With a grateful heart

Thank You for the sun, which rises and sets and tells of Your glorious faithfulness.


Thank You for warmth:  for fireplaces and fuzzy blankets and hot soup and a heated house.


Thank You for muscles that work together and nerves that communicate smoothly and the feel of running along, propelled by healthy strength.


Thank You for little faces that light up and say, "Mommy!"


Thank You for time with these souls:  minutes and hours and days and years of teaching, correcting, training, enjoying.


Thank You for looking down the row of their faces and seeing them worship with Your people.


Thank You for loving families who taught us what love is and delight our hearts when we're together.


Thank You for bonds of matrimony that hold us together through holidays and seasons and children and new houses, and secure us through fickle human nature and passing trials.


Thank You for waking me up each morning to the one groggy face I want to see, for sleepy morning greetings and cozy hugs, for this man who sees all my faults and loves me despite them.


Thank You for the Bible in English, and those who labored and suffered to make that happen.


Thank You for precious morning time in Your Word, for years of Sunday Bible preaching, for times of ruminating on Your Word with Your people.


Thank You for Your priceless promises:  that You will never let us go; that Your faithfulness will not fail; that You work all things for the good of those who love You.


Thank You for Your glorious, astonishing solution to our self-inflicted problem of sin.  Jesus, thank You for stepping down out of heaven--for suffering humiliation and torture--for loving us to the very end.  Thank you for the brilliant, shining resurrection and for pouring out Your Spirit on our hearts.


Thank You for winning our hearts and giving us life forevermore.

Hello, November

At the end of September we took a field trip to Foamhenge--extremely accurate, made entirely out of styrofoam, and by far not the weirdest of Stonehenge replicas.

And it was a beautiful day.

And there were mud puddles.

So

many

mud puddles.

We visited with the kids' oldest friends (since the boys were under 2 and the girls were in utero), who, sadly, have moved away--but, happily, will return frequently to visit.

We played outside in the last of the mild weather.

We celebrated a birthday or two!

Caleb helped Jeddy with his school work.

And this week, we took another field trip to the forest.

Jesus in The Office

Besides completing a 31-day challenge, I've spent the last month discovering and carrying on a love affair with The Office (U.S. version).  I'd be ashamed to even calculate how many hours 9 seasons works out to.

For those who waited even longer than I to hear of a show that ended in 2013, the appeal of The Office lies in its dry [and sometimes vulgar] hilarity, and, eventually, its tender development of complex, sympathetic characters.

I'm reminded of the post I wrote after seeing The Notebook, in which I posit that every great story is a whisper of the Great Story, and that women especially love a good love story because it reflects the Lover of our souls.  

The first few seasons of The Office offer just such a touching story.  

{Merciless spoilers following}

The drama focuses on colleagues and good friends Jim and Pam, who are in love with each other but can't admit it, mainly because Pam is engaged to someone else.  At long last Jim does admit it, confessing his love to her despite her inevitable rejection (and at risk to life and limb at the hands of her fiance).

Why do we love this kind of heart-wrenching drama?  What makes women sigh and swoon over these scenes?  

I'm convinced it's because God has placed eternity in our hearts, and hints of the Great Story resonate in our souls.  

Jim is so obviously right for her:  he's witty and decent and charming and likable and values her far more than her own fiance does.  Yet this supremely cool guy humbles himself before her--just like our glorious Savior, the Desire of nations, humbled Himself before us.  

Jim steps up and speaks his love for Pam, instead of waiting for her to say it first--even though her acceptance would have been against all odds.  And when she cites her engagement and dutifully refuses, because she doesn't realize what she wants, Jim's unrequited declaration of love costs him great pain.  Yet, beautifully, his love for Pam doesn't end, and this story eventually has a happy ending.

"In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son...We love, because He first loved us."

1 John 4:10, 19

God didn't wait for us to love Him first.  He came to us, declaring His steadfast love, even though we loved the world and did not love Him.  Yet He bore our sins at unimaginably great cost and, in time, won our hearts.

I love a happy ending.