Father. Thank you for your Presence with us. Thank you for the cheer of hearing from Cal twice this evening as he waited in Cincinnati [before we had cell phones]. Thank you for his optimism. Thank you for faith. Thank you for being Faithful. Make us faithful, I pray. Thank you for the cheer of hearing the bustle in the background when I called Summit Ministries to announce Cal's flight plan change; for the cheerfulness in the voice of the operator at Summit. I pray that You would make me cheerful in this week ahead with my children & their grandmother. We watched Cal & Susan's plane until it was out of sight. Talked to an old woman who had had six children. (Nonnie glowed with pride in her 12 grandchildren.) Drove home via Brainerd Rd. Decided against Bojangles or swimming. Made fried rice scrambled eggs for supper. Mother washed up while children & I tidied up & vacuumed. Then we watched the Laurie-Greg wedding video. Grace grabbed the wooden spoon from me stabbing it into the upper part of my eye socket in doing so. Flash of white light but no apparent damage. I used the spoon appropriately. Kilby kneed Nonnie's right hand/wrist/arm in hopping into our bed--by accident. Mother is still carrying her arm gingerly while insisting it is OK. Going to sleep at 9:50 p.m. Tomorrow Nickajack lake with Skogens & Baileys.

Lord, please help me to come to You. I pray that your Holy Spirit would make clear to me how I offend You and then I pray that He would give me the grace of Christ to live in Christ. These hard days for us in your church are teaching us so much. They also reveal to me the unplumbed depths of sin in my own heart that makes me sad to see. Forgive me for my binding desire to please & be accepted by some men. Forgive me for not looking at You alone, to You alone. Forgive me for not listening carefully in my desire to be thought well of. Forgive me, please, for the great lack of love in my own being. Please, I pray for your Holy Spirit to build the love of Christ in me. Forgive me for taking my eyes off You just long enough to see how much You are doing in me for then I struggle with pride. And how foolish, because it is truly none of me, but all of You that is good. Also please forgive me for my scattered brain of late. I feel a growing sloth that confuses me. Help me to be so focused on your calling and so obedient that I might not be so overwhelmed by disorganization & tiredness. Thank You for all the routines & graces You have given us that makes for a life of peace. I see ever more how sinful is the desire to know what is not given to us to know, and how wasteful is life when we strive to find out. Yet please help us to know the things we need to know to serve You well. Wouldn't it have been better to have known about P's involvement in Planned Parenthood to have stayed away from the dedication/celebration as Earl & Selah did? And yet in your providence we did attend. Oh Father, how it grieved some of us to hear our mighty, omnipotent, holy and precious God referred to as the "Big Man Upstairs." Help us to pray faithfully and righteously for the college. Lord, bring about, please, a humble courage in our prayers, our public prayers as well. Help us to please You--it is the desire You have given us.

Sunday evening. When Grace woke us (Becky & me; Cal in Chicago) this morning at 7 I tuned in the radio station that plays praise/worship songs on Sunday morning. The meditation on the hymns was a lovely way to begin the day. And much accomplished yesterday & no company today allowed me to stay in bed, resting with the children, enjoying the Lord. We had a breezy morning, dressed Becky first!, and were early for opening exercises. Even as we sang songs there I struggled with the ongoing battle of my soul--going through the motions I know so well in order to impress others. Oh, how I hate that sin. Oh, how I mourn for a real & present relationship with the God I praise. So many things make me stumble--my vanity for one. Before the service I read through the prayer in the bulletin, offering it to God as my own. This day I tried more diligently to sing my best, not thinking constantly about my best, or my impression on others, but trying to pray the words to the Lord. And still I am distracted. I fervently prayed that which I hestitate* praying--that God would do what He must to remove this self-consciousness from me--to make me pure & sincere. (*hestitation because I am afraid of His discipline, or afraid of being found out, or afraid of being embarrassed. ) And then the confession of sin for the day: ". . .praise has often been praiseless sound." Tonight Kevin mentioned this in his preaching: How God prescribed & then hated the sacrifices of his people, because they were not done in spirit & in truth, but were empty rituals. And then "Give us perpetual broken-heartedness; Keep us always clinging to Thy cross." And that is where I am. My soul does wait for the Lord. He is faithful, and He will do it. David told me this weekend that the devotions at the campout was about our need to have a relationship with God Himself & not just to talk about him or know about Him or to learn about Him from others. It convicts me. Even as I write I think of sharing my thoughts with Cal. And when is it just a quiet offering to the Lord? Came home tonight from church full of many thoughts I am unable to express. I do want just to be quiet and wait on the Lord. And I guess that is all I can do. I can't do things right in my own strength. I hid in the tree house for a few moments just for the quietness. I found I could not even pray intelligently. But knew my task, my place, my calling by the Lord I long to worship, to know, to see, is to go back to my family to serve them.

Father, thank You for giving me this day prayers you would so graciously answer & with such certainty. Thank You for all the beautiful ways in which many threads of thought were woven together today. Remember the thought as I gazed into the spring trees on the last curve before Rock City? A desire to be in Your presence, even if by death? And then the first hymn tonight--the one after How Lovely Shines the Morning Star--the one about life and death:

Jesus, I live to thee, the loveliest and best;
my life in thee, thy life in me, in thy blest love I rest.

Jesus, I die to thee, whenever death shall come;
to die in thee is life to me in my eternal home.

Whether to live or die, I know not which is best;
to live in thee is bliss to me, to die is endless rest.

Living or dying, Lord, I ask but to be thine;
my life in thee, thy life in me, makes heaven forever mine.