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Day’s Verse:
Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
Isaiah 40:30-31
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Ian has spent the last month or more working on a new web project: His new blog! That’s right, Ian has decided to give this whole blogging thing another stab, so point your browsers over to This Fortune Intentionally Left Blank at http://if.rainydaycommunications.net/journal/ or go there via the link I added on my Blogs page. Check out the other content (I wrote a recipe for how to make your own Ian), over which Ian sweated blood, enjoy yourself, link to it from your site, bookmark it, and come back often. Welcome back to blogging, Ian. Continue Reading >>

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Day’s Verse:
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
Romans 3:23-24
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Charles River Labs celebrates Halloween with chocolate. In fact, the last month has proved a slowly increasing chocolate-and-miscellaneous-candy bonanaza in anticipation of today. Walking through the cube farm, I inevitably see somebody munching a Crunch bar or Butterfingers. Passing the receptionist, I see M&Ms; and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups slowly vanishing. I myself have contributed to the demise of dozens of small chocolate bars; I have a particularly difficult time resisting Milky Way and Snickers bars, although Peanut Butter Cups do tend to set my mouth watering as well. Continue Reading >>

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Day’s Verse:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
Hebrews 12:1 (context)
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The time has come once more to bring your wandering attention to the issues that really matter: National Novel Writing Month.

Perhaps you have, in the last 11 months, forgotten my valiant but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to write 1,000 50-word sotries. Perhaps you have not known me long enough to have read snippets of my 2004 novel, Io’s Child. This year I will once more throw down the gauntlet, grip my keyboard firmly, and charge into the chaos that is NaNoWriMo. Continue Reading >>

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Day’s Verse:
When outsiders who have never heard of God’s law follow it more or less by instinct, they confirm its truth by their obedience. They show that God’s law is not something alien, imposed on us from without, but woven into the very fabric of our creation.
Romans 2:14 (context)
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We are in Vermont for the weekend with CBF. I will bring back pictures and sleep deprivation. A story from yesterday:

I walked by a chemist at her desk and glanced at her computer screen. She was googling Smashing head against a wall. What story lurks behind that search term? Continue Reading >>

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Day’s Verse:
Every time you criticize someone, you condemn yourself. It takes one to know one. Judgmental criticism of others is a well-known way of escaping detection in your own crimes and misdemeanors. But God isn’t so easily diverted. He sees right through all such smoke screens and holds you to what you’ve done.
Romans 2:1-2 (context)
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Yes, I took my first fall leaving the train station. I wore two layers of pants and a pair of gloves, so my left hand sustained a deep and painful bruise (but no blood) and my right knee sustained an equally deep bruise and started bleeding, although my pants did not rip. I got back on my bike and rode to work. Continue Reading >>

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Day’s Verse:
We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.
1 Cor 5:20
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This is going to bother some people, but I would like to take this chance to explicitly state where I fall on a variety of controversial issues (in alphabetical order). I have talked about some or all of these in the past, but I have thought more about most of them since I originally wrote. These are issues I have specifically thought about and feel somewhat qualified to form an opinion on, based on personal reading, classes I took, or other sources that provide me with evidence to support my statements here. Continue Reading >>

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Day’s Verse:
And he stayed two full years in his own rented quarters and was welcoming all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness, unhindered.
Acts 28:30-31 (context)
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At Price Chopper the other day I passed by the organic cereal aisle and a bag caught my eye: Vermont Morning, it proclaimed in big red lettering. Intrigued, I picked it up, and the rest is history. I brought it with me to work, seeing that it took but a few moments nuked in the microwave, and because the prospect of eating one more bowl of Grape Nuts in yogurt was about to send me screaming into the night. I tried it for the first time this morning combined with (oddly enough) lemon-flavored yogurt, and a few phrases leapt to mind: Continue Reading >>