Counting the blessings

This is one of my all-time favourite camping memories—when I accidentally
caught this sunrise over Lake Biwa. I think that writing this blog
and getting into photography a bit has helped me seek out beauty and
things to share with you. It's a mindset that isn't so far away from having
a gratitude to my creator for even the smallest things.

This morning in the Our Daily Bread reading we were encouraged to be grateful for the small things. I realised that I do thank God most days for the small things. I'm grateful that God's given me a grateful heart.

Just now I'm feeling under pressure from a variety of angles, as you'll know from my recent posts. There's a lot going on. But I want to stop a moment and list some of the ways God is blessing us through his people. Whenever we do these big international moves we have more needs and are more dependent on others that we are used to. It is always a bit scary, and then we get these wonderful surprises and the joy of being blessed practically by people's generosity.

Here are some things that have happened recently or are currently in the works:

• a friend to pick my son and I up from the airport in Brisbane on Feb 6
• same friend who will help us get a phone and negotiate our way through phone plans for my son
• same friend is seeking to get me a temporary phone I can use in Australia (my Japanese phone is locked, so it's not feasible to use it outside of WiFi in Australia)
• friends organised accomodation and a car for me for the two weeks I'm in Brisbane
• friends on both sides have offered help "with whatever"
• three friends in two different "groups" are looking at organising small get-togethers with people while I'm in Australia
• another special friend organising a get-away for her and me
• some other very special friends are working on a way for our two families to meet in early July (they don't live near Brisbane)
• we've got two meetings in churches already scheduled, personal contacts from leaders in the church who genuinely want to meet with us and hear how we are! Churches that have been with us for nearly two decades now.
• lots of people want to know how we're doing, how our kids are

That's a lot of blessings, right there. 

I nearly was in tears over the texting conversation that resulted in the first three points here. I'd had these things on my heart that day and that evening our friend contacted me and said, "Is there anything I can do?" When I presented these needs to him his response was, "No worries!"

I'm not being lighthearted when I say that being more dependent on others is an opportunity to be blessed by God. It's the kind of neediness that we humans tend to try to avoid, but somehow missionary life puts us in that kind of position again and again. 

It's at times like those that I can say, almost wholeheartedly: "That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Cor 12:10 NIV).