...wasn’t exactly the deeply spiritual experience I had hoped for.


But then, since when do things ever go as planned?!

How did yours go?

I was hoping to be very spare and contemplative - and instead I just got caught up in, well, life. The usual stuff. Trying to keep track of the kids, trying to keep the house cleaned up. We even attempted a big “spring cleaning” blitz. It was more like a minor incursion. But we did get a few things done.

Did I mention that our toilet overflowed?

In a situation like this, I discovered, there is “clean water” and there is - the other kind. That’s what we had. And it leaked through the upstairs bathroom floor and came spilling and splattering into our kitchen below it.

Yes.... YUCK!!!!!!

So I guess life sort of overwhelmed my plans to be spiritual.

But there was one minor success.

Giving up coffee proved to be quite effective. It about drove me crazy! I have never thought of myself as being particularly addicted to coffee - but, man, I sure did miss it. But...

Every time I found myself wishing for just one cup of delicious hot coffee, every time I found myself tempted to have just one cup as the aroma of a fresh pot brewing in my $10 dollar coffee maker filled the air as the kids were getting ready for school, I DID remember to pause and consider how absolutely trivial my little sacrifice was compared to what Jesus sacrificed for me.

To think that he left the splendor and majesty of heaven to give his LIFE for me; I can barely begin to comprehend the fullness of that.

As I have thought of that, how so totally unworthy I am that anyone should make such a sacrifice for me, how there is nothing I could ever do to repay Jesus for what he did for me, I have come to understand, I think, that there is only one thing I can do. And that is - to say thank you.



Thank you, Jesus, for all that you have done for me.



And I guess the message of all of this, the Good News in its simplist terms, is this;

Christ has triumphed!

Over all the messiness, over all the complexities of life, all the screw-ups and disappointments, all my good intentions and failed plans -


Christ has triumphed!!!

© 2004 Paul Dallgas-Frey