So I'm going forward with Magazine Article Three today--making the initial contacts, hopefully. As I've been mentioning, there's been a rather large fear factor in all this, inducing me to pray a great deal. However, it's also occurred to me that the whole point of the exercise is to get over it and stop squealing like a stuck pig at every approach of danger or uncertainty. (My squeals have been softening, mind you.)

Anyhow, in this regard, i.e., that of getting over it, I've continued to mine the last part of Romans 8 and yesterday came across something quite helpful. The Amplified Version translates "things present" as "things impending and threatening." Literally it means "standing in sight." In other words, whatever is on the agenda next--the thing coming down the pike that's causing panic--that thing, that event, that circumstance, that duty--will not separate me from the love of Christ. It's all in His hands. It's under control. It'll be fine. It's all being worked together for good. Just as He's worked it out in the past, He'll work it out this time.

The pastor we've been listening to said that when he'd gotten cancer a while back, his prayers became like a little child who just wanted to be held, hearing her Daddy say, "It's going to be OK. I'm here." Knowing how it all was going to turn out or how it would be resolved wasn't the issue. It was know God is near. (This pastor, by the way, is a hockey-playing man's man, which just goes to show that at bottom we're all the same. It's not sentimentality to talk this way: it's the reality of the human condition.)

So I suppose I'll continue to ransack Romans 8 until it ceases to cough up more treasure, then move on. (Sometimes you have to go deep before going wide again.)