Monday, March 2, 2009

Preaching Under-the-Weather

On Friday my throat starting feeling scratchy and dry. On Saturday my throat continued to bother me and I felt a lack of energy. On Sunday I woke up with a stuffy nose in addition to the previous symptoms. By God's grace this was the first Sunday that I have had to lead the service while feeling under-the-weather. I took some water with me to the pulpit and God provided me the strength to make it through the worship service, Sunday School and to make it back later that evening for our Elder meeting.

On Monday my wife and I drove down to Washburn to watch the high school boys' compete in their first-round game at the district tournament. They came in ranked fourth in the District (out of seven) having beat the fifth, six and seventh place teams this year but having lost to the higher ranked ones. They played the fifth seeded team, Garrison, in the first-round and pulled out a close victory. We kept turning the ball over against their press but they had a hard time putting the ball in the basket so it became a war of attrition and Underwood was able to squeak out the victory. On Saturday we played Turtle Lake (#1) and got destroyed. But that wasn't surprising as they're the fourth ranked team in the state and made it to the championship game last year with basically the same team. With one loss Underwood still has a chance to advance to regionals if we can take care of business tonight against Sheridan County.

Junior High basketball was pretty uneventful this week as we did not have any games. But this week we have practice on Monday and then three games in a row! We also found out that at our district tournament in a couple weeks we'll be facing Turtle Lake in the first round. If you've read my previous posts you might remember they're the only team we've lost to this season and we've also beaten then in an overtime thriller. There's no loser bracket in our tournament so whoever loses that game can finished no better than fifth.

Lastly, Netflix sent us "Flash of Genius" which we watched this weekend. This was a movie that I was really looking forward to seeing. It is based on a true story of the man who invented the intermittent wiper but had his idea stolen by Ford and endured through a 12 year legal battle to claim what was rightfully his. Now I am a big fan of justice so I enjoyed seeing the verdict go against the "mean" corporation and for the "little guy." However, going through this process ended up costing the main character his marriage. He got justice at the expense of his family. Reflecting on this after the movie my wife and I concluded that the Bible tells us to care for and preserve our marriages as a first priority and leave the vengeance for righting wrongs to God.

By God's Grace, Jeff

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