GOD’S OCTOBER CROCKPOT OF GOODNESS

October 30, 2011

As I sat down to write this month’s doodle, there was not a single thought in my head about what to say. This happens a lot. I like it better when something smacks me in the head in the course of zipping through an ordinary day. Someone will make a statement that hits the profundity button I have stashed just behind my left ear, or a child I know does something that tickles the hysterically funny bone just below my ribs, or a writer grabs me by the throat, where my emotions like to lie in wait to overcome me, with a great line. And then the Doodle Alert goes off deep in my cluttered brain and I get really HAPPY! I know what I’m going to write about and I have time to stir it around in my Thought Pot, tasting it now and then, adding bits of seasoning or thickening until it is ready for cyberspastic consumption.

Most of the time, though, I jog through the month, oblivious to the ticking clock, until the last weekend suddenly pops up and shouts, “Na na na na na na! Caught ya again! Now you’re in a fine mess of total blankness! What are you gonna do about it?” I just hate it when the month catches me doodleless!! And then I have to sit down and stare into space for several hours until I force myself to start typing something.

So that’s what I figured would happen this afternoon. I had no brilliant thoughts or funny stories to tell from October, my favorite month of the year. I prayed for God to give me something worth writing, which is something that I also do a lot.

But this time something really incredible happened.

I started thinking about why October is my favorite month. It’s because of the beauty of the autumn leaves, and the relief of cooler weather after a long hot summer. It’s because “October” is just a really fun sounding word that reminds me of German class in high school, with all those phlegm loosening “achs” spouting forth. And it’s a quieter month. No big holidays that require lots of shopping or frenzy.

Then I remembered that it was 36 Octobers ago that my husband and I first started eyeing each other around a campfire with some church friends. And eight years later I prayed to be blessed with a little October baby girl and she was born October 1st the next year! Since then I have been blessed with two more daughters and years and years of more family blessings than I could have ever “asked or imagined” way back on that night around the campfire. And now that little October baby is expecting her own little baby in a few months. Glory!

God smacked me in the head with a huge October snowball of wonderment this afternoon. And that snowball has just about done me in. I cannot believe the way He has blessed me! And that’s just here in the earthly realm! Listen to this from Ephesians 1:3-14:

> Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.

> In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.

Put that in your Thought Pot and taste it! No extra seasoning or thickening needed. It is mmm, mmm good to the last drop and then there’s more bubbling up and overflowing forevermore! Man, am I glad I asked God for some inspiration today!