It is good

At church, we’re starting a series on Genesis (we did Acts for the first 3 years of the church, so we’ll probably be in Genesis for the next 5!) and one thing Pastor said was that at the end of each day, God said, “It is good.” He challenged us to say the same thing – to see the various things in our lives and say, “It is good.” Don’t be hung up on yesterday or worry about tomorrow, but focus on today and thank God that today is good. I don’t know if I’ve explained it very well, but this was really big for me, because I have been in a season where I’ve really had a fairly negative outlook and have seen the difficulties of each day more than the goodness. He also talked about how we sometimes have seasons in life in which most of the season is good. But then the end of the season is really hard and we forget that most of the season really was good. That is absolutely my grad school experience. Most of it was really good. I enjoyed it and I learned a lot. I have some wonderful friends out of it. But, the last few months have been really hard – writing my thesis in the circumstances I’ve been in has been one of the most personally challenging things I’ve done in a long time and a different kind of challenge then a lot of other things I’ve faced in life. But, when I look at the process of grad school and of being a graduate student, I definitely have to say, “It is good.”

When I look at Friday, yesterday and today, I have to say, “It is good.”

On Friday, Dave slept for a few hours and then, while I worked hard on my thesis, put down insulation in the attic. R49 baby! I really hope that reduces our heat bill for the winter and allows us to use less energy. When you look out over the insulation, though, it just looks like a fluffy pink cloud and makes me want to run and dive into it like a pile of leaves or two feet of snow. Maybe I could make an insulation angel!



We finally found a couple dollar theaters around town and Friday night we went to see the Nanny Diaries at one of them. I really enjoyed it – between having been a nanny and also having studied enough anthropology to totally get the anthropology references, it was really fun. Then we came home, made popcorn and played a game. It’s definitely been a challenge to stay connected to each other with our current responsibilities and schedules, so this was much needed and appreciated.

On Saturday, we went to the bank to deposit a check. Now remember, we live in Detroit, which is not a place most normal businesses like to operate. So there are only four Fifth Third banks in the entire city. In the city where I grew up (Louisville, KY - a wonderful place), there are at least 17! And its only 2/3 of the size of Detroit AND its not even the main region for that bank. We would consider switching except that we just bought a bunch of new checks with our new address on them. So, we had to drive across town to go to the bank and the closest one happens to be on the east side near the river. We’ve been wanting to go check out the river trail, so after we went to the bank, we went down to the river and walked a bit along the river trail. The Detroit River (at least in that section) was actually very pretty – a nice bluish green - in contrast to the yucky brown of the Ohio River in said hometown. Plus, it was SO, SO good to be outside, especially in the beautiful, sunny fall weather we had. We walked to the Renaissance Center, which I had never actually been in. There are lots of shops and a few restaurants. I had no idea. So the trip to the bank: It was good.

Next we went to our neighborhood hardware store. They have just about anything you could need, in addition to wonderfully friendly and helpful people who run it. To me, it seems like a hardware/general store, and it’s almost like a mini-Target. I love being able to support a local, family-run business that specializes in the old houses in the neighborhood. We came home with furnace filters, an auger to unclog our tub, two rakes, a hand trowel, a few things to add a couple electrical outlets in the basement and a box of matches. I almost came home with envelopes, pens, an apple peeler/corer, screws, nails and a shovel, but we’ll save those for the next trip! The hardware store? Yep, it was good.

Today after church, we had a couple over for dinner before Dave went to work. They are close to our parents’ age. They’ve been coming to our church for a little while, but just made the move completely from their old church and I hadn’t really talked to them until the missions conference a few weeks ago. It was totally spur of the moment that we invited them over for dinner, counting on finding something in the fridge and/or cupboard to eat. It was really fun getting to talk to them and getting to know them better. We certainly have the most interesting people in our church with such a variety of experiences in life. On Friday night this week, a group of ladies are coming over to help me figure out what to do with my house and get some ideas to decorate (which includes helping me find a good place for my things from Africa). So Sunday? Yep, it was good.