Renewed

Before we moved to the Northwest, someone who had been here before told us, "You see more shades of green than you ever knew existed." He was right. I am so thankful that I can look out our dining room windows on a lush, awakened world. For some strange reason I always expect the scene I am looking at to be like a flat picture; but instead I am pleased to find the 3d essence of the pine trees, and somehow I feel as if it is more real than it actually is. Sounds weird, I know, but I'm thankful for it and so many other things besides.

I'm thankful for...

• The family of God. Last Sunday, we gathered together for a church picnic and the crowd of forty people was drawn together closer than ever.
• The hilarious, insightful, and memorable devotional one of the men from our church led. It involved inflating balloons. One of my best friends and I were sitting near him when he popped one. You can imagine our reactions. 'Nuf said. : )
• The fact that my mocha brownie mess-up wasn't so much of a mess-up, but instead it just became mocha cake.
• Our window air-conditioners. They have done such an amazing job that we hardly noticed when the temperature hit 100 degrees one day.
• Ripening apples! They are so red that it is delightful to look at them.
• The e-book our oldest sister gifted us with. It's Firmament: In His Image by J. Grace Pennington. It's her best book yet, and sooo interesting!
• Stories. I'm officially working on one right now, but the others are begging me to give them some more thought. (Mara, here I come!)
• Bananas and chocolate chips. (Get the recipe from my post last November called "Banana?")
• The power of prayer. What was lost has now been found!
• My brother's latest board game creation—the settling game! We read about Settlers of Catan and decided to make our own version (at least for now). : ) It truly is a lot of fun. He won with about 10,000 more people than I had.
• Our terrific thunderstorm!!!! It was probably the third one we've had in six years and the best so far! It was so close that we could hear the crackle and pop in the thunder and watch the lightning split the sky! Brings back fond memories of Southwest electrical storms. : )
• The other great thing about the storm was the rain! We've needed it so badly, and now everything is greatly renewed.
• The big picnic this Saturday! There are lots of people I am looking forward to seeing including my pen-pal whom I've only seen two times in the last year. : )
• Music! Lord willing our family will be singing a song at the picnic. So fun!
• Deviled eggs. Imagine our delight and surprise over a double-yolk deviled egg! My youngest sister was cooking with me, and she was pretty cute rolling eggs to peel them.
• The animated short Burn.E. Uh, yeah, it isn't high literature, but now every time I hear "The Ode to Joy" I hum it just like he does. : )
• A clean house for the Axis and Allies party and weekend visitors.
• Giving my littlest sister a lesson in military time. My watch battery is about five years old so it's stuck in that mode plus it's running eight minutes late. She's still managing to keep track of the time though and looking forward to the coming of our guests! : )
• Old sheet music. I was organizing all the music inside our piano bench, and it struck me how blessed we are to have 3 years worth of chorale music. : )
• Letters and emails to answer! It's been so much fun to get to know these special people.
• The way that the bright red pencil I am using matches my bright red, picnic themed stationery.
• God giving me a clear philosophy of beauty at 10 o'clock at night.
• Family music practice. : )
• The funny thing that happens if you compare my relatives to movie stars/characters. Audrey Hepburn and Captain America are the parents of Charlie Brown and Russell (from Up). My brother is Gregory Peck and my older sister is Keisha Castle-Hughes (from The Nativity Story). Wow, that's fun! Maybe I'm Dori (from Finding Nemo). : )
• God, Who has loved us just as we are; but is not content to leave us that way. Instead He is renewing us day by day and conforming us to the image of His Son.