There are many hymns that thrill my soul. I hear a familiar tune as an intro and the words with meaty truth comes surging through my brain and out of my mouth. Words which echo scripture reflecting God’s character back to me. There is no substitute for truth when it comes to worship.

One of my tip-top favorite hymns is chocked full of truth along with a roaring melody, moving lines for altos and tenors and when I am surrounded by a hundred voices I am thrilled from the tip of my head to the bottom of my toes. Or when I hear the Cathedrals sing it, I’m blessed as well! (Future note: Please sing this at my celebration service along with Great is Thy Faithfulness!)

Wonderful grace of Jesus greater than all my sin
How shall my tongue describe it, where shall its praise begin
Taking away my burden, setting my spirit free
For the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me.

Wonderful the matchless the grace of Jesus
Deeper than the mighty rolling sea
Higher than the mountain, sparkling like a fountain.
All sufficient grace for me for even me
Broader than the scope of my transgressions
Greater far than all my sin and shame.
Oh magnify the precious name of Jesus, praise His name.

Wonderful grace of Jesus reaching the most defiled
By its transforming power, making him God’s dear child
Purchasing peace and heaven for all eternity
And the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me.

Wonderful the matchless the grace of Jesus
Deeper than the mighty rolling sea
Higher than the mountain sparkling like a fountain.
All sufficient grace for me for even me
Broader than the scope of my transgressions
Greater far than all my sin and shame.
Oh magnify the precious name of Jesus, praise His name.

I’m here to tell you the Maytag Repairman is not lonely, bored or poor.

He spent time this morning at my house fixing my almost five year old frig. The defrosting thermostat was kaput. And some other gizmo wasn’t working right. He stayed about an hour and headed out the door with a $210.00 check.

My Friday Good News
1. The frig is now frigerating again.
2. The replacement credit card arrived (See what Brown can do for you!).
3. The pest guy arrived to bomb the mailbox.
4. I juggled a conference business call in between it all.
5. It’s Friday! Chipotle tonight!

Besides the frustration of the fraudulent activity on my credit card which I mentioned yesterday, I’ve had two other circumstances in the household that have eaten up some energy.

Over the past few weeks I’ve vaguely become aware that something was amiss in the kitchen.

Yogurt has been watered down. My Diet Coke cans are barely cool.

The thing hums like normal. The light goes on when the door is open.

My first biggest mystery is “How can I have ice and frozen food but the ice cream be so soft?”

My second biggest mystery is “Why is a five year old Maytag refrigerator not working? Isn’t that supposed to be impossible?”

A few days ago I reached into the mailbox to find a strange sight. Ants had moved their “hill” to higher ground. (Its been raining in Texas! Yippee!) I guess they are trying to stay dry as they have set up camp and have laid a bunch of eggs inside the mailbox.

I didn’t notice them until I pulled out the mail and had to shake and dance like a silly wind-up toy. Since then I’ve listened for the mailman to intercept the deposit of mail while I am waiting on our favorite pest company to return for a yard treatment.

Tomorrow is a busy day. Fed-Ex should be arriving with my new credit card. The appliance people are scheduled to come fix the refrigerator. And Bart, the pest guy, is stopping by to rid the mailbox of ants.

My third biggest mystery: why do people think events always come in threes?

I logged into my credit card account online like I do every few days. I routinely check the transactions against my receipts and purchases because on occasion there is an error. A few times my credit card company has detected fraudulent activity on the account in the middle of the night. I have woken up in the morning to a phone message telling me that someone had tried to use the card. It was declined because the zip code and address did not match the card billing account but because of the attempt, my credit card would be closed and they would overnight a new card to me.

Good service, says I. Awesome service with frequent flyer miles as my bonus!

Until today….when I logged into my account to discover a hotel reservation via an online vacation affiliate and airline tickets had been charged successfully a few days ago.

I picked up the phone to report the theft. The CC company closed the account and put a fraud tag on the related charges. But I had to ask, “How is it you were able to close my previous account within the hour of an attempt and decline for a charge less than $50.00 in South Africa, but you thought it was okay for airline tickets to Emirates totaling almost $3,000?”

The credit card statement had a 1-800 number on one of the charges (for a hotel) so I called them to gather information. It took me an hour of being transferred from person to person but I finally found a sympathetic person who gave me the phone number and the address of the person making the reservation. He also gave me the name of the hotel and the date of “my” reservation. Apparently I’m booked in a hotel in Dublin on April 14. I’d invite you to go with me but after Googling the hotel and seeing photos I was creeped out. So I cancelled the reservations and told them it had been booked with a stolen credit card. The card was closed and charges would be reversed.

Tomorrow I plan on calling the cell phone number they gave me to inquire about their hotel reservation and let them know its been cancelled. Sounds like fun, eh?

And the credit card company will take care to cancel “my” airline reservations to Emirates and refund my money on that vacation too.

Its amazing how people will steal credit cards and charge items to them and think its okay. Its more amazing that the credit card company didn’t seem to notice that the name on the tickets, the street address nor the zip code matched either. Not a small slip-up!

Its a shame really. I’ve been dreaming of a vacation but would not select Dubai Are, Emirates as my choice. I prefer Disneyworld.

I met with a friend today for lunch. I am very excited about my friendship with her. I feel a particular attachment for her as a kindred spirit in every sense of the word…especially as Anne of Green Gables used the term!

She’s been working on a video project for her son’s rehearsal dinner. It reminded me of a project on my to-do-list that I haven’t invested specific energy to accomplish. I think its time!

I am the keeper of the family slide archive. Slides from the 1950’s when mom and dad married and had babies through elementary age children, through dad’s deployment to Vietnam and our college years are stacked in a box in my closet.

I have meant to take them out, view them, select the ones that matter (since more rolls of film have many photos without meaning or memory) and create a DVD for my siblings.

I think the time has come.

But the place to start requires that I find a slide projector that works. Does anyone have an old slide projector I can borrow for the first step in my task? If you are local and can lend me your slide projector for a short time, I would appreciate it!