CHOSEN

"All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure." Ephesians 1:3-5 NLT

A thankful heart.

1 - I am thankful for this baby. The two of us had a wonderful day yesterday. Nothing out of the ordinary, it was just... fun! Milo is a delight and I love hanging out with him. He's figured out those crazy appendages that used to whack him in the face and wake him up at night are hands. And this is very exciting because he now knows they are his and he controls them. In three short months, Milo transformed from this unaware blob into a smiling, interactive baby who LOVES to have his diaper changed (weirdo), talk to every lamp in our house & snuggle anything soft (like Robert, the blue blanket dog). I love what my friend, Ian, said at church last weekend: Milo has done nothing to earn my love, he just HAS it. Just for BEING. It makes no sense, but I know God better because of it.

"But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy..." Titus 3:4-5 ESV

2 - I am thankful for a small group of 11th grade girls. Last night, their brilliant leader, Julie Prothro, taught them about spiritual gifts and two really great things happened: First, they learned more about how they are each uniquely gifted. Second, as the girls talked about the spiritual gifts they recognized in each other. Each girl GLOWED. No one ever gets sick of sincere encouragement. Ever. It was beautiful to hear young women tell each other why they admired the gift of faith they saw in someone, or how they clearly saw the gift of service or hospitality in another. We should bless our friends this way more often.

"By yourself you're unprotected. With a friend you can face the worst." Ecc 4:12 MSG

Announcement

Double Sneezes

This is Milo. He is now 2 and a half months old and I think we are finally starting to figure each other out. People tell me all the time how much he looks like my husband, Alex. And he DOES. And I LOVE THAT. But. Sometimes I want to think he's like me too...

DOUBLE. SNEEZES.

I love that my child is a double sneezer [that would be two sneezes in a row, always] because we have that in common. Every time I hear those two little baby sneezes, I smile. He's perfect.