It’s been a couple of weeks since I updated the world about my knee.  I am doing extremely well.  I have the same range of motion in both knees now and I’m feeling stronger every day.  I can’t tell you how relieved I am that things are going so well.  I had knee surgery seven years ago and nothing, and I mean NOTHING, went as well as this one.  If ever you need knee surgery and live in the northern Chicago suburbs, I highly recommend the Illinois Bone and Joint Institute.  The entire office is great, friendly and very caring.  (They do have offices in other parts of Chicago but since I haven’t been to those offices I can’t honestly testify to their staff and physicians, however, I have a feeling that they are just as great as the staff and physicians at the Libertyville office.)

Enough about the knee.  Finals are about 3 weeks off and I’m really feeling the end-of-the-semester-crunch, but I’m sure that things will work out well. 

Tulips are my favorite flower and I found this picture on the web.  Even in black and white they are beautiful and graceful.

On the needles right now are several projects:

1. White Princess shawl for my mom.  I need to rip about 16 rows out and because it is lace I’m petrified of ripping.  I also can’t knit backwards for 16 rows so the piece is in limbo until I can find a “lace ripping out expert” to help me out.  Not sure where to find one of those.
2. I’m working on a baby blanket for my friend Stephanie who had a little girl, oh, about 2 months ago.  I need about 10 more inches to get finished.  Have a feeling that it will have to wait until after May 6.
3. Randomly working on a soft merino wool scarf – knitted at random and with random patterns.
4. Socks.  Can I just say this:  yarn for socks is small.  They take a long time.
5. I’m about to start a new project of making mittens.  I think I’m going to knit them 2 at a time on 1 very, very long circular needle.  Let you know how that goes.

On the Bed (this is where I keep the books that I’m reading..not as comfortable as a husband, but they sure do help me fall asleep!) are the following:

I think this is about it for now.  Toodles.

I recently gave my second sermon for my preaching class and I preached on the topic of transformation using the text of Romans 1:16-17 to describe how and for what purpose transformation happens.  In highly technical, theological terms this is actually sanctification, the present tense of the word salvation that Paul uses in v.16. (Although I’m using the present tense of the word, salvation actually has three tenses, a past, present and future, and I think Paul’s writing is ambiguous enough that it is hard to tell, within just these two verses, which tense he is intending to use.  With that said, I think the ambiguity lends itself to his intention of all three tenses as he will go on in the letter to describe all three.  The three tenses are past (justification), present (salvation), and future (glorification). )

One of the things that I spoke about was the source of the power for that transformation which Paul describes is the gospel.  Paul describes the gospel in the first few verses of his letter to the Roman church, but through out his letter he sprinkled little tidbits of information that deepen the description that he started off with. 

This is a hymn that I found today and I think it speaks well to the gospel. To hear the tune click on the link of the name of the hymn below.

There is a green hill far away, outside a city wall,
where the dear Lord was crucified, who died to save us all.

We may not know, we cannot tell, what pains He had to bear;
but we believe it was for us He hung and suffered there.

He died that we might be forgiv’n. He died to make us good,
that we might go at last to heav’n, saved by His precious blood.

There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin;
He only could unlock the gate of heav’n and let us in.

Chorus: O dearly, dearly has He loved! And we must love Him too,
and trust in His redeeming blood, and try His works to do.

~Mrs. Cecil Frances Alexander, “There is a Green Hill Far Away“

Romans 5:6-11
⁶ For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— ⁸ but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ⁹ Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. ¹⁰ For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. ¹¹ More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

I’ve been leading a women’s bible study this year.  We taking a walk through the Old Testament and we are currently up to the Babylonian exile.  We are reading through the history in chronological order and placing each of the minor prophets in with the history to help us read them in context of when they lived and what their message was.  We will be taking a look at Ezra and Nehemiah this week and it got me thinking….do exiles happen in our day and age?  I think so.  I have a friend who is a Christian and loves God but is going through an exile right now.  She moved to a smaller town in the middle of Illinois and is working in a job that she loves and gets a lot of fulfillment from.  I believe that God has placed her there for a specific reason.  The challenge comes from being isolated from all known support systems.  I can identify with this and went through something similar about 7 years ago.  I believe she is living in exile.

I think the good news is that exile didn’t last forever.  God enacted his judgment and sent Judah into exile to teach them a lesson – a lesson that they needed and learned from.  But God, YHWH, brought them back!  He allowed a remnant, a remnant who were faithful and saw the wisdom of the exile, to come back and to rebuild the city walls and to try and rebuild the temple – dwelling place of God.

When I relate this to my friend, and while I know that she is not being punished for inerrant and sinful living, I do think that this “exile” will make her stronger – in the end.  The promise of the prophets during the exilic period were that God is faithful and God is true.  I pray that if you are going through your own exilic period you can remember this.  God brought the remnant home.  You will go back to Him someday…and what a glorious day it will be!