So it’s Sunday night but when this post hits your inbox or facebook / twitter feed it will be Monday morning 8:00 GMT+2 and they’ll be wheeling Cameron into theatre for eye surgery and I’ll be slightly numb and breathless and Murray will be waiting for his son with two surgeons and a team of anaesthetists and nursing staff and the smell of déja-vu will be thick like the floor polish and disinfectant and while I wait for the next two hours you’d be putting wind in my sails if I knew you were finding ways to give thanks.

Here are my 39 things of thanks, for the week that’s past:

 

1171 Cam’s courage and calm – his quiet, astute questions about the operation

1172 Finding someone to pull the nail out of my back left tyre and patch the puncture in ten minutes so I could make it in time to fetch the boys from school

1173 Praying for God to clear some thinking space in my week and enjoying his abundant answer

1174 Scott – millimetres from my face – in our bed – prying open my eyes when he thinks I’ve been sleeping long enough

1175 Coffee with a friend at Aroma

1176 Somehow managing not to yell loudly at the employees of Builder’s Warehouse (I kind of yelled softly – in a semi-controlled manner – so as not to alarm the other customers and the four kids I had in my trolley at the time)

1177 Chaos of Lego in the lounge

1178 Girl friends

1179 Date with my man at Boston Deli –

1180 And perfect vibe – not so quiet that the waiters were listening to our conversation – and not so busy that we had to shout at each other

1181 ECC Ladies’ Conference

1182 Stories that make us cry even when we’ve heard them before

1183 Phone calls and texts to ask, how did it go?

1184 Maria (and Scott – sort of) packing boxes of books in the playroom

1185 My mom remembering things about our early days with Cameron that no one else does

1186 Thick-cut cheesy-salty O’Grady’s chips late on a Sunday afternoon in the kitchen

1187 God’s weird – perfect – ways of humbling me, over and over

1188 Marc and Rebecca dropping off a crazy awesome gift – Thai green curry cook-in-sauce

1189 A new picnic basket

1190 Cam’s beloved Teacher Karen saying she would be delighted to come for tea this week

1191 The way Lola wuffs in the mornings. It’s not a woof – definitely a kind of feed-me wuff.

1192 The grace of a community that covers with love and good humour the imperfections of its leaders

1193 Combinations of colours –

1194 Like teal and grey –

1195 And turquoise and brown –

1196 And lime green and navy

1197 Opening my hands – again – palms up – to surrender one more time

1198 The way God has brought so many guests to stay in our loft over the past couple months – deeply pleasing to have a beautiful, safe space used to bless and accommodate

1199 ‘Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.’ – Ah. Yes.

1200 Deep pressure for muscle tension

1201 Shopping for curtains

1202 Cam’s intriguing logic: ‘We didn’t necessarily forget. We just didn’t remember.’

1203 Pearl earrings my mom-in-law gave me a couple Christmases ago

1204 Little blonde three-year-old Sarah-Jane Crewe-Brown snuggling on my lap during Sunday school last week – it somehow made me feel queenly and privileged

1205 A fabric-painting kid’s birthday party – genius

1206 Murray’s enthusiasm for my dreams

1207 Text from Lauren Henning that ended with, ‘Sending you guys so much love.’ Timely words and profoundly touching in the moment

1208 The soundtrack of Murray’s childhood – his vivid remembering of events synchronized with what his mom was rehearsing on the piano at the time

1209 ‘We ought to give thanks for all fortune: if it is good, because it is good, if bad, because it works in us patience, humility and the contempt of this world and the hope of our eternal country.’ C. S. Lewis

 

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