Overflowing with Thankfulness

Just today as Evelyn prayed for dinner:

"Thank you, Jesus, for your love for everybody (this is her standard opening, and I love it.) Thank you for this beautiful food and this beautiful house and the kitty on the fence."

It was a very good day in the midst of a rather difficult week. I was able to read aloud to my children on the porch swing, spend leisurely hours together at the zoo, collect gloriously colored leaves, play in the back yard (where we fellowshipped with aforementioned kitty), eat leftovers (translation: very little time cooking means lots of hands on time with children--which probably made the food, for them, more "beautiful"), and bathe them in the light of those glow-in-the-dark necklaces that you snap to activate. The house is dirty (again, "beautiful" by Evelyn's prayer), but I am happy because, for just this day, I was able to be more of Mary than Martha, and sit at the feet of Jesus by spending time with the little people he told to "come." (Alyson has some wonderful thoughts on this subject.)

"My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you've been given. You've received Christ Jesus the Master, now LIVE in Him. You're deeply rooted in Him. You're well constructed upon Him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you've been taught. School's out; quit studying the subject and start LIVING it! And let your living spill over into THANKSGIVING." (Colossians 2:6,7 The Message)