No Conversion Necessary

You thought this was going to be a soteriological post, didn’t you?

Nope, it’s about my outdoor digital thermometer, which registers to -40. It didn’t register anything this morning.

The nice thing about -40 (Yep, -40 is good for something.) is that it requires no conversion from Celsius to Fahrenheit. (Thank goodness for spell-check.* My original spellings of both of those were wrong.) Forty below zero is similarly cold in any language.

A woman in a parka and snow pants just trotted by my house. I think she’s trying to get home as soon as possible. And there goes my neighbor, walking home for lunch. She has hoarfrost on the hair that’s peeking out from under her tuque.

It could be worse. At least there’s no ice fog at my place. The sky is bright and clear and beautiful.

I wanted to take a photo from the second story so you could see the mountains, but the door to the upper deck was frozen shut. So I’ve made do with a photo of the backyard from the back door. This is what cold looks like.

---

*Did you know that spell-check can be spelled either spell check or spell-check? I know that because my spell-check says spellcheck is wrong.

This Week in Housekeeping

A recently updated Theological Term of the Week:

Trinity

• Added links to two talks by J. I. Packer: The Trinity - Part 1, The Trinity - Part 2 (mp3s). (I recently listened to these and highly recommend them. They are the impetus behind my two recent lists:  Reading Romans 8 As a Trinitarian and Reading Ephesians 1 As a Trinitarian.)
• Updated the links to Wayne Grudem’s Sunday school lessons: The Doctrine of the Trinity: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 (mp3s)
• Added related terms: economic Trinity; ontological Trinity; hypostatic union; person; being.

Thankful Thursday

It’s cold out there again, so I’m thankful, once again, for a warm house. I’m thankful for a good furnace and draft-free windows. I’m thankful for the things that make my home a pleasant place in which to spend cold days: the two dogs and one cat, the blankets on the couch, the stocked fridge and cupboards, the books, the candles, the teapot, Kellogg’s Brown Sugar Flavour Mini-Wheats, and a jigsaw puzzle waiting to be started.

Can I say, too, that I’m thankful that January is almost half over?

I’m also thankful that my car is finally fixed properly. I’m thankful that the garage reduced my entire labour cost for the fix to $20 because I had to bring the car in so many times before they found out what was really wrong with it. (The whole deal, if you remember, started a week before Christmas.) I’m thankful that the fix, in the end, was an inexpensive one.

I’m thankful that God is in control of the big things and the small things. I’m thankful that God uses my circumstances, the joyful ones, the tragic ones, and the annoying ones (like cold weather and broken car and January) to conform me to the image of Christ.

I’m thankful for the Trinity. My reconciliation to God depends on God being Three-in-One.

Throughout this year I’m planning to post a few thoughts of thanksgiving each Thursday along with Kim at the Upward Call and others.