Lilley of the field

After a wonderful day, our last 15 minutes ended in mild frustration over silly things as we got ready for bed. We then got a phone call from some good friends who were coming into town and needed a place to stay. Being a "place to crash" is one of our favorite things and yet we didn't know whether we wanted to stay up and wait and be good hosts or go to bed. My body said "bed," my heart said, "stay up and blog." Because in 15 minutes I'd somehow forgotten how the rest of my day went. So onto my day while we await dear friends. (Hello, Funciks!) In typical love-of-Ann-Voskamp style this shall be a list of gifts. Beautifully, my last post was about feeling drained and realizing the sweetness of being thankful and how that affects our perception of everything we do. When we bring the dark caverns of our heart to light, we experience a lightness in and of itself that releases us from all obligations in this world allowing us to freely receive God...

We've been reflecting some lately- Aaron and I. It could be something in the cool weather or more likely, it's that while we're going 90 miles and hour we every once in a while catch a glimpse of something in our review mirror that makes us do a double take and we think about how we would like to pull our vehicle of life over to the side for a moment a pause. It could have been pulling out my paintings for Artful Worship and realizing I hadn't painted in a couple years. It could have been finishing painting our back bedroom and moving back my dusty craft supplies and mildewy suitcases that haven't seen light in a while. It could have been the multiple nights of dirty dishes we've been leaving out when we usually like going to bed with a clean counter. It could have been the weeds in our garden, the dead petunias in the flower pots outside our front door, or the  grass that took Aaron three times as long to mow because it was so tall. It could have been catchin...

We geared up for the Clemson vs. Georgia game this week. Or in reality- tried to sound more enthused when we were asked about the game. Neither of us are huge football fans, but we both went to large southern universities with students and alumni who pray about, get butterflies during, and cry at football games. It's quite the phenomenon. We are a house divided and since we've been together (7 whole years!) this is the first time they've played each other. During our 4 years burning up miles on i-85 traveling to and from our colleges, they never played each other despite our best hopes. And now here they were playing each other and we going to traveling through several states to land in Memphis, TN for a wedding. We didn't mind really, but did wish we could have heard the deafening roar at Death Valley, tailgated with some friends, and enjoyed the liveliness and explosion of excitement in this little town. All week, when asked, I said I would of course be pullin...