We had a busy day Sunday. Church (awesome); drive Andrew and Alicia to Athens and say goodbye (smooth ride, excellent conversation); drive on down to Macon (dark, dark Georgia country roads).

The short story is that we had a great visit with Andrew and Alicia. I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating: we are so very happy with where our kids are at this point in their lives. Confident; motivated; deeply invested in their marriages; full of life; committed followers of Jesus; making a positive difference in the world.

For Andrew and Alicia, the immediate future means finding out how their gifts and passions can be best utilized to serve God. They both love the world, they want to explore it, and they want to learn all they can. It’s a passion they share, and it means that – together – they are wide open to pretty much anything!

And that leads me to my 5th Day of Christmas tie-in. It’s a bit of a stretch, but here we go. 5 is for the 5 great oceans on the face of Planet Earth: the North Atlantic, the South Atlantic, the Pacific, the Indian, and the Arctic. There are also 5 inhabited land-masses: North America, South America, Eurasia, Africa, and Australia (sorry, Antarctica, nobody really wants to live there).

The number 5 represents Planet Earth, the great adventures to be had here, and the captivating love Andrew and Alicia have for this crazy, mixed-up, exciting, broken, world – a world that stands in need of both the love and the gifts they are willing to share.

So we dropped our intrepid travelers off in Athens, Georgia, to spend a few days with Alicia’s family. The Pashby clan share our excitement about the possibilities for the future, and the great gift of faith, belief, and imagination our children represent.

We broke bread together, we thanked God for the food and our families, and we committed the future to the faithful and creative hands of the God we all love and serve.

It’s the 5th day of Christmas – DEREK