The bright blue heavens are pretty great. His love is greater still.

My heart is firmly fixed, O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and make melody. I will confess you among the peoples, O LORD; I will sing praise to you among the nations. For your loving-kindness is greater than the heavens, and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. Exalt yourself above the heavens, O God, and your glory over all the earth. Psalm 57:7–11

O Lord, you have taught us that without love whatever we do is worth nothing: Send your Holy Spirit and pour into my heart your greatest gift, which is love, the true bond of peace and of all virtue, without which whoever lives is accounted dead before you. Grant this for the sake of your only Son Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

So maybe I need a little more of Thursday’s sent-forth strength, as God establishes what He has done from before the beginning of time. But my heart is fixed. I will not be shaken. I may be tossed and battered, but my feet are planted on His promises.

And pretty much I don’t think that anyone could have scraped me up off of the head-on the-table exhaustion Friday night, but Jenny and Alan tried with yummy take-out curry and coconut rice and cheery stories. And I so clung to my Sabbath rest yesterday that my fingers turned white with cold. But today, well, Cate and I will find somewhere to drink coffee and grade quizzes on hypotheses and independent variables and plan lessons all day long that involve reading, even just a little bit of reading, and will make the kiddos very, very unhappy. But I am a reading specialist, which maybe means I have a few tricks up my pushed-up sleeves, but probably not. And make phone calls even if the kids pled with me not to. But they are going to be happy phone calls about how much I love their student and how he is putting forth a good effort adjusting to all of the changes and to please contact me if you have any questions.

Because all of the changes have been seismic, as I toss half-eaten bags of hot Cheetos into the trash can. It feels likely that the love of Jesus was lost in the clutter and the “three, two, one, quiet” repeated over and over. But. But Chris shared a favorite hymn with us all last night.

May the love of Jesus fill me
As the waters fill the sea;
Him exalting, self-abasing,
This is victory.

His loving-kindness is greater than the heavens, and His faithfulness reaches to the clouds. 

His love will not fail. 

Well, and the last thing I did before I turned out the lights and walked out of the classroom was to rearrange the desks one more time. New seating charts Monday.