He is good indeed

For the Lord is good;

   His steadfast love endures forever,

    and His faithfulness to all generations. Psalm 100:5

So my light started to flicker a little bit yesterday late afternoon, while Jenny and Nicole whipped up some amazing leftovers and a brand new crispy salad and I helped Gio analyze a “The Soldier” poem (and taught him my little middle school English teacher trick that “soldier” has the word “die” in it, which I hate) and figured out on the online U.S. Post Office how much it costs to send a postcard to Italy and enforced... reinforced... enforced with love and cheerfulness the new policies I wrote up for Jincheng last night at 2:30 a.m. so that he does not spend the next two years of his life lying on bed texting China.  And just as we pushed back from the table, well, even moments before we pushed back from the table, there was a knock on the door and Kevin Jalali and his beautiful brand-new wife from Iran stood smiling, all dressed up and ready to take us out to dinner.  And it sort of dawned on me that I hadn’t read his email very carefully.  And I had forgotten about the new wife, and had planned ice cream and chocolate sauce for Kevin and his two rambunctious kids who like to pound on Alan’s drum sets. And I wanted to curl up and crawl under the bed, but Jenny gave me a hug and a pat on the back, and I actually combed my hair and put on a grown-up jacket and headed out the door.  

And it isn’t that these haven’t been like the most amazing, wonderful, delicious days in so many ways I can’t even begin to count them, but maybe I should add them to The List.  It’s just that I ran out of ends of my candle to burn.

But God is faithful, albeit a little ironic, and I am to teach two, count them two chapels at Desert Christian Elementary and Middle School this morning at 8:15 and 9:00 a.m. on this verse: 

If you obey and do right,
a light will show you the way
and fill you with happiness.  Psalm 97:11

So in my free moments yesterday, as I fussed at the school coordinator for the AdvancED accreditation I am chairing with love and cheerfulness and urgency because it is less than a month away and her unfinished report was due two weeks ago, and put together a Creative Writing Anthology and read a welcoming note to Bogota, Colombia, and by the way, it is culturally important that my shoes are clean and polished, and looked at the next month of activities and blanched a bit when asked when I was going to take my Comp days but then cheerfully answered the moment Miss Everette Tess decides to show her face, I got ready for today. And I tied it in with my other verse, Happy are the people whose strength is in you! Whose hearts are set on the pilgrims’ way. Psalm 84:4, and put together a PowerPoint of Giovanni marching through the 100 degree desert singing loud, off-key songs of joy, and I kind of memorized my twenty-minute talk all day long yesterday, about setting one’s heart.  

And if you obey and do right.

And I set my heart as I headed out that door.  And God filled me with His strength.  And I spent a wonderful two hours sipping water and lemon at Old Pueblo Grill with the most lovely Elaheh and we talked about how to learn English and she smiled and laughed and I was filled with His happiness.  And even if that won’t be part of my story that I tell the kids in an hour.  

It is the story He tells me. 

For the Lord is good;

   His steadfast love endures forever,

    and His faithfulness to all generations.