I Have Moved

I have moved to my own domain: www.joshuastrickler.com

I'm sorry to make you all do this but you will need to go to the new site and switch over your bookmarks and rss feeds.

Thank you for your continued support.

Sorry

I wish to apologize for my lack of posting. I've been distracted by several events in my life.

1) I'm engaged
2) Started planning a wedding
3) Looking for a job

I had a job interview on Friday. I think it was a good one, please pray that if it's the right fit God would open the door for me.

Hopefully I will start posting again soon.

Josh

White Christmas?

It looks like Portland, OR is going to have a white Christmas for the first time in years.

I'm personally very excited about this.  It may delay or cancel some of my plans, but this happens so rarely I think I can enjoy it. 

Here are some of the pictures I have taken of this exciting "snow event"

All of my snow pictures can be found here

Happy Fourth of July

I pray that as we pause to celebrate the birth of America you will find time to thank God for all the blessing in your life.

Ash Wednesday

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, for me one of the most meaningful services of the year that I attend. I generally attend another church's service than the church where I minister as we are a small church and do not currently have a mid-week service.

I would like to share my favorite liturgical prayer with you: the opening prayer of the liturgical Ash Wednesday service:

“Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent; Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledge our wretchedness may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever. Amen.” The Book of Common Prayer

For more information on Ash Wednesday and Lent please click here.

So I Finally Did It

So after all these years of being online, I finally decided to create my own blog.

No, I'm not going to post random tidbits about my life so people can keep up with my life. But I often feel the desire to write thoughts down about life and faith and how faith expresses itself in various aspects of life. I may even post a devotion or two that I write primarily for use at the church I am blessed to minister at.

The title might come across as a bit odd at first. 'Complicated' is a bit ominous and may scare some people away. But, when we stop to think about it life is complicated and the sooner we admit that the sooner we can move past the complication and start enjoying.

So for better or worse, here we go.