I love the new Picasa!

Picasa has been my quick photo editor/organizer of choice for quite a while now. Google just recently released Picasa3. Tonight was my first chance to play with the new features. How about thsi neat collage of my boys? This was yesterday evening out on a friends' ranch.

Blessed

We are blessed. No, we are extremely blessed. Don't worry about the transition of power that is taking place in our government. Look past the recessing economy and our shrinking savings accounts. Peer through defaulted mortgages or lost jobs. Even with these things going on, we are far richer than the vast majority of people in this world. Why? you may ask (or at least I do). All I can say is that is only for God to know. And to Him I am most grateful. I need Him to remind me every day how merciful he really has been to me and my family.

This holiday season - from Thanksgiving to Christmas - our family is counting our blessings and is trying to extend mercy to others just as our Father is extending it to us every day. Last Saturday we took our boys to buy toys that they in turn gave to children in need. At ages almost 2 and 3 1/2, this was not a natural task. They wanted to keep and open the toys they bought at first. But the giving happened at the end of a Christmas parade in Austin. When the ropes dropped on the parade route, our boys ran up with the masses of people to load their toys in the backs of trucks and watch them drive away to those in need. When we asked Ethan later that evening what his favorite part of the parade was, he didn't say the big polar bear balloon or the Santa Claus float, or even the horses. He said - without prompting - "giving my present". I hope my actions warm the Father's heart as much as my son's warmed mine at that moment!

Instead of frivolous Christmas presents to several of our friends who are definitely in want of nothing, we are giving livestock. That's right: sheep, goats, chickens. No, we're not giving it to them. We're giving through World Vision in their name to the least of these (Matt 25:40) as Christ tells us to do. I'm not sure how some of our friends will react to this gift, but I hope they will receive the spirit of mercy and blessing to those who for some reason or another are not quite as blessed right now as we are.

I'm not sure what else God will lead us to do this season to distribute his blessings, but I'm excited and I hope I hear his voice he time he directs because I am so blessed (Acts 20:35).