This morning, I stepped into the prison's recreation yard…
...and into a flaming sun. Local meteorologists have been predicting a heatwave, and it's here. The "heat index" is supposed to go above 100 degrees. It feels as if it already has.
I decided to go outdoors, heatwave or not. I wanted to hang out with my friend Pedro for a time for exercise and fellowship. He's a "strong" Christian who knows how to give encouragement when I need it, which is often.
But whenever I leave my cell to go outdoors during the summer months, I'm always careful to take along a survival kit. My kit consists of a bottle of water, baseball cap, wash cloth, sunscreen, toilet tissue, and in this time of Covid-19, a face mask.
To leave behind just one of these items could very well spell my doom. I'm exaggerating, of course. Yet there's a truth to this. To step into a blazing sun, and to be without a baseball cap or sunscreen, or to be stuck in a heatwave without water, one could only imagine the outcome. Once you step into the yard, there's no going back indoors until the recreation period is over.
Well, I had a nice recreation period with Pedro. We had our usual time of jesting and joking, along with some walking and light exercising. It was just too hot to do much more. But what we did do was to discuss at length a particular word which suddenly came to my mind when Pedro and I were together. "Fortitude."
Later, when I returned to my cell, I opened my study bible and a dictionary in order to explore this word, and its concept. Fortitude is a necessity for every follower of Jesus Christ.
I hope to write more on the subject of fortitude shortly.
D.B.
I decided to go outdoors, heatwave or not. I wanted to hang out with my friend Pedro for a time for exercise and fellowship. He's a "strong" Christian who knows how to give encouragement when I need it, which is often.
But whenever I leave my cell to go outdoors during the summer months, I'm always careful to take along a survival kit. My kit consists of a bottle of water, baseball cap, wash cloth, sunscreen, toilet tissue, and in this time of Covid-19, a face mask.
To leave behind just one of these items could very well spell my doom. I'm exaggerating, of course. Yet there's a truth to this. To step into a blazing sun, and to be without a baseball cap or sunscreen, or to be stuck in a heatwave without water, one could only imagine the outcome. Once you step into the yard, there's no going back indoors until the recreation period is over.
Well, I had a nice recreation period with Pedro. We had our usual time of jesting and joking, along with some walking and light exercising. It was just too hot to do much more. But what we did do was to discuss at length a particular word which suddenly came to my mind when Pedro and I were together. "Fortitude."
Later, when I returned to my cell, I opened my study bible and a dictionary in order to explore this word, and its concept. Fortitude is a necessity for every follower of Jesus Christ.
I hope to write more on the subject of fortitude shortly.
D.B.
