We're home from Colorado! At last sweet, sweet Texan soil is underneath our feet.
After packing up two and a half months of life and cramming it into our minivan (what?) we made the long, long drive back. A large bag of Cheerios and playing Cars on a continuous loop saw us home with our sanity intact. A thirteen-month-old, a car seat, and a eighteen hour road trip make for a rough ride.
After arriving at our apartment we unloaded half of our belongings, hugged all of our friends who live on our street (oh, y'all, I have to write about the crazy beauty that comes with living within a stones throw of several of your dear friends), and after two and a half hours took off again to my parents house.
Then, after one day of laundry and repacking, we visited a campus that we're considering for a potential church plant (more on this later) before hopping in the car again and going to the coast for a week for our church's leadership retreat.
After soaking in the Holy Spirit and a lot of humidity, we finally landed back home a week ago, today, from being gone all summer. We unpacked and cleaned and gave our little home some TLC after being gone for so long. We also gave into *almost* every Chick-fil-a and Chuy's craving.
It feels good to be home, around our home-like things: our grocery store, and our park, and our pediatrician.
Life is not without the unexpected and the stress (like having a plumber give you a $650 estimate for a leak in your bathtub), but lately Jesus has filled me with a more thankful spirit than I'm usually prone to. There's been a lot of goodness in my life that I spend far too little time focusing on: where I'm at, the man I'm married to, our little boy, and having a job that fills me with purpose, to name a few.
And I think, if I could be more constant with this thankful spirit, that would be a precious thing to have.
I wrote about my hopes for the summer back in May. Those hopes being that I might learn how to depend on Jesus entirely, so that He could make new the places in my heart that have been long untended, and I can't shake the feeling that thankfulness is important to Jesus being able to resurrect and make all things new in my life.
A friend once said that thankfulness may serve as a guard against fear, and I might add bitterness and insecurity to that list. I've lived a life dominated by those, and... no, thanks.
So, my prayer for this fall is to be a bringer of thanks, and with that, a bringer of all the things that often follow: hope, humility, and new life.
After soaking in the Holy Spirit and a lot of humidity, we finally landed back home a week ago, today, from being gone all summer. We unpacked and cleaned and gave our little home some TLC after being gone for so long. We also gave into *almost* every Chick-fil-a and Chuy's craving.
It feels good to be home, around our home-like things: our grocery store, and our park, and our pediatrician.
Life is not without the unexpected and the stress (like having a plumber give you a $650 estimate for a leak in your bathtub), but lately Jesus has filled me with a more thankful spirit than I'm usually prone to. There's been a lot of goodness in my life that I spend far too little time focusing on: where I'm at, the man I'm married to, our little boy, and having a job that fills me with purpose, to name a few.
And I think, if I could be more constant with this thankful spirit, that would be a precious thing to have.
I wrote about my hopes for the summer back in May. Those hopes being that I might learn how to depend on Jesus entirely, so that He could make new the places in my heart that have been long untended, and I can't shake the feeling that thankfulness is important to Jesus being able to resurrect and make all things new in my life.
A friend once said that thankfulness may serve as a guard against fear, and I might add bitterness and insecurity to that list. I've lived a life dominated by those, and... no, thanks.
So, my prayer for this fall is to be a bringer of thanks, and with that, a bringer of all the things that often follow: hope, humility, and new life.