August 24th...Lessons for storms

        As I shared recently, my dear sister-in-law is fighting a fierce battle today.  She's battling a difficult form of cancer...but she does not battle alone.  Never alone.  Not only does she now have countless folks all over the country praying for her, as well as family and friends beside her loving and helping her, but most importantly, she has an Almighty Lord who is with her and for her every moment of every day and every night.  The cancer may be aggressive, but her faith is in her all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing, all-gracious God.
        How I wish I could take away the pain, take away the fear, take away the cancer.  But while I can't do that, I can battle with her and for her with my prayers.  And with my words...and that's what I've decided to try to do over the coming weeks and months, beginning today. 
        For you see today, August 24th, marks a special day for our family.  So it seems appropriate to think back over that time and share some of the lessons God taught us in the midst of one of the most challenging storms our family has faced.  Lessons that stay with us to this very day, and lessons that I pray God will use to encourage my precious sister-in-law and any others who might be enduring or entering a difficult storm in their lives. 
        Exactly six years ago today, on a Friday just like today, on a bright and sunny day just like today, our world was rocked and changed forever when our daughter and three of her friends were in a serious car wreck.  I won't go into the details, but two of the girls were seriously hurt.  Tessa was flown to Chapel Hill with multiple broken bones in her back, wrist, hip, and shoulder.  Janie was flown to Greenville with a traumatic brain injury.  Janie was in a coma, and though the doctors and nurses tried repeatedly, they could not wake her up.  For two weeks, we prayed and waited, not knowing first if she'd survive, then if she would ever wake up, and finally if she did wake up, how extensive her brain damage would be.

         Again, I won't go into details because that's not the point of this post. Rather, I'd love to share some simple lessons we learned through this time.  (I'll try to stick to just one or two lessons each post so this may take a while!) 
         I have to add, as hard, terrifying, and painful as that time was, my husband and I both said we felt God's presence, His love, His grace, His strength for one moment at a time, as never before during those long, dark weeks.  There were days and nights where the Lord's presence was so palpable in that little ICU room that the air seemed thick with Him--we knew He was there.  It was as if I could feel His gentle but powerful breath on my face and His loving but strong arms around my shaking shoulders.  I will never forget that nearness.
         That's one lesson--in the darkest, hardest moments of life, God is there.  He will be there.  He is always there.  You are never ever alone, and you will never be alone.  He's promised in His Word, "I will never leave you nor forsake you" (Heb.13:5)  That's not to say you won't feel fear or pain or despair--but He will be there.  He will walk with you in the darkness, and weep with you in the sorrow.  And that should give us such peace--the Almighty One will be with me, no matter what.  And if He's with me, He'll enable me to walk this broken road and to face anything. 
        Stop worrying about whether or if He'll be there--He will.  No matter what. 
         Secondly, instead of asking and fixating on why, start asking what.  I'm not saying this because God can't take your doubts and  your raw why Lord? questions.  No, you can be completely honest with your Heavenly Father.  He can take it, and He will love you just as much after you shake your fist at Him in anger and confusion as He does when you trust and thank Him profusely. 
         But the problem with why questions is that they take you nowhere.  We may never know the answers to our why questions until we get to heaven.  Instead, it's more helpful to ask God what--                What do you want me to learn through this?  What are You doing in the midst of this?  What promise in Your Word can strengthen me in the midst of this?  What other person can I encourage even in this hard place? 
         In response to those questions, I can tell you from personal experience, God will teach you and grow you through whatever it is you're enduring. 
         He will be working and moving in innumerable redemptive ways you likely cannot see and do not know, but He is.  He always is. 
         His Word contains countless promises you can cling to that will refocus your confused gaze, revive your weary heart, and renew your depleted strength.  Go to Him in His Word and be filled
         And there will always, always, always be someone else you can help, love, and encourage, even in the midst of your pain and difficulty.  Go love that person by God's grace and for His glory.  Mr. Rogers would always tell children that in the midst of crisis and calamity, "Look for the helpers."  You can be that helper for someone else.  You can be "Jesus with skin on" for someone else...and the person who will ultimately be most blessed, will be you.
          Thank You, Lord, for this day.  Thank You for Your extravagant grace and mercy in saving those four precious girls and in using all the pain, fear and difficulty for far greater good and for Your greater glory.  Please help my sweet sister-in-law, and all who are in the midst of fierce, frightening storms today, to cry out to You, to feel Your presence and love as never before, to cling to Your Word, and to trust in You, Your goodness, Your power, and Your plans. 
          Jesus, You are the Light that shines in the darkness and the darkness has not, and will never ever, overcome it. (John 1:5)  Shine, Jesus, shine, and help us to see Your irrepressible Light.
          To God be the glory.
           
     

Waiting well

        Waiting...is hard.
         Or maybe I should say, waiting well is hard.  Because, really, we all wait an awful lot, and anybody can wait poorly, right?
         I'm a professional at waiting impatiently, foot tapping, fist clenching, when I get in the loooong, sloooow line at the Harris Teeter.  Or when the person in front of me at the stoplight sits there looong after it's turned green--obviously checking out social media--while the rest of us in line behind them, wait irritatingly, even angrily.
        Then, of course, there's the especially challenging, anxious waiting: waiting to get into the desired school, waiting for the right person to come along to marry...waiting to get pregnant...waiting for the potentially life-altering diagnosis...waiting for healing...waiting for the prodigal to come home...waiting for reconciliation.
        As we wait and wait and wait, we start to wonder...and then to worry.  What if God says "no?"  What if God doesn't come through?  What if the worst happens?  What if I don't have what I need to survive the disappointment?  What if I just can't endure any more of this long, hard siege of waiting?
        Did you notice something about those questions, however?  They all began with "What if...?"  That's so often where we--or at least I--go off the rails and fall into the swamp of despair and doubt. All the "what if's" can literally sap the life and joy and hope right out of you and fill you instead with fear and doubt and despair.
         But you know what?  Maybe when those "what if's" start pounding at the door of our hearts, our minds and wills need to answer firmly with "But God has said..."
       I love what Spurgeon wrote: "Will not the distresses of life and the pangs of death, will not the internal corruptions and the external snares, will not the trials from above and the temptations from beneath all seem but light afflictions when we can hide ourselves beneath the bulwark of 'He has said'?"
       Yes!  We respond to all the "what if's" and fears and doubts that assail us by waiting with God's unfailing promises.  We run to His Word.  We remember His faithfulness.  We trust in His goodness and grace.  We recall how faithful He has been to us in the past.  We recount how God worked and moved in countless ways when His people in the Bible endured plenty of hard waiting of their own.
         Bottom line: if we want to wait well, we must wait with and in God's Word.
        Just a couple of examples: Abraham waited twenty-five years for God to send the long promised son to ancient Abe and his old wife, Sarah.  That's a mighty long time of getting up every morning and hoping, maybe this is the day...and then, by the end of day, saying sadly, nope, not today.  Only to get up the next morning, get busy worshipping, working, cleaning, traveling...and waiting, hoping once again: maybe today? And then, for about 9,125 days straight the answer was, nope, not yet.  That's an awful lot of days of waiting.
        Yet God's Word says, "And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise." (Heb.6:15)
        Andree Sue Peterson writes, "Twenty-five years he waited.  Unglamorous years of eating sand and believing for a son.  Just think of the daily talking to yourself you'd have to do under these conditions to keep waiting for something humanly implausible based only on a word you heard way back when.  Abraham is one of the greatest men in history for simply believing God for a long, long time."  
        Or how about Joseph?  Though God had seemed to give him a vision of his future greatness and authority, Joseph's brothers betrayed him, and thirteen long years he waited in Egypt as a slave and then a forgotten prisoner in a stinking dungeon.  That's 4,745 looong days, says Peterson, "to choose trusting God's word and faithfulness over bailing out of his teenage vision of the bowing sheaves and stars."  How long does it take us to bail?  To lose hope? To start complaining and fretting and doubting?         
        But all those days and months and years for Abraham, for Joseph, for Moses, for Hannah, for Zechariah and Elizabeth...they were never ever forgotten by God.  Every day, every moment, during all that waiting, the Lord was working and moving behind the scenes in countless ways that they could not see and did not know.  But we do...because we know the end of the story.
         Because in our waiting, God is working.  And in our waiting, God is building godly, strong, resilient, persevering, faithful character in us...in our children...in our loved ones...in our friends.
         Does knowing that make it fun to wait?  No sir.  But it makes it worth it.  Because as I've shared before, when God wants to grow a mealy little mushroom--that's here today and gone tomorrow--He takes about six hours.  When He wants to grow a mighty, majestic, towering oak tree--that's here for generations offering shade, stability, and beauty--He takes about sixty years.
         We're all enduring some kind of hard waiting right now...but instead of tumbling into the pit of fearful "what if's" that lead only to doubt and despair, let's turn to God's Word and choose to trust in His promises.  Let's recount His faithfulness.  Let's recall His goodness and grace.  And let's remember that He's working and moving in our lives, in our loved ones' lives, to grow mighty oaks of righteousness and faithfulness.
          I'm willing to wait well with Him for that.  How about you?
          To God be the glory.
     

Hope is a Person

        Hospitals are hard.
        They can be places of hurt, of demolished hope, of fear and uncertainty, of pain and sorrow.  But they can also be places of healing and hope, of babies born, of dreams restored, of courage found and faith displayed.  In hospitals, we experience the reality of Charles Dickens immortal words, "It was the best of times.  It was the worst of times..."
       After a hard week in the hospital for my sweet sister-in-law, yesterday was one of those especially hard days.  We learned that she has a particularly challenging form of cancer, and although we thought we were prepared for difficult news, well, we weren't really prepared.  I don't think you ever fully can be.
       And yet even in the heartbreak and fear, there's that kernel of hope.  Because our hope isn't in a great diagnosis, or in wonderful doctors, or in perfect health, or in happy circumstances...our hope is in Christ.
       Hope isn't a feeling.  Hope isn't a concept.  Hope is a Person, and His name is Jesus.     
       "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."
         As my daughter, Mary Norris, so eloquently expressed it to my sister-in-law when she learned of the news yesterday: "One thing I will never forget is something someone told me when Janie's situation was looking really bleak--doctors can only give us news...they cannot give us hope.  Hope comes from God and God alone.  Your future is secure and He meets us at our weakest and most lonely, vulnerable places."
          We have a God who weeps with us in our pain and sorrow.  We have a God who fully suffered and completely understands every single pain, sorrow, and disappointment we'll ever face.  He knows what it is to betrayed...to be rejected...to be lonely...to suffer pain and defeat and death.
         And He's promised us that on this lovely, broken planet, we too will suffer.  "I have said these things to you, that in Me you may have peace.  In the world you will have tribulation..."  Yes, we will experience sorrow, pain, disease...BUT that's not the end of the story!
          No sir! Finish the verse! Because following yet another of those amazing "but's" in the Word of God are words of glorious hope, certain hope, Jesus-this-is-gonna-get-mighty-good-hope: "...But take heart; I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)
           I don't know what you might be enduring today or facing tomorrow, but this I do know: Jesus has promised never to leave us us nor forsake us. (Heb.13:5)  He's promised He's bringing ultimate and eternal good out of ALL things. (Rom.8:28) He's promised that He's making all things new (Rev.21:5 And by the way, He's not just making all new things, but making all things new!  Praise God!!)  He's promised that He is preparing a place for us in heaven (John 14:3) and that our light and momentary afflictions are preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison (2 Cor.4:17)  And He's promised that He's overcome the world...so we can, we should, we must take heart!
          I have to quote my precious daughter one more time in the text she sent to my sister-in-law: "Isn't it amazing how we have a God who sits with us in our pain? That if feels like He draws nearest when we're hurting and provides tangible reminders that He loves us?  He is ultimately writing a story that fully redeems everything on this earth and one day it will be made whole again.  We can rest in that assurance and in the meantime hope in His unfailing promises."   Amen and amen.
         Cancer doesn't have the last word.  Divorce doesn't have the last word. Disease doesn't have the last world. Depression doesn't have the last word.  Addiction doesn't have the last word.  Destroyed finances or relationships or health don't have the last word.
          Jesus has the first and last word forever and ever and ever.  He is our Hope.  He is our Anchor in the storm.  And He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  Real, abundant, eternal, glorious, hope-fulfilled Life with a capital L.
          I don't know what the coming months will look like for my dear sister-in-law...or for any one of us on the planet for that matter. But I know the One who knows and holds us all in His nail-scarred hands.  And if He says He's always with us...and He's overcome the world...and He's bringing our good and His glory out of all things...and He's making all things new, well then, we're good.  Even while we fight the good fight against this cancer, we place our hope in God and in God alone.  And He's got us.  He's got her.  He's got you.  He is Hope.
         To God be the glory.

In the storms

        Isn't it something how life moves along calmly, quietly, uneventfully...and then suddenly, wham, a hurricane blows in.  One moment the skies are sunny, bright and clear, and the next, the storms clouds glower low and menacing and the rain pours down in sheets. 
        It's been one of those days. 
        This past week has featured the typical series of minor difficulties and small disappointments along with plenty of joyous interludes of peace and answered prayer.  Actually, like all of life--some good, some bad.  Some joy, some sorrow.  Some moments of crying out to God "Why?!" and "When?!" yet then interspersed with plenty of moments of "Thank You!" and "Praise You, Father!" 
        But today's been different.  We have several friends and family members dealing with sudden crises.  And here I sit, knowing in a sense what they're feeling.  I can close my eyes and am immediately taken back to that phone call six years ago this month.  Your daughter's been in a serious car accident...traumatic brain injury...coma...ICU.  It's like suddenly being thrown into a swirling vortex of uncertainty and fear. 
         How I wish, I pray, I could take away the pain and terror and helplessness.  I cannot...but this I do know.  There is a Rock that is an unshakable fortress, a sure and certain refuge in any storm. And His name is Jesus. 
        He is the mighty Lion of Judah.  The Great Deliverer.  The Redeemer.  The Bread of Life.  The Door.  The Living Water.  The Good, Good Shepherd.  The Friend who sticks closer than a brother.  The  Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  The Word.  The Savior. 
         And He will never ever leave you nor forsake you.  (Heb.13:5) 
         Sometimes we don't truly realize that until we're buffeted by the storms, and in the midst of the craziness, we sense His nearness, His grace, His tender love as never before.  It's in the storms that we learn what it means to depend upon Him, to trust Him alone for "strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow," and to experience joy even in the midst of sorrow and difficulty.   
         "I know, O LORD, that your rules are righteous, and in faithfulness you have afflicted me. Let your steadfast love comfort me according to your promise to your servant. Let your mercy come to me, that I may live; for your law is my delight." (Psalm 119:76-77)
        He is in the affliction.  He is in the storm.  He has allowed it, and He will use it, somehow, someway, for our greater good and His greater glory.  After all, Jesus endured the most horrific storm ever--the storm of the cross--for you, for me.  He allowed that raging storm of wrath and sin to buffet and batter and beat Him all the way to death.  The death we deserved. 
        But then on the third day, Jesus rose victorious.  Victorious over sin and death.  Victorious over fear and failure. Victorious over sickness and shame.  Victorious over despair and defeat.  And because He lives and reigns, so one day we will as well. 
         If you're in the midst of a storm, big or small, right now, look to Jesus.  Go to Him in His Word.  Worship Him in your pain.  Cry out to Him in your confusion.  Trust Him even when you cannot see the way ahead.  Because He does.  And He'll bring you safely home. 
         He's there.  I promise.  Far better yet, He's promised, and His Word never, ever fails. 
         If you're still and listen deeply, you might hear the beautiful sound of a distant roar.  Because in the midst of the storm, Aslan is on the move.
         To God be the glory.

Preach it, baby, preach it!

        Can I just share two things that have been mighty irritating today? 
        Irritation one: crows. Big, pushy, ugly black crows that seem to arrive in swarms and are trying to take over our bird feeder.  I wouldn't mind them so much if they'd stop scaring off the other birds, but that's just it: they're big old bullies!  I bet I've opened the door and shooed them away at least twenty-five times in the past few days.  Yet they're relentless...they just keep coming back and coming back and eating and scaring and bullying.  And yours truly, for the first time in my life, wishes she had BB gun to shoot at those pesky birds. 
        Irritation two: Bingley's barking.  I don't mean barking at bark-worthy objects, but BARKING BARKING BARKING at apparently random nothings that he spots outside the window.  Now, I wouldn't mind if he'd bark at those annoying crows, and sometimes he does. But he also barks at some mysterious something or other he sees or hears outside (which no one else in our house can see or hear) while he's staring out our dining room windows or kitchen door window or den windows... And I should add that his bark typically occurs when all else is quiet in the house and then suddenly, DEFCOM 1!  WARNING WARNING!  It's an earsplitting, dead-raising BARK that always elicits a scream from his startled family. 
         In the above picture, we have combined my two annoyances--Bingley staring out the window while preparing for a rousing, 120 decibel bark, and a crow alighting on the bird feeder outside, preparing to bully the cardinals and eat all the food.  (Can I add that I don't appreciate anybody or anything messing with my beloved cardinals.)
         But all this got me to thinking.  How often is our worrying and fretting and even giving in to discouragement like those crows and that barking?   
         Because here's the thing: what good does worrying and fretting do us?  We all know the answer to that--zip, nada, nothing...save empty today of the strength and joy God meant for us to enjoy today in our ridiculous insistence on fretting about tomorrow!  And worries--like crows--come in packs, don't they?  You start off with one little concern, and the next thing you know, you've morphed that tiny fear into some looming, gigantic catastrophe. Ridiculous!..not to mention annoying, unhelpful, and fruitless.
           Same thing with discouragement.  We lose all perspective and remembrance of God's goodness and grace and faithfulness when we allow ourselves to fall into the "pitt of despond" (to quote John Bunyan).  And one little disappointment can suddenly envelop all of life, coloring everything with a grey, dark cast so that we utterly fail to be thankful for God's extravagant generosity and His relentless gifts. 
           What do we do?  Well, I know I've shared this over and over again, but we FORGET, so here it is again (for anybody out there who is a slow learner and a quick forgetter like me): PREACH TO YOURSELF!
           Yes, we've heard it, but as Paul David Tripp always says, we're spiritual amnesiacs, and thus we need to be reminded again and again of the truths we know...but forget. 
           Stop listening to yourself and start talking to yourself from God's Word! 
           His Word is eternal, true, and supernaturally powerful, so that's the perfect source for our preaching.  We don't need to reinvent the wheel or come up with some super-duper inspirational speech. Nope, we simply open God's Word and start to preaching!  Write it out.  Meditate on it.  Speak it out loud. Sing it.  Pray it.  However you do it, go to the Word and preach it to your weary, overwhelmed, burdened self. 
          Martyn Lloyd-Jones expresses this perfectly:
               "Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking. . . . Your self is talking to you. Now this man’s treatment [in Psalm 42] was this: instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. “Why art thou cast down, O my soul?” he asks. His soul had been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says, “Self, listen for moment, I will speak to you. "
          As the Psalmist in Psalm 42 declares, "Why are you downcast, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?  Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God."  In other words, talk to your soul.  Preach to your soul.  Hit your soul with God's perfect and powerful Word! 
           Preach it, baby, preach it! 
           To God be the glory. 
       

Start making a new ending

        "No one can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending."  (No idea where I read this, but I love it!)
        "You don't have to be who you first were." (I do know this one!--Jen Hatmaker)
        Finally, a good, good word from God's Word: "Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old.  Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?  I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." (Isa.43:18-19)
        Anybody need a tiny bit of encouragement on this sunny, then cloudy, then stormy summer Monday?  Maybe just a little nudge that it's always too soon to give up...that it's never too late to start again...and that we serve a God of Resurrection who works best in a graveyard? 
         Well, I think I did--I do--as I've struggled to get going on what I need to get going on.  As one of my mama's old needlepoint pillows used to say, "My get up and go, got up and went!" 
          Lately, it's meant simply not feeling the inspiration to write.  Not feeling like tackling those tasks that require focus and determination.  Not feeling like I've got what it takes to do what's required.  And not feeling like "the joy of the Lord is my strength." (Neh.8:10)  Instead, my strength feels paltry and small.  And I think I know why: because it's entirely too Emily-dependent rather than God-dependent.  Circumstance-dependent rather than Savior-dependent.  And that's a recipe for inertia, discouragement, and frustration. 
          So, once again, I come to the endless fountain of God's mercy and grace, His power and provision, His love and wisdom.  And once again, I ask for the priceless, blood-bought gift of His  forgiveness and the joy of a new start.  That He would do "a new thing" in me and through me.  And that He would "make  a way in the wilderness" of my weakness and "rivers in the desert" of my discouragement. 
         And He has.  He does.  He will. Not just for me, but for you, too.  For the Lord will forever be true to His Word and to His never-failing promises.  "For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God." (2 Cor.1:20)
          Today, you might not be able go back and make a new beginning, but by the grace and power of God,  you can absolutely, right now, make a new ending.  He's ready to do a new thing in your heart and in your life.  Stop rehashing your sad, old failures, and start rehearsing God's supernatural promises.   Stop fixating on yourself, and start focusing on your Lord.  Stop waiting for your feelings, and start walking by your faith.   
           Because just as God has been changing the weather on this sunny, then cloudy, then stormy day, so He can change us as well.  Come to Him and ask Him to start today.  Start now.  And watch Him go to work. 
           To God be the glory.   
       
           
            

The glory of God, the goodness of God

         What a magnificent creation.  What an unimaginably more magnificent and glorious Creator. 

        We've just returned from our annual trout fishing trip in the mountains of North Carolina, and oh my, joy and wonder on every possible level.  The joy of witnessing the astounding beauty of God's handiwork all around us--soaring mountains, rushing streams, blooming rhododendron, verdant greenery everywhere, pounding waterfalls--

        All this wondrous creation is but a pale reflection of the infinitely more glorious Creator.  If He could create such abundant beauty, such astounding power, can you even begin to imagine how beautiful, how powerful, how astounding our Lord must be?! 
       I couldn't help but think of one of the liturgies, "Praise to the King of Creation" from the wonderful book,  Every Moment Holy, by Douglas McKelvey:

               "Our thoughts of You, O Lord, have been too small, too few--for seldom have we considered how specific is the exercising of Your authority, extending as it does into the myriad particulars of creation.
                  There is no quarter over which You are not King.
                  And as creation hurtles toward its liberation and redemption, the full implications of Your deep Lordship are yet to be revealed in countless facets unconsidered:
                   Christ, you are the Snow King.  You are the Maker of All Weathers.  You are the King of Sunlight and Storms, the King of Grey Skies and Rain.  You are the Rain King, the Sun King, the Hurricane King.  You are the King of Autumn  and King of Spring.
                  And our thoughts of You, O Lord, have been too small, too few...
                  You are the King of the Rabbits, and the Lord of Tall Trees.  You are the God of Youth and the God of Age.  You are the Acorn King, The River God, the Swamp King, King of Glades, King of Dells, Ruler of All Hummingbirds...
                  You are the weaver of the unseen fabrics of the world.  You are Lord of the Atoms, the Ruler of Electrons, the Lord of Gravity, and the King of Quarks.
                   Your dominion enfolds the earth and rises beyond it to the furthest extremes of the stars.  You are Lord of the Vast Empty Spaces.  You are King of the Constellations, the Black Hole King, Lord of Novas Exploding, Lord of Speeding Light, High King of Galaxies, King of Orion, King of the Moon.
                   And still, even still, our thoughts of You have been too small, too few. 
                   You are the God of Justice, the God of Wisdom, the God of Mercy, the God of Redemption.  You are the Lord of Love...
                    You were before all things, You creation all things, and in You all things are held together.  There is no corner of creation You will fail to redeem.
                   You are the Lord of Lords and King of Kings, O Jesus Christ, our King of Everything."

         Amen and amen!
         And yet this astoundingly glorious, omnipotent, shining, beautiful, perfect Lord of Lords made each of us...in His image, for His glory, by His love.  And redeemed us by His unimaginable grace. 
         We, little frail dust people that we are, are the crown of His creation and the object of His abounding love. 
         Yes, I couldn't help but praise Him for the glory of His creation...but also praise Him for the amazing goodness of His grace in giving us one another.  The people in our lives--the family and friends--oh what priceless gems each of them are!  The joy of precious family and being alive--

        The gift of a very dear son-in-law (and a beautiful trout!)--

      The peace and happiness of family dinners and praying together for God's bounty--

          Thank You, Father, thank You.  Forgive us for ever taking life's simplest, freest, and yet most wondrous gifts for granted.  Teach us, help us to see You in all Your creation, to love You deeply, and to worship You extravagantly.  For You are worthy...You are infinitely worthy.  And give us hearts overflowing with love and appreciation for those priceless souls You have so generously placed in our lives.  Might we forgive freely, encourage abundantly, guide gently, thank constantly, and see in them Your glory and goodness. 
         Might our lives be one gigantic "Thank You" and "I love You," Father.  Today and every day You choose to give us.  To God be the glory.