Favorite Five Fridays.... Just another Week

I started the year thinking about favorite things....what are my favorite things....noticing the things that make me smile.  My life is the kind of life that can be full of the drudgery of everyday...breakfast, make bed, dishes, school, school, more school, lunch, dishes, more school, laundry, choir, dinner, read to the kids, go to bed and start over.  One day I started noticing that although everyday has a very similar rhythm there are things in those days that make me smile, things that spark my interest or things that just bring delight.  Each one of those things is a gift from God, something tangible that brings me joy.  It is my goal over the next year to write about five of my favorite things on friday... an alliteration for my father. I started the year writing about school and books and I could probably spend the rest of the year writing about those two subjects.  But I am determined to dig deep and share some other parts of who I am.  Hold onto your hats, this is going to be a crazy ride!

This week I was trying to come up with my list of five things when I read this quote in The Meaning of Marriage by Timothy Keller

C.S. Lewis spoke of a secret thread that unites every persons favorite books, music, places or times.  Certain things trigger an "inconsolable longing" that gets you in touch with the Joy that is God.

This has lead me on an internal journey to discover what that internal thread is, I wonder if after a year I will be able to identify that thread.  Maybe it will pop-out after I have made list after list of my favorite things.  Tonight my list of favorite things doesn't fit into a category like books, or school or movies... its just five of my favorite moments out of the week.  Times when JOY was present and was shining through everything.

• Benji making omelets for everyone for breakfast
• Snuggling with Malaki on the couch
• Watching Mika playing games with her dad
• Waking up to coffee already brewed.... thank you Jen!!!
• Paul taking time to run errands with me
• and the list could go on..... buying Broncos shirts with Jen, grocery shopping with Malaki, teaching Mika prime factorization, watching The Mentalist with Paul, reading Les Miserables, dinner with Paul and Jen, teaching Malaki the books of the Bible... just another week as a wife and mom, but wow! so much to be thankful for.