As we are packing to return to the States for at least four months, my mind is a blur of emotions. Such a short time in France, yet so rich. In seven short weeks, we’ve soaked in the wonder of Your people and Your work in France, Lord.

My spiritual director has often encouraged me to savor the good, good gifts that come our way, both little and big. And that is what we’ve done.

We traveled to the nearby French Alps for a week’s vacation, staying in the first floor of a chalet posed on the side of a mountain in the little village of Les Allues. Typically a booming ski resort in winter and a golfing and hiking mecca in summer, we arrived in September at the beginning of low season. And we savored the goodness of the quiet, the breathtaking beauty of the Alps, the challenging mountain hikes, the simple delicacies of yummy cheese on fresh French bread.

And we remembered other vacations in the area, when we used to ski with my parents and boys and sometimes, even our extended family. It is in this area that several pivotal scenes in my novel, Two Destinies, take place, a novel written in the late 1990s.

We also spent a weekend in the south of France, reconnecting with so many dear friends from our Montpellier days. Though fiction, many scenes from Two Destinies mirror what our life was like in the 1990s as we helped start a French church built of all different flavors and ages of people living in the area. Eventually the small congregation pitched in to transform an old garage into a physical building where the church would meet.

And this past Sunday we rejoiced to worship in a brand new building, constructed by many members of our little church in Trevoux, a village just to the north of where we live.

Seventeen years ago, when we first arrived in Lyon, we, along with a few other believers from the church where Paul was interim pastor, began a Bible study. Over the years, the members of that Bible study developed a heart to start a new church in the north of Lyon. We have watched God’s provision, often from afar as we began to travel with our pastoral care ministry, but always with joy to see the love and deep faith of so many dear ones who have become this little community of believers in the north of Lyon and our ‘family’ in France.

And of course, we savored the potluck lunch after the worship service!

We’ve also savored long walks by the river, eating crepes by the river, our village’s annual ’empty your attics’ sale (the equivalent of a huge neighborhood garage sale) and the simple beauty of our yard (after, ah-hem, a bit of work to get it tamed!)

And I’ve delighted in being back in my Writing Chalet to work on the edits for my novel, By Way of the Moonlight, which will release next summer.

Seven weeks seems too short of a time to be back ‘home’. But we have savored these weeks. And we are deeply grateful that we can do our work of pastoral care on both sides of the ocean.

And so on Friday we fly back to America, just in time to savor a quick stopover in Boston to visit the newlyweds and then head to Atlanta and Flintstone to be with my father, Andrew and Lacy and their growing tribe!

In all the comings and goings of your life, what are you savoring today?

“Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!” Psalm 34: 8

ELIZABETH MUSSER writes ‘entertainment with a soul’ from her writing chalet—tool shed—outside Lyon, France. Find more about Elizabeth’s novels at www.elizabethmusser.com and on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and her blog.