At first glance, it would seem like a bad start to the day. I left in what I thought was plenty of time to get to my doctor’s appointment on time. Google maps showed that my destination was 28 minutes away, so theoretically, I should arrive with 2 minutes to spare. Only I didn’t.

Rain and traffic had other plans. I ended up being 10 minutes late to my appointment. Plus, I’m not a fan of driving in the rain and it rained on me the entire way. It would have been easy to chalk up the day as a loss and be prepared to start over the next day.

But then I remembered that I have a reliable Jeep that gets me to where I want to go and keeps me dry in the midst of rainy Wednesdays. I have good health that I routinely take for granted until someone I know has a scary diagnosis or suffers from health issues. I have a good job with insurance and an HSA that helps me afford the visit to see my doctor.

Every challenge is really an opportunity to exercise my ability to give thanks. Even in cold wet days, I can find the proverbial silver lining. I have yet to see the day so dark and dismal that I couldn’t find anything to be thankful for.

I recall hearing something that stuck with me. If all God had done was to save me from my sin and hell and did absolutely nothing else for me this side of heaven, it would still be better than I deserve. If God never gave me one more blessing or granted me one more prayer request, He would still be worthy of my thanks.

Yet there are daily small gifts of grace, most of which I miss from complaining or feeling entitled. But they are there if only I can see with eyes of faith and gratitude.

“When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light, for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food, and the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies with yourself” (Chief Tecumseh, Shawnee Nation).

“Love is doing what will enthrall the beloved with the greatest and longest joy. What will enthrall the beloved this way is the glory of God. Love means doing all we can, at whatever cost to ourselves, to help people be enthralled with the glory of God. When they are, they are satisfied and God is glorified. Therefore loving people and glorifying God are one” (John Piper).

Love is not a feeling. Sure, love involves feelings, but above all, love is an act of the will. In any relationship, truly loving means that you can do love and act loving even when you don’t feel love. Besides, no one can maintain a feeling of love indefinitely. You will inevitably fall in and out of love many, many times throughout your life, but 1 Corinthians 13 love is a stedfast choice that never wavers.

When you love someone the way God loves, it’s not about enabling sinful behavior. True love always tells the truth. True love seeks the best for the beloved at all times, even when that involves tough love. True love is where you can disagree with people’s lifestyle choices and behaviors and still love them by seeking God’s best for them.

In a culture that equates love and lust, be the one who strives for a biblical kind of unconditional love. Be the one who loves without expecting anything in return. Remember that you can only love at all because God first loved you and demonstrated that love by sending Jesus to the cross for you and me.

“My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God” (1 John 4:7-10, The Message).

To preface, I am not nor have I ever been a fan of super hot spicy food. I used to not like any spicy-ness, but then I had what I call “the Wasabi incident” and all that changed. If you ever see me in person, be sure to ask me about the “Wasabi” incident, for it is an amusing tale.

But since then, I have developed an affinity for spicy. To a point. I’m still not a fan of spicy to the point where all you can taste is heat and not flavor. Probably the highest I go is in the vicinity of Sriracha and possibly habanero.

I have become a bit of a connoisseur of hot chicken. I like it with a bit of a kick but again not where all I can taste is hot. I have yet to go beyond the medium level of spicy. I really have no desire to go to the point of spicy to the point of cussing, if you catch my drift.

I’ve noticed that hot is relative. Hattie B’s medium is equivalent to Bolton’s mild. I’m not kidding. I had Bolton’s hot chicken at the mild level and was sweating like a Calvinist in a Pentacostal revival service. It was at the utmost limits of my spicy tolerance level.

But I’d like to try it again if they’re still around.

“I have never met a person I could despair of, or lose all hope for, after discerning what lies in me apart from the grace of God” (Oswald Chambers).

I don’t know if you can relate. Have you ever had someone that’s on your heart and your mind that you keep praying for day after day and nothing seems to change? Have you ever had the idea cross your mind that a particular person is beyond the reach of even God?

I have a list of people I’m praying for, as I’m sure everyone does. I wish I could say that I was super faithful about praying for everyone on my list every single day, but there are stretches where I forget. I’m thankful that God is not like me when it comes to persistence and people.

The truth of the matter is that I may never see the fruits of my prayers for people. I may never see the interior work that God is doing in the lives of those for whom I intercede. Just as I have been pleasantly shocked in the past to find out who has been touched by these posts of mine, so I may one day be as surprised to find out that someone has seen transformation and change because I was faithful to pray and not give up.

At times it’s hard to pray for people. It feels like there’s almost a physical resistance to my prayers. I sense an abnormal reluctance to pray, but I think if I can pray through those times, those may be the very breakthroughs I am seeking for other people. I know that Satan trembles when we pray in faith more than anything else we can do spiritually.

I’ve also learned that the more I pray for others, the more God actually changes me and my heart toward those for whom I pray. When I have nothing else to pray, I can always go to the prayer that never fails — Thy will be done.

First of all, no this is not a picture from the 1970s. This is a current picture that I took of the house where I used to live back in the day up until around 8th grade. Even when I lived in that house in the 70s, it never was that brown before.

It’s proof that while you can go back to places in the past, you can never truly go back to the past. The places aren’t the same and primarily you are not the same. The rooms may all be the same size as before and certain aspects may be just as they were before, but you can never be that 13-year old again.

I have happy memories that I made in that house, but I’m also glad that I’m not still the person I was at 13 living in that house. I’ve grown and changed. I’ve seen God in new ways and find that like Lucy said of Aslan in one of the Narnia books, I find that God is bigger to me because I’ve grown. I see in my maturing faith walk that my need of God never lessens but I see more of my need of God every day.

Still I miss that house. I miss many of the people I played with and talked to and shared life with in that house who are no longer with me. I still wish sometimes that I could climb inside a photograph or a memory and walk around in it for a bit before I come back to now.

I’m thankful that the house looks as good as it does, that it didn’t burn down or get run down. I’m thankful for every part of my story that brought me to where I am right now discovering more and more of the goodness of God.

I can finally cross one off of my bucket list. I have been to Graceland.I have seen every bit of Elvis’ abode in all its retro glory.

I lived in Memphis for the first 34 years of my life and never once darkened the door, but now after 17 years in Nashville I finally made it.

It just goes to show you how life can be unpredictable. God truly does work in mysterious ways. Also it maybe means to never give up on a dream or a desire in your heart.

It was a bittersweet moment seeing the new resting place of Lisa Marie Presley, next to her son and not very far at all from her father and grandparents. So many in that family died way before their time.

I guess that’s a reminder not to take any one in your life for granted that they’ll be there the next day. No one is promised anything beyond today. Also l, it’s good incentive to take care of those things on your bucket list .

“The Mississippi Delta
Was shining like a national guitar
I am following the river
Down the highway
Through the cradle of the Civil War

I’m going to Graceland, Graceland
Memphis, Tennessee
I’m going to Graceland” (Paul Simon).

It’s official. Tomorrow morning, the family and I are embarking on a two-day road trip to Memphis, and I will finally get to mark Graceland off of my bucket list. I lived in Memphis all my life until 2006 and never made it, but soon that won’t be the case.

I’ve been anxious to go since I saw the Elvis movie with Austin Butler and was able to see the livestream of Lisa Marie Presley’s funeral held at Graceland. Plus, I have been an Elvis fan since possibly before I could walk or talk.

I will get to see relatives I haven’t visited in a while. I will probably get to see some familiar landmarks I haven’t seen in a long time. Maybe if I’m lucky I will get some of that Memphis barbecue.

I am a Nashvillian now but Memphis will always be my hometown. It will always be the place I was born and raised. It’s the place where Jesus found me and where I learned those formative spiritual lessons that I am still figuring how to live out.

Hopefully, this will be the first of many road trips to come. In the mean time, I will have a certain Paul Simon song stuck in my head for the foreseeable future.

I am a fan of bargains. Specifically, I am a fan of frequenting thrift stores in a never-ending quest for that elusive find. I call it thrifting and yes, it is an addiction.

You never know what you’ll find when you hit up a thrift store. Sometimes, you won’t find anything worth a second look, much less taking home. Sometimes, you might find one or two things that catch your eye. Every now and then you hit the proverbial jackpot, like that one time I found a first edition signed copy of Gregg Allman’s autobiography or when I found the complete DVD set of Ken Burn’s Jazz documentary.

I find it’s better to go during the week since that’s when they typically will have the new arrivals. Again, there’s no guarantee that you’ll find anything, but the hunt is part of the fun. Plus, you’ll see some odd items that you won’t see in any other kind of store. And it’s a great place to people watch if you’re not finding anything.

My go-to thrift store is Goodwill, but I like any thrift store that’s relatively close to where I live. I’m always looking for new places to check out.

Thrifting isn’t for everybody, but those who have discovered the art of the thrift know the adrenaline rush of a good find. Really, it’s about finding what brings you joy and makes your weird little heart happy.

I found another blast from the past — a post I wrote 13 years ago pre-Wordpress. It’s funny how the words are the same but the way I look at them now is different. It was me attempting to write from God’s point of view on how He sees each of His children:

“You don’t ever have to be ashamed of who I made you to be. You don’t have to apologize for being you. You are special. I created you exactly the way I wanted you to be and when you were hopelessly lost in sin and misery I redeemed you for My own. You have a purpose, a reason, something that makes you come alive. Even if no one else thinks you matter, I DO! Believe that I love you, not because I have to, but because I choose to. Hear the sound of my Voice singing over you tonight and know how deep that love goes. I will never change and My love for you will never change, so you can rest in it. I will not leave you as you are, but will through trial and tribulations make you who you were always meant to be– My perfect image-bearer.”

If you take away nothing else from this, rest in the knowledge that God loves you as you are and not as you should be (with much gratitude to Brennan Manning for coming up with that one). His love is redeeming, refining, restoring kind of love that brings out all the beauty and splendor of what God had in mind when He made you and me. His love stops at nothing short of us looking like Jesus and being every bit of who He created us to be.

I was a huge fan of The Wonder Years back in the day, so I knew that Jesus Revolution would be right up my alley. I absolutely love just about any movie or series set in the 50s, 60s or 70s that has a quaint nostalgic vibe to it. Plus, Jesus Revolution is all about a spiritual awakening that pretty much birthed the Christian music industry as we know it.

My biggest takeaway from the film is that God uses complicated and flawed people to accomplish His purposes. You can basically open your Bible to any page and to any chapter to find that those God chose to use more often got things wrong as much as they got things right. They were alternately egotistical and cowardly, worldly and spiritual.

God didn’t choose them — or any of us — because we were more special or charming or good-looking than any of the rest. In fact, God often chooses the weak and despised to shame those who think they are strong and powerful. So to say that you and I are chosen by God is both honoring and humbling.

But in Jesus Revolution, the movie centers around Lonnie Frisbee, a hippie who found Jesus and brought the message of salvation, as well as a whole mess of personal issues and baggage from a complicated past. We see that he becomes enamored of the spotlight and forgets the true power behind this spiritual movement.

But we also see that people are coming to faith in Christ because of Lonnie, flawed as he is. The message, not the man, is what matters most when it comes to the gospel and salvation. While God expects our lives to align with our words, He doesn’t expect us to be perfect in our lifestyles or our theology.

This is a a movie that needs to be seen on a big screen. You need a larger than life canvas for a larger than life story. Plus, there’s a clear presentation of the gospel running throughout the movie. I hope that the success of this film will lead to more like it down the road.

In the mean time, go see it!