Daily 5 - Day 153

Today's Daily 5:

1. Beautiful sunrise this morning
2. Working on memorizing Philippians using an audio Bible while driving to work
   
3. Listening again to my audio book driving home
4. Got another yoga workout in
5. Cooking dinner for a long time friend - I love cooking for other people, and particularly for people who I know appreciate it because they don't manage to cook very often for themselves.  (It was fun to send her home with leftovers too and know that she'll have another meal for tomorrow night!)
6. Holding and playing with her four month old daughter for much of the evening.  So cute!
7. Made my second new recipe of the year.  Hasselbeck Potatoes.  So good.  And they looked pretty good too.  Pictures to come...
8. Lavendar scented candles in the living room while we visited
9. A full day at work, but another one where things were pretty smooth.  I'm enjoying this lull in the drama that has defined our office for so long, and hoping it lasts a while yet!
10. odd moments of prayer and life colliding.  weird, a little when they happen, but glad for the way they confirm that I am listening for Jesus and hearing him.
    

No Greater Love Than This

I read this article about a mother who was killed pushing her baby to safety, and all I could think about was the immensity of that love, and the passage of scripture that talks about having no greater love than laying down your life for a friend.

The Spiritual Work of Gratitude

Given my ongoing daily 5 lists, and the concerted effort I've been making to choose to be joyful and thankful, today's email thought from Henri Nouwen seemed particularly appropriate to share with all of you.

The Spiritual Work of Gratitude


To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives-the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections-that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only truly grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for.

Let's not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.

Sunrise

I got to my office a little bit earlier than usual this morning, and as I was going through my routine of preparing for the day (checking some blogs, journaling a little, sorting myself out - I get to the office about half an hour before my work day starts deliberately so that I can have that little bit of "me" time to prepare for the day), I glanced out the window and smiled.

The sunrise was stunning for a few minutes this morning.  I took a few photos, that I'll upload later when I'm at home, but they don't do it justice.  For just a few moments the sky was painted in pinks and oranges and purples.  I took photos, watched for a few minutes, and then turned my attention back to preparing for the day.  When I glanced up again, the color was gone.

Just momentary, but a beautiful gift, and I was thankful.