Stressed Out or Just Confused?

Me and the Mrs. haven't been getting along so well lately. My 1 am outbursts (due to lack of sleep or much stress) hasn't helped, as I am learning there are things that we say that we can't take back as easily as we'd like. Stress may very well have been coming from the fact that our church has been in the process of voting in a new pastor. A couple nights at service reminded me just how human we are and how much it's possible that Jerry Springer may not have initially been all scripted.

Thanks be to God that last night a decision was finally made by the congregation at a business meeting and we now have a new pastor. Let me tell you the relief is great, and that I am hoping there won't be division like their has been over the past 3 weeks. We've lost a couple of saints over the past few weeks that I would not have thought so quick to leave.

After the afore-mentioned meeting, my wife and I (who are still not conversating like love birds again) just wanted to get out for abit. My thoughts were to go to the Verizon store and get her a new cellphone, as she's been needing a new one for nearly a year. After a quick pit-stop at McDonald's, we were on our way. Too bad the store closed at around 8 pm, because we didn't get there until about 9. Disappointed (I like to check out gadgets, I'm up for a new phone next month), she suggested the book store.

Off to Barnes and Nobles we went.

So my wife and I spent the better part of the night perusing books. She would look through the romance section for her vampire novels that she swears must be categorized wrong, as she refuses to acknowledge that she reads those type of books, while I had the joy of carrying around The Art of War by Sun Tzu (didn't make it to the checkout with this, sorry guys) and Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, as well as a list of her books that she wants to look up on half.com. It felt odd having a book by a well-known christian theologian as well as a what is considered the book on war & tactics, and a list of vampire books (aka romance novels).

Before I go on, I need to clarify that I've never been a fan of self-help books. Never. I've been a fan of sci-fi, fantasy and escapsim reads, if you will. Piers Anthony, R.A. Salvatore and Tolkien, those were my picks. My step-mother used to try to make us read Norman Vincent Peal books, and I always tried to avoid reading them as best as I could.

By the end of the night, I'd read a solid 24 pages in a book entitled When I Don't Desire God. If you are looking for an intellectual read as well as something that speaks to your spirit, this is currently my book of choice, and I recommend the first 24 pages with gusto. It talks about the joy that God wants us to have (alot of books do, but not like this, and I don't think they went were this is one going). I'm finding that I can already feel my spiritual strength being renewed, as I'm learning to focus on things other than the newest gadget or what's going on in Php world.

He calls it Christian Hedonism. I call it a welcome change to the views I've held well past the last 6 months.

I'll keep you updated :)