Comfort the discouraged. Help the weak. Be patient with everyone. Make sure no one repays a wrong with a wrong, but always pursue the good for each other and everyone else. Rejoice always. Pray continually. Give thanks in every situation because this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Don’t suppress the Spirit. Don’t brush off Spirit-inspired messages, but examine everything carefully. Hang on to what is good.

1 Thessalonians 5:14-21

A boring blog post today would be for me to complain about the heat (again) and talk about the huge raft of stuff that keeps coming at me as if there wasn’t already more than enough to deal with. Then I’d delete it and start over because who wants to read a blog like that!

But then I remembered it is “Photo Friday” and even though this has been a sparse week for pictures surely I can dig up four we can use.

So here goes (thanks, Naomi, for the best two).

Cousins:

There is always something beautiful about family hanging out, even for a short visit; I love cousin photos. These four, technically, are 2nd cousins as their mothers, Naomi and Hannah, are 1st cousins (Naomi of course is our daughter and Hannah is my brother Geoff’s).

So Hannah drove up from Palmetto to bring Naomi’s family post-surgery dinner and two of her five came along. David and Hannah Mae just started 6th grade; Beks and Harper are both 5th. It makes my heart happy to see them together.

Then there’s Geoffrey, Mr. Dramatic himself! But he always provides a highly charged boost of sunshine! I get to chat with him on FaceTime usually several times a day, then there are random shots like this one Naomi shoots my way via text.

Geoffrey is a pistol. And he always does my heart good.

Mum is out of rehab and in her home!

My mother was finally released from rehab. So Wednesday afternoon, almost exactly three weeks after she went for her “I don’t need help!” jaunt and broke a hip, I was able to take her back to her apartment at assisted living.

It is such a nice situation, with good people taking care of just a handful of residents (well, one of them is certainly a handful!). So our prayer is that mum will settle into a positive routine and find herself able to relax and enjoy all the support without having to worry about a thing.

Both physical therapy and a visiting nurse are coming to the house several times a week, we have follow up appointments with the specialists, and she is obviously healing well. I am very grateful for the availability of so much state of the art medical care

Comfort Food:

I have to be careful, because three weeks of back and forth to the hospital, doctors’ offices, and rehab have added up to almost zero time available for real cooking and in consequence a tendency to whip up comfort food more than I should.

Sometimes, though, my “what’s at hand” meal prep come together quite nicely. Like this example of a Bacon-Lettuce-Tomato sandwich with fresh asparagus and crispy tater-tots.

I may not like the heat but I do appreciate summer heirloom tomatoes, and these orange/yellow ones have been especially amazing this year.

So there you go. Four Photo Friday. Enjoy, and keep your eyes open for abundant blessings over this weekend and the coming week – DEREK