happy birthday

Tuesday was a birthday for Martha, a lady in our church. Last night we surprised her with a surprise party. Italian food and Dean Martin on the cd player. Cake and ice cream and presents. Martha is an encourager with the gift of helping and I appreciate her comments after an evening when I stand in front of the Hope group (sounds like a twelve-step group, huh?) and ramble on about what can seem to me to be extremely myopic topics. The Hope group is the one group where I can pretty much flesh out what God is teaching me and not have them knock on my door later that night with an intervention. It is nice to have that kind of place.