The deep freeze

Last weekend I spent a great weekend at Breakforth. It was spiritually refreshing to once again visit with my mother, brother and other people from church, as well as sit under the teaching of some Christian leaders. Once again, I enjoyed the ministry of Kay Arthur. I can't really comment on much else because I spent a lot of my option time in Kay's sessions, madly flipping through my tattered Bible learning about discipleship "deny yourslef, take up your cross and follow me", keeping the mind pure "as a man thinks in his heart, so he is" and taking care of the sheep. I also took in a session on self-injury. It was encouraging to see that some Christians were starting to recognize this epidemic but discouraging to once again see how little help was offered in my corner of the world. The weekend culminated for me in a great emergent worship service where I was able to struggle with the demands of discipleship. I am continuing to struggle with it by ignoring the struggle and pretending that all is fine. Am I really willing to die for the call? Am I ready to die literally? figuratively? If I ignore the questions then I don't have to search for the difficult answers.

The end of the conference was rather symbolic as we all stepped out from the warmth of worship into the bitter, bitter windy cold storm front that had been brewing outside the Shaw Conference center. I swear that I got frostbit finger tips loading my car with canteen items and I was grateful that I already had plans to spend the evening in Edmonton instead of having to brave the storm and head into the dark north.

The rest of the week, we have been in a bit of a deep freeze. I hardly had any students all week and did paper work. I never realized how much I depended on my students to keep me sane and even keeled. By the end of the week, I felt drained because I felt like I hadn't even made a dent in all the paperwork that we needed to do and because the computer is not great company. With the deep freeze (-48 one morning) had come the doldrums that I always experiences after a spiritual convention. So now, I have to try to find away to dig myself out. Thankfully the sun is rising before school starts in the morning and is shining through out the day, bringing promise that spring will come, both spiritually and physically.

Lent starts this week. Maybe by giving up a comfort, it will force me to see and feel the son. I have decided to give up my snooze button. We shall see how that works.