239/365

happiest birthday to this guy. There's no one else that I would more want to grow old with.

236/365

Holliday Academy first day of school-
year 17

235/365

Traveling is a brutality.
It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends.
You are constantly off balance.
Nothing is yours except the essential things:
air, sleep, dreams, sea, the sky.
All things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.
- Cesare Pavese

(photo at a stormy sunset layover in Jacksonville, FL)

234/365

He used to have a note taped to his computer that read, “Joy is the most infallible sign of the existence of God.”
- Stephen Colbert in "The Late, Great, Stephen Colbert," GQ Magazine, August 17, 2015

233/365

"If you believe in a God who controls the big things, you have to believe in a God who controls the little things. It is we, of course, to whom things look "little" or "big." 

- Elisabeth Elliot

232/365

love never fails.

231/365

There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.
- G.K. Chesterton

230/365

"As I sought clarity, answers, strategies, His favor, and divine appointments, God simply prompted me to ask myself: To whom should I surrender? I love the wisdom in this quote from C. S. Lewis that captures this truth:  “I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer.”

- from A Holy Experience, “when our big plans & unspoken dreams…,” by Eugene Cho, August 13, 2015

229/365

The question he was asked nearly every day growing up-
"Are you the only boy?"
"No- there's my dad and my dog."
oh, life with these girls!

Happy birthday, James!
We love you.

228/365

home again, home again...

227/365

Through the hardest parts of life and the most joyful ones; in the crazy-making seasons and the oasis-like breathers; in the stories that vex us, and the relationships that test us—you love us, will never leave us, and will complete us. Father, we praise, bless, and adore you. So very Amen we pray, in Jesus’ merciful and mighty name.
- from "Shutting Down Our Whines with Worship- Praying through Romans 8:31-37," by Scotty Smith, August 14, 2015

Thankful for an oasis-like breather in the crazy-making season and a few days with these people, most dear. Father, I praise, bless and adore you.

226/365

Sitting up top, majestic views and sun in my face, thinking, "This doesn't happen in the United States..."

225/365

Walking cobblestone streets before the town awakes.
Library kiosk in the plaza.
Cafe con leche.
I believe; help my unbelief!
Azure skies and white wisp clouds.
Hiking and views and surprise cornfields and donkeys.
Rest.

224/365

The traveler sees what he sees. 
The tourists sees what he has come to see.
- G.K. Chesterton

223/365

I thought that if I waited, the cotton might be picked before I got back. And so it turned into a race, to see if I could get the shot before the sun went down. As described by my passenger, that quest may have involved an unauthorized u-turn, hazard lights, and a car parked precarious angle on the shoulder of the road. But, we both got the shot.

I clicked and then stopped to really soak it in; the beauty of this life takes my breath away.

222/365

A mid-morning trip for a visa and early lunch in the streets of Nuevo Progreso.

221/365

"Despite how it feels sometimes, freedom is not doing whatever we want to do, but in discovering how to #learntolovewhatmustbedone...within the confines of God's design and his provision. And in the Gospel, this is grace indeed: that Christ would rescue us from slavery to sin, and win us to the freedom to love what He loves. In the face of all that OVERWHELMS us + seems IMPOSSIBLE this week, we can know what it takes is not in how hard we can pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, but in the freedom we have to do what doesn't come naturally, but only by grace."

- from gracelaced on Instagram, 9August2015

220/365

The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.
-John 3:8

(taken during harvest at Texas South Wind Vineyard & Winery)

219/365

traveling down new roads...

218/365

It seems like August afternoons are mostly about finding the coolest ways not to be bored. And yes, "coolest" can mean either in terms of temperature or in terms of excitement, depending on who you are...

217/365

Hot temps.
Cool Raspa Wednesday.

216/365

B-day:
breakfast tacos with bacon,
beach,
Blizzard,
bowling,
blessed.

215/365

"A weevil is a type of beetle from the Curculionoidea superfamily. They are usually small, less than 6 mm (0.24 in), and herbivorous. Over 60,000 species are in several families, mostly in the family Curculionidae (the true weevils). Some other beetles, although not closely related, bear the name "weevil", such as the biscuit weevil (Stegobium paniceum), which belongs to the family Anobiidae."

- "Weevil," from Wikipedia

ewwww.

214/365

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christas a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
- Ephesians 1:3-10 (ESV)

(and thank you, Covenant Presbyterian Church of Fort Smith, Arkansas, for your gracious hospitality and very sweet fellowship!)