Forget Not His Benefits

This morning, after I find myself elbow deep in a strawberry patch, I spend some time reading Psalm 103.  No matter how many times I read this Psalm, I'm struck by the simplicity, truth, and joy of it.  Other than Psalm 16, I can claim Psalm 103 as a favorite. 

Just the first five verses set my mind right:  "Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. . ." And what follows is that beautiful list of verbs:  He forgives, heals, redeems, crowns with love and compassion, and satisfies.

He satisfies!  The verse reads that God "satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's." 

He satisfies indeed.  I begin to consider how this happens.  I realize a pure truth that I've learned after all this time: He satisfies in the precise way that fits our needs.  He satisfies in creative, often unusual, unexpected, and unimagined ways. 

He invents these ways, and they almost never match my ideas of what will satisfy me.  Almost never.

I want glamorous living, but He gives me a strawberry patch to love.
I want an international bestseller, and He gives me a daily blog to keep.
I want fame, and He gives me friendship.
I want to collect extravagant works of art, and He gives me a camera to make my own art. 
I want global influence, and He gives me two little girls to raise quietly in a small community. 

It's like He knows the desire beneath the desire.  He knows what I really want.  

So today I make a list of all the good things He's given me that fulfill the desires beneath the desires. 

And off I rise like an eagle.

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Have you found that He satisfies your deepest desires? 

Fresh From the Nest

On the walk home from dropping the children off at school, the neighbors and I see a baby robin leave the nest. He stands there ready to start really living.

Baby Robin, Fresh from the Nest

He tries his wings out, and the neighbors lean in and begin cheering for him.  "You can do it!  Fly little bird!  Fly!"

What a great day this one has ahead of him!  Flying!  Juicy worms!  Oh, what it must feel like to be fresh from the nest, exploring a new world!

I want to live this day as if I'm fresh from the nest.  Whatever I need to leave behind--whatever dependencies, spaces, and old, comfortable ideas of what life should be like--I do it, stretch out these wings, and go. 

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Do you need to leave something behind to emerge fresh from a nest today? 

All the Things You Didn't Even Know Were Here

The winning pie at the Boalsburg Memorial Day Fair is something I haven't even imagined in my mind before. 

Coconut Key Lime.

You know my problem with coconut. 

I didn't get the recipe or try this winning pie, but I immediately come home and proclaim, "I have to make that pie!" 

So I do. 

I use a recipe by Martha Stewart called Coconut Key Lime Pie.  I make three pies: one for a new neighbor, one for a fellow coconut lover, and one for my husband and daughters. 

 
Yesterday, I didn't know that Coconut Key Lime Pie existed.  Today, I do. 

All morning in my kitchen, I think about all the things I have yet to discover in this wonderful world. 

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Did you discover a new thing today?