Yesterday was one of those storybook days that reached an apex in our family’s venture outside to gather fallen pecans from our trees by the house. The pics are from this adventure. The weather was uncharacteristically 58ish with a crisp breeze and I found myself uttering a meaningful prayer in which I thanked God for the struggle to get warm. A rarity in Texas.

In Truett’s Spiritual Formation program we did a number of things including trying to learn to be thoughtful in our prayers and experience God through them. I remember one of our leaders in my second semester talking about “feeling the warmth of the water run down one’s back, as one soaked in the grace that can be a warm shower.” That’s how I felt in a real intentional moment yesterday when I paused to notice life seemed perfect in that present moment. There I was collecting pecans with my healthy son and beautiful wife outside a house that we somehow managed to purchase as a part time park ranger and full time teacher. I felt the cold kiss my skin. I caressed my son’s increasingly chubby cheeks. I tasted the fresh fallen pecans. And I gazed at my beautiful wife. I sensed grace there. There, where the veil between heaven and earth seemed especially thin.