I've been pretty sad lately, paralyzed with missing the life I left behind to move to a foreign country, stewing in a sense of what I've lost, instead of soaking in the good, the gifts.But today I choose to see the good, to bite off the tasty fruit of this life, this fruit, this place He has given me. To rejoice in what is, not pine after what isn't.  I will choose to, as Jason Todd recently wrote in an article for Relevant Magazine, "taste daily, deeply and constantly of the goodness of God."My new blogger friend, Elizabeth at Taking Shape Slowly, very eloquently wrote about this challenge to finding Home wherever we are,

"The challenge is to make ourselves at home, to live the life that is, rather than the one we had always dreamed. Praying over tender roots still unsure that they were meant to live in soil, unaware that the burlap was just the transition."

I want to let these roots of goodness grow. I will not plant bad days. I will plant hope and gratitude and grace for myself in this transition, this oh-why-is-it-taking-so-long-to-feel-at-home transition.Today I offer up a smorgasbord of the goodness of God in my life here in Guatemala, my life now, the life that is not exactly the life I dreamed, but is the life I have before me.The goodness of God is..

• a run to a cross on a hill, sweat shining, heart pounding, lungs and legs and life alive.

• a warm breeze, a volcano view, and a green picnic table turned outside office

• being walked home after a night of salsa dancing, delivered safely to my doorstep,  no moves made, no disrespect, just a friend looking after a friend

• friends and family who put up with my snotty, crying homesick skype calls

• promises to flank me if I'm seen getting too friendly with a creepy guy, or a very cute, non-creepy guy that I still shouldn't be getting so friendly with. . .

• learning new salsa moves

• being challenged to give a blog training workshop in Spanish to my Guatemalan and Salvadoran coworkers--and enjoying it!

• being trusted to polish people's words, to tell their story on their behalf

• freshly folded laundry and a laundry lady who knows me by name

• a purring cat curled in my lap

• stringing together syllables of Guatemalan slang

• spontaneous cafecitos with friends I just happen to see in the park

• the anticipation of sharing this place and this life with my family when they visit in just three days!

What are you grateful for today? Where do you see the goodness of God?