more coming

Coming fresh off a very traffic-laden trip (including an almost shutdown on I70 near the Indiana/Ohio border in Richmond, Ind., due to a semi vs. semi wreck!) back from Chicago, I can tell you that as much as everything changes, the more it stays the same! Chicago seemed the same old great town that I knew when I first moved there in 1990!!

I used to think that the greatest "love affair" I've ever had with a city was New York City, which is as dear to my heart as anything could be. But I realize in this late stage of my life that Chicago has gripped my heart deeper and actually "groanier" to my soul than any other place I've lived, and I am someone who lived in San Juan, Costa Rica for a year at 6 years of age and then lived for a short time (a month and a half) in Miami, Fla., at age 9, thinking "this motel on the ocean in (South Beach) is where we are living because my father still doesn't know where we are going to live." That was our reality after he suddenly (later to learn that his drug use became a problem at the same HCJB field hospital/airport complex where Elizabeth and Jim Elliott lived) got more or less the clue that he should either straighten up or leave.

I realize more and more that Chicago saved my life. I moved there at 25 years old with my one and only boyfriend! But the thing is we were only "friends" when we moved there and we never had sex even though we moved into a studio apartment on Briar Place in the Lakeview neighborhood.

Sorry, I had to manage a bunch of things after getting home. more to come tomorrow. Here's an outtake from my pastor from last year's summer Bible conference:

Richard Jordan's message at the conference last year on this exact same day in July:

Colossians 4:5: [5] Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time.

Ephesians 5:15: [15] See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,

[16] Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

"That issue of time. That's not the issue of, 'Well, it's 8:20 and I need to be sure that by 9 o'clock I've done these things.' It's not just the moment that you're living in.

II Timothy 3:1: [1] This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

"That's more than just a date on the calendar; it's the times in which we live.

"There's an illustration of this in I Chronicles 12: [32] And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do; the heads of them were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their commandment.

"The world you live in is designed by God to work on systems of cycles. They work in 80-year cycles, the average lifespan, then the 80-year cycles work in 500-year cycles, which work in 1,000-year cycles and there's this repetition in the cycles.

"The 'times' is the issue of where you are in the cycle. Ecclesiastes 3: [1] To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

[2] A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
[3] A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
[4] A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
[5] A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
[6] A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
[7] A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
[8] A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

"Paul says to redeem the times because the days are evil. The cycles that we live in are evil; the days of the times of the cycles are evil.

Ecclesiastes 1: [2] Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

[3] What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?
[4] One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.

"Vanity means nothing, emptiness, nothing real. Without God, everything is empty. Nothing has a purpose without God. Life is total futility."