4 day weekend

One of the fringe benefits of the Army is the 4 day weekends. Every holiday that produces a three day weekend in the civilian world, produces a 4 day weekend in the army--meaning we get Friday and Monday off. I am in the middle of one of those right now. Kinda nice.

Work has been going good, though it sometimes seems like I'm not doing a whole lot. I'll spend a good chunk of every day walking around and visiting soldiers and having small talk. It's all about establishing relationship and letting the troops know that they have a place they can go, even if they don't need to go there at the moment.

One thing I do need to do is to put a list of classes together to at least offer to the company commanders. I will put it out there and let them choose what they think will best help their soldiers. Some things on the list will be high-maintainance relationships, conflict, pornography, love languages (relationship issues are big here), and the morality of killing. I'm not quite ready to teach that class yet, but I feel it is an important issue for soldiers to wrestle with. I'm of the camp that believes that this unresolved issue produces much inner struggle (PTSD) in soldiers as they come home from war.

I also need to plan a marriage retreat and bible study and prayer breakfast. And also services while we are out "in the field" from Nov. 2-6.

Self-disclosure time: I'm kinda nervous about planning all the above. Not because I don't think I can do it or that I'll suck cause I know I won't. I'm nervous about planning something and having bad turnout, like no one showing up. That would seriously bum me out. I'm having flashbacks now........ Whatever, gotta do it anyway.

I preached this morning at the Killeen Salvation Army. I met the head officer this week at the garrison chaplains office and he invited me on the spot. It was a great experience and i was glad to be preaching again. I was rather unfocused and was less than stellar. I actually felt like I did not have a word from the Lord, which probably became evident. I prayed tonight that God would speak to me "like He used to". But now I'm like, was that a good prayer? As my kids grow, I change the way I speak to them. I don't speak to Emily the same way I speak to Ally. Perhaps I'm moving to a different place with God and He's chosing to alter His delivery. I don't know fer sure. What I do know is that I am not studying Gods word the same way I used to as a pastor. I'm reading, but not studying, theres a big difference. God used to speak to me about a passage after I read it 100 times and meditated on it a day or so. Now I'm reading it devotionally and it's not the same...........God is faithful and we are only taking the first steps on this leg of the journey so I'm not overly anxious. By the way, I preached on Moses.

I'm sad because both the sox and pats lost tough games today. Amazing how that can affect your mood. I hope to be able to actually watch a game this year. Itll be a treat.

gotta run, well not really but time to move on for now....

grace & blessings......