Gifts

Every Friday is on the one hand the most wonderful and freeing days of the week. The week is over, you have a couple days free from the cubicle forget that life insurance, annoying financial advisers and the phrase "pounding the phones" EVER existed. On the other hand, it often fills me with sense of "I have so much that I want/need to do and I don't have enough time to fit it in!" This Friday I felt that strongly and actually started going through the things that I "wanted" to do to check them off my list.

Ok, got those magazines read that I was dying to have time to read, check. Ok, I picked something new to cook, check. But I wasn't actually having fun, I was making what should have been enjoyable, a chore!

Corey was working on his car out front so I just went outside to sit on my stoop and clear my head. There was a cool breeze.--- Let me just take one moment to describe the gravity of that statement for those of you that are not from Alabama. That sentence is unheard of, unspoken and impossible in an Alabama July. I am always shocked to feel such a breeze at this time of year and still have to convince myself that it is not a figment of my imagination. So, I'll say it again.--- There was a cool breeze. It was around dusk but the sun was hitting the clouds just right to make a beautiful sky. The street was a peace. --For those of you not from Philadelphia, let me just take a minute to describe the gravity of this situation. There were no screaming children, there were no fights, there were no stupidly loud motorcycles, nor was there a curse word uttered in earshot. So I'll say this again.--- The street was at peace.

I felt myself loosen and sink into the peace myself. I felt the sweetness of the moment and it was ten times better than the "fun" things I marked off of my list. I didn't orchestrate this moment like I had been trying to orchestrate my perfect weekend, it came to me. And then I though of this.

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights who does not change like shifting shadows" James 1:17

All that is good is from Him. I'm once again reminded that I'm powerless to create my own happiness and what He provides is infinitely better than what I can create for myself.