it's the little things.

I love when those usually normal days, are just the best days for no real apparent reason. They just are. So thankful. The little things, they're so precious. Love that even the busiest of days the Lord will make me take a second to be thankful. 

Morning Coffee, in these oh so wonderful mugs -  I love that my roomie, Becbee, collects :).

Afternoon Coffee with my sweet sisters - Morgan, Mal, Katie, and now sweet Sarah. I am so thankful to the Lord for these times. And we just love our table. These are something I will always cherish.

passing beautiful Samford Hall on the way to work, and catching the light between the trees.

Coming home everyday and seeing my next door neighbor working on restoring a truck that looks just like this, and seeing how far he has come. Also, thinking about this picture every time and how badly i just want to fill the back of it with pumpkins.

Seeing these wonderful people when I come home. SO MUCH JOY & HAPPINESS. [Just can't wait for the marriage of Lauren and Stege on the right, going to be such a celebration!]  

Taste and see that the LORD is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him! Psalm 34:8

sinking in.

Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don't be impressed with yourself. Don't compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life. [Galatians 6:4-5 msg]

Oh how this verse has just been sitting on me the past couple of days. First of all, how sweet and creative is the God we serve??? Wow. He continues to blow me away every single day. He is NOT a God who just sits on the throne throwing out lightening bolts and speaking in a booming voice. He is LOVE, GRACE, SWEET MERCY, and not to mention so desperately wanting to be involved in the very details of our lives. He understands pain. He understands trial. He also understands PEACE, ABUNDANT LIFE, and JOY. One thing I have so greatly learned lately is that God is so meticulous. He literally does not skip a beat. So precise and involved. 


In the same precise sense, He made us so incredibly unique from each other. Each one with special gifts and personalities, but so greatly adding to the body. I love in the verse above it says make a "careful exploration of who you are"; assess your strengths and weaknesses, take ownership of who you are and "the work you have been given" and SINK into that. SINK, that word really stuck out to me. Sinking involves total surrender, there is nothing you can do accept let yourself go, and let the Lord take control. Getting comfortable in who you are and what you have been entrusted with, which is so incredibly beautiful and such a gift from the Lord. Seeing someone in their element and doing what they are absolutely called to do and are gifted at is one of my most favorite things. People are called to different things, and it takes DIFFERENT people to do those things. However, we fall plague to the spirit of comparison all the time. Spending our efforts on trying to be something we simply aren't and can't. The enemy can deter us right there. The sad thing is, some people never make it past that point, thinking they can't amount to this or that, when in all actuality this or that wasn't for them in the first place. 


The Lord calls us to "take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life." Does that mean you have to be perfect? Absolutely not! The Lord, himself, came off the throne to be perfect among us so we didn't have to. He knows we are limited, but He also knows that we have the power of the Holy Spirit in us. And with that, NOTHING is impossible.

"For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." {Ephesians 2:10 NIV}

So let us not get distracted or deterred from what the Lord has put us here to do, but press in & press on - focused towards the sweet day we meet our beautiful Maker face to face. He has intention in all of our lives, a mission. Time to get to it.