It has been a busy day; interesting also. I started early with some reading and quiet time, followed by breakfast with the family. They left for school, and I went for a hilly 7 mile run from Spice Valley over past Bryantsville and back. I wore long sleeves and gloves; been a long time since that happened. I took the gloves off after the first mile, but they felt good for a little while.

I came home, read a little more, cleaned up, and headed out for the church building. The food pantry was open and busy. Right as I was leaving to go teach my classes at OCU-B, a woman who was very upset wanted to talk to me. We talked a little while. She was grieving the loss of precious loved ones and was in all kinds of financial difficulties. She’s at the end of her rope. We talked for a while and prayed. I sent her to a place that I think can help her.

Classes were good today. My students were focused and full of questions regarding suffering, injustice, and God’s approach to warfare in the Old Testament. I confessed, “I don’t know,” a lot today. I told them that I have many of the same questions but that I have come to the conclusion/decision that trusting God is the best option. There is no world view that has all the answers. The Story of God is what I believe and choose to live by. It makes sense to me.

Today I spent about an hour talking with a young alcoholic. He battles the stuff and often loses. We talked very openly about it all. He goes to AA, but his accountability partner also struggles. I think he needs to change guys. I told him that I am also going to start asking him every time I see him if he has lapsed. He wants me to. He has had a really rough way to go for quite a while. The tough path takes him back to the bottle.

I made a quick trip to Sam’s this afternoon to buy a lot of meat. I am going to smoke for the football team. Pork shoulders and brisket should do the trick. Tomorrow is the day to smoke while I do a lot of study. It works out pretty well. I have the smoker positioned so I can see the temperature gauge from my office window.

We had a meeting later in the afternoon about our Give Thanks 4 race on Thanksgiving Day. We are have a little trouble getting Mag 7 to update the website and activate online registration. We still have plenty of time but would like to get some things in place really soon.

Time for popcorn, followed by ZZzzzzzzzzzzzz.