Houston, We Are All Systems Go For Lunch

It's been another productive day, but I'll spare you the recital of items cleaned, dusted, baked, and painted.  Yes, painted.  I don't normally go to such lengths when family is coming over, but we were on a roll.

Also, I realize that you've got bigger things to do than hang on every detail of what the boy-barians and I got done today ;D

But I'll tell you the best thing about today.  (Besides Wyatt volunteering to scrub the roofing tar that got tracked in off the mudroom floor, because let me tell you, that was a job.)

We went to Thanksgiving Service at church. 

We sang familiar Thanksgiving hymns.  We prayed.  We read a Psalm.  And some of our people bared their souls, and told what God has been doing there.  I wish you could have heard.  You would have laughed.  Harry, who has basically died five or six times, told us about his heart, which he calls Hazel (because she's like an unfaithful ex-wife) and is now augmented by Hamlet (the pig valve).  And how he's not afraid to die, and he's thankful for every single day.

And Barb, who lives on a farm in the woods, that had no electricity or running water.  And then her husband died.  And her neighbors helped her, and loved her into the church, and fed her the Living Word.  And the church built her an addition to her house, with modern conveniences.

And there were more.  Dave, a really smart guy with everything going for him, but without God.  And Nate, whose wife decided they should visit the chapel because it looked cute and had flowers outside.  And they stayed, and grew, and the chapel paid his way through seminary and is helping him plant a church.

And in the midst of the flurry of preparations, we slow down to give thanks.

Thanks for our families.  Thanks for our health.  Thanks for salvation and forgiveness and grace.  Thanks for God's continuing, inexplicable provision in these unstable times.  And thanks for so much more.  Thanks for our friends.  Thanks for our church.

PB&J, I have to tell you this:  The boys spent a long time cutting out paper leaves for our thankful tree.  And cutting isn't exactly one of Gunnar's strong suits, if you know what I mean.  But after I said we had enough, Gunnar found a scrap of purple paper (his favorite color) and cut one more leaf.  A really special maple leaf, with lots of detail.  He's put several leaves on the tree already, but he's been saving that one for something really special.  Driving home tonight he told me, Mama, I know what I'm going to put on my purple leaf - the chapel.

And to you.  You readers.  Friends.  I have to tell you, I am thankful for you :D  Thankful for the friends I have found through this crazy technology.  Thankful for the ways you encourage me and inspire me and make me laugh.

Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name.  Hebrews 13:15


Thanks be to God.