the LORD opens the eyes of the blind.
The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;
the LORD loves the righteous. (Ps 146:8 ESV)

I took two days off altogether from writing, for Sunday worship and rest, then Christmas day, and yesterday I got back to putting edits into my manuscript. While doing this somewhat mundane work, God opened my eyes to see something in my analysis that I’ve been looking for for over a year.

Last week, when meeting with a mentor in Canada, he encouraged me to rethink something I’d decided to leave out of my dissertation, since I simply couldn’t get it to work. And also, I had plenty of other things to write about, including a fairly important theoretical issue in the development of new tones.

But yesterday I took another crack at it, made an assumption that I hadn’t liked (and still don’t really like, honestly), and the rest of the pieces just started falling into place.

So in the middle of the afternoon on Boxing Day, God opened my eyes. I thank God that he still does that. And thank you for your prayers for us, and especially for my ability to do my work. We really can’t do this without your support, and we’re grateful that you’ve joined us in this work.

Merry Christmas!