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.
Thankfulness has been weighing heavily on my mind lately given everything we’ve been going through with our serious car accident, my health, and our foster daughter. With Thanksgiving this week, the topic has been on most people’s minds too though probably in a different way from mine.
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.
We had an incident this week that involved an attempt to throw a five-pound hand weight up to the top bunk bed. I now have one very remorseful son with bad aim and another extremely forgiving son with a broken foot. To be completely honest, I am actually surprised that we’ve made it this long before having a broken bone. Having three boys means injuries are par for the course.
When I was a little kid, I loved to swim. Before I swam competitively though, there was a certain amount of fear mixed in. My parents did a good job of teaching me to have a healthy fear and respect water. I had a near drowning experience that made me realize the fine line between fun and danger (just so you know, it is never a good idea to fall asleep while hanging on the pool wall during your swim lessons as a 4 year old).
Some fear is healthy. Living in fear is not nor is the absence of fear.
Uncommon Grace 