A Poem a Day

On Tuesday I committed myself to reading a poem a day, and already dropped the ball. But today I started fresh, and joined a website that will e-mail me a poem every day. I read today's poem, and was already blessed.

The Conclusion -- Sir Walter Raleigh
Even such is Time, that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with earth and dust;
Who is the dark and silent grave,
When we have wander'd all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days;
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust.

Excited to Get out of Bed

When was the last time that you woke up in the morning excited to get out of bed?

When my three year old daughter, Sage, wakes up in the morning she never rolls over begging us for five more minutes of rest. She never even wakes up, and slowly climbs out of bed only to mope into the living room. Sage jumps out of bed, and hurriedly runs into our room full of energy and excitement to start the day. She can't wait to, go for a run/watch "Little Einsteins"/eat breakfast/sit with her mom & dad. And this excitement doesn't begin when she wakes up, she goes to sleep excited about the routine activities that will take place the following day.

At what point in our lives do we lose this joy?
How do we go from experiencing joy in the morning as children, to dreading the sunrise as teenagers?
Is it possible for us to, as adults, look forward to the day to come with the same enthusiasm as a three year old?
Am I excited to see how God is going to use me today, and on an even more basic level:
Am I excited to live another God-given day?

Remembering Rightly

I began by responding to Amber's blog tonight, and then decided that I probably should just go ahead and post.

I was recently reading a book that was all about remembering rightly. I hope that we learn to remember 9/11/01 rightly.

In remembering this event, I want to remember and hear about the lives and families of the victims of the attacks, and not see images of the terrorists' victories of the destruction of the twin towers. In remembering rightly, I would like to be able to see how our country has risen amidst this attack to become a better place to live, or at least be encouraged to personally reexamine my life in response to Al Qaeda's attacks, and to live a life more like Christ. In remembering rightly I would like to somehow begin to wrap my head around the numbers of the lives devastated by this attack:
2,819 - People killed in the 9/11 attacks.
3774 - American Military Casualties in Iraq since 3/19/03
71,720 – 78,296 - Documented Iraqi civilian deaths from violence since 3/19/03
45 - Iraqi civilian deaths yesterday, as a result of violence
2 - Iraqi women killed yesterday as a result of a US raid.
126,000 number of abortions a DAY worldwide.

I don't want these to just be numbers, I want to see these numbers as individuals created in the image of God. I want to be able to see these numbers as people with sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, moms and dads, pastors and teachers. I want to learn how to love those suffering.
How do the emotions that I feel for the death of God's created beings in the Middle East compare with the emotions that I feel for the death of God's created beings in the US?