We got our first snow of the season today. Usually it's easy to miss the first snowfall, but not today. The wind is gusting strong from the northwest, and we've had little mini-blizzards all day. On our way to church this morning we could see the flakes falling and blowing across the road almost horizontally.

It is a particularly good afternoon for tea. Earl Grey. Hot. We had some with our late-ish dinner. I am so thankful for my warm home.

Caleb's grandma went home to be with the Lord this past week. It was a bit of a surprise to us, but she was ready. I am glad that I was able to know her for a couple of years. Burying loved ones makes one think about life. It's so short--fleeting, fragile. Eternity is so very long in comparison to our few short years. We aren't guaranteed a tomorrow even.

This afternoon I am thankful for Hope. For hope that gives meaning, purpose, sparkle to the silverware in my dishwater. For hope that gives a warm dinner with my little family happiness. For hope that I pray will forever be causing my heart to overflow with praise to My Father for His grace. For hope that I want to get out of my own self for the sake of, and give to other weary, wandering, lost souls in this vapor of life. For hope based on the only thing that is firm and true.

'The Son of God is not a vapor. He is solid reality, with no beginning and no ending. His name is Jesus Christ. He is the same yesterday and today and forever. He looked His disciples in the eye and said without irony or exaggeration, "Before Abraham was, I am."
But what about us? Once we were not, and now we exist? With the conception of all five of our children, that stunned me. Suddenly my wife is pregnant. A human has come into being. For how long? Forever. Either in heaven or in hell. There is no going out of existence. For that would not be joy for those who love God nor punishment for those who don't.
You exist forever. There is no use protesting that you did not ask to exist and would not like to. That is not an option. You and God are both in the universe to stay--either as friends on His terms, or as enemies.
Which it will be is proven in this life. And this life is a vapor. Two seconds, and we will be gone--to heaven or to hell. "As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone" (Psalm 103:15-16).
Jesus Christ came into this world--this fleeting, fallen, fickle world--and did the greatest thing that will ever be done. As the perfect Son of God, he died in our place, absorbed the wrath of God, paid the penalty for sin, provided the righteousness of the law, and rose invincible from the dead--all in a vapor's life of thirty-three years.
Because of that, we have something firm to grasp. "Surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever" (Isaiah 40:7-8).'

(John Piper from Life as a Vapor, "A Word to the Reader")