This won’t be long. I don’t have time for long these days.

The kids and Josh and the dog and I have stuffed ourselves and our gobs of stuff into my parent’s house.  We are so very grateful for their hospitality, but we are on top of each other here and I’m questioning what kind of logic I was using when I brought along 14 pairs of shoes.

Josh is taking days off of work and weekends to chug away at making our farmhouse livable. Fairly recently, it looked like this:

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Unfortunately, my children aren’t helping to improve the picture.

Which would be okay, if Chip and Joanna Gaines were about to show up. (I checked. They only unleash their superpowers on houses near Waco.)

Instead, we’re the ones who have to make some sense out of this mess, and I don’t even know how to set a mousetrap. You can imagine how useful I am on a construction site. 

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I had envisioned posting a picture on this blog—taken on closing day, of course—of Josh and I (and maybe the kids, assuming they are capable of making normal faces) smiling in front of our new home. We would look happy, six-years-worth-of-waiting-happy, to finally have our dream realized. You would be able to see the praise and relief and joy on our glowing faces. God had answered our prayers and we would mark the moment with a picture I would frame and a blog about how good God is.

To bad we completely forgot to take that picture.

Instead, we got to work. I brought in cleaning supplies and Josh ripped the cabinets straight out of the kitchen. We can’t even go back and take the picture now and pretend we took it on closing day; the growing pile of the guts of the house lying the front porch would give us right away.

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A friend and I were talking. She had had her own big prayer she was praying, and God had answered. And, just like us, she had gotten straight to work. She was mentioning how easy it was to see all the details ahead of her, get busy with them, and completely forget that she had prayed and that God had answered.

And it’s true, isn’t it?  We pray for God to give us what we want, and when he does, our memories become strangely fuzzy. We get lost in the big, busy details and we forget what he has done. We forget that he’s answered our prayers. We forget that he is always faithful. 

There is still time in to rejoice in him, both in his answers to the big prayers and his daily provision through the details.

Don’t be like me. Don’t miss the chance to stop and thank him for how he’s answered your prayers.

Do it. Right now. I will too.

Let’s remember and rejoice in how faithful God is together. Let’s not let the details distract us any longer.

And I’m gonna take that picture, old dishwasher on the porch and all.

Because we have a good God, friends.

I want to remember that. How about you?