Finding Joy

Can there be a good God? A God who graces with good gifts when a crib lies ampty through long nights, and bugs burrow through coffins? Where is God, really? How can He be good when babies die, and marriages, implode, and dreams blow away, dust in the wind? Where is grace bestowed when cancer gnaws and loneliness aches and nameless plcaes in us soudlessly die, break off withou reason, erode away. Where hides this joy of the Lord, this God who fills the earth with good things, and how do I fully live when life is full of hurt? How do I wake up to jo and grac and beauty and all that is the fullest life when I must stay numb to losses and crushed dreams and all that empties me out? My family--my dad, my mama, my brother and youngest sister--for years, we all silently ask these auestions. For years, we come up empty. And for years, we fill again--with estrangement.

Ann Voskamp chapter 1: A emptier, fuller life

One Thousand Gifts...

7. bedroom lights turned off without being asked!
8. little baby girls circling the nave, venerating icons over and over and over again.
9. a game of Xbox Bowling ( VERY active and true to bowling) for family night...sweet...I won!!
10. being able to help mom refinance car and retitle her car and feel a little more secure
11. no rain, for one day in January.