I could have just stayed in my room yesterday evening and watch Downton Abbey but something in me made me go out. Last night it was exactly 20 years since a ferry named Estonia which cruised between Tallinn and Stockholm drowned on the Baltic Sea. There weren't many survivors, most people died that night. So late in the evening yesterday, although very tired after a long day in church and after preaching two sermons in a row, I went to the memorial of Estonia and stood there with many other people and looked at the names of all these people who died way too early - all 852 names are engraved on the memorial - and saw all the candles and flowers and hundreds of glowsticks and a light installation which was really a huge clock counting the hours until the exact time of drowning... And it dawned on me again that life is a gift, a precious gift, we haven't chosen it, we haven't deserved it, we don't own it. Life is beautiful and painful and often so very unfair. But we're still ought to be thankful for the time we're given. I know I was extra thankful for my life yesterday as I walked back home from the memorial.

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And thus here's my thankfulness challenge, vol 2. Today it feels appropriate again to list a few things which have made me happy over the past few days and which have made me appreciate this little thing I call my life. So. I love it...

...when my brother calls me for no reason.

...when I receive a letter from far-away country!

...when my senior pastor calls me just because he needs to talk to a colleague.

...when a good friend sends me his sermon and asks me for feedback.

...when my auntie asks me if she can crash the youth meeting just to hear me preach.

...when a kitchen disaster like me manages to cook something really nice haha! (a tomato-goatcheese puree soup it was this time)

...when my dad sends me fresh apple juice.

...when it's only 4 weeks left until my vacation in the UK.

:)