Hello Irene

We interrupt our normally scheduled blog post to bring you this update:

Hurricane Irene has arrived in Wilmington.

Thankfully, she has weakened - noted evidence of answered prayer.

I last left my house around 4:00 pm today for a quick ride over to Wrightsville Beach in between squalls. I wanted to peak at the surf.  They are not evacuating the barrier island this time, though they do have a curfew tonight.

The skies looked menacing and the surf was definitely kicking up. The pictures below don't do the sight justice.  But they were the best I could get in the rain and wind gusts - the wind blew my tightly Velcro'd Nike visor off!

First, here's the status of bread in Wilmington grocery stores right now:

A favorite ocean-front restaurant all boarded up.

We passed some guys riding the wind on skateboards with umbrellas and bed sheets for sails. Yes, they were going the wrong way on a one-way street but Irene was only blowing one direction.

Some shots of the beach. It was hard to keep my lens dry. You can't see it but rain is falling.

This black dot is my visor that blew off while I was on the pier and landed by the dunes.

Rick went after my hat for me, proving chivalry is not dead. The wind is pelting him with rain drops and sand coming off the beach.

Here's the Intercoastal waterway, already looking pretty full. I wondered if it was high tide.

Here's the marsh that backs up to my neighborhood - it was also looking quite full at 5:oo pm.

The rain is picking up outside now and it's dark out. I understand half of Wrightsville Beach has already lost power tonight.

Hopefully we will sleep peacefully through much of the storm. I'm just happy I'm not sleeping there -this particular yacht decided to drop anchor in the middle of the waterway and ride out the storm there.

I'm normally all for southern hospitality but I'm hoping Irene doesn't overstay her welcome. And I sure hope she plays nice while here. 

Praying for the Northeast!

Are you a Book Finisher?

"After all, tomorrow is another day."

That's the closing line from what famous novel?

Ms. Scarlet could tell you.

Here's what I'm wondering today: Do you tend to read your books all the way through to the end?

Or do you tend to stop part way and never finish?

If you tend to stop--why?  You get bored, busy or distracted?  Does it bother you not to finish?

And does your answer to the question change depending on whether you're reading fiction or non-fiction?

A Teletext survey of 4,000 Britons found that almost half of the books they bought remained unfinished. I'm guessing their American counterparts aren't much different. But you tell me, are you typically a book finisher or a book abandoner.

I'll tell you in my next post if I'm a book finisher or not. (What do you think?)

Meanwhile, if you are a book finisher, you'll probably recognize some of these Best 100 Closing Lines from well-known books.  If you're not a book finisher, pop over and see what you've been missing.  :)

And thanks for answering my nosey questions about your reading habits.

The Need to Learn

It's one of my favorite times of the year - Back to School.

I love this time mainly because I have a big crush on books, learning and cute professors with leather patches on the elbows of their sweaters. Well, really just one certain professor with said sweater.

But I digress.

The prospect of a new semester holds promise. It's that promise of expansion and growth that excites me. Each January and August (the two "new year" times in my life) I look for some way that I can intentionally grow or expand.


Last Spring I went to college not as the teacher but as a student for a change. I took a fascinating course on the Psychology of Religion.  I'd take that class again in a heartbeat. And the experience has me thinking I might audit some more courses at the university. I'm even thinking of teaching a new course myself next fall - a course on food.


I'm also planning to try a new hobby. I do this every few years.  A couple years ago it was cooking.  I'm not sure yet but this year it might be Zumba.  Anyone tried it?


Did you know it is fabulously good for you to keep learning new things? Sudoku. Ball Room Dancing. Knitting. Writing Poetry. Indoor Gardening. Anything.


So tell me, what do you plan to learn this year?

Here's a video to inspire you.

LEARN from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Is there a class you will attend, or a hobby you might take up? Will you delve into a new Bible study or maybe extreme couponing? ... What might you try this school year?

What Blocks Your View?

Are you living with the cross of Christ in view as Paul encourages?

That's a profoundly challenging question. As a believer, my knee-jerk response is, "Of course!" But
I've been reading C. J. Mahaney lately and thinking about the cross (the Gospel of Christ). I've realized while I go through my days with God firmly planted in my mind, that's not quite the same thing as living with a view of the cross.

Mahaney outlines three things he believes pulls our focus away from the gospel: subjectivism, legalism and condemnation. You can read about those in Mahaney's words in his book Living the Cross-Centered Life. I'm going to walk through them here in my words.

1) Subjectivism = basing our view of the unchanging God on our fluctuating feelings.

Our feelings will always fluctuate. Let's face it, they rise and fall with our circumstances, our moods, our hormones, our health, our hair-cut ... they aren't stable. 

Our feelings about God can easily rise and fall too. We see a prayer answered - we get warm feelings about God and increased faith results.  Then we get sick and can't seem to get well again despite praying - negative feelings ensue and our faith decreases.

We wonder if God hears us, or if He cares. And we decide He must not.

I believe a marker of spiritual maturity is the ability to pull our faith out of the hands of our feelings. To preach the truth about God, from the Bible, to ourselves no matter how low we feel when the preaching begins.

2) Legalism - basing our relationship with God on our personal performance.

This is a shift from experiencing grace to seeking to earn it. We slip into legalism when we want to deserve God's forgiveness - when we try hard to be worthy of it. Or maybe, when we try so hard not to need it that we fall into perfectionism.

I wrote about this in one of the chapters in my book It's No Secret - it's been the most popular chapter based on reader feedback. Apparently a lot of women have a tiny little issue with perfectionism. I know a thing or two about that.

As we grow in our faith, we come to dislike sin.  That's great!  But we must be careful not to come to dislike grace in the process.  I believe a marker of spiritual maturity is a lavish welcoming of God's grace.

Mahaney writes, "Legalism is essentially self-atonement for the purpose of self-glorification and ultimately for self-worship." When you put it that way, C.J., ouch.

3) Condemnation - focusing on our sins more than on God's grace.

You've heard the saying, "You can't see the forest for the trees." Meaning you are too close to the thing to see it in proper perspective.  This happens when we fixate on our sin.  We obsess about our inability to live up to Jesus' standards, rather than turning cartwheels over the fact that in all the ways we fall short, God's grace covers. 

God isn't interested in our punishing ourselves over our sins. He is interested in our turning away from sin towards His grace and love. His love towards us abounds!

Not just in an "Aww bless her heart, she's such a mess" kind of way but in a "I'll go to the ends of the earth - to the cross even - to redeem you because you are my prized possession" kind of way.

If God holds nothing against me, why would I hold it against myself?

I believe a marker of spiritual maturity is staring less at my faults and more at the cross. Forgiveness is constantly there for the believer. We don't have to atone for our sins - Christ already has.  Somebody wave a white hanky and shout hallelujah at that!

What is blocking your view of the cross?