Luke’s Notebook

I don’t think I realize just how good I have it.

Check that.  I know I don’t realize how good I have it.

I just finished watchin “The War,” a seven-part, 14-hour documentary recounting World War II.  Watching that and becoming more familiar with what people went through and what life was like back then, just leaves me speechless.

Compare my struggles and concerns of these days to those  somebody my age would be going through in the mid-’40s, and it’s just pitiful.  The things that worry me, that upset me, that scare me are so insignificant compared to what some people have had to face and what some people are going through currently.

It’s kind of uncomfortable to write like this, because I’m admitting how spoiled I’ve become.  I realize how privileged I am, yet I find myself always having that tendency to be restless, to demand things be even better than they are now.

There are so many enormous things that I take for granted every day, that I have the time to fret about trivial matters.  Like I alluded to last month when worrying about arm pain from softball, it hits me that when something like that is my Crisis du Jour, then that means life is so full of blessings.  When I’m not having to spend my day fighting to eat — and in fact, I have such a selection of food that I have trouble not overeating; when I’m not having to worry about the safety of my family and friends; when there’s no fear of invasions, or airstrikes, or bombs; when the worst thing that happens after a massive storm is that I’m sad I might not be able to play softball that night; when I can freely worship our amazing God, without having to fear for my life; when I have this family that loves me like crazy and is just the best bunch to be around — to me, all signs point to a pretty wonderful life.

When soldiers returned from World War II, they would tear up when they saw the American flag flying.  Grown men would kiss the ground as soon as they arrived on American soil.  They were just so thankful to be alive, to be home, to be part of an everyday boring life that a lot of people would gripe about.

I’m not sure why I was born in 1985 instead of 1915.  I don’t know how I would have done in that era.  I wonder if I would be too soft.  I don’t know.

What worries me now is that since we live such a privileged life, in such an amazing country, we might take it for granted.  We are so well-protected and live such comfortable lives that we can so easily become flabby and arrogant.  But I think if this trend continues, America is going to go downhill fast.  When people are more and more focused on themselves and more accustomed to getting their way, it’s harder and harder to serve somebody else.  And it’s very hard to submit to authority, to realize that God’s promises and commands are still the same, no matter what the current trend may be.

Honestly, I think the remedy for this problem is for America to get on its knees.  We need to humble ourselves.  We need to apologize to God for our arrogance, for our disobedience, and ask Him to lead us, to bless our country.

2  Chronicles 7:14

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

I’m just praying that we, as a nation, will wake up before we are too far gone.

Whew.

Hot on the heels of me moving the Notebook to a new engine, so to speak, I decided to do the same with FamTeam Today.

It was hard enough moving my 1,100 entries to WordPress.  This new task was even more daunting.  I had over 16,000 entries from FamTeam Today, from 13 different authors.  Nearly 1,000 of them contained photos.

This was a lot more tricky than moving my personal blog.  In fact, there must have been a good four or five times over the past several days where I thought, “Oh, let’s just forget about this idea altogether!”

I’m very glad I stuck with it, though.  I learned quite a bit as I encountered a lot of new problems, and I also accomplished what I set out to do:  Move FamTeam Today to WordPress.

The reasons for this are similar to the reasons I outlined in my recent entry explaining my move.  Only, I think it’s more significant for FamTeam Today.  I think we needed this room to grow, so to speak.

As of now, the only real noticeable difference is the nice archives on the right-hand side of FTT.  But things are completely different under the hood, so to speak.  Again, it really opens up the playing field for us.  A few possible approaches we could take easily now would be to have a FamTeam Today feed on Twitter or Facebook.  Stuff like that wasn’t really possbible before, but now it would be a piece of cake.

This was a big, big job, but I’m thrilled to have tackled it.  Things aren’t quite perfect yet, as I will probably tweak the layout a little bit and try to fix any annoyances that show up.  But I think we are good enough to go now, and I’m excited that we have brought FamTeam Today into the 21st century!