eyesight from detached retina damage. It could be that there's just no way of keeping that from happening. She and I can kind of relate to each other in our disabilities. She has no peripheral vision now, which is really harder to cope with than you would think. People accidentally sneak up on her and startle her. They just don't think to give her a clue that they're nearby. I'm as guilty as the next person at this.

Right now, she has to keep her head at a certain angle to keep the "bubble" that doctors left in her eye at the right spot to keep the right pressure on the spot they just repaired. If I did something wrong and that brought on my disabilities, what did she do to bring on hers? It reminds me of the story about Jesus and the man who had been born blind. "Lord, who sinned, this man or his parents?" "Neither," He replied, "He was born blind so that God's glory could be revealed in him." Then Jesus healed him. God doesn't ask us if we're willing to go through the 30 years or so of total darkness for His glory. No one talks about the glorious blindness we endure until then. We focus on the "once blind but now sighted," instead of the "blind for years until Jesus came along." I guess it's a matter of perspective, so to speak, but it's not all that fun being blind, or lame. Like Job, I'm not really in a position to criticize God. He does what He wants, when He wants to, for His own reasons. He's the only One Who truly can do so, and if only for that, He deserves my worship.

Yet, this is not all. This God also sings over me, and counting my hairs, a task that's getting easier. He takes an active role in working for my good. He knows everything about me better than I know me. That the infinite God of the universe is interested in finite little me brings me comfort. I can trust Him, even when life is bitter. He knows what will be for our eternal good and gives good gifts to His children.