I would now like to apologize to everyone. In the world.

That’s roughly how many people I’m disappointing, annoying or exasperating right now.

And the great move of 2008 is really only halfway complete. It took precisely one week to pack and move the contents of stately Holland manor into four extra-large pods. And I was pretty much completely off-line work-wise for that entire week. Dear Lord in heaven, what a beating. And we can’t move into the new place for a few more days.

In the interim, the five of us are living with kind relatives like Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl in some sad Steinbeck novel.

Meanwhile, people all over the civilized world are waiting for me to produce things they’ve paid me good money to create. So to all of you I say again: “I’m sorry. . . so very sorry.”

And to myself I say: “Stop bellyaching you big baby. This isn’t ‘hard.'”

Good people do genuine, real-deal “hard” all the time.

I know a couple at church who got the news from the obstetrician that their newborn baby girl had Down’s Syndrome and was profoundly deaf. They bounced back quickly from the shock and disappointment and have found her a source of astonishing joy.

Hard?

I have a friend with three teenage daughters (just like me) who found himself standing by the caskets of two of them a couple of years back right in the middle of the Thanksgiving holidays. He and his sweet wife pressed into God and, by His grace and comfort, found ways to carry on, be productive, do Kingdom work, and even smile again.

As I said, in this fallen world too many good people do “hard” with too great a frequency.

This? This is just momentary, light obnoxiousness. But to all those innocent folks being affected by it. . . bear with me. This too shall pass.