I have much for which to be grateful. Much that makes me happy and fills me with joy. I am blessed with close and faithful friends who would – and do – lay down their lives for me. Friends who continually and lovingly call me up to a walk that is worthy of the calling I have received in my Redeemer. Friends who risk with me. Laugh with me. Pray with me. Adventure with me. Go to battle with me and for me. If not another blessing came my way, these would be enough. Three-fold cords.

I have much for which to be grateful. Much that enriches my life. One year ago, almost to this day, my husband Jan and I followed the leading of God and stepped back into the life of the local church. It felt like emotional risk. After three years of growing and healing in the safety and intimacy of a home fellowship, “going to church” felt foreign and socially overwhelming. I felt unknown. A sea of faces and stories I did not know and had not shared. Today as I step through the doors of Grace Christian Fellowship, I am home. I greet faces and friends and stories that I know. I am known. I share in the struggles and in the victories. God is knitting together. Three-fold cords.

I have much for which to be grateful, and yet tonight a sense of sadness invades and forces me to look beyond my world of blessing. Compels me to feel. Compels me to acknowledge. Mostly it’s the stories of children that invade. Abuse. Neglect. Abandonment. Death. It’s difficult to watch the news. It’s difficult to admit that I have a knee-jerk reaction to look away. To retreat to my world of gratefulness and blessing. And yet when I look, I see what my Savior sees. When I feel, I feel what my Savior feels. If I am to “let the light of knowledge of the glory of God shine in my heart’; if I am to “let the life of Jesus be manifested in my body” (2Corinithians 4:6,11), then I must look and I must feel. And I must do what He would ask me to do.

I have much for which to be grateful. I am alive, and I am able to do what Jesus would ask of me. I have opportunities to be the hands and feet and heart of Jesus. I am part of a local Body that is the hands and feet and heart of Jesus. My son and daughter-in-law have opened their hearts and home to offer the love of Jesus to children who need to be loved and valued, and I get to love these children as my own. I see the love and rescue of Christ all around me. But tonight, tonight He asks me to look and to see what He sees. Tonight He asks me to feel, to leave my heart exposed and to feel in some tiny, infinitesimal way what He feels. Tonight He asks me to do what He does – in this body and mind and spirit that is me. Three-fold chord.