I’ve had nearly six weeks now in which I’ve no longer experienced the depression I was battling the prior two months, which I blogged about June 30. (See also part 2 of this Spurgeon series.) Like some physical problems I’ve had, I don’t know why the depression came or why it left. (Add this to my very long list of things I can’t explain.)

At 9:00 PM Thursday, I got a phone call from Nanci as I was putting grandson Matthew Franklin to bed in the room that once was his mother’s. As Nanci talked, in the background was a loud cry, out of the mouth of Jack Timothy Franklin. Jack had just come into the world at 7 pounds, 12 ounces, and 19.5 inches.

The following twelve point cure for complaining is the Word of God’s corrective to the spirit of entitlement and ingratitude that’s poisoning our culture, and too often the church as well. 

Here’s a photo I took Saturday on Mount Lassen, at about 7,000 feet. The lake, the flowers, the sky—beauty popping up out of barrenness, all declaring God’s glory.  

Tell Me About Heaven is about a grandfather helping ten-year-old Jake come to terms with his grandmother’s death. Jake has all kinds of questions about Heaven, and what his grandma is doing and whether she remembers him. When he spends two weeks at his grandfather’s house out in the country, they do things together and talk about Heaven as they go. 

Deception is a first person murder mystery told by wisecracking and lovable homicide detective Ollie Chandler. It was a fun book to write, though it took a lot of time and effort.

Wait Until Then, a thirty-two page big format picture book, was published in February 2007 (now out of print). It’s a very short story, only two thousand words, about a boy who loves baseball, and his grandfather who played one year for the Boston Red Sox with Ted Williams.