My two lovely children love to put their fingers in things - their ears, their noses, their mouths... you get the idea. Anyway, after putting those fingers in such dank and dark places, the fingers inevitably end up touching my computer screen. The result is, as you can imagine, a cloud of mucus that has to be physically scraped off. Otherwise, whatever is behind the scum cloud gets obscured - making it damn hard for me to do important work, like dowloading the newest tunes from Billtunes or perusing Drudge's latest gossip.

Most of you know what's happened around here these last few weeks. In case you haven't, let me sum it up by saying that May was a bad month for the Barbers. One of my sisters had carpal tunnel surgery (successfully, thank God), my mother had double knee replacement surgery (also successful, thank God), and my other sister was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and in the last few days had her thyroid removed. And, the coup de grace was that about three weeks ago, my wife, who had been about three months pregnant, lost the baby. Like I said, it was a bad month for the Barbers (especially the women).

Before all of this happened, and even more so since, a hot topic 'round here has been this business of God's plan for our lives. Where does He want us? What does He want us doing? Does my job fit into it?

I've been reading a lot of John Eldredge these past few months, and I've bought into the idea of our lives being meant for something huge - not just a humdrum existence, but something really meaningful to the kingdom of God, in a big way. God's plan for our lives is way bigger than we can even picture, you know? And, when we do get a bit of clarity about it, it tends to be fleeting. So it makes sense to look hard and pay attention when we get the chance.

But when a month like this past May happens, it's like some little hands run their fingers, wet with spit, all over that clear image of God's will. The parts that looked so clear a few minutes ago become smeared and smudged and it gets hard to decipher. And, man, it's going to take a long time to scrape all that off with these short fingernails... Anyone got some Windex?