Thanksgiving

1 ship 90 feet long and 24 feet wide.
110 passengers and 15-20 crew.
66 days at sea, one bad storm, one death.
Landing at the wrong place and potential mutiny, but some quick thinking resulting in a civil covenant.
A year of starvation, fear, lonelieness, mistakes, bad decisions, and sickness. A year when 46 of the 110 people die. Imagine if 46 people in your church died this year of sickness and hunger. No home would be untouched.

But at the end of this first year of so much sadness and pain, what do they do? They invite their unbelieving neighbours over and they thank God for His mercy and grace. Not because they didn't love those who died. Not because the year wasn't really that bad. But because God told them to in 1 Thessalonians 5:18. Because Job did. Because Romans 8:28 had taught them that no matter how much they didn't understand, all things were still working together for good for those who loved God. And because they really grasped who they were as sinners and what God had done for them in Christ. They knew they could trust that the same God who sent His only Son to die in their place, to bring them from death to life, had a plan and a purpose for all that had happened to them, and at the end of the day they could rest in His sovereignty whether they understood it or not.

Because they had their eye on the big picture of who God is and what He had done on their behalf, they were able to genuinely thank Him for His love and care at the end of possibly the hardest year of their life.

It's a humbling thought.

U2 - Love Is Blindness (1993)

Twenty years on. Twelve amazing songs. Finishing with this hauntingly beautiful one. Happy Anniversary Achtung Baby! You were a big part of the soundtrack of my college years, and I still love every song!

Lyrics

Love is blindness, I don't want to see
Won't you wrap the night around me?
Oh, my heart, love is blindness.

In a parked car, in a crowded street
You see your love made complete.
Thread is ripping, the knot is slipping
Love is blindness.

Love is clockworks and cold steel
Fingers too numb to feel.
Squeeze the handle, blow out the candle
Love is blindness.

Love is blindness, I don't want to see
Won't you wrap the night around me?
Oh, my love,
Blindness.

A little death without mourning
No call and no warning
Baby, a dangerous idea
That almost makes sense.

Love is drowning in a deep well
All the secrets, and no one to tell.
Take the money, honey...
Blindness.

Love is blindness, I don't want to see
Won't you wrap the night around me?
Oh, my love,
Blindness.

U2: Acrobat

U2 - Ultra Violet (Light My Way)

Classic!

Lyrics

Sometimes I feel like I don't know
Sometimes I feel like checking out.
I wanna get it wrong
Can't always be strong
And love, it won't be long.

Oh, sugar, don't you cry.
Oh, child, wipe the tears from your eyes.
You know I need you to be strong
And the day it is dark, as the night is long.
Feel like trash, you make me feel clean.
I'm in the black, can't see or be seen.

Baby, baby, baby, light my way.
Alright now, baby, baby, baby, light my way.

You bury your treasure where it can't be found
But your love is a secret that's been passed around.
There is a silence that comes to a house
Where no-one can sleep.
I guess it's the price of love; I know it's not cheap.

Oh, come on, baby, baby, baby, light my way.
Oh, come on, baby, baby, baby, light my way
Baby, baby, baby, light my way.

I remember when we could sleep on stones.
Now we lie together in whispers and moans.
When I was all messed up and I heard opera in my head
Your love was a light bulb hanging over my bed.

Baby, baby, baby, light my way.
Oh, come on, baby, baby, baby, light my way.

U2 - Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around The World

Love this song - "And a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle
When you're tryin' to throw your arms around the world."

Lyrics

Six o'clock in the morning, you're the last to hear the warning
You been tryin' to throw your arms around the world.
You been falling off the sidewalk, your lips move but you can't talk
Tryin' to throw your arms around the world.

Gonna run to you, run to you, run to you; be still.
Gonna run to you, run to you, woman, I will.

Sunrise like a nose-bleed, your head hurts and you can't breathe
You been tryin' to throw your arms around the world.
How far are you gonna go before you lose your way back home
You been tryin' to throw your arms around the world.

Gonna run to you, run to you, run to you; be still.
Gonna run to you, run to you, woman, I will.

Yeah I dreamed that I saw Dali with a supermarket trolley
He was tryin' to throw his arms around a girl.
He took an open top beetle through the eye of a needle
He was tryin' to throw his arms around the world.

I'm gonna run to you, run to you, run to you, woman be still.
I'm gonna run to you, run to you, run to you, woman, I will.

Nothing much to say, I guess; just the same as all the rest
Been tryin' to throw your arms round the world.
And a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle
When you're tryin' to throw your arms around the world.

Gonna run to you, run to you, run to you
I'm gonna run to you, run to you, run to you
I'm gonna run to you, run to you, run to you, woman be still
Woman be still, woman be still, woman I will.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae

U2 - Mysterious Ways

Favourite lyric: "You've been running away from what you don't understand."

Lyrics

Johnny, take a walk with your sister the moon
Let her pale light in, to fill up your room.
You've been living underground, eating from a can
You've been running away from what you don't understand.

She's slippy, you're sliding down.
She'll be there when you hit the ground.

It's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
She moves in mysterious ways.
It's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
She moves in mysterious ways, oh.

Johnny, take a dive with your sister in the rain
Let her talk about the things you can't explain.
To touch is to heal, to hurt is to steal.
If you want to kiss the sky, better learn how to kneel
On your knees, boy!

She's the wave, she turns the tide
She sees the man inside the child.

It's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
She moves in mysterious ways.
It's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
She moves in mysterious ways, yeah, oh, ah.

Lift my days, light up my nights, oh.

One day you'll look back, and you'll see
Where you were held now by this love.
While you could stand there,
You could move on this moment
Follow this feeling.

It's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
She moves in mysterious ways.
It's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
She moves in mysterious ways.

Move you, spirits move you
Move, spirits 'its move you, oh yeah.
Does it move you?
She moves with it.
Lift my days, and light up my nights, oh.