beheaded chickens

Have you ever seen a chicken after its head gets cut off?
They keep running around and going crazy. I've even seen one do backflips.
Yeah, I just debated finding a video on Youtube, but that just seemed a little over the top.

Anyway... I kind of feel like that these days. Running around with no sense of direction, flapping my wings and ... going crazy. Maybe a little less gruesome.

Yet, here I am updating my blog instead of grading the 36 remaining research papers looming over my head. And my excuse is that this post is a glimpse into a little quiet space of my soul, and that just needed to be shared today.

In the midst of everything, I keep pondering Ephesians 1:3-6.

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved."

These verses are just filled with layer upon layer of beauty, intertwined and inextricable from one another.

God our Father has blessed us - US, His children - immeasurably and eternally.
We have been given a Savior, through whom we are holy and blameless!
God chose us to be His before the foundation of the world.

Sometimes I can't begin to wrap my limited little mind around the explosive implications of these verses. But my goodness. Knowing that the Creator of the universe chose me as His child before He uttered the words, "Let there be..." - that thought calms the beheaded chicken inside me and reminds me to pause and recenter (er, re-head the chicken? Can we all just go with that real quick?) my life for the praise of his glorious grace.

pssst, look over here for some updates!