Watch out, I'm on steroids now!

I just finished one round of treatment with steroids for my hearing and it seems to help some. Maybe I'll continue improving for a while, but I'm kinda scared about the side effects. There are lots of them and I can definitelly feel changes in my body. I've taken different kinds of medication before, but I've never taken something that affected me this much... it's almost like I'm a different person. My body feels different... even my muscles feel like they're growing without me exercising them or maybe it's water retention? or just fat? But my joints actually feel different. It is supposed to cause bone loss, and even my teeth feel like they've actually worn down since starting this. And I don't know if this is totally to blame on the medication, though I think it is, I seem to have a pretty short fuse these days. On Easter Sunday in the morning I forgot to take my medication and on the way to church I had the nastiest temper that blew up into arguing about every little thing... I felt terrible sitting up there playing the piano while in my mind I just felt like wanting to break everybody's neck. And then as I was listening to the sermon, I realized all of the sudden that I had calmed down and I didn't feel that way anymore. So it must have had to do with some kind of withdrawal symptoms caused by not taking my meds at the right time.Oh and what set me off on Sunday morning was when I walked into church at 8:30 (we go early for practice) and right there in front of the door there's this huge inflatable football that I guess was part of some display trying to promote VBS this summer. Well maybe it's not such a big deal, but to me that was very offensive at that point. I was expecting to walk into church and see easter lillies or a cross or something about the ressurection, instead this stupid footbal greets me. It just made me think "Here's Christ dying on a cross for us, and we're so shallow that we're preoccupied with a dumb football game." Now I realize my reaction was probably a bit extreme, but I still don't think the timing was right for that, and in fact I don't think I want my kids to go to a Vacation Bible School where they hear more about football than about Christ. I think this points to how shallow this generation has become, and as I'm reading through 2Chronicles, 2 Kings, Isaiah and Hoseah at the moment, I can't help but notice the similarities between the way Israel/Judah acted in those days and the way the church tries so hard to walk with one foot on the narrow path and one foot in the world.

Dad, you wouldn't believe this but: He's Alive!

This is one of the funniest yet probably most meaningful things one of my kids ever said to me. On Easter Sunday, we were at home watching the Passion of Christ movie with the kids, and Aida (3 yr old) turns to me at the end and she says:
You wouln't believe this, but He's alive, alive alive!... (at this point I'm both fighting back tears and trying hard not to laugh, because I definitelly don't want her to think I'm laughing at her).
The part that really got me was the "you wouldn't believe this"... because she put her finger right on one of my most obvious character traits: I'm really the skeptic in the family when it comes to believing anything. On one hand, these days it's insane NOT to be skeptical about just about everything. There is a whole industry out there built opon figuring out ways to part naive people from their money. How does one balance staying sane these days, with being a believer?

Finally, we have a real spring day...

If you live in the PNW, especially near the ocean you know that this is a BIG DEAL. A day in April with temperatures going over 70 and just beautiful balmy weather, now that is a rare thing in these parts. I remember last year even in June having some of the ugliest 40 degree, rainy, windy weather that I thought would never end. Well if this is global warming, I WANT MORE OF IT! I'm sure we will pay for these two gorgeous days... who knows in another week it might go back to rain and hail.

Well, I've been fairly faithful with keeping up with Bible reading, although I'm a little behind schedule, I have been making very good progress and taking a lot of detailed notes, and for me, doing a thorough job of this reading right now is more important than being right on schedule.

I'm now reading through Isaiah chapters 18-22... (here's the text, pick your language of choice: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+19-21)
Very fascinating, especially the prophecies about Egypt. There is a whole lot of detail about exactly what will happen, down to names of cities, and a time of peace and aliance between Assyria, Egypt and Israel.
There's so much to it so I don't have time to study all the details separatelly, I'm just making notes and will come back to them when I'm through reading the whole Bible, but this link goes a little bit into it. I don't know about its source yet, but it tries to show when and how most of these prophecies have been fulfilled:
http://www.ao.net/~fmoeller/19.htm
here's a link to what the commenaries have to say (you need to select which commentary you want to see (this particular one is Mathew Henry Concise):
http://eword.gospelcom.net/comments/isaiah/mhc/isaiah19.htm