In the Valley

Some of you may know that Tony Snow recently passed away from cancer. Tony was a radio and TV commentator for many years before serving as the White House Press Secretary in 2006 and 2007. I recently read an article he wrote about his battle with cancer and was touched by his perspective of faith in the middle of what we would consider horrible circumstances.

Here are some excerpts from his article, titled "Cancer's Unexpected Blessings":

We want lives of simple, predictable ease—smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see—but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance and comprehension—and yet don't. By his love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap and stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise.

The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies.

Read the whole thing - it's really good!

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/july/25.30.html

How It All Began

Bee just posted our proposal story in honor of the 5th anniversary of our engagement. She did a nice job of telling it from her perspective, but of course someone (you know who you are) had to make a snide remark about how I never post in my blog and said I should post my side of the story.

Unfortunately, there's far too much story to confine to the limits of this blog, and far too little time to make a blog post out of it - so I'm not even going to try. But fortunately for me (and all you novel-readers out there), I wrote up a detailed account of our proposal (and the months leading up to it) soon after it happened. It's a long story, but if you're truly interested, you can read it here:

Our Proposal Story (from my perspective)