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Do you support the proposed Master Plan for Pensacola Beach

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God's rod & staff deliver comfort

For years, I have used an electronic personal data assistant (PDA) as my master calendar. I have found the PDA easier to use than paper for recording new and repeating events; and if I must make a change or correct a mistake, I just delete it and start over. All reminders of the erroneous entry are gone. Quick, easy, and efficient! (Too bad I cannot do that with my sins. Fortunately, I have a Savior who washes them away completely.)

For the coming year, however, I have added a paper calendar to my PDA. Maybe old age has made me distrustful of electronic bits that may simply disappear with a strike on the wrong keys. There is something comforting about a written back-up. It is there; I do not have to wonder whether or not the "restore" key will work.

Whether I use my PDA or a paper calendar, it begins filling up long before the New Year. The calendar that looked so nice — light green lines, dates and times on a crisp white background - is already muddied with cross-outs, changes and corrections.

How foolish I am to think I actually control anything, let alone my calendar. It reminds me of James' admonition to his readers: "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit' - yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring … Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills,' we will live and do this or that." (4:13, 15)

Rev. Rory Hermann Good Shepherd Lutheran Church I encourage you to place your life in the Savior's hands. He is definitely a better navigator, a superbly trained Captain, and an unsinkable life preserver. 2009 may be a challenging year, but he "is our shepherd who is with us, and his rod and his staff comfort [us] … Surely goodness and mercy shall follow [us] all the days of [our] lives, and [we] shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever."