gratitude...

It's been a while since I posted! I guess I've been busy! Here's my gratitude list for the last few weeks.....

1. I'm grateful for a friend who does things I wouldn't think to do. I now have a fixed lawnmower, a fixed bike, a fixed front screen door, a fixed fan, a fixed fence..... the list goes on.
2. I'm SO grateful for my fixed bike! I can't exercise, for the most part, because of my injury but biking seems to do the least amount of stress on my ankle and leg! So, YEAH! I've been on 2 bike rides in the last 2 days at a total of 5 1/2 hours!
3. I'm grateful for fans... I live in an old house that doesn't have air conditioning... it's been really hot these last few days and I know summer is just beginning, but my fan is the best thing!
4. I'm grateful for our smallest cat... haha... now, I know this may seem funny, but our old house has ants. Our oldest cat has cataracts and can't see very well, but Michael's cat can see and can see well! He has rid the house of the ants and continues to keep us "bug free"!
5. I'm grateful for water... cool, clear, pure water. I drink so much water and I am sure I take for granted the access I have to fantastic drinking water, but I'm so very grateful. It's delicious and refreshing on these hot days!
6. I'm grateful for bike trails! Ok, so I've pretty much hated Sarnia since I moved here almost 13 years ago, and I guess I didn't realize that even Sarnia has it's beauty! We have a gorgeous waterfront with a concrete boardwalk - two blocks from my house! The bike trail continues under the twin bridges to the States, along the lake to the park and down the main road that takes us back home! It's gorgeous... the blue/green water, the breeze, the trees in the park... Isabella and I had the best day of our lives on Wednesday when we took our 3 hour ride. She wanted to keep riding! Last night the three of us had a blast, too. I am loving the bike trail!
7. I'm grateful for books that make me think... make me weep... make me learn... make me realize things about myself I didn't know or didn't want to face. I'm reading "Captivating" by John and Stasi Eldridge - John wrote "Wild at Heart" - and I'm thoroughly enjoying discovering the mystery of my "woman's soul". It's fantastic.


C. S. Lewis, the Four Loves

'To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it up careful round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable... The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers... of love is Hell.'

1 Corinthians 13

The Way of Love

1 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
2 If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing.
3-7 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
8-10 Love never dies....
13 But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.