Happiness is

~touching foreheads with your baby and sharing a secret joke. You don't know exactly what it is, but it sure is funny!

~overhearing her dad reading to her on the baby monitor and it sounds like there are bears growling, people screaming, things crashing and maybe burning...and she definitely has no books that match that description.

~beer bread.

The last couple of weeks have been all over the place. I've gotten some very sad news of death, disappointment, and sickness, but also news of new life (3 friends with new babies! what beauty!), good family time with Nathan, and, finally, a relief from the oppressive heat of this place. Even the small things matter sometimes.

I've never been one to ask "Why?". It's my blessing/personality flaw. "Why?" is so often unanswerable in specifics. When the question does occur to me, usually when my body or someone else's body seems to have failed, Romans 8 tends to pop into mind.

...but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit,

groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons,

the redemption of our bodies.

For in this hope we are saved.

...

For I am sure that neither death nor life,

nor angels nor rulers,

nor things present nor things to come,

nor powers,

nor height nor depth,

nor anything else in all creation,

will be able to separate us

from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

There's another kind of "why" though. Why was I given such a wonderful, joyful child? Why was I given a husband who cheerfully earns all the money and has never begrudged a single cent that I have spent? (Even when he should have!) Why do I get to travel the world and be friends with such amazing people? I don't deserve any of these things, and I'd do well to remember that. So I find myself thanking God for what He's given.