I’ve had a lot of ideas bouncing around in my head lately for blog posts. Call it a by-product of taking time off, but even though my purpose was to get some extra rest, my mind was still running amok. In a lot of ways this is a really good thing since I need some sort of creative outlet. I think we all do.
I am alive. My husband is alive. My kids are all alive.
I am so incredibly thankful right now.
Usually the first Monday of the month I post about one of my favorite influential books, but Saturday changed things. We were going to a music festival downtown when an elderly lady tried to make a left turn. Right in front of us.
There’s been a lot of conversation floating around about happiness lately. Much of it is due to Victoria Osteen’s comments about God being happy when we are happy (more on this later!), but the truth is that our culture has been chasing happiness since this nation’s inception. Even our Constitution includes the phrase about man’s inalienable rights: “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Our culture has pervaded the church and somehow we bought into the lie happiness is one of the best things we can attain. We can’t detach it from the concept of the American dream. If we are completely honest with ourselves, we are probably all chasing some semblance of this.
I’d like to apologize for the unexpected absence of a post last week; we were traveling and I planned on having wi-fi when I needed to finalize the article and schedule it… obviously, you can tell I misjudged things! But, it has given me time to ponder something things…
The barista came over to me and said, “Just to let you know, we’ll be closing in a few minutes.”
I looked up in shock at the clock. It had been two hours already that my dear friend and I had sat engrossed in conversation. It felt like we had just started talking too!
I had so needed that time to connect with my friend; she’s one of those rare people who I can talk about anything with and somehow, the conversation always ends up coming back to God and is incredibly uplifting and inspiring. I walk away feeling encouraged in my faith.
Peace is one thing we don’t have much of around my house. Such is the case when you are part of a foster family. There are always people in and out, I keep finding neighbor kids playing in my backyard, and someone has usually found something “creative” to do. I love it, but sometimes I find myself just craving peace.
Uncommon Grace 