Being Back Home

My silence over the past few days doesn't mean I haven't been thankful.  (I have been).  It only means that I've been out of the country and the internet was not always readily available.  So from my counting that's 10 days (including today) that were not cataloged with thankfulness. 

Now it's not that I feel all puritan about this and feel like logging these is to warding off bad luck as is salt thrown over the shoulder.  But still, for good measure- 10 things I'm thankful for-

1. A vacation where I didn't really work.  I think I answered only a handful of emails and successfully passed on clients I could not take care of at that moment.  I use to never do that- work all the way around while I was on vacation.  Sure, not having ready access to internet every day helped (a subset blessing then if you will), but really it was nice just to be on vacation.

2. All the wonderful things I learned and experienced while in Israel.  I will never,  never, read the Bible the same.  It hits me in ways that unless you've been there I don't think I can accurately put into words (there's a shock- me at a loss for words) but it just made the history of the Bible- the backstage knowledge of the stories- come to life.

3. What I learned by watching Alan.  I'll admit, my attitude towards taking an almost 50 year old sometimes mentally wacky blind man to Israel was not what it should have been.  But to see his hands experience the models of the sites, to see him take in moments on his mini-tape recorder, his own "photography" of the trip, to hear him sing at St. Anne's- I was blessed.  And humbled.

4. At the same time I'm thankful Alan did not try to head squish anyone on either side of the Israel-Arab conflict. 

5. Spending the time in Israel with LK.  It was a blessing to be there with him.

6. Climbing the Southern Steps of the temple while reading the Psalms of Ascent out loud with Dad. I'm blessed to have him as my dad.  I'm blessed for the role model he is and thankful that I was able to live that moment with him.

7. LK, Dad and I running in each place we stayed.  It was a neat check box to tick off while we were traveling and a goal I had set for myself back when I first started jogging.

8.  A safe flight home.  When we hit turbulence I still listed to God the reasons why it would be a good idea for him to let me be around and not die in a crash. But this time, thanks to new thoughts stirred by One Thousand Gifts, I also added in there- but if You do decide to let us crash- I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt on it being the best answer for everyone in the long run.  And yet, I'm thankful he didn't see my end of life as best just yet.

9.  The memory of Geo seeing me across the soccer field and running to jump into my arms and hug me.  Almost 9 years old but still overtly happy to see me.  When I am old and have forgotten everything including my own name, dear Lord, please let me remember that moment.

10. Playing backyard baseball with the boys tonight.  I can remember DrEAM and I playing it as kids in our envelope-sized yard complete with ghost runners and made up rules.  And tonight I was able to relive that with the boys.