watered.

Yesterday morning started out with our first attempt at Women's Breakfast and Bible study with the female crew from Vaudreil...and it was great!  Not sure why it took us so long to figure out that that would be a good thing :)  But it was...praising the Lord for the Villa Cana in the middle and their "breakfast buffet" for a morning out with no cooking...even if "breakfast buffet" means fish, fish sauce, and fish casserole.

"Is this fish?"

"No, it's morue."

"Oh.  What is morue?"

"Ahhhh, it's a type of fish."

"Oh.  Thanks."

Upon arriving home, Matt and I worked hard to get the house and plans ready for Dodo and Bubba's arrival, only to be pulling out of the driveway to get them and receive a call from them saying they would not be coming today after all.

Someone was killed Saturday morning at the Haitian/Dominican border, chaos shutting it down for the rest of the day...So, they spent the night at the border (hopefully not at the Massacre Hotel where we had to stay at Easter!) and hopefully will be coming in this morning (Sunday).  Hopefully.

Distracting two very disappointed and also sniffly (again...colds) girlies was not easy.  By this morning they're actually driving us a bit crazy with constant "Are they coming now? Are they coming NOW?  What about NOW????"

Despite all that, the Lord's brought me back to the same idea all weekend.  Our study focused on the idea of eucharisteo, which is a blended Greek word meaning grace, thanksgiving, and joy.

We talked a lot about how to expand and focus on our thankfulness, joy and experiences of grace, which for me, is oftentimes just stopping and LOOKING for His grace in my life.  Upon their discovery, thankfulness and joy are often natural outflows!  As we spoke about thankful spirits leading to victory in our lives today, I was touched...

But mostly because He'd already had me thinking about this joy from a quote on Pinterest.  I know.  Not as spiritual.  But profound for me today nonetheless.  This was it:

The grass is always greener where it is watered.

As this idea has been kind of gnawing on my mind throughout the weekend, I've realized how easy it is for us to fall into the trap of the grass always being greener on the other side.

Things wil be better...when this semester is finished.  When it finally cools down.  If Dodo and Bubba actually get here...when we're not sick anymore, if Sofie weren't so grouchy, if someone else would just do such-and-such.

None of these ideas that I subconsciously fall into are giving thanks.  Full life.  Victory.

If instead of dreaming of ideal (what I think are ideal) circumstances, I were to focus on watering my grass...looking for His grace...suddenly things ARE greener.  Suddenly I DO well up with thankfulness.  With joy.

So here it is...

Take a minute to think of gifts you ALREADY have--anything that reveals God's grace, makes you thankful, or unleashes joy in your life--and how we can water and blossom in those things.

My list, this morning, is long.

and the struggles, by faith, are His.