for when God calls your bluff

I have a confession to make.

I usually write and re-write each post several times, trying to get them word-perfect, thinking through everything to the enth degree to make sure I sound really profound...

I hardly ever write unscripted, directly onto the screen, like I'm doing now.  Part of my reason for writing and editing posts ahead is our usually frustratingly slow Internet (which seems to have picked up this afternoon).  But mostly I do it because I like to look perfect.

I like looking perfect.  I like to have my act together, do life fast and efficiently, never drop any balls.

Well, God called my bluff.  

Here's a grainy PhotoBooth picture of my two feet, currently stretched out on our veranda couch, and my latest acquisition: kasteli, in Russian.  

And here are a few thoughts on my two days so far - out of thirty - which I will spend on crutches...

Top Ten Things My Broken Foot Has Taught Me (so far):

#1 - Using crutches really hurts your armpits.

#2 - Not being able to do things fast - or at all - is driving this efficiency-craving person crazy.

#3 - Sara Groves' latest album, Invisible Empires (which I listened to in the car yesterday on my 2.5 hour journey - each way - to and from the city to get my foot x-rayed and casted) has taken on a new and deeper meaning.

Especially this song... (shown here live)...

and this one... her video had me grinning wide...

"promise, that just when love grows cold, you'll make it precious again..."

#4 - The book I started reading today and can't put down, Behind The Beautiful Forevers: life, death and hope in a Mumbai undercity (Katherine Boo), has put my entire life into perspective in a way I could not have absorbed before Friday.  If I am feeling inconvenienced and frustrated by a tiny crack in a toe-bone, how do I have a right to complain when so much of the world lives in poverty and agony and mark their good days by whether or not they had to eat rats for supper?

I have so. much.

I am so. blessed.

#5 - Being forced to slow down is good for me.  (You'll notice this is almost a repeat of #2, except here? It's positive.  See?  I'm learning already.)

#6 - Being required to rest shows me how bad I am at it.  This is not a good thing.  Which makes me thankful for the chance to learn how to do it better.

#7 - Having to depend on others for the simplest things (like toilet paper to blow my nose) is both humbling and life-giving.  The truth is, I am dependent, whether I like to admit it or not.  Hobbling around on one leg requires me to acknowledge that truth.  Which said acknowledgement is healthy for my soul.

#8 - Realizing I have the best husband in the world is making me fall in love with him all over again.  (As I type this, he's humming in the kitchen while making dinner.)

#9 - Depending on other people makes me depend on Jesus more. (see #7...is there a theme here?)

#10 - Breaking my foot earned me 8 hours in a car by myself (well, if you don't count my wonderful local taxi driver, who patiently ferried me all over the hot city from place to place).  It was a unexpected but oddly satisfying break from the routines of home, a chance to reconnect with God through music, and through meeting brand-new and surprisingly helpful and compassionate images of Himself.  I'm not saying I'll go out and break another bone just to have time to myself (ok, the thought has crossed my mind) - but every cloud does have a silver lining!

Extra Credit: #11 - Crutches can be used for all kinds of things, including machine guns and electric guitars.  

So... there you have it.  God called my bluff, and I'm now asking Him for the grace and patience to make it through another 28 days of hobbling, being needy and dependent, and asking for help.  

Pray with me?


With love,

Carolyn-on-crutches

listen to your life {July lessons in listening}

Let life shape itself.

This refrain peppers the pages of Marlena di Blasi’s latest book, Antonia and Her Daughters.  I read di Blasi as much for her pithy quotes and insight into human nature as for her mouth-watering descriptions of Italian food and life.  

Curled up under a light blanket in my dark room, savoring my tiny oasis of calm in the middle of the afternoon, I’m pondering di Blasi’s words, thinking now about life, about observation, about allowing the shape of a day to be determined by forces outside oneself, not by one’s own will.  

This is hard for me.

I’d rather set out a schedule with lines and boxes, fill in each half-hour slot carefully, stick to the plan.  I like knowing what’s coming, the security of preparing in advance so I can rise to the occasion, feel the thrill of success.  I like having all my ducks in a row, how it feels to keep all the balls spinning briskly in mid-air without dropping a single one.  I hate that.  Dropping one.

This sort of square life might be safe, but I’m discovering it lacks a certain… zest.  The element of surprise, maybe?  I’m slowly realizing that surprise is always part of a day;   it’s my choice to welcome it or stubbornly push it away which determines whether the surprise adds to my pleasure in the day, or not.  

Coming upon my daughter sitting on the wooden plank bridge across our backyard water channel, blissfully engaged in reaching her little arm into the cool milky water, scrounging a fistful of mud from the bottom of the trench, pulling it up dripping to smear its cool silkiness over her bare skin… 

How do I react?  Do I scream and scold and whisk her off to the bathroom for a shower, chastise her for getting dirty, for caking her dimpled legs with mud, smearing it over her face?  

Or do I stop, notice the light on the back of her neck, see the shimmer of her fountain of hair, take in her quiet absorption, the way she calmly soothes herself with the elemental coolness of water and dirt against her skin?  

Do I receive the sight of her as a gift, let life shape itself, take what’s given?  Or do I push it away, rigidly insisting on my own ideas of what’s good in a day?

I’m learning.  Slowly.

These lessons in listening, this year of slowing down, of giving myself permission to rest, to be still, to think, to write, to not pursue people unless the fit takes me… these months are changing me, stretching me.  I’ve been like dough that needed time to rise before it can be deflated and stretched over waiting pans.  I’ve needed rising time.  And I’m being kneaded, gently but firmly, and stretched, sometimes to tearing point, over a waiting receptacle which, when I first look at it, I think I will never be able to fit.  

Three children.  A dog.  Chickens.  Guests.  A garden.  A borrowed house.  A village life in Central Asia.  Three foreign languages.  Intermittent running water, sporadic power cuts.  If you had shown me my now-life ten years ago, I would have said, I’ll never be able to fit that.  I’ll never stretch that far.  

Let life shape itself.

Our latest additions!  In for a penny, in for a pound...

I would change di Blasi’s mantra slightly.  I would say, Listen.  Listen to your life.  Let God shape the day, the moment, the hour.  

I’m beginning to hear God’s voice in the surprises.  Things I would have pushed away before, now I’m beginning to smile instead, when I see them.  

The knock of a stranger on my gate. 

Before this listening, before this expanding and growing, before this stretching, it would have been ::sigh::  Not now!  I feel invaded!  I have things to do!  Please, go away… These feelings promptly followed by a flood of guilt, because, after all, am I not here for exactly this, these people, these women?  Am I not called to spill out my life for that knock on the gate?  

Now, sometimes, more often than before, I can meet the knock with calm, sometimes even with pleasure.  It’s ok.  There’s fresh bread.  A pitcher of cold tea.  Sweet peas.  We’ll be fine.  Come in, come in, come inside, sit down a few minutes. 

Lord, order my day.  Shape my life.

This simple prayer has changed my outlook.  I am learning how to stop myself on the point of freaking out and say to my rising panic, Listen.  

I’m learning to notice the afternoon sunlight on the back of my tiny daughter’s neck.  To relish the softness of our (initially unwanted) dog’s coat, the satiny bits behind her ears.  (Yes, surprise - our dog is a “her”!)  I’m learning to expect the inevitable knock at the gate and sometimes feel a thrill, instead of a surge of dread.  To go out on the street after dinner for no other reason than to open my heart to the dusty golden sunset and the silhouettes of my neighbors and their children playing.  

Why haven’t I lived like this for years? I find myself wondering.  This, exactly this, letting life shape itself, is the way to find joy.  

And to be honest, every day is not this way, this listening, receiving, peace-filled, stretched-and-open way.  It comes in fits and starts.  When I’m tired or hungry or at the end of an especially trying day, with intermittent water and even less patience, I am not gracious. I long to grow roots deep enough to always reach that Living Water.  I long for my heart’s cup to always brim with the "Sweet Water" of Calvary love, like Amy Carmichael says, so that no matter how sudden the jolt to my cup, no bitter drops spill out.   

Festina lente.  Make haste slowly.  The light won’t wait, urges Marlena.  

I’m making haste slowly.  I’m learning to listen to my life, to bend my rigidity in order not to miss the beauty of the shifting light.  

The light won’t wait, you know.

Welcoming the moments lets joy flood in.

How do you handle unexpected interruptions?  If you tried praying “Lord, order my day” each morning, how do you think it would change your outlook?

{To listen to the song I wrote about Amy Carmichael's quote, called "Sweet Water", click here...}

for the days when you feel like a failure {thoughts from a recovering perfectionist}

Just now, I turned around and walked out of my kitchen, leaving behind a mountain of dirty dishes and my second enormous batch of apricot jam in two days.  I just can’t face the stickiness yet, which is why I’m sitting writing this post.

I’ll just be honest.  I don’t like talking about my bad days.  (Notice there aren't any pictures of my sticky kitchen in this post... I don't like showing you my messes, either!)  I guess I want you all to think I’m the one with the answers, the one you can come to when you need encouragement and wisdom… Being honest about my failures - here - feels like a big risk for me, because I’m one of those people who compulsively likes to look like I have my act together. 

But the truth is?  I don’t.  Have my act together.  At all.  

And today?  I’m feeling like a total [gulp] failure.  

photo credit: I. Winsley

I really don’t like that word, that f-word.  I hate thinking about it, I hate feeling it, I recoil and cringe whenever anyone else has to use it.  

But since I’m being honest, there’s a moment or two every day (ok, a lot of moments) when I’m flailing wildly, grasping at straws, yelling desperately at Jesus for an emergency injection of patience or wisdom or love for someone proving particularly un-lovable at that moment.

I’m slowly learning the art of giving grace to myself, of appropriating every day the incredible endless grace I’ve already received in Christ.  I want to let that river of grace flow freely in my life, drink from it all the time.  

photo credit: I. Winsley

But… I still define my own “failures”.  I set my bar high, jump with all my strength - and don’t always hit my own mark. 

The low point of today’s “failures”?  My sweet baby girl followed her brothers out our front gate, promptly tripped and fell and cut her cheek on a sharp stone.  Even though I know in my brain that accidents can and do happen to every kid at some point, I still feel in my heart like a woefully negligent mother.  Somehow the sight of blood seems so much worse when it’s a little girl after two rough-and-tumble boys. :(

A bandaid and some ice cubes and she was back to normal, running around unfazed, but I sat there trying to push away horrible visions of her wedding day in a lovely white veil, trying unsuccessfully to cover up a scar on her cheek with make-up… (Yes, my mind leaps frantically ahead like this!  Doesn’t yours?)

The bottom line is (in my own opinion) I “failed” to protect my child.  I know it’s impossible for a parent to protect their child all the time from everything, but I still require it of myself.  Hmm.  Does that strike you as odd?

photo credit: I. Winsley

There are other felt “failures” too, staring me in the face.  I feel like I’m failing to meet my second son’s emotional needs, and my first son’s creative ones.  Today we ate the same boring food for lunch and dinner because the jam took over the kitchen.  Even with a house helper (who cut up all the apricots for the jam this morning), I still can’t make everything happen on time, and excellently. 

Every day, I desperately try to cover up, push away, deny, rise above, overcome the dreadfully uncomfortable fact that I. am. not. perfect. 

But today, I couldn’t escape it.  

I know we all get made perfect in heaven, but today that perfection felt eighty years away, and meanwhile my floors are gritty and my toilet bowl desperately needs to be scrubbed.

I feel like Jesus is giving me a test, right now, as I sit here gasping in front of my computer screen, ignoring my sticky kitchen and my kids who need their teeth brushed:  

Will you finally depend on My strength, now that yours has run out?

“I’m trying!” I want to shout.  “I really am, but do please tell me how I am supposed to get all of this done!  My daughter just peed all over the floor and is currently running around the house with nothing on her bottom half!  The kitchen is covered in sticky!  I’m exhausted and cranky and sick of potty-training a stubborn 20-month-old!  I’m tired of gardening and canning and all the other work that goes along with this rural, primitive life!  I’m just tired!  Period!”

I can dimly see Jesus, vague in the distance beyond my screen.  He’s nodding slowly.  Smiling a little.  Patiently waiting for my diatribe to finish.  

I’m not done yet.  “I’ve had to cancel three Skype meetings in two days,” jabbing the words at Him with my finger, “which I was really looking forward to, but because of our incredibly unreliable Internet - fast, slow, up, down - those calls are on hold indefinitely, and I am so frustrated.  I could really have used the encouragement this week, too.”

He’s still nodding, looking at me.  Not turning away.  Holding me with His eyes.

“The parenting never ends, the housework never ends, the laundry never ends, the stress never ends, my own pressure to meet every need excellently all the time, to cook food my kids want to eat for every meal - it never ends!  When can I get off this ridiculous hamster wheel?” I splutter, stabbing my open palms in his direction.  (I don’t add the rest of the truth He already knows: that the hamster wheel is of my own making.)

Eventually, I run out of steam.  I stop for breath.  I let the pause lengthen, wait to see what He has to say.  

photo credit: I. Winsley

For a minute, He doesn’t say anything.  

I start thinking of my sink full of dirty dishes and the mountain of unfolded laundry sprawling all over the veranda table.

Finally, He says just one simple phrase, quietly.

“Come to me.”  Silence.  I don’t know what to say.

After a minute He repeats it again, hands held out.

“Come.  To me.”

I gaze at Him, almost with disbelief.  I know what He’s inviting me to do, but my gut just can’t believe it’s that easy.  What about all my housework?  What about my failures?  Am I supposed to just leave it all behind?  Ok then, tell me who will do all this stuff?  Because it has to get done sometime!

“Come to Me, and rest,” He’s beckoning.  Almost beseeching.  As if He’s longing to save me from myself.

I hesitate.

I close my eyes.  

I picture myself getting off the wheel, walking forward slowly, then more and more quickly towards His open arms.  I picture Jesus enfolding me; I breathe in His scent of cedar wood shavings and sweat and sunshine.  I take a deep breath in, and let it out.  In.  Out.  Deep, slow breaths.  

“I know I just need to come to you straightaway when I feel overwhelmed,” I admit, my head still burrowed into His chest, “but some days it’s just too overwhelming and I’m just too flipped out.”

“I know.”  Jesus is rubbing my back with a warm, comforting hand.  “Believe me, I’ve felt everything you’re feeling: overwhelmed, exhausted, pressed in upon.  Imagine crowds and crowds of needy people, and you have the power to heal and help them all, and the daylight hours only last so long, and you also have a responsibility to teach and train twelve hand-picked men in the ways and truths of God… Remember, I had all the same physical limits you have.  But - I had the same Holy Spirit, too.”  

I nod, still nestled against Him.  I could stay there forever.

“I know the work never ends,” He whispers in my ear.  “But - what about the joys?”

As I type the word “joys”, Ruby is sitting next to me on the couch, reaching her little fingers into the armhole of my sleeveless shirt to tickle me.  She grins, then chuckles, showing her dimple.  Her soft, round belly peeps out from under her nightshirt.  She smells of toothpaste.  She is utterly adorable.

photo credit: I. Winsley

Two minutes ago, my six-year-old came to find me, toothbrush in mouth - obviously my wonderful husband is picking up the bedtime slack tonight, while I write this - to sing me a random song he just made up: “Luggage in the morning / Luggage in the afternoon / Luggage in the evening, too…”  

When I asked quizzically, “Why luggage?” he replied, with typical logic, “Well, someone’s always got luggage somewhere… in the airport, in taxis…”  

photo credit: I. Winsley

Just now, as I was tucking my four-year-old into bed, he said to me, “Mom, I know why you call us ‘honey’…” he broke into a grin, around his thumb in his mouth, “because we’re soooo sweet!”  I laughed and tickled him and he chuckled and burrowed into his pillow with his blanket.  

I left their room with a lighter heart. 

Joys, indeed.  With joys like these coming my way daily, can’t I can weather a bit of “failure”?  Let’s re-define “failure” anyway.  Let’s quit setting these high bars for ourselves, since Jesus has already done all that is necessary.  My measuring stick is small, self-imposed and most of the time wrong.

Besides, it’s not about us anyway, or what we can do.  

It’s all about Him - and what He’s already done.

Come to Me, and rest.

Take My yoke upon you.  Be Martha, if you must, but be Martha with a Mary heart.  Never stop sitting at my feet.  Never stop depending on Me.  

Keep drawing out of my well, deeper, deeper, all the strength and patience and stamina you need.  I never run out of joy, or courage, or peace, or long-suffering.  

A good friend of mine (a fellow recovering perfectionist) gave me a mantra to remember, whenever I’m pushing myself too hard, not giving myself enough grace: 

I can’t do it.

He can.  

I think I’ll let Him.

When have you felt like a failure recently?  How did you deal with it?  What does it take to make you run to Jesus and give up striving on your own strength?

living the art you were made to live

{On my nightstand: I've been enjoying emily p. freeman's new book 

A Million LIttle Ways: Uncover the Art You Were Made to Live}

My daughter is screaming in her bed.

I just sat down to write.  She just started screaming.  I’ve been waiting all day for the house to get quiet.  

An hour or so earlier, I put her down for her nap, read to my second son and settled him in his bed, sat on the couch for a reading lesson with my first son and then set him up with paper and markers, and I’ve just settled on my bed with my computer….

And my daughter wakes up.  

I ignore her as long as I can, try to write a few sentences, but it’s no use.  She’s teething, poor thing; this is the second time she’s woken up screaming this afternoon, and I’m pretty sure she’s not going back to sleep again.  

I sigh, slide from under my cosy blanket.  I slip into her room.  She’s sitting forlornly in the bottom of her portacot, heaving with sobs.  My heart breaks a little.  I gather her up, try to contain her writhing body while she screams for another five minutes in my arms, punishing me for making her wait so long.  She hiccups, snotty and streaming.  I cuddle her close, pushing down my longing to write, trying to quell my rising frustration.  

Didn’t I sign up for this parenting thing?  Isn’t this what I’ve always wanted?  But how do I weave it all together?  Maybe I should just give up writing for now… I think in despair.  

But writing is part of who I am.  If I was locked in solitary confinement for twenty years, I think I’d write with my fingernails on the jail cell wall.   

Ruby sits with me now at the kitchen table, still hiccuping.  We need a treat, both of us.  I look over at the bag of tiny Mandarin oranges my sweet husband brought home from the bazaar yesterday.  

“Would you like an orange, Ruby?”  

A blank stare.  We’ve bought them twice already this week and she adores them, but she doesn’t yet recognize the word orange.  So I cradle her pink-tighted legs in the crook of my arm and we walk over to the bag.  I show her two little oranges in the palm of my hand.  She grins, and starts her new skill: nodding.  Chin up, chin down, up, down. 

“This, Ruby,” I tell her, “is an orange.”  More nodding.  She reaches.  We sit down.  I peel one slowly, taking off the skin in bits and laying them on the table.  Her body is quiet on my lap.  Attentive.  She’s stopped hiccuping.  She reaches toward the  orange I’ve peeled and grabs it.  Then, instead of eating it, she sets it aside.  Reaches for the unpeeled one.  Presses hard on it with her fingers and thumb.  I try to help get her started - she pulls away with a grunt.  More pressing and poking.  She slides her little fingers around the orange, trying to find a hole.  Finally, I sneak in a fingernail and scratch a hole to get her started.  She works away for a while, excavating one tiny bit of peel at a time.  Some goes on the table, some tumble to the floor.

I think about independence.  The innate drive to do something yourself, with no help.  The need to test ourselves, to prove ourselves - to ourselves, first of all.  A 13-month-old isn’t out to impress anyone - she just wants the thrill of accomplishment.  

What am I aiming to do when I write?  Impress others?  Or can I write just for the joy of writing?  Is writing really necessary to me?

I know the answer to that last one: yes.  It’s necessary.  As necessary as breathing.  

Her sobs have subsided, now that she’s with me.  All the noise hushed for now.  My lap, and oranges.  That’s all she needs.  

What do I need in order to hush the noise?  

I know the answer to that one too: quiet.  And Jesus.  I need to be aware of being together with Jesus.  

I think about togetherness.  I cradle her in the crook of one elbow, still clutching her half-peeled orange, and we go to the bedroom to retrieve my computer.  Laptop balanced precariously in one hand, baby in the other, I go back to the table.  I think about balance.  While she’s occupied with oranges, I write this post.  And consider.

How do I balance motherhood and art?  What is the point of all this longing to write, planning to write, all these words, anyway?  Is it really worth it?

Emily P. Freeman would say, yes.  Yes, it is totally worth it.  Keep writing.  Keep making the art you were made to live.  And she would also say (from the chapter I just finished today) - sink into Jesus, before, during and after.  

Follow His leading, let His life live through you.  Be together with Him.  Let Him hush the noise.  

Because, I realize, Jesus, not me, is the primary parent of these children.  Jesus, not me, is the primary source of these words I'm writing.  His life is tinted with my personality as He shines out through me, but it is His life.  “I have been crucified with Christ, therefore I no longer live, but Christ lives through me.”  

If I’ve been crucified with Christ, then even though I’ve been waiting all day for Jesus to give me a slot of time to write, I can release it even as it began, for the joy of comforting my daughter.  

If Christ lives through me, I can write about oranges, surrounded by the smell of oranges, with sticky baby fingers reaching for my keyboard.  As long as my children are happy, with me, learning, growing, being fed (or learning to feed themselves), it’s ok to sometimes have the computer on the table.  There were other moments today when I focused in on each of them, put my hands on their shoulders, met their eyes, told them how much I love them.  

Now they can happily munch, while I happily type.  This is not ignoring them, and I don’t need to feel guilty about it, I tell myself.  

This is just all part of figuring out how to live the art I was made to live. 

*****

What is the art you were made to live?  Are you managing to weave it into your day-to-day life?  Is the whole process more challenging for you some days than others?  

when you really boil it down...

{Some thoughts I wrote last month, after talking with a friend at a conference... I thought I was busy with three kids, but she has four under seven!}

When you really boil it down, it all comes down to trust.

How much do I trust Him?

Enough to let Him organize my day?  Do I trust Him to give me that half-hour with that friend if it’s really part of His plan for me, His plan for her?

Do I trust Him enough to let go of that idea for that blog post I was going to write, when the baby has an extra blow-out and won’t go down for her nap, and it eats up the 20 scant minutes I was going to use to catch the idea on paper?  Do I trust Him that if it’s really important in His list of what He wants me to say, He will bring it back to my mind and open up the time to write it down?

How about trusting Him enough to be content with letting my kitchen stay a little messy (or a lot messy!) if it means my three-year-old gets an extra couple stories at naptime instead of me cleaning up the lunch dishes?  {After all what is a clean counter-top compared to extra cuddles with the warm, snuggly body that houses the eternal soul of my child?}

What is it for you?  What’s that thing sitting desperately on your want-to-do list, that thing you think will refresh your heart, revive your soul, make you feel better?  Saner.  Calmer.  

For me, it’s clean counter-tops.  Connecting with a friend.  Writing down my thoughts.  Drinking in the Word.  Devouring a great book.  Having a nap.  

Guess what... That thing?  Well, if it robs us from what really matters, it’s nothing less than… (ready for this?)

...an idol.

Idol is an ugly word.  But I can feel its truth in my heart.  The fact of the matter is that Jesus really does own all 24 hours of my time, every day.  So shouldn’t it actually be up to Him how I spend it?  Who really sets my priorities, Him or me?  What does it actually mean in real life to have Someone Else as LORD over my life?

The book I’m longing to finish.  The baking I want to do for my neighbors.  The writing, or emails, or dishes, or craft or… you name it, when I am holding more tightly to that thing than to Jesus, it’s an idol.  And once I see it for what it is, I’m finally able to open my hands and let it go, as if it burned me.  

And the little panicky feeling around my heart?  That feeling that makes me clench my fists when I’m right in the middle of capturing a train of thought that’s been eluding me all day, and big brother wakes up little brother from his nap half-an-hour early, and they’re squabbling in their room together, neither having had enough sleep, and I know I can look forward to a long, cranky several hours til dinner… 

Instead of exploding, I can take a deep breath.  Let it out again, slow.  I can remember that Jesus is the One ordering my day, and that I. can. trust. Him.  If it’s on His agenda, it will get done.  If not, does it really matter?  Really.  I mean, Who’s actually the wiser one, here?  Who’s priorities will always be Kingdom-oriented?  Eternal?  Don’t I want that, anyway?  

In that moment, if I make the choice to trust instead of explode, the panic loosens its squeeze around my heart.  I can unclench my fists, and open my arms to my tumbling, squabbling boys with a smile and a welcome in my heart.  

Here’s the thing: I do not want to look back in 10 years, when my kids are 15, 13, and 10, and think, I missed it.  

I missed it.  

That I was so busy squeezing this in here and that in there, ekeing out a half-hour for this and 10 minutes for that, wildly resenting any unexpected interruptions, that I missed the moments.  The precious, irreplaceable moments with my kids that I can never live again.  

As this was all hitting home for me this morning, I picked up Jesus Calling and flipped to today, February 17, and here’s what I read: 

“It’s easy to make an idol of routine, finding security within the boundaries you build around your life.  Although each day contains twenty-four hours, every single one presents a unique set of circumstances.  Don’t try to force-fit today into yesterday’s mold.  Instead, ask Me to open your eyes, so you can find all I have prepared for you in this precious day of Life.”  

Jesus, help me trust You enough to let go of my own agenda, every day, 

and receive Yours for me instead.  

Help me trust that if what I want to do matches Your agenda for me, 

You’ll make the time for me to do it.  

And if it’s not of You, it’s not worth doing anyway.  

Remind me to receive each consecutive moment, as it comes and goes, 

as a gift.  From You.  For me.  

Whatever each moment holds, frustrating or cheerful, mundane or exciting, 

help me cup my hands around it and enter in with joy.  

{except this last one, all photos are by James, 

from last month's family holiday}