Thankful Tuesday (before Ash Wednesday)

• This, as I head into this “Sabbath Lent”:

“Stop for one whole day every week, and you will remember what it means to be created in the image of God, who rested on the seventh day not from weariness but from complete freedom. The clear promise is that those who rest like God find themselves free like God, no longer slaves to the thousand compulsions that send others rushing toward their graves.”

-Barbara Brown Taylor, Leaving Church

• Ash Wednesday is tomorrow! This might just be my favorite service of the year. (Read my two-year-old post here.) And, for the first time in years, I’ll be able to worship on Ash Wednesday with my husband. That’s a big deal.
• In my 30-something (read: very uncool) life, checking household tasks off the list every weekend gives me great joy. This past weekend, Chris installed the permanent gate above the entry stairs.  (It only took us 4 months and a few child tumbles, right?) And, after two months of researching, we finally got big, cozy carpets (with padding!) made and installed in the floors in the boys’ rooms. (Sigh of relief from the anxious mother worried about neighbor noise.) As a further sign of what a boring grown up I am, I said to my husband: “I don’t think anything could make me happier right now than those rugs and that gate.” And I meant it.
• A Twitter conversation yesterday over a newish, deep conviction in my spirit that work itself is good. That God values our work is redeeming even our most broken systems corporate greed.
• Valentines Day. Seriously, I think Valentines Day is a super fun kid day. I may not be sending my beau a bouquet of roses, but you betcha I’ll be composing a scavenger hunt poem so my kids can search for chocolate hearts. I heart hearts. (And I’ll be sneaking the candy I give them.)
• For good books and quiet evenings to read them
• For the membership course we went to at our church this past weekend. I took furious notes because it was All. So. Good. If you feel spiritually fed after a membership course, then you’re in the right place for your soul. So grateful for that.
• For sunshine and my husband’s mad skill at French press coffee.
• For the fact that I’m still making lists and accomplishing tasks, one month into my new life of organization!
• That Sabbath is God’s design and that I am invited in.