I am aware that not all of the fine citizens of these United States of America still practice Daylight Savings. For those blessed to live in the great state of Tennessee, we still do.

The result is that I lost an hour of sleep between Saturday and Sunday, and I am still feeling the effects.

I want my hour back.

I’d actually be completely fine if the PTB (Powers That Be) decided to end Daylight Savings. I don’t see that it really serves a purpose. Perhaps back in the days before electricity it was beneficial for farmers to give them more daylight to work on their fields, but in this very electric and electronic day and age, I don’t see the purpose– other than to annoy me by forcing me to change all the clocks.

Maybe they’ll decide to make up for all those lost hours of sleep and have us fall back about 24 or so hours. That’d make for one fantastic nap.

“We have nothing under our own control but our wills. Our feelings are controlled by many things . . . but our will is our own. All that lies in our power is the direction of our will. The important question is not what we feel or what we experience, but whether we will whatever God wills. That was the crowning glory of Christ: that His will was set to do the will of His Father” (Hannah Whitall Smith).

Yes, the quest to rewatch all the classic episodes of Doctor Who marches forward.

I’m now up to the sixth doctor with his lovely as ever companion Perpugilliam Brown, better known to most as Peri.

Yes, the special effects are special in their own way. Most definitely, the monsters are still people in rubber suits.

Absolutely, there is still something magical about these episodes, especially the ones where the Doctor reconnects with his earlier selves and former companions.

I’m definitely sensing that I’m much nearer to the end than to the beginning. There will be just a bit of sadness when I finally reach the very last episode.

What then? On to the NuWho episodes, I suppose.

I had an odd and uncomfortable experience today. I went to one of my favorite restaurants where normally they’re quite hospitable and even know me by name.

But this time no one spoke to me or even acknowledged my presence. It felt like an eternity of waiting, but it was probably closer to 15-20 minutes of me standing awkwardly and hoping for someone to see me.

Eventually, I gave up and left to find another place to eat.

It reminded me of an old movie where the main character has moments where she becomes invisible to those around her. No one can see or hear her.

That’s what it felt like for me. I was invisible.

Some people go through their whole lives feeling invisible. They feel like no one sees or hears them. To their minds, they might as well not exist.

In this day and age, if you’re not “pretty” or “handsome,” you might as well not exist. If you’re not wealthy or titled, you feel voiceless sometimes.

So many go through the day feeling isolated and disconnected from everything and everyone.

But God sees you. He hears you. He knows who you are and where you are. There is never a moment when you’re not in His thoughts or under His care.

It’s fitting that the first people to announce the good news of the birth of the Messiah were the outcast shepherds who were invisible to the normal society of the time.

They were the first ones to hear the angels’ proclamation that unto you is born in the city of David a child who is Christ the Lord. They were the first ones to see the blessed infant. They were the first ones to rush off to tell anyone and everyone they could find about the new baby Jesus who would grow up to be the Savior of the world.

The same Messiah who still seeks out the outcast and marginalized. The same who still uses the nobodies of the world, the forsaken and forgotten. Including me and you.

My advice to you when looking for a pet is to go to an animal shelter instead of a breeder. While I do applaud breeders for what they do, there are also many many animals at shelters who need your love just as much, some of whom are at risk of being euthanized if someone doesn’t take a chance on them.

I speak from experience. I was rescued at an animal shelter by a tiny little tortie who literally reached out her paw through the cage bars and picked me to be her human only days after my previous cat had passed away.

You will never know a more loyal, more affectionate, more loving pet than a rescue pet. Sometimes it may take time and patience with the ones that were previously mistreated and abused, but even they come around with enough compassionate love. I’ve seen that first hand as well.

Don’t just go for the kittens and puppies. You may find an older animal, even a senior dog or cat, who still has love to give to the right person. You will not regret

“The one concern of the devil is to keep Christians from praying. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, and prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray” (Samuel Chadwick).

Lately, I’m starting to realize that praying without ceasing doesn’t always look like me on my knees in prayer for 3-4 hours straight. There’s no way I could keep my mind from wandering off in a thousand different directions in that span of time.

For me, praying without ceasing means that I’m offering up a quick prayer every time I feel an anxious thought or remember a friend in need or hear about a tragedy– or sometimes when an overwhelming sense of gratitude hits me.

I’ve been reading through The Valley of Vision, and those Puritan prayers could very well be my own most of the time. Sometimes, I will use the words of others for my prayers when I can’t find words of my own. Sometimes, I pray Scripture as it comes to mind.

If you wait until you can pray well to pray, you will never pray at all. Or only very little. Besides, God knows the need before you ask and hears you when all you have are groans and sighs too deep for words.

So pray, knowing that it is God’s delight to hear from His children, no matter how eloquent or wordless their prayers are.

I read something recently that really stuck with me. Basically, it said that unforgiveness is like holding onto red hot coals with the intention of throwing them at someone who hurt you– you end up being the only one who gets burned.

I also like the analogy that bitterness is drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

Someone reading this needs to forgive someone. Not because the other person has shown signs of being sorry or even because they deserve it. Forgiveness releases the other person from the expectation that they can fix what they did wrong to hurt you, as one pastor put it. It also releases you from carrying a burden of bitterness.

Above all, we’re called to forgive because we’ve been forgiven of so much more. Jesus tells the parable of the servant who has just seen a million dollar debt cancelled and then immediately proceeds to harass another servant over who owes him $100.

The point is that anything anyone has ever done to us pales by far in comparison to what we’ve done to God, how we’ve spurned Him, and how we’ve continually rebelled against Him.

One of the key points of the Lord’s prayer is that we pray to God to forgive us our transgressions JUST AS we’ve forgiven those who’ve transgressed against us. If we refuse to forgive others, we can’t expect God to forgive us.

Only as we learn to receive God’s forgiveness and to forgive ourselves can we really and truly forgive others. It’s a supernatural power that can only come from above into a heart transformed by the love of Jesus.

God, give us forgiving hearts and help us to remember that you have forgiven us of so much. May we learn to that forgiveness is the true way to freedom not just for others but for ourselves.

I read these words recently and they resonated with me. People who say they don’t go to church because of hypocrites are themselves hypocrites. No one is perfect and does or says everything they intend or mean.

That doesn’t excuse the Christian for acting like the ones around him or her. Blending in and accommodating is not the gospel; showing a better way is.

One of my favorite artists, Rich Mullins, had some good insight into why he went to church:

“I remember, you know, you go to these parties on Saturday night and people would say, about 8:00 on Sunday morning ‘Whoa, I have to go – I gotta get to church!’

People would say, ‘Why do you want to go to church, all those hypocrites?’

And I say, ‘Look, why do I want to stay here with all you hypocrites?’

I never knew why going to church made you a hypocrite. They’d say because you go to church and you’re all ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’ for two or three hours, and then you go home and sin. I’d say ‘exactly!’ For two or three hours you’re doing pretty good!

Maybe the problem isn’t that you go to church, maybe the problem is that you go home!

I never understood why going to church made you a hypocrite either, because nobody goes to church because they’re perfect. If you’ve got it all together, you don’t need to go. You can go jogging with all the other perfect people on Sunday morning

Every time you go to church, you’re confessing again to yourself, to your family, to the people you pass on the way there, to the people who will greet you there, that you don’t have it all together. And that you need their support. You need their direction. You need some accountability, you need some help.”

It’s that weird day that only comes once every four years. Happy February 29th, a. k. a. Leap Day!

It’s a reminder for me that I was very nearly a Leap Day baby way back in 1972. Had I been born 11 hours later, I’d be turning 12 instead of 48.

I guess that people with February 29 birthdays can either celebrate on February 28 or March 1 (or both), but it must be awkward not being able to celebrate on your actual birthday more than once every four years.

Then again, maybe most people don’t overthink things like this the way I probably would.

For me, it was day 2 of the birthday weekend. As always, I’m thankful for another year of life. I don’t take it for granted that I’ve made it this far when more and more people I know won’t get to celebrate old age (or in many cases, year 48).

Every year and every day I get is a gift. I’m thankful to God for every single one of them so far.

As for the birthday, it was so much fun that I should probably go ahead and have another around this time next year. Just not on February 29.

Today for my birthday, I was granted early parole from work. I hit up a couple of thrift stores and one of my favorite record shops and still managed to get home a bit earlier than usual.

I ended up stopping a couple of times in my subdivision while the school bus let out a group of students who were probably more than willing to escape the confines of the crowded vinyl seats.

I let my imagination wander for a bit and for a moment I could vaguely recall the freedom that came at the end of the school day. It was a world full of almost endless possibilities. Usually my afternoons involved Who’s the Boss and Growing Pains back to back, then homework.

But some days I’d give anything to go back to being a kid for a day. Sometimes I’m convinced that being grown-up is highly overrated and that adulthood is mostly wondering why you’re sore all over and wondering where the remote control went.

Still, I hope those kids today will have the same memories to look back on that I have. I hope they won’t be so eager to rush through childhood to get to being grown up or that they won’t spend their whole lives being in a hurry to get to the next activity or event or program or stage in life. I hope they have times where they get bored and are forced to learn how to cultivate their imaginations.

Above all, I hope they don’t wait to appreciate the fine art of taking a good nap.