I just need to take a moment and say it plainly. God has been good.
I know that can sound like something you put on a bumper sticker, something easy to say when life is comfortable. But I mean it in the way that comes from having watched Him show up in specific, undeniable ways. The kind of ways that leave you quietly amazed, standing there thinking, only God could have done that.
I think about the way Paul writes from prison, of all places, overflowing with gratitude. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say rejoice. There’s something almost defiant about that kind of praise, like joy that refuses to wait for perfect circumstances. I’m learning to live there more and more.
Doors have opened that I didn’t knock on. Provision has come from directions I wasn’t looking. Relationships have formed faster than I had any right to expect. Not because I planned well or worked hard enough, though I’ve tried to do both. But because God goes before us. He’s already in the room when we arrive. He’s already working in hearts before we say a word.
I think about the feeding of the five thousand sometimes. A boy with five loaves and two fish. Not enough by any reasonable calculation. But placed in the right hands it became more than enough, with leftovers. That’s the math of the kingdom. What we bring rarely looks sufficient. What He does with it rarely looks possible.
So this is my praise report. Not a list of accomplishments. Just a testimony that He is faithful, that He keeps His promises, that the work is His and He is doing it, and that I get to watch from up close.
To Him be the glory. We’re just grateful to be here.