End of Winter Quarter

Highlights -

Last week was Stanford's Spring break. My building was going through office renovations over the break, so I stayed home to work on a paper. The paper is a description of the research I plan to do for my PhD and is the basis for my "candidacy" exam on April 28th. The second draft is complete and off to my boss for review. If anyone is interested in reading it, I can forward you a copy when we finalize it. The topic is "abiotic nitrate reduction by iron(II) surface and aqueous complexes". It's a real thriller, let me tell you!

Last Sunday, Matthew Smith from Indellible Grace Music gave an awesome concert at a local church. If you haven't heard of Indellible Grace, they're another group of musicians which I recommend. Their specialty is taking old hymns (greather than 200 years old) and rewriting the music to them. The hope is that hymns (i.e. the lyrics) will continue to be a part of church worship for this and the next generation of Christians. You can listen to samples of their songs at www.igracemusic.com.

I also was able to spend more time with Kindel during the afternoons. We made it over to the park to hit a volleyball around and to the bay for a walk. Yesterday, Saturday, we took advantage of the Spring weather and went for a hike. Wow, the hills were clothed with rich, vivid green trees and grass! We're feeling for all of our Midwest-friends and family who are blanketed with snow, and for our family in drought-ridden areas. God has once again been gracious to the Valley by bring such wonderful weather!
















I've also been reading through Isaiah, and in ch. 19 God tells Isaiah of a recession which will come upon the Egyptian people. Vs. 10 sums it up: "Those who are the pillars of the land will be crushed, and all who work for pay will be grieved." The beginning of the chapter is vivid with language of judgement and that's why the drought, famine, and recession come. However, the end of the chapter is pouring over with God's mercy, "the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians will know the Lord in that day" (21). What I took from this passage is that God brings about trouble (in the form of famine, recession, etc.) so that we'll find our treasure in him. Those who suffer as a result of this trouble need to hear the good news that God is a burden-lifting-God. He may not take us out of the trouble, but he'll 1) reorient our lives to focus on what's most important, and 2) provide joy everlasting.
- This is also one of the points of John 16. Jesus says that the disciples will have trouble, however He, Jesus, came to make their joy complete. Wow, this is really counter intuitive to our culture.