Count your blessings name them one by one...

(You were supposed to sing the title to the beat)...

Tim and I are continually blessed by family, friends, and sometimes people who remain purposely anonymous. Our most recent blessing came from our Sunday School teachers Jackie and Debbie (and their daughter and son-in-law). They sent an email to the entire class early this week about a desk that they were wanting to give away. Tim responded that we were interested in looking at the desk. On Friday, we were out in Arlington so we stopped by to see the desk. Oh my goodness!!! It was gorgeous. I kept thinking and possibly even saying out loud, "Are you sure you are giving this away?" Sure enough, they (particularly Jackie) just wanted it out of the garage.

We brought the desk home and rearranged our office last night. We were up until 1:30am working on it and then did a little more work this morning. It is a little oversized for our current office but it will be perfect for Tim down the road. He told Jackie and Debbie that the desk would be the place where many sermons will be completed.

Here are some pictures of the beautiful beyond words desk and our new office arrangement...

Tim's old desk became my desk. My old desk from college is going to be donated to Trinity Habitat for the new AmeriCorps house we are trying to get furnished.

Dum... Dum... Dum-Dum

Well it happened. I was able to officiate a wedding and nothing (or no one) blew up, broke, or fled the scene.

In one of the greatest honors of my life, I was asked to officiate my cousin's wedding. There were a number of moments in the ceremony when I had to fight back tears (I told people I had a bug in my eye), but Andrew and Kimberly are too awesome not to elicit emotion. I recall days of wrestling WWF Wrestling Buddies (Ultimate Warrior) with Andrew in his bedroom, which immediately was followed by an interview (for our many imaginary fans) in front of the bathroom mirror. He and I created flawless football plays to defeat the evil Joel and Nick in a game of touch in Mamaw's front yard. Standing at the altar, all these memories were flooding through my mind. As the ceremony unfolded, there was no doubt my cousin was a man. After pronouncing them as husband and wife, the recessional was quite fitting - "Hallelujah!" Now, Andrew Putters has a beautiful Caddy for life. As if officiating the wedding was not a big enough honor, the hug Uncle Ed gave me afterward was the icing on the cake! I had represented my family well and he let me know it. Life doesn't get much better than this!


. . . or does it?
The very next day, Jill and I were able to see our niece affirm her faith in Christ through Believer's Baptism. We were not in Knoxville at the time of her salvation, and we missed her walking to the front of the church during the invitation, but God granted us the chance to witness this beautiful scene.

(she is the angel standing in the middle of the girls)

The Lord never ceases to amaze us with blessings through our family. Thankfully, our family is still growing. NO, NO, NO!!! This is not a "We're Pregnant" blog. This is a "JOEL AND MARIA & BRIAN AND AUDRA ARE PREGNANT" celebration.