Blessings

I have a hot drink, a quiet house, and a long to-do list, but I’m going to sit a minute and write.  I miss blogging.  If I had my ‘druthers, I’d stay home, write everyday, and make preserves; or some other similar lost art.  It sounds idyllic, but I’m sure it would get old after a while.

J-Dub and Ash have gone on a bike ride to a nearby, near-dried-up lake, and I’m sitting in my comfy chair, in my comfy preggo pajamas, listening to the flock of birds that live outside my window in an evergreen tree causing quite a ruckus. 

Today I feel so blessed.  Most days I feel blessed, but sometimes it is an overwhelming feeling that I simply can’t describe.  I believe it has something to do with Fall.   It’s quickly becoming my favorite time of year.  or it may have something to do with my little baby to be, Emma Kate.  Oh I dreamed of her last night.  It was the most precious thing.  She was about 5 or 6 months old, and had the biggest eyes you have ever seen.  She was eating a strawberry.  It was the first strawberry she’d ever tried.  When she got a taste of it, her big eyes grew even wider.  It was like a taste of heaven in her mouth.  I loved waking up with that sweet image in my mind.   I must plant strawberries this spring! 

For the past two years, I have attempted a pumpkin patch, and have failed both times.  Ash used to have a flower-pot of strawberries and they would produce about 3 a year.  I hope to have better luck with my green thumb.  Emma needs strawberries.

I’ve also been dreaming of my lost loved ones lately.  My dad and my grannie have both been present with me in my dreams.  It’s nice to wake up after being visited by a loved one, passed on. 

But mostly, my blessed feeling has a lot to do with God.  Isn’t he awesome?  He has given me so much, even the things I thought I didn’t need.  He knows our every thought before we think them.  He knows the number of hairs on our head.  He knows us better than we could ever know ourselves, and the most amazing thing is, He loves us still.  His love is bigger and wider and deeper than anything we can fathom. 

I hope you know Him.  Somedays I’m an ungrateful child of the King, and I think I’m too busy to spend much, if any, time with Him.  But He doesn’t hold it against me.  He welcomes me back as a loving Father.   He’s with us all ways.  Even before we ever knew Him, He knew us.  Right now I’m reminded of a scripture, Psalms 139. 

¹ You have searched me, LORD,
   and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
   you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
   you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
   you, LORD, know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in behind and before,
   and you lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
   too lofty for me to attain.

 ⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
   Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
   if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
   if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
   your right hand will hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
   and the light become night around me,”
¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
   the night will shine like the day,
   for darkness is as light to you.

 ¹³ For you created my inmost being;
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
   your works are wonderful,
   I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
   when I was made in the secret place,
   when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
   all the days ordained for me were written in your book
   before one of them came to be.
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts,^[a] God!
   How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ Were I to count them,
   they would outnumber the grains of sand—
   when I awake, I am still with you.

 ¹⁹ If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
   Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
²⁰ They speak of you with evil intent;
   your adversaries misuse your name.
²¹ Do I not hate those who hate you, LORD,
   and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
²² I have nothing but hatred for them;
   I count them my enemies.
²³ Search me, God, and know my heart;
   test me and know my anxious thoughts.
²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me,
   and lead me in the way everlasting.

He’s always with us.  Always there.  May you have a blessed day.