It’s been a few days since I’ve blogged, yet I’ve had several possible blog titles come to mind in the last few weeks. So here’s a Reader’s Digest version of what might have been…

Paul Bunyan
Our four year old came home from Awana and announced that his Cubbies class “studied Paul. Not Paul Bunyan. Just Paul. You know…he crash-ed (two syllables) three times and got lock-ed in jail.”
There you have it. The entire ministry of an amazing apostle, summed up by a preschooler. The kicker is, I think Caleb was a bit disappointed they didn’t discuss Paul Bunyan since that’s who he intends to dress as for Halloween this year.
Even with my best effort, I could never do what Paul. I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time grasping all that God accomplished through him, during his lifetime. The Apostle Paul and Paul Bunyan actually had a lot in common. They both did BIG things.
“Here I am, God! Use me to do BIG things for You.”

Chutes and Ladders
Last week I learned that the third publishing house said “no” to the Parenting on Your Knees Series. Apparently they had not received the “new and improved” version of the proposal, so they were working from the original that was written last October. The good news is they have agreed to take a look at the new proposal. My agent has agreed to send the proposal to a few other places as well.
I’m discovering that the publishing world is much like the children’s game Chutes and Ladders. You plod along the board, slow and steady. Then you get a lucky break and land on a ladder that sends you up the board, skipping steps in between. Unfortunately, with no warning you may also land on a chute that finds you zipping back down to square one.
Isn’t that just like life as a Christian though? You know that if you just keep playing the game, following the rules, and being a good sport, you’ll make it to the top eventually, dispite a few inevitable setbacks. Nevertheless, God is faithful and we have only to trust Him and do the next thing.

2 Corinthians 4:7-18
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.”With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”