Thank You, God, for surprises, starting with the fireflies that look like falling, flitting, blinking stars in the forest and summer squalls that blow up all bubbly and burst to soak the smiling farmer and the buzz of a bird that actually hums when it breezes by so closely or trees that blush red in autumn or what about hiccups–how hilarious!

Perhaps we need all these surprises because we get so callous to the mundane miracles, so we need a little shocking. We don’t even blink at the dinner-plate sized Magnolia and the ants that carry more than their weight and tissue-paper butterflies flitting about for over a thousand miles.

And then there’s the biggest surprise of all–that You would love us even to the shocking scandal of sending Your Son to die for us.

And so we say, thank You.