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Like many Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse users, my scroll ball occasionally starts to stick. Once it even stopped working altogether.

Apple’s official solution to the problem hasn’t worked for me. Others have suggested that one must crack the case on the mouse to fix it. Still others suggest using rubbing alcohol, and one guy even cut up strips of tape to feed under the ball‚Äö Crazy!

However, I have come up with a solution that has worked for me every time, and it’s a slightly surprising one: Huggies Naturally Refreshing Cucumber & Green Tea Baby Wipes.

Honestly, I don’t know if the cucumber and green tea have any bearing on the success of this procedure, but it’s what we had around the house.

Just rub the mouse down with a single wipe, and then flip it upside down, and roll the scroll ball around vigorously with the wipe. For best results, push down with a fair bit of force, and consider using a flat surface, like a table or book when you do this.

Your mileage may vary. If it shorts something out or discolors your mouse, don’t cry to me.

I sometimes see humor in insignificant and random things, and also allow my imagination to play out like a movie screen in my head‚Äö kind of like the character J.D. from Scrubs.

Here’s an example: The hospital where I am employed bivocationally recently had a book sale in the main entrance lobby. The book sales are always a collection of pop-culture “best sellers” and usually includes a small “Christian” section. T.J. Jakes recently released a book called Reposition Yourself. Perhaps the book sellers should have repositioned this book in their display? Click on the [poor-quality cell phone image] thumbnail above to see what I mean‚Äö I don’t think the good Bishop would be happy with where he was placed‚Äö

Recently, a new friend has been sharing with me some of the issues that come in dealing with her diabetes.

My son, Elijah, is sick with an inner-ear infection that required my wife, Diana, to make an ER visit on Sunday during church.

Diana herself is 25-weeks pregnant, and saw her obstetrician yesterday; this pregnancy that has had a number of issues that have made us nervous.

I’m just getting over an upper respiratory infection that required me to get myself to an urgent care clinic on Saturday.

All of this medical-related stuff has prompted me to be thinking about health and wellness quite a bit lately, and I have come to a few conclusions.

First, health is really important. Obviously this isn’t a true surprise to anyone reading this, but relatively few of us truly live our lives in a way that highlights being healthy as one of our core intents. Our lack of commitment to live active lifestyles betrays our knowledge of the simple things it takes to be healthy in general. In America, we have a higher average lifespan than ever, but our quality of life (distinct from our quality of lifestyle) is lower, in a sense. We aren’t dying due to many of the things that used to kill us; now we just suffer through chronic conditions. Most of these conditions are things that can be prevented by proper diet and exercise, but that seems to be too much for many people to bother with. As Christians, we recognize that our bodies are temples for the Holy Spirit. Just like many churches who focus far too much on growing their facility, many of us have undertaken a “building expansion project” on our temples. In America, where food and processed “food products” are abundant, we’ve forgotten that what we consider a basic meal would have been considered gluttony by a first century believer. Beyond that, portions that we should still consider gluttony today are common. It’s a sad state of affairs when a national restaurant chain, launches an advertising campaign touting a special new menu with “smaller portion entrees.” We truly live in a land of excess.

Second, I am more interested in my health than ever before. I think that having kid(s) has made me realize that I’m not a kid myself anymore, and thus, I’m responsible for my health. It isn’t just that I need to take care of myself because no-one else is going to, but also because, God forbid, if something were to happen to me it would be incredibly hard on Diana, Elijah, and our little girl on-the-way. The reality that I care about my own health more now than in years past is shown in the fact that I went to the urgent care immediately upon finding myself sick. In the past, I’d try to “man-up” and just suffer through it, which is a stupid-yet-common way men deal with illness. I also find myself, through work at the hospital and articles on the Internet, reading a fair amount of material relating to healthcare and preventative medicine. In fact, I’m not just reading it, but I’m being convicted by it, and that leads me to my last conclusion.

Third and finally, I’m horribly unhealthy. I could say that I’m big boned, or overweight, but the reality is that I’m obese. I’ve struggled with weight since, as a kid, I quit playing hockey and baseball, and became a computer geek. Over the past few years I’ve relaxed some of my computer geek focus to become a theology geek. I love being a geek, but generally the concentration and commitment involved in earning geek cred involves sitting on one’s rear and reading lots of stuff so as to internalize it in such a way that is can be brought back up and interacted with at will. As a byproduct of that information intake process, I also often took part in a caloric intake process that included sugary drinks and high carbohydrate and fatty snacks. While I was in college I also was a cook at the college’s cafeteria, and that job helped me pack on the weight as much as anything. Since getting out of college, and moving up here, I’ve managed to pack on a few more pounds as well. Between being a new father, the ministry, the job, and a variety of other things, I’ve been keeping crazy hours and using caffeine to augment my natural abilities. I’ve told myself that because I have ADHD, and some studies have shown that caffeine helps people with ADHD that it’s no problem that I drink Jolt, Amp, and all those fun calorie-filled drinks. But in truth, I’m just addicted. It’s enough to kill a guy. Literally.

So those are my three conclusions. It’s a damning scenario I’ve managed to get myself into, and I do take responsibility for my actions (read: sins) that have gotten me this far into physical bankruptcy. I can’t continue like this. I’m convicted about it. And as Mark Driscoll has said (paraphrasing a bit) the only correct response to conviction is repentance.

It’s impossible for someone to snap their fingers and end years of bad habits and addiction in the strength of their own flesh. However, as Romans 8:13 says, I intend to yield to the Holy Spirit and in doing so, put to death the deeds of my body. I’m submitting to Christ in an area of my life that I now realize I never have before, something not just temporal (as in unhealthy food) but spiritual (as in food being an idol) as well. That said, I ask for the prayers of my friends and other readers, that I would successfully yield to God, end my food idolatry, and begin the long process of getting healthy.