it's not about me

i was sitting in church last night observing the stained glass image that is projected onto the wall each week and had the following thoughts. stained glass is beautiful. but it's beauty typically comes from both the pattern that is created from the various pieces of glass working together and the rays of color that are projected as light passes through them. if you isolate two or three pieces and look at them alone, the glass is not nearly as impressive. and without the light, the glass can often seem dull and uninteresting.

and then i started thinking about my life. how there are so many components in my life that all look so different from one another. some are good. some are bad. some are large. some are small. they are just a bunch of fragments pushed up against one another. and by themselves, they aren't that impressive. in fact, many of the pieces that make up my life are cracked or broken. and yet when god's light shines through me, it has a way of making everything look pretty good. people aren't as prone to notice all of the cracks or the broken pieces or even the fact that a certain two or three don't really go together. instead they see the splendor of that which is working in me and through me. and i realize (again) that it's never really about me.

africa

i recently returned from a trip to goma – a large city of eight-hundred thousand in the democratic republic of congo. an amazing trip that filled my life with stories and sounds and smells and experiences that i will never forget. i've been out of touch for awhile, but now i've returned. thanks for your patience.

for those of you interested, i did write quite a bit of prose and poetry documenting my experiences during my time away. most of these writings are posted at http://www.peripheralinafrica.blogspot.com. feel free to visit if you would like.