Hot Tea and the Holy Spirit

I've been crying a lot lately.  Not like all-day sob-fests, but a minute here, a minute there--just enough to wet the steering wheel when my new favorite song, Counting My Blessings by Seph Schlueter, comes on the radio in the school carline. By the time the kids are in the car, the evidence is all dried up, but the crossing guard might have gotten a show. This song has been hitting me hard.  The more that I look in the details, the more of Your goodness I find.--SS To explain my delicate emotions, let me fill you in on a few of my details .  The first detail is that I'm house-hunting. Well, sort of. We're intending to move when school gets out, so we're basically voyeuring on Zillow without any actual buying power until we can list and sell our current home.  The second detail is that the other day I found my dream home.  Technically my husband found it. He had this wild look in his eye as he began to turn his phone screen in my direction. "If we really wante...

Practice,  noun.     the actual application or use of an idea, belief, or method, as opposed to theories relating to it. Practice,  verb.     perform (an activity) or exercise (a skill) repeatedly or regularly in order to improve or maintain one's proficiency. -- Oxford Languages  "Practice makes perfect." I'm sure you've heard the phrase. To me it brings to mind the time I hid my piano books because I'd rather have watched tv or played outside than spent the afternoon working on chord progressions in the basement.  "Practice makes perfect," my mom would remind me. But I had better things to do.  "If practice makes perfect, and nobody's perfect, then why practice?" I was very proud of my response. Of course, I was the one who had asked for the piano in the first place, and I would have loved to perform flawlessly in the school talent shows like many of my friends. But I didn't want to put in the time.  My mom always reminded me...

The other day I was reading the "How to Read Matthew" preface to the Book of Matthew in my old NIV Student Bible, and I came across the following instruction: "First, consider how it differs from the other three Gospels; this will give you some idea of Matthew's distinct purpose." First, consider how it differs; this will give you some idea of its distinct purpose.  Here, in this obvious but all-too-overlooked advice, I think there is something to be said about how we should consider our own differences.  We often look at differences as a bad thing. I'm always telling my kids, "comparison is the thief of joy," and I stand by that mantra.  However, when we are able to see our differences not as ways that we are less than or greater than those around us, but rather as different textures, different brushstrokes, different colors, different mediums and techniques (all used for their unique beauty) in God's divine gallery, we can compare, or "c...