April 15, 2012: The Gift of Tortilla Chips and Friends

a gift found in a bag, in a box, in a book:

• a bag of tortilla chips to serve with the yummy dip we ate tonight when our house church gathered at our house.
• a box containing the DVD teaching we watched and discussed as a group, helping us better understand who God is.
• the book One Thousand Gifts and how it's changing my faith, but also the hearts of two friends I talked with today.

February 19, 2012: The Gift of Change

3 gifts that were 'Plan B's':

• Lunch. Really planned to make soup for lunch today, but since it was such a beautiful sunny day my husband offered to grill, so we had some delicious chicken instead.  A surprising treat to grill in mid February!
• Time.  I always like to be ready ahead when I am having people over.  I make lists so I don't forget anything and have the house clean ahead and the food prepared in advance.  Instead tonight I found myself throwing everything together at the last minute, cleaning the bathroom moments before the doorbell rang, still dressed in rumpled sweatpants.  All because my daughter was over and we were making seafoam candy while she did her laundry.  Not the way I normally prefer to roll, but I wouldn't trade the time with her for anything.
• Friends.   What a blessed time tonight with some dear friends in our house church discussing both the Holy Spirit and our attitude toward our material possessions.  Good stuff and good people.  Love them and love journeying with them.  But as I was thinking about this 'Plan B' thing, I realized that they are second string. When we first joined a house church, it was a completely different group of people.  After a while, we merged with another house church and now, many years later, none of our original group is left.  Everyone in our house church is either from that merger or is completely new.  See, change isn't always bad, sometimes it's very good.

January 24, 2012: Even the Blues Are a Gift

3 things blue:

• my email inbox.  I love email!  Texts are fun and Facebook is fine, but emails are usually longer and more personal.  Of course junk email doesn't count, but when I see a friend's name in my inbox,  it makes my day.
• a Tupperware freezer container.  I was rooting around in the freezer looking for some cookies I thought were in there and discovered the meatloaf that I had frozen a couple of months ago.  Yeah!  Dinner already half done.
• my daughter.  Now ordinarily that wouldn't be a gift at all, and it also makes me blue that she is so miserable in her job.  I feel bad for her and I pray every day that she will find a new job.  However, I  see God using her suffering to make positive changes in her life.  It's motivating her for school and it's helping her to move beyond her own self to ask for help.  He does indeed work all things together for good! (Romans 8:28)