Blessings in the Front Room

Blessings blast you away when you finally notice their presence. Sometimes they come like the silence in the night when all is quiet and still. When you need the warmth, it wraps around your aching body just right. Other times the blessings are hard to see. Through the fog, you make out the light that it gives, but still you cannot fully see it working.

I am sitting here in the front room of our 100 year old duplex after having cleaned all five windows. The warmth of the day is flooding the room along with a breeze. I hear sirens, cars squeaking by, continuous city sounds that happen during the day. I have boxes of office supplies waiting for a home, which I don't really have quite yet, and random arrays of just things. Outside the window there are homes very close by, with neighboring personal affects a few yards away. I am in the city. A place I didn't really think that I would be, but a place I am nonetheless.

At first I felt pretty claustrophobic here. For someone that is introverted, it sounds weird, but with all the traffic and sounds and buildings it was all rather overwhelming. Blessings abound in this place because God wants us to be here. I have no idea what kind of people we will meet or where we will go to church, but He wants us here so I am expecting an adventure. Like I said, sometimes you see the light through the fog though. Today, I am sitting here in this front room enjoying all the bright light, fresh air, and openness of what I do have. I probably am conveying this situation like its a hole in the wall situation... It is not true. I strangely, feel blessed to be where I am though it is different.

Though our humanity likes to wrap all kinds of negativity and sourness over everything, God still has blessings bursting at the seams. His beauty and care floods rooms and changes hard hearts. I could sit here and list all of the blessings that we have been given, but I feel that it would only dampen the magnitude of what we have been given. For now I just want you to know that where I am is where God wants me to be. A literal and spiritual safety that cannot compare to any security system, firearm, mean dog, special forces, or locked gate. We have freedom to roam. Freedom to embrace our talents and mission to do what He has called us to do.

Life can blast you with disaster, sneak up on you with troubles, and close in on you with worry. What God has to offer for our REAL lives, what He meant for us, is the complete opposite. It's life changing.