I’m thankful that life is slowly but surely returning to normalcy. That means the return of concerts at Crockett Park in Brentwood, Tennessee. That also means the return of fireworks on July 4.

I used to be scared of fireworks. I suppose it was the loud noises that I didn’t like. I’d cover my little ears and pray for an end to all the craziness. As I got older, I found that I didn’t mind the loudness as much, and I learned to appreciate the beauty and art of a good fireworks display.

This particular evening turned out to be just about perfect. The weather could not have been any better. There were food trucks aplenty. There were also people aplenty.

So here I am, full of hamburger and ice cream and good memories. Even the drive home wasn’t so bad, considering the number of people trying to leave at the same time.

Happy 245th birthday, America!

“In obeying, a rational creature consciously enacts its creaturely role, reverses the act by which we fell, treads Adam’s dance backward and returns”(C. S. Lewis).

Read that again. Slowly. Then read it again. Read it as many times as it takes to sink in. It took me more than a few times.

Every act of obedience to God brings us one step closer to God’s original design. We come one step closer to reversing the effects of original sin and the fall.

Only God in Jesus can undo all the evil and chaos that resulted from Adam and Eve’s original disobedience, but He chooses to work through our obedience, accomplished only through the power of the risen Christ living in us.

I’m thankful the week is over. It wasn’t bad. It was just long. And I mean looooooooooooooong. It felt like it lasted 31 days. And that’s not even counting Monday.

Not every day is going to be your best ever. That’s okay. Some days if the best you can say is that you survived and didn’t murder anyone, that’s a win. Some days if you can get your pants on successfully, that’s a good day.

I prefer sunshine, but if every single day was sunny with no rain, then the grass and trees and flowers would all wither and die. Nothing would grow. There are places with all sunshine and no rain. We call those places deserts.

You need rainy days, as dismal and depressing as they can be sometimes. Rain makes things grow and thrive. You need days and weeks that are less than stellar. You learn life lessons and above all, you learn to appreciate the good days and the good weeks more.

Again, it was not a bad day or a bad week. Just meh. I think a good night’s sleep and a good long weekend will help set things right again.

“Going home is a lifelong journey. There are always parts of ourselves that wander off in dissipation or get stuck in resentment. Before we know it we are lost in lustful fantasies or angry ruminations. Our night dreams and daydreams often remind us of our lostness.

Spiritual disciplines such as praying, fasting and caring are ways to help us return home. As we walk home we often realise how long the way is. But let us not be discouraged. Jesus walks with us and speaks to us on the road. When we listen carefully we discover that we are already home while on the way” (Henri Nouwen).

I don’t suppose this story will ever get old for me.

Four years ago, I went to the Williamson County Animal Shelter to look at and possibly pick up a new feline. I didn’t know what I was looking for at the time, but secretly I was hoping for another cat like Lucy.

I’ll never forget when I was standing in line, waiting to sign the papers to adopt a little tuxedo kitten when I just happened to look behind me to see a tiny tortie paw reaching out to me. I heard the teensiest little meow that seemed to say, “Pick me instead!”

I saw that lonely little tortoiseshell kitten with a mismatched tan foot. When I went to her cage, she started purring. I had found the one. She had rescued me.

So nine days after my first cat Lucy crossed the rainbow bridge and took a piece of my heart with her, I took home this kitten who would soon become Peanut. She is the most gentle feline I have ever known. She still has that tiny little meow and loves to take naps and hide. She’s polar opposite of Lucy in many way, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

My cat Peanut is weird.

She has this lovely blanket that I went through all this trouble to fold and lay over the couch so she would have a comfortable place to nap. Or more accurately, yet another comfortable place to nap among many.

So what does she do? She sleeps BESIDE the blanket, and not on it. She actually slept on the blanket once, and then decided it was much more fun to lay next to it. I think the term unpredictable applies to this little feline.

If I were to ask her why she doesn’t just sleep on the blanket like a normal critter, she’d probably say something like “Well, if you wanted a normal, predictable pet, you should have gotten a dog.”

It helps her cause that she’s just so darn cute.

No, I’m not mad. I just really like Marvin the Martian. He was very single-minded. Sure, he wanted to blow up the Earth, but he was really committed to it. Thankfully, his wits didn’t match his dedication, or we’d all be blown to smithereens by now.

Have you ever been that dedicated to something? Hopefully, it’s not something destructive that involves an earth-shattering kaboom. The rest of the planet would be very grateful if you did not detonate that stick of Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator like the one Marvin always carries with him.

It feels good to set a tangible goal and then actually set about to accomplishing that goal. It doesn’t have to be ginormous. In fact, it’s better if you start small and work your way up.

For me, I’m just a fan of all things Looney Tunes. In fact, I’m feeling a bit Looney Tunes myself. But at least Monday’s over, right?

Back in the olden days, every time I went to rent a movie from Blockbuster, I saw the sign that said, “Please be kind and rewind.” That was so people would rewind the VHS tapes with the movies so the store didn’t have to. It was a bit of a pain, since those old VCRs took for EVER to rewind, but we did it because we were decent folk.

These days, I feel like the motto should be “Rewind and be kind.”

A lot of unkind rhetoric has been flung about and it’s too late to take it back. Too many unkind words have been spoken to rectify it with a half-hearted I’m sorry.

What we need is kindness, even if we don’t agree on stuff. Instead of talking over each other, maybe we need to talk less and listen more. That’s why we have two ears and one mouth — to listen twice as much as we talk. But most of us rarely listen at all. We hear to respond and not to understand. We’re planning our retort instead of paying attention.

Again, being kind doesn’t mean you endorse every single behavior or agree with everything the person says. You can love people and disagree with them. What would help us now more than anything is striving for kindness and seeking for understanding. That would go a long, long way in this divisive age.

I forget that sometimes. When t’m in the dark passages of my story, I forget that the end has already been written. I forget that God has the final say on the final page.

It’s like re-reading a favorite book. You get to the point where the outlook is bleakest and the heroes are outnumbered. You think that there’s no way they can ever hope to win. Then you remember the end. You remember that the story doesn’t end in ashes and defeat.

Your story has a happy ending if you have said yes to God’s story. Your pain won’t have the final word. Neither will your mistakes, your poor choices, your past, your wounds, your scars. Jesus and Jesus alone has the final word in your life.

“I always regarded the death of my husband, Jim, as the worst possible thing that could happen…but you know what? When the worst thing you could ever imagine, happens, there is something that was not there in your imaginings—and that is the grace of God” (Elisabeth Elliott).

I’m guilty of playing the worst case scenario game. You know. The one where you imagine the absolute worst outcome of any particular circumstance. What would you do? How would you react? How would you manage? Could you survive?

Usually, there’s one element missing in my version of the worst case scenario — God. I see me and I see the problem, but I don’t see God. I see myself having to figure it out and navigate the choppy waters.

But when the worst happens, which I have found is very rarely, that’s when you discover in reality what you knew up to that point in theory — the grace of God. It’s one thing to pray about it and to talk about it and to sing about it and yet another to experience it in real time. It’s one thing to read about someone else’s encounter with God’s grace and another to have your own Damascus road showdown.

I think about Elisabeth Elliott and how young she was when she lost Jim. She was in a foreign country, thousands of miles away from everything familiar, reeling from the loss of her lifetime companion. Yet that’s where she met the lovingkindness of God in a way that she never could have in any other scenario.

You can talk all day long about how you believe God is with you through the trials and dark nights and pain, but you never really understand it until you’re in the valley of the shadow of death yourself.