Should you manage to read a book a week over the course of your adult life, you will still have only read about 3,500 to 3,750 works in total—assuming, of course, that you began your reading journey at roughly age ten and continued diligently until around age 80, according to the math, or until your death—whichever should come first.

The early morning breeze whistled through the pines, making its way past any outerwear and into our bundled forms that were still masked by fog and shadow. With the warmth of the rising sun trailing close behind, the pre-dawn light began stretching its golden limbs across the forest which was now slowly rousing from its short summer slumber.

Life hasn’t always been easy, and the way hasn’t always been clear. But when I reflect on the life I’ve been given—on the Savior who loved me and died for me, on my Heavenly home, on my wife and the eternal friendship in which we share in Christ as both lovers and friends, on our little son and the little life we’ve been given—I find myself thanking the Lord with those very same words of David.