A few thoughts on a lot of little things

Looking out from the southernmost tip of the island.

It's 2 o'clock on Sunday afternoon September 11th, 10 years after the attacks on New York City.  It doesn't seem like it's been that long since it happened, because I can, as I know you can remember everything so vividly that day.  At the same time, I've been thinking about all that I have been through since then and how god has grown me, shaped me and changed me, and how He continues to.  I can look back and see prayers answered and seemingly pointless struggles and suffering be redeemed for God's glory.  

A view of Grenada from campus.

I can look back and see how God has taken my parent's divorce and the bitterness I've had and used it to strengthen me and used it when I found out a friend was going through the same situation.  It may have been just those few walks around Gordon's Coy Pond, and those two short conversations on how we overcame that God inflicted suffering for, but it was worth it.  I remember the challenge of relationships and the fasting from dating that God has redeemed now to a marriage relationship that only He could have ordained.


I was trying to think about what I would write for this week's post, and thoughts came flooding to my head.  A lot of thoughts on a lot of little things that God has been teaching me this week.  Those, again, are a sign that God is alive and active and working amongst His believers.


For example:  when I was reading Ezekiel this week.  The passage of Ezekiel 37 struck me in a new way as I read it in light of thoughts about evangelizing.  At bible study one of the leaders mentioned how dead things can't move, can't breathe, can't see or hear and they don't even know they are dead!  Walking back from the study, with Ezekiel 37 fresh in my mind from reading it earlier, I couldn't help but think how I had God's breath of life in me, and the poor souls walking around me had the breath only of this earth that they don't even realize is death!  This gave new meaning to the song "Marvelous Light" by Charlie Hall when the song says, "My dead heart now is beating, my deepest stains now clean, your breath fills up my lungs, now I'm free now I'm free".


O, Lord, give us a heart for the lost!  Give us eyes to see and ears to hear how you are calling us to minister today!

Our apartment is on the second floor in the middle.

I am also realizing that I have a intense love for birds that I didn't even know until I've found that I want to write about birds in almost every blog!  But, I am blessed.  I am finding fulfillment in this season of my life in little joys and pleasures like looking out my apartment window.  We are on the second floor of our building, and just this week the tree right outside our window started budding with this unknown Grenadian fruit.  It has brought floods of little birds that I just found out are called Bananaquits and Caribbean Mockingbirds to our window.  Ryan and I have enjoyed sitting and just staring at the birds as they argue over which little bushel is theirs then begin to eat only the blackened berries of the bunch.  

Even now I can look over my left shoulder to see the birds in the tree and the Caribbean breeze is blowing in the branches. I can breathe in the warm life that God has sent me today through this breeze and the delightful chirping.  I pray that we can always remember the hope that Christ has given us through His breath that has made us alive and always remember the eternal glory that is to come even if it's in this little thought of delight that God has brought me just now.