Feeling thankful for:

1. Dinner at the park with Joe last night. We got some Chinese takeout and headed for a picnic table shaded by lots of big trees. Even though we both enjoy sitting in front of a computer, we also enjoy being outdoors!

2. Sunblock, which protects my skin from getting irritated or burned (I’m very photosensitive!)

3. Abby’s hugs– she’s 14 months now and so adorable! Joe took a funny video of her trying to drink out of a Deer Park water bottle (and consequently spilling water all over herself).

4. Celia bought me a pair of organ shoes! I was kind of floored. This means I need to start incorporating the pedals! I’m going to attempt to add them next Sunday– going to start off easy though, only the I, IV, and V bass notes for now.

5. Pastoral candidate’s message on Sunday about unity and growth of the church– he quoted a metaphor by A. W. Tozer that I really liked:

If you have one hundred concert pianos, and you tune the second piano to the first, and the third piano to the second, the fourth piano to the third, until you have tuned all one hundred pianos accordingly, you will still have discord and disharmony. But if you tuned each piano to the same tuning fork, you would have unity and harmony. So, too, in the body of Christ, when we each tune ourselves and our lives to Christ’s we will have unity.

— A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

Christ as our tuning fork. I’ve been thinking about how true this is, not only in the Christian community, but also in my relationship with Joe. Sometimes I get critical about the ways our relationship could be more perfect, or more Christ-centered– but instead of thinking up projects on how to accomplish this, it makes sense that we “get back to the basics” and each focus on our individual walks with Christ. If we’re both intimately connected with the vine, that nullifies the need to try to “tune” to each other. I think a lot of following Jesus really comes down to going back to the source– going back to the root, and making sure it’s planted and cultivated well. I love how Jesus used farming as a metaphor in his parables– it makes so much sense!

- discovering that one of our adjuncts is from Victoria, BC. It’s always nice to chat with someone also from the Pacific NW!
- Kaplan offering free GRE practice tests at Georgetown later this month
- music and the way the Spirit uses it to re-center my heart in the right place
- my older and wiser co-worker, whose background is similar to the girls we serve, because she gives me insight into how to care for and manage our student workers
- floor-to-ceiling windows at my library and natural light