Some nights I feel really old. This is one of them.
That job at the clinic was more physical than I expected and I worked up a sweat working in an air conditioned room. They glued that carpet down well and getting it pulled up was difficult, but the real fun started when I went to work getting all of the adhesive off the cement floor. About five hours later I had 25 sq. feet of vinyl tiles installed, two sheets of shower board up (that panelling-like stuff they make white boards out of) with the edge trim, and new baseboard installed. Then I re-wired a switch in the clinic's front bathroom, and that took another 20 minutes or so.
They work with lots of autism spectrum kids and one of them can't deal with the sound of the bathroom fan that came on with the light. So I opened up the switch and disconnected the fan wire, leaving just the power to the light.
My body hurts.
Working at a pediatric PT & OT clinic is not for anyone bothered by the sound of crying children. Some of what good therapy requires is not pleasant for a child, some of them quite young. They let it be known they don't like it! But the therapist has to ignore their complaints and do what is, in the end, best for them.
Sermon illustration in there somewhere, eh?
This afternoon I painted the second of the two plantation shutters from our bedroom. I really want to get that room project finished so I can start on Ilsa. Once I get the shutters reinstalled I'll go to work gathering all of the stuff for the garage sale which we'll have the end of next week. That will create space for the small parts I take off.
The big parts will go in the bedroom.
I'll explain that part to Pam when the time comes.
Denotation = the dictionary definition of a word.
Connotation = the meaning it often carries in contemporary culture.
Blonde and blonde.
I am a Calvinist as per the denotation of that term. I believe in 4 of the 5 points of classic Calvinism; I can't make Limited Atonement align with passages like Jn. 3:16 and 1 Jn. 2:2.
I'm pretty sure I'm a Calvinist by the connotation, too. Which is to say I wrestle with guilt, think cleanliness really is next to godliness, and believe hard work is a divine duty never fulfilled. Add in things like thrift, the color brown and eating everything on your plate and... yeah, I'm a Calvinist.
Which is to say that, per last night's question, I come down on the side of starting with God's holiness as the base of our relationship. His love stands as Amazing Grace precisely because I deserve his wrath.
Some days when I'm driving or working on a task of some sort I'll say to myself, "God loves me." I say it because it strikes me as so surprising and, at the same time, so powerful. No matter what goes wrong, inside or outside of me, God still loves me.
Calvinists are pretty overwhelmed at the thought of God's love.
2 comments:
The consequence and unconditional love thing with a 3-4 yr old is a struggle for me. It is so hard to know the balance and the fact that a child of that age doesn't understand/appreciate either concept as we understand it, in that it means something different to us than it does to them. It is so hard to figure out how to make it mean to them what we want it to, if that makes any sense. I think I'm stuck in the "do something even if it is wrong" part of my head and continually fumble my way through.
She who dies with the cleanest house wins...? ; )
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