la alegría compartida ~ shared joy: Good Things

This year on January 1^st I began a few resolutions for the New Year. As tends to happen with such resolutions, they haven’t all panned out like I would have liked – I definitely haven’t eaten two servings of vegetables every day. But today I am feeling grateful the return of running water to Tela after 24 hours without, and with that in mind I would like to share one resolution that I’ve stuck to.

At the beginning of the year, I decided that I would start consciously thinking about the positive things I see happening. I began making little notes about good things that happen and things I am grateful for and putting them in a box that I keep on the bookshelf. I pasted a few Bible verses to the outside of the box to remind me of why I am doing this.

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” – Philippians 4:8

“Every day I will bless you, and praise your name for ever and ever” – Psalm 145:2

“This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” – Psalm 118:24

And finally, “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!” – Psalm 27:13

That last verse has really stuck with me over the last few months. I think it’s easy to think about the goodness and greatness of the Lord that we will experience after our earthly life. However, the psalmist reminds us that God created the earth, and everything He made was good. There is a lot of pain, hurt, and suffering in the world, and I have seen some of this in a different way since coming to Honduras. Still, I believe that I will, and I already have, seen the goodness of the Lord here on earth, in the land of the living.

Here are a few of the things I’ve written down since the beginning of the year:

- My internet came back on just by turning the router off and back on again.

- We had a surprise Monday holiday.

- My neighbor offered to carry a 5 gallon bottle of water for me from the market to my house.

- Fresh avocadoes.

- I got cable just in time for the last two days of the Olympics.

- Air conditioning