Spring Blessings

Today is the first day of spring.  It's 60 degrees with a light north wind, a few puffy clouds in a mostly clean blue sky after last night's slow rain.  It's the kind of day that we think of here in the midwest when we think about early spring. 

I am so blessed as I think about my life on this beautiful spring day. 
-I have a beautiful, loving wife who has grown in her faith to the Lord throughout our almost 15-year marriage. 
-I have two remarkable children who are both loving and 'good kids' but who are absolutely nothing alike. 
-I live in a community in which most people are friendly and at least try to do the right thing. 
-I serve a church in which there is little to no open division or hostility, where people want to follow Jesus, where all people find some sense of worth, where the willingness to let the Holy Spirit lead us is real. 
-I have two parents who are still alive and two siblings who are hard at work raising their families and doing their jobs.
-I don't know that I have a lot of close friends that I hang out with because my introversion sometimes gets in the way, but I have many people both near and far that I could call on at almost any moment if there was a need and they would respond. 
-I enjoy a second job of driving a school bus; we've had a safe year so far and I think that kids respect me and at least try to behave. 
-I make more than enough money to be as comfortable as I need to be, with the ability to put away some money for retirement and the kids' college funds. 
-I am relatively healthy for somebody who is close to a half-century old.  I don't have aches and pains like many of my peers, and though I need to lose 20 pounds (and have needed to for 20 years!), I still look better and younger than people I went to school with. 
-I have been able to travel extensively throughout our nation, to see many of the great wonders of creation. 
-I live in a nation that overcomes even terrible leadership, ideological wastelands, and overt sinfulness; even in all its problems it's still the only place this side of heaven that I want to live. 
-I have a wonderful Savior, a trusted Spirit, and a powerful God who is for me, not against me. 

God has blessed me greatly through the first few months of 2019.  May he continue to bless each of us all of our days. 

The Slog and the Spring

Spring break is finishing this weekend, and my children are gearing up for the final sprint to the end of the school year.  9 weeks of putting the finishing touches on whatever it means to be in the 5th and 7th grades: music programs, track meets, final exams, preparations to go to a new school or become the big dogs at the old school. 

It may seem like a sprint to the end, but it's a slog getting there.  We only have a few days off around Easter, and many of the kids are already checking out on their classes.  I would hate to be a teacher this time of year, and on my school bus I know that discipline is likely going to be a problem. 

But even as it's a slog, spring is finally peeking through.  Today it is 60 degrees and the sky is a beautiful, rich blue, and the long-term forecast calls for some showers here and there but no more of this arctic blast that numbs us and makes my thumbs start to crack.  I put my winter coat away the other day, and I do not anticipate having to get it out again for at least eight months.  Shoots of grass and weeds and perhaps even flowering plants are starting to break through my dormant yard.  Soon I'll have to go out and clean up the lawnmower and spend my evenings (with daylight savings time it's not dark now until almost 7:45pm) out mowing and cutting down the anxious plants that will not rest, even if a drought starts. 

I feel for my kids, as I know that they'd much rather be outside on a beautiful day than inside thinking about pre-algebra.  But soon the school year will be over, and they'll have all the time in the world to be outside (or, more likely, staring at their phones).  And I'll be happy to have made it through to summer as well. 

At least...

Today is another cold, grey day.  I'm exhausted by how long this winter has seemed to be, though likely it's not really much different than any other.  As I get older I am becoming far more intolerant of winter.  I turn 50 in a few years, and I look at RVs and think about becoming one of those people who parks amongst other RVs in south Texas for three months a year. 

But in the last few days baseball spring training games have begun in Arizona and Florida.  Somewhere there are people sitting out on a bright sunny 70 degree afternoon watching millionaires get into shape and hopeful rookies desperately trying to make their mark.  It's a glorious ritual of the American spring.  Though I can't be there for it, I can imagine it.  And so at least there's that.