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It’s been too long, but I have posted a few times this week over at Vitamin Z. Check it out.

Lord willing, I will get back to posting here regularly soon.

In my worldview, it is ridiculous to say that I am a lucky man.  No.  I am just abundantly blessed by a loving, all-wise, heavenly Father.  No where is this more evident than in Erin, my wife. For it is plain if you know me well (or maybe if you just read her blog) that blessing upon blessing comes through her…all the time.

I say this and post the picture below (which by the way, is one of just two recent ones I could find of just the two of us…Erin, let’s do a better job with that in the near future and kick the kids out now and again).  Anyhow, I say all this because today we give thanks for eight years of marriage.  Eight years of incredible joy and growth in grace and perfect marital harmony.

Ok, so I am overstating it here with the perfect marital harmony.  After all, we are both sinners.  But because of God’s grace in our lives, we really do enjoy a harmony and a joy unlike anything else.  And it is one I give thanks for today.  For she is the most precious gift in my life; and our marriage, though not easy, is the place of greatest joy and delight.  To look back over the past eight years (has it really been eight already?), is, if I am seeing clearly, to look back upon grace upon grace, gift upon gift.  It is to marvel at the Lord bringing us together and sustaining us and blessing us as we seek Him first together.  I’m not sure how many places we have lived or all we have had to work through, but it doesn’t matter.  The Lord has His plans and they are good and gracious and wise.  No where is this more evident than in Erin and in our eight years of marriage together…at least to me.

So I give thanks today for you my love.  I delight in you and praise God for you and pray for many more years to come.  I could make some long list of all the things I appreciate about you and give thanks for, but we both know that everything I mention cannot help but be inadequate.  For there is nothing sweeter than saying and meaning, “I love you just because I do.”  And thankfully, that is easier for me to say and mean with every passing day.

“He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord” (Proverbs 18:22).  Amen to that.  Thank you Lord for so much favor.

So I suppose I have taken yet another blogging hiatus without telling anyone.  I need to take a lesson from my wife and actually give folks a warning.  Naturally, I wasn’t planning on such a break, but when you get home for a week and then return to Italy, it is easy to lose the routine.  Same old story, I suppose.

Anyhow, I was going to post earlier this week about the video I left off with last month.  You know, the one I said I would comment on before I didn’t blog for 3 weeks.  Yea, that one.  But those posts got delayed a bit by a book that actually brought greater insight into what I was thinking.  Or at least gave my thinking some authoritative backing.

The book:  Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.

Have you heard of it?  Well then, have you read it?  Well, you should hear about it, let others hear about it, all while reading it yourself.  Because like his other two books (both of which I read), it is very good.

The subtitle is “The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.”  That doesn’t tell the whole story, but like any good subtitle, it does serve as a good summary.  For Gladwell’s book is something of an investigation into the human mind and the power of the subconscious.  How we operate and respond at our deepest psychological levels and what we can do about it.

Gladwell writes in his usual engaging style, filling up page upon page with various stories of people and problems from every segment of life.  So no matter what segment you may find yourself in, you will find something to learn from and apply in this book.  I give it my hearty recommendation.  I will be sure to cite a few things from it in the week ahead, particularly as I keep my word and offer a few thoughts on that video I linked to last time I blogged, you know, all the way back in December of 2009.