This happiness.

"I don't want to lose a single thread

from the intricate brocade of this happiness."

-Mary Oliver

When happiness and wonder meet.

"Gratitude

is

happiness

doubled by

wonder."

-G.K. Chesterton

to wonder...

to be filled with amazement, awe, or astonishment,

as at something surprising or extraordinary.

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. By this recipe for gratitude, then I am the most grateful person ever,

because I've never been happier,

and I still can not believe it...

I'm in love with the kindest and best person I know, and he's in love with me,

and we're getting married and going to make a home and a family together.

Forgive the sappiness. It is written in full sincerity.

Right now is a very, very lovely and joyful time for me,

and I don't want to forget for one minute to be grateful for the wonder and happiness of this season.

Our mouths were filled with laughter,

our tongues with shouts of joy.

Then it was said among the nations,

"The Lord has done great things for them."

The Lord has done great things for us,

and we are filled with joy.

-psalm 126.

This momentary gift.

"Let it be heralded with joy:...

Marriage is not mainly about prospering economically;

it is mainly about displaying the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church.

Knowing Christ is more important than making a living.

Treasuring Christ is more important than bearing children.

Being united to Christ by faith is a greater source of marital success than perfect sex and double-income prosperity.

...Life is precarious, and even if it is long by human standards, it is short.

“What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14). “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring” (Prov. 27:1).

So it is with marriage.
It is a momentary gift.

It may last a lifetime, or it may be snatched away on the honeymoon.

Either way, it is short.

It may have many bright days, or it may be covered with clouds...

But if we set our face to make of marriage mainly what God designed it to be,

no sorrows and no calamities can stand in our way.

Every one of them will be, not an obstacle to success, but a way to succeed.

The beauty of the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church shines brightest when nothing but Christ can sustain it.

Very soon the shadow will give way to Reality.

The partial will pass into the Perfect.

The foretaste will lead to the Banquet.

The troubled path will end in Paradise.

A hundred candle-lit evenings will come to their consummation in the marriage supper of the Lamb. And this momentary marriage will be swallowed up by Life.

Christ will be all and in all. And the purpose of marriage will be complete.

To that end may God give us eyes to see what matters most in this life...

And may that Treasure so satisfy our souls...
that the marriage-watching world be captivated by
the covenant-keeping love of Christ."

-John Piper, This Momentary Marriage

Advent is for waiting.

"Waiting is essential to the spiritual life.

But waiting as a disciple of Jesus is not an empty waiting.

It is a waiting with a promise in our hearts

that makes already present what we wait for.

We are always waiting,

but we are waiting in the conviction

that we have already seen God's footsteps.

Waiting for God is an active, alert-

yes, joyful!-

waiting.

When we wait in expectation,

our whole beings are open to be surprised by joy.

It is this joyful expectation of God's coming

that offers vitality to our lives."

-Henri Nouwen

This joyful expectation.

So much joy in these days.

Costume Party.

This was my third fall sewing Halloween costumes for my friends' little ones (who are also my friends!)...

always a highlight of my year...

But this year had the extra help

of a most helpful, patient, and ever long-suffering model.

You know you have a keeper when.

Set down here precisely.

all quotes from this.

"I praise each day splintered down,

splintered down and wrapped in time like a husk,

a husk of many colors spreading,

at dawn fast over the mountains split."

"If the Greeks had looked at Mount Baker all day,

their large and honest art would have broken,

and they would have gone fishing,

as these people do."

"'Teach me Thy ways, O Lord'

is, like all prayers,

a rash one..."

"All day long I feel created.

I can see the blown dust on the skin on the back of my hand,

the tiny trapezoids of chipped clay, moistened and breathed alive.

There are some created sheep in the pasture below me,

sheep set down here precisely,

just touching their blue shadows hoof to hoof on the grass.

Created gulls pock the air, rip great curved seams in the settled air;

I greet my created meal, amazed."

"Had she been new, or old?

Had she mated and laid her eggs,

had she done her work?"

"Of itself it is nothing,

but the view,

as they say,

is good."

"Is this the only final beauty:

the color of any skin in any light

and living, human eyes?"

"You spill your breath.

Nothing holds;

the whole show rolls."

"...all the landscape's occasions,

to all its weathers, colors and lights."

and i wish we could all go camping and lay beneath the stars.

"and I wish all the people I love the most

could gather in one place

and know each other and love each other well

and I wish we could all go camping

and lay beneath the stars

and have nothing to do and stories to tell

we'd sit around the campfire

and we'd make each other laugh

remembering when..."

-Sara Groves, "Every Minute"

(the song my blog is named after)

arrival hugs.

strong tent men.

i was super helpful. chet's a slacker.

i love them so. 

at which point i repented of being grumpy we were going camping in illinois. 

good morning.

so very grateful that from

thailand, alabama, pennsylvania, new york, and oregon,

we were able to be together.

(we went to college together.

we graduated.

we went to colorado.

we went to new york.

i respect and admire each of them beyond words.

they know me better than almost anyone.

and i love them a lot.)