Husband is out at the dam fishing with his brother and the blueberry zucchini bread is in the oven and the sun is shining in through the window, through the trees and the old songs are playing and it is smelling like cinnamon and butter in here, as it should and I am sitting, drowning in the blessings, swelling with them.

I read the fourth chapter with cousin last night and Paul's words are still zinging through my soul.  I looked at her and I grinned and I said, this is the page you go to when life feels too much.  This is our great reminder, H.  Write this all over your room.  Write this on windows and mirrors and little cards and stick this everywhere to remind yourself that we are always the victory, always.  Even when we are small and beaten and dying, we win because with Him how can we not?

We win.

We ran after we studied, pushing our bodies after pushing our souls and after seeing her across the highway, I turned and ran back beating out the tired steps on ground I had already covered and I am always doing that.  Recovering the ground, re-dating the promises, re-falling for His glory over and over.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.  We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.