Answered Prayers and Some Thoughts

There is so much to be done today, but I couldn't let the morning really begin without posting a few thoughts. I have some fun things to share, but everything isn't quite in place yet for me to give details. Though I am willing to share something that happened Monday. I have been working out 3-5 times a week. I've been watching the personal trainers knowing that when I hit a plateau, extra intensive work will be needed. During tennis years I spent a lot of time working out with trainers. Some push way too hard without any thought to what the trainee can really accomplish or what the body will let them do. Some trainers just set the weights and the machine for you...then right down what has been done. Then there are the trainers that are uniquely interested in uniquely helping you accomplish your goals or even help you bust through what you only thought could be done. So, I've been observing, hoping not to be too obvious and look like Grace on the show Will and Grace. She would shadow a workout and do the same things feeling great that she got a workout with a trainer for free. I've been asking the Lord to give me wisdom in who to choose and asked Him to send the right personal trainer to me. And by that, specifically that they would talk to me during my workout. In the 3 and 1/2 months I've been there, no one has ever come up and talked to me during my workout. That is until Monday. Long story short, Brock the trainer is specifically trained to work with people who have joint immobility problems. He was kind and informative in talking with me. I tried not to go all grandma on him and give long boring details of knee and heart issues, but enough details to see his reaction and his thoughts on the course of exercise. Even after our conversation ended he returned with some brochures of what the club could offer me in the way of classes and programs, not his personal services. He included his cell number so I would have it when the plateau hit. I think God has answered my prayer and I am so thankful to Him.

If you want to read an interesting and insightful blog, I recommend this one by Mark Batterson. Today he has reprinted his Lion Chasers Manifesto and if it doesn't encourage you to strategically begin to plan change in how you live you life, you must already be doing it. I have just recently been reading tonymorganlive.com. He is a church strategic planner and is very insightful. Today his blog is his twitter while listening to Andy Stanley at a conference. If I was still working in a church, I would really want to discuss the subject matter. An interesting point Stanley makes is communication in leadership and he doesn't want his staff or any staff to experience what he did while working on the bottom rung of the ladder. Every corporate, non-profit or church has a hierarchy and organization chart and in my opinion the church organizational chart is meaner and more destructive than it is helpful and guiding. Corporate America doesn't hide behind "God's will" in how companies are run. Of course in the case of Enron, Worldcom, and Arthur Anderson maybe throwing in God's will for good measure would have helped. In church leadership, being a visionary is thrown around a little too much and visionary is hard on the worker bees so much of the time. A lot of visionary leadership is, I don't know what I want until I see it. So worker bees spend a lot of time working through endeavors that might see the light of day once only to discover that wasn't what the visionary person had in mind once he or she sees it. Well, I just went down a rabbit trail and I am going to stop right now because I might write something that is not edifying or profitable and bottom line is just my opinion.


I am going to cash in some of my $5.00. Since November I have been keeping 5 dollar bills I receive as change and saving them. I am up to 700 dollars and it was a painless way to save. I have read where people do this and have a separate account set up for their $5 savings. Then when they go on vacation or an unexpected expense comes up there is money set aside.


We have both of our cameras ready to take pictures along the way of our trip. I just hope we remember all our various chargers and cords we will need for all our electronic baggage.