I was just washing my hands. But as I rinsed my hands in the cool water, I realized that I was so grateful for this big blue kitchen sink. I had scrubbed and scrubbed it when we moved in. I had struggled to reach it with a 9 month pregnant belly. I had stood at it and watched from the window as the clouds rolled in and the pine trees swayed through winter storms. And now, after a long, hot, muggy summer day working in the yard, I washed the dirt from under fingernails.
Standing there- it felt familiar. It felt like home.
Some days it feels like we just moved into this house.
We have been here for nearly 9 months.
Maybe it's that we haven't let the gratefulness die. There isn't a week that goes by that we don't point out how much we love being able to live here.
But my thoughts spiraled from there (as they often do) to how much this home is just a tiny fraction of what I am so thankful for.
This weekend we planted 3 blueberry bushes. We're planting 3 raspberry bushes next. And a small little patch of strawberries. We've planted roots. Literally. But it's the roots you don't see that I am most grateful for. It's the invisible shoots that are tying our little family together, bringing us closer and knitting us into something that God wants from us that took me and my little thought world by surprise tonight.
I thought about how God is molding our family with the little functions and traditions and routines that we go through day by day.
We've sown grass seed in our yard, and one memory verse at a time we are doing our very best to sow God's word into our little girls.
We've attended BBQs and picnics and have fed our family in the blissful sunshine a lot lately, and every night before bed, we also feed little souls with cuddles and Bible time.
We've dug holes and filled holes and pulled weeds in the yard, and we've labored in prayer for our children, asking that He might fill in the holes of our parenting and the weeds of sin in each one of us.
In these little things, we're planting roots and raising souls.
I am grateful for the cool water that flows freely from the faucet and for the Father who's Living Water used a big blue sink to encourage my heart tonight.
