Joy is the realest reality, the fullest life, and joy is always given, never grasped. God gives gifts and I give thanks and I unwrap the gift given: joy.

I know there is poor and hideous suffering, and I've seen the hungry and the guns that go to war. I have lived pain, and my life can tell: I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks for early light dappled through leaves and the heavy perfume of wild roses in early July and the song of crickets on humid nights and the rivers that run and the stars that rise and the rain that falls and all the good things that a good God gives.

The prayers we weave into the matching of socks, the stirring of oatmeal, the reading of stories, they survive fire.

God is always good and we are always loved... even when what He gives may appear ugly.

I began [blogging] because I have this handicap - I can't figure out my life or see God clearly unless I untangle my life again with words.

Giving thanks is that: making the canyon of pain into a megaphone to proclaim the ultimate goodness of God when Satan and all the world would sneer at us to recant.

The life that counts blessings discovers its yielding more than it seems.