Sunday afternoon, after sermons and after pie and after naps, it drones hot and still and farmers and their kids get crazy ideas, ideas like pumping up the old inner tubes of tractors and finding the bike helmets and life jackets.
Crazy ideas like piling into the truck and driving to the far corner of our country block, a quarter of a mile north and a mile and a quarter east, crazy ideas like talking about recent rains and how the river might now run and about rapids and electric fences and catching the lazy river lolling her way through cornfields and woods and herds of grazing cattle.
And I look over at the grinning farmer and I ask him but one thing: the number of kids that go into the river at one end of the block must be the number of kids that come out of the river at the other end of the block. He winks.
And I count all six.
He turns and waves adventure and goodbye and see you soon and I promise…
And I drive to the other end of the block, me, the pick-up crew of one in the white pick-up.
I wait at the bridge. I read Scripture. I listen to the river laugh, chuckling away joy on a Sunday. I pray. I journal. I close my eyes and feel the sun’s warmth. I watch a blue heron wait elegant. I try that.
I wait at the bridge and I try not to count minutes. I do count the hours. It’s over two.
And then I hear a dog barking in a farmyard. Does he sees some river-rat-farmers drifting by?
And the horse in the pasture meanders curious towards the stream edge. Does he see what’s coming around the bend?
Then there they are.
They come around the bend and float past the barns and I count each smiling, bucolic face. There is the farmer. With thumbs up and grinning from ear to ear. He did promise.
And there is each of the six.
Grace is a river and Love is a current and they are both Him, without beginning or end or conditions, and around every bend comes one shimmering blessing after another.
I can count on it.
And I do.
a crazy idea of my own… counting the endless blessings that keep coming round each bend in the river of life. He did promise.
#1780. old dogs barking
#1781. laughter of children and rivers
#1782. fathers with twinkle in the eye
#1783. crazy adventure
#1784. summer lists of dreams, checked off one by one
#1785. silence of Sabbaths
#1786. kindling and matches
#1787. backyard bonfires
#1788. dreaming new life for old couches and a freshing up of read-aloud places
#1789. splattered recipes cards
#1790. rain caught in headlights
#1791. growing boys hunting through the fridge
#1792. creak of the trampoline before 6 a.m.
#1793. her hair flying
#1794. braids
#1795. magnificent, magnificent, magnificent
From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another.
Want to drink the joy elixir? Become a Joy Finder? Consider joining the Gratitude Community – just jump in with your own counting! How to begin your own 1000 Gift List ::: How Gratitude Can Change your Life
( Drop me a line if choose to begin giving intentional thanks and gather fresh joy and I will happily add either your name or a web link to the Gratitude Community I’m slowly getting caught up on meeting all you beautiful folks who have joined the Gratitude Community. Thank you for your kind grace and patience! I’m so looking forward to meeting you all soon!)
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Photos: floating down the river of Life
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