Multitude Monday VI

We're a bit puny around these parts today. Eliza spent two days sick last week, one of them vomiting up everything that dared invade her gut (like water). Now I  have a cold, Ian's asleep on the couch, and we're lying low. Which just gives me extra time to count my blessings!

41. Bethany's continued improvement. In fact, she may get out of the ICU today! Note to self: Do not, under any circumstances, contract LeMierre's Syndrome.

42. Jayna, my buddy from Saturday morning running group. Not only has she stepped up to the plate to lead our pace group while our coach is injured, but every single week she has something genuinely encouraging to say to me. Like, "If you have to slow down to finish this week, just do it. I won't leave you no matter what." Or, "You're really improving on the hills!" Everyone needs a cheerleader like that. It's an awful lot like the Holy Spirit in our Christian race. Except He doesn't wear Dri-Fit T-shirts.

43. Glowing leaves collected on a morning run.

44. Moments like these:

45. A boy named Matthew Evans, for showing my watchful son what a bright, hardworking, responsible, patient seventeen-year-old with well-defined goals looks like.

46. This baby. Not just because I was there when he was born. Not just because he's cute and I love his mom. But because he reached out his arms for me today and let me hold him and snuggled his little head into my shoulder. Danger!

47. My friend Jenny. Five years ago I was recovering from double pneumonia with a newborn at my side. Jenny (another day I'll tell you how we met) and her husband Will and their two kids drove the hour and a half to our house and stayed for the weekend, catching us up on laundry and entertaining my two older kids. Four weeks later, they returned to help us pack up the house. They were the last ones to leave that fateful night when we left a dark, cold, completely empty house behind -- and we were too busy calling Poison Control about the substance her two year old might have ingested in our garage to think about looking back and weeping -- or becoming pillars of salt. I still miss her.

48. The way hot chocolate made from scratch in the morning warms little tummies and hearts.

49. My five-year-old's lingering faith in me. Yesterday, she asked me why we have eardrums. I attempted an explanation of how, y'know, the sound, like, travels through our ear canal? And, um, hits and eardrum and makes it vibrate? And that sort of sends a signal to the brain to interpret what we're hearing? Upon further questioning, I grew more vague, and just as I gave up all hope and began the "Ohmygosh, am I physically incapable of retaining scientific information???" routine, she gasped, "Mom! It's like you're a DOCTOR. You know so much about how our bodies work!"

50. Gathering around the table to sing:
            "Come, Desire of Nations, come;
              Fix in us Thy humble home.
              Rise, the woman's conquering seed;
              Bruise in us the serpent's head.
              Adam's likeness now efface,
              Stamp Thine image in its place,
              Final Adam from above,  
              Reinstate us in Thy love." (Hark, the Herald Angels ... verse 4)

51. My brother Paul, who always answers my emails, often with lightning speed.

52. Vanessa, my faithful morning prayer partner for over four years.

53. Lights on houses everywhere that remind me that He is the light of the world -- and this light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it. (John 1:4)