Freeze-Frame Listening {November thoughts on listening}

{We leave this Friday night for a 2-month stay in New Zealand, catching up with family and friends after a 2-year absence...  Here are my November thoughts on listening, amidst stress and challenges - trying to find the thread of His voice!  For the rest of my monthly thoughts on my One Word for 2014, LISTEN, click here...} 

What if we could just freeze the frame?  What if, in the moment right before I explode in annoyance at my kid, I could freeze that frame of time and - make a different choice?

I’ve been doing a lot of editing recently - movie editing, that is.  We’re getting ready for a home leave in New Zealand and before we go back we usually try and put together a video of current daily life here in Central Asia to show friends and family…  It’s a long process, involving taking footage (and then more footage since the first lot is too wobbly, not high-res, etc, etc), converting all the clips into a format that works with Mac’s awesome iMovie editing program, picking and choosing the pithiest clips, and then… editing.  And editing.  And more editing.  Squeezing each clip down to its essence, and then squeezing even more until just the barest bones are left - glimpses strung together to make a flowing window into our lives.  

Not being ultra-techie, I feel my way along with these projects, and since I don’t use iMovie very often I always have to re-learn everything I learned last time I made a video.  I pick up some new tricks each project, too; recently, I discovered the “freeze frame” option for the first time.  Cool!  You can right-click in the middle of a clip, choose “freeze frame” from the menu, and the program lifts out a frozen frame of that image and sets it apart separately in your timeline.  You can leave it there in the middle of your video clip, a frozen moment, or you can lift it out and put it somewhere else.  

I wish I could do that.  I wish I could freeze-frame the moment just before I yell at my kids, pause everything mid-motion, stop my voice before it explodes out of my mouth, hesitate for a moment, and think.  Listen to the Holy Spirit, in that frozen moment.  Tune in.  Calm my beating heart.  Close my eyes and take a deep breath.  

And then speak.  Or act.  Or whatever I need to do.  But I guarantee, after a pause to take a step back, I would probably act differently almost every time. 

Recently, in an attempt to get enculturated for our re-entrance back into Western society, we finally watched the Disney hit “Frozen” as a family.  We liked it; it’s cute, funny,  not scary, and profound in a simple but true way…  

{SPOILER ALERT: if any of you, like us, have also been on another planet and have NOT have watched “Frozen” yet, skip the next paragraph…}  

Our sensitive Will was nearly in tears at the end, when the younger sister Anna, with her last un-frozen breath, steps in front of her older sister to save her from a crossbow arrow, and in the very act her frozen heart finally transforms her completely to ice.  Each of Princess Anna’s fingernails and eyelashes freeze solid into an exquisitely detailed blue-ice statue.  The very moment she saves her sister is literally frozen in time.  

I wish I had a magic wand so I could freeze a moment with a flick of my wrist - just make everything hang stock-still in mid-air, like a movie Pause button, or a crystallized ice-Princess. 

I don’t have a wand.  I just have my imagination.  But I’m learning I can actually imagine pausing my heart / words / thoughts long enough to listen to the Holy Spirit’s quiet whisper in that moment.  

You know, I’ve realized lately that even though I do think of Jesus always being with us, for some reason I usually picture Him as across the room from me: present, but not within reach.  Recently, during a prayer time with a friend, Jesus showed me that He is actually right. next. to. me.  Close enough to whisper in my ear.  Close enough so that even His whisper sounds louder than the world’s hubbub around me.  That’s how close He is, all the time.  Every minute.  Washing dishes, changing a diaper, hosting a friend for tea, breaking up a boys’ fight, walking down the street, talking to my husband, laying down for a nap… Jesus is as close as my breath.  

So, if I can freeze the frame, and remember His nearness, I can focus on listening for His quiet voice.  

And that might make all the difference.

Happy Birthday, Ben! You're FIVE!

Dear Ben,

I love you SO MUCH!!!  You drive me nuts some of the time, but you are always ready to come back with a kiss and a cuddle, and snuggle in to be forgiven.  And I have to ask you to forgive me a lot too, for yelling and getting impatient, and you always say, “I forgive you, Mama,” and cuddle in close.

I have been so proud of you this year, Ben.  It’s not easy being a younger brother, and you have persevered in learning to play well with Will and expressing in words when you’re feeling frustrated and left out, instead of hitting or lashing out.  Your words will be the thing that saves you, if you learn to use them well.

When Will started school last month, I saw you blossom at home.  You started being more responsible to get dressed and make your bed in the mornings without being asked; you are playing well with Ruby and helping her kindly; and you are happily sitting up at the table with me for school-time and working so hard at your letters and numbers.  Way to go, Ben!  You are even starting to learn to read with our 100 Lessons book, and as long as I can keep you moving and hopping, you concentrate and finish the lesson.  Woohoo!

You love to move: basketball, soccer, rugby, cricket, tag, climbing trees, running, jumping, somersaults, gymnastic tricks, tricks on the swing, the ropes, the play-hut… you are a blur of motion!  And you are strong and coordinated and brave to push yourself to try new things.  It’s awesome to watch!

 

Then, every afternoon, my favorite time of day with you is when we cuddle up together in your bed and I read you stories.  You have an insatiable appetite for stories, and you absorb them like a thumb-sucking sponge.  The rest of the day I hear you weaving your own stories with your brother and sister, or by yourself, out of all the bits and pieces you remember.  It’s amazing what you remember, and your imagination is beautiful to watch and listen to.  Never stop telling and acting out and reading and writing and living stories, Ben.   It’s what you were made to do.  

You are the perfect guy to be right in the middle of our family.  You help Will to imagine fun games, and you are compassionate and expressive towards Ruby.  She really looks up to you - she copies everything you do and say, including your attitudes… So we really need to keep working on your bad habit of sulking and pouting when you don’t get your way, huh?  Because now Ruby’s starting to do it, too.  Uh-oh, right?

But we know Jesus is living in your heart, we know you trusted Him as your Savior and Lord when you were 3, and every day we see Him rescuing you from your sin and filling you up with the fruit of His Spirit - love, gentleness, kindness, self-control.  You have his JOY in full measure - it bubbles out of you and makes the rest of us so happy!  You are a bright spot in our family and on our street, and you will be a shining light for Jesus in this dark world, Ben.

I love you SOOOOOOOO much!  Mm-MMM!  

Happy Birthday to our big, cuddly, 5-year-old 

Ben-boy!

the two (2) essential ingredients to being the perfect mom

Jesus. 

And sleep.

That’s it.  

That’s all you really need.  

That’s what one of my best friends said to me on the phone the other day.  She went on, “The minute I get a little more of either of those?  My day just seems to go so. much. better!  And if I don’t have either of those?  Let’s just say, it’s not pretty!”

I could be the perfect Mom if I just had enough Jesus, and enough sleep.  

Seriously.  

So… we could leave it there, perfect idealistic Mom-hood floating just out of reach, or we could explore together HOW to get more of those two essential ingredients?

Don’t we all want to be happy, contented, patient mothers?  

Then why is it so HARD to get enough Jesus, and enough sleep?

Well, to be honest, for me the first answer is probably: 

“Not enough self-control.”

Getting more sleep requires going to bed earlier (since the kids will be up at 7 no matter when I go to bed).    And the Internet is just so tantalizing in the evenings, especially if you’ve been soothing cranky toddlers or slogging through first-grade addition problems with a stubborn 6-year-old all day… and if you have SLOW Internet, it’s even more frustrating, because you can only watch 3 seconds of a YouTube video at a time, but those 3 seconds are so alluring you just keep wanting more… and more... until a whole hour has blinked by and you haven’t even finished watching ONE STINKIN’ VIDEO.  

Then you finally throw up your hands and say, “It’s not worth it.  I’m going to bed.”  But it’s already past 10pm, and it still takes a few minutes to get into your jammies, wash your face, brush your teeth… and you’ve been looking at screens for the last two hours, so you tell yourself you need some wind-down time in bed with a real book… which means its 11:00 before you finally turn out your light… and this happens. every. night.  (And you’re one of those people who need at least 8 hours of sleep to feel good.)

Um… yeah.  

So… late to bed means less sleep, which means it’s harder to get up before the kids, which means less time (or none at all) with Jesus in the morning… which means less awareness of His presence throughout the day… which means there’s a good chance the cycle will repeat itself that evening because you can’t hear that Still, Small Voice telling you what you really need. 

The Message version of the Bible defines “self-control” as

“Marshaling and directing your energies wisely.”  

I love that definition, because it implies that self-control is not just stopping doing something (which always feels impossible to me).  Self-control can be a forward movement, channeling your energies into wise directions.  

As Kat Lee says, “Choose what you want more over what you want now.” 

For me, that means choosing to close my computer at a decent hour, even if finishing a project is what I desperately want now.  It means winding myself down into sleep early enough to give myself a full 8 hours, so I can actually get up when my alarm goes off, so I can do what I want most: begin the day sitting in Jesus’ presence, receiving a fresh Word of truth. 

Chances are, if I make those choices, everybody’s going to have a better day.  

I might even turn into Supermom overnight. (Hah!)

Along with marshaling my energy wisely, another way I want to practice self-control is to make better strategic choices instead of indulging and then beating myself up.  

Back to the YouTube videos: I think the ever-practical Kat would say, “If your Internet’s slow but you still need your fix, take a minute after breakfast to click on one or two choice videos (to let them load), and then watch them in that right-after-lunch sweet spot when the kids’ tummies are full and they’re happy to play quietly for a half-hour or so.”  (Rather than fending them off at arm’s length with steadily increasing frustration as the Internet stalls again.  And again.)

Now that would be a good strategic choice, and here’s why:  

Limited number of videos (or __insert personal craving here__)

plus maximum enjoyment time (because they’re already loaded)

= controlled indulgence,

which equals sanity and refreshment, instead of guilt and remorse.

Yes!

Marshaling and directing your energies wisely, and controlled indulgence. 

Bingo.  Self-control in a nutshell.  

That Perfect Mom crown you’ve been dreaming about?  

It’s actually within your grasp.  

(Just kidding.)  

But seriously, though.  With Jesus and sleep?  We can do anything.

**********

What keeps you from getting enough Jesus and enough sleep?  Is there something else you’re not getting enough of these days that’s sabotaging your Mom-happiness?

listening static-free {April: one word: listen}

{Each month this year I'm posting on my one word for 2014: listen.  Here are April's thoughts... To read the rest of the posts in this series, click here.}

I’ve been thinking a lot about tuning in.  How to be like a dial on the radio finding that sweet spot without any static, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons suddenly piercing sweetly into the room.  

In the mornings, in the quiet, I can hear Jesus’ voice clearly.  A whisper in my heart, a quiet nudging as I read His Word.  Think about this.  This is you.  You need this today.  Pay attention.  I’m aware, attentive.  My heart is quiet.  I’m listening.

But in the swish and rush of the day - school-time, lunch-time, errand-time, talking, organizing, accomplishing - my tuner starts to wobble.  The static of worry, distractions, and self-induced stress creeps in and I start swirling from one thing to another.  My heart rate mounts, my voice gets louder, my awareness of Him starts to disintegrate.  Soon the static muffles His voice altogether, and then I’m flailing wildly.  In those moments, not much I do is “what I see the Father doing” - mostly, I’m just trying to survive on my own, and I make everyone miserable.  

When I let the static overwhelm, when I tune out His still, small voice, I stumble and flail.  

When I’m tuned in, I can move softly, deliberately.  I can balance.  I can speak gently.  I can wait.  I can love.  I can serve.  I can keep my arms, ears, heart open for what the day brings.  

So, the big question is, how do I tune in?

I like Ann’s words for this: “I can slow the torrent [of time] by being all here.  I only live the full life when I live fully in the moment.  And when I’m always looking for the next glimpse of glory, I slow and enter.” (One Thousand Gifts, 68)

When I’m listening for the next whisper of His voice, I slow down and enter this moment.  I open my ears, and listen. The static fades away as I tune in…  

Fries sizzle in oil.  The oven ticks, baking hot dog buns.

A door slams.  Small feet pound the hall.  Ben, in all his 4-year-old urgency, bursting in to get water for himself, his brother, and a friend.  “Mom!  I need-ta get drinks RIGHT NOW!”  Water trickles into plastic cups.  He’s serving.  See?  He’s getting it.  

My daughter’s voice in the doorway.  I focus, like a camera zooming.  Her face, her dimple, sand all over her mouth, round pot belly under striped shirt, covered in dirt.  “‘Meah.  ‘Meah.”  She’s imperious, one little hand beckoning.  Come here.  Come to me.  Be with me.  See what I’m seeing.  Be all here.

I let dinner take care of itself for a minute.  Tune in.  Hear His voice.  Fall into the moment.  And the moment is static-free, sweet grace.

Second lessons in listening... {One Word: listen}

{This year I'm posting once a month on my One Word for 2014: listen.  To read January's post in this series, click here.}

So… this whole One Word: listen thing for 2014?  Well, January started off with a bang.  

February?  Um… not so much.

Want the truth?  Ok.  Here it is.  That still, small Voice I was so attuned to at the beginning of 2014?  I’m embarrassed to say, I effectively turned off my ears for the last half of January.  

I clutched and finagled little pockets of time for myself, obsessed over blog schedules no one cares about but me, compared myself incessantly to all and sundry, and dissolved into petulant tears because the whole world was unsupportive of “my” art.  I whined incessantly about not having time for myself, and resented the demands of my roles as mother and homemaker.  

In a nutshell, I succumbed to my old demons of control and insecurity.  It’s been ugly.  

Have I been listening?  Not much.  

Should I have been listening?  

Um… definitely.  

Because when I started listening again (sometime around the end of last week), I started hearing again.  

This week, thanks to some quiet, calm direction from the ever-pragmatic and focused Kat Lee, I finally managed to a) go to bed a little earlier, b) get up a little earlier, and c) quiet my thoughts enough in the mornings so my heart could tune back in to that all-wise, still, small Voice.  

And finally I heard what He’s been trying to say to me for a while…

Let.   It.   Go.    Let go of your needs, your agenda, your desires.  Give them to Me, and I’ll take care of you.  Trust Me to further your art and your dreams, and you focus on looking after the people I’ve given you to love.

(Ok, if I’m completely honest, I have to admit that I heard Someone whispering that in the inner depths of my soul, but because of my self-centeredness it sounded like someone speaking on the other side of a glass window, muffled and burbly, and all I had to do was turn my face away so I “couldn't” understand what He was saying…)

So, here’s what February's teaching me:

Lesson #1: 

When I’m consumed with myself, I can’t hear anything properly.

As long as my thoughts are filled with my agenda, my goals, my dreams, my needs, there’s no space for anyone else to say anything, especially God.  The needs of my family become a burden, and I stop serving out of love and start doing it out of duty, which quickly fills me with resentment.  

The challenge for me is to open my hands, let go of my own needs and wants, and re-surrender to God’s plan for my day.

And what I’m discovering is, once I finally lay my agenda on the altar and tune in to God’s Voice, He meets my needs!  He shows me little pockets of time to make art, or He frees me to just take a nap and stop pushing myself so hard, or He helps me be content with the art I’ve already made and dissolves the pressure I put on myself to constantly make something new.

Lesson #2:

Complaining clogs my ears.  Thanking re-opens them.  

Focusing on all the things I’m not happy about is like turning down the volume on God’s voice so I can’t hear Him or sense He’s with me.  Thanking Him for the gifts He’s giving in that moment suddenly re-opens my ears and swivels up the volume, and His voice becomes audible in my heart again.   

I’ve realized that complaining is just general flailing in the direction of the Universe, or at anyone who happens to be listening (usually my patient husband).  Thanking implies you have Someone to thank, so you’re talking to Someone, so there’s actually Someone there, and maybe that Someone has something to say back to you… 

One of the best quotes I’ve heard (I wish my fragmented Mommy brain could remember the source):

“If you are complaining, it means you are believing one of two lies: Either God is not good, or God is not loving.”   

The act of giving thanks immediately turns my eyes away from myself to God’s Presence in that moment.  And right away, I feel more peaceful.  

What keeps you from hearing God’s voice throughout your day?

In what small (or big!) ways is God already using your word for 2014 to change and grow you?

first lessons in listening: a letter to myself

{My One Word for 2014 is starting off with a wham!  Today I’m sharing two insights from my first week of active listening.  I’m also joining up with The Grove over at Velvet Ashes on the prompt “A Letter to Self” - making this essay a letter to the parts of me that stand in the way of living out the word “listen”…}

Dear me,

I know you love reading other people’s words, and I know you just bought Lisa McKay’s riveting page-turner of a memoir, and it. is. so. good.  You’ve had your Kindle stuck to your face all afternoon, letting kids and house go unheeded.  

I also know that when you’re enjoying something, you have this incurable and nearly unstoppable desire to share your joy with someone - anyone, really, who’s breathing and within earshot.  Today the hapless recipient happened to be your sweet, patient husband - who, just because he was in the same room, was subjected to long chunks of Love at the Speed of Email...  

Now, here’s Listening Realization #1: At the few excerpts that did spark some conversation, you had to consciously stop yourself from cutting him off barely one sentence into his comment, because you were so eager to share your own insight or opinion.  (Ouch!)  You missed what could have turned into a valuable opportunity to discover something new about your husband (quite possibly the most important person in your life), because you were so caught up in the pleasure of sharing.  

Instead of listening to him, you made him your listener.  Shouldn’t it have been the other way round?

You know, my dear, the saddest part was that he never commented on your behavior and doesn’t even seem put out - the way you would certainly feel if someone had bent your ear for paragraphs and then not paused to let you react or comment!  Doesn’t this fact make you uncomfortably aware that you probably do this often, so much that he’s become used to it?  And… doesn’t that make you a bit sad?

Well, good thing you’ve only been living your word for one week!  Good thing you still have 51 weeks to go, and good thing realization is the first step towards change!

Moving on to Realization #2… 

After dinner, you were about to pick up your Kindle again (leaving the dishes in the sink), and I know you distinctly heard the Holy Spirit say, Put down your book and focus on your daughter until bedtime.  

Now, here’s the scary thing: you actually found yourself seriously considering ignoring Him.  No joke.  I was there, remember?  You even checked your phone to see how long there was until bedtime, thinking frantically, If it’s half an hour, I just can’t wait that long… and you actually felt relieved when you discovered there were only ten minutes left until jammy-time!  

In those next ten minutes, while you dutifully played with your sweet, adorable daughter, you felt the urge to pick up your Kindle no less than three times, and each time (thankfully!) came the Holy Spirit’s counter-command: Resist.  Don’t touch it.  Follow through.  

With diaper on, sleeper zipped and teeth brushed, you sent her toddling off to bestow goodnight kisses on the three men in her life.  And while she was gone you actually found yourself back in her room, picking up your Kindle - almost unconsciously.  (You carried it in there with you to put on her jammies - why in the world?  You weren’t seriously thinking you could read and wipe her bottom at the same time, were you?)

When she came back from giving kisses, she wanted to play peekaboo, a game which she loves and which you hadn’t played all day.  You indulged her for all of about 5 peekaboos and then you scooped her up and sat down in the rocking chair for story-time, still thinking of your book.  

It wasn’t until you had been watching her push buttons up and down one of her board books for a minute or two that a “random” thought pushed its way into your brain: My husband told me three days ago that the father of one of my childhood friends is dying.  

And during the excitement of New Year’s, you realized you had forgotten to follow up.  

It took those scant twenty minutes away from your Kindle to create that little bit of distance necessary to “de-book” your thoughts enough for you to hear clearly.  

You knew it was the Holy Spirit pricking your God-given conscience after dinner to focus on her.  And yet you seriously considered not doing what you knew was the right thing - what God Himself told you to do - in favor of feeding your insatiable appetite for a good story!  Does that scare you? Because it scares me a little.

Just listening isn’t enough, you know.  You are responsible for your response to what you hear. 

And, allowing yourself to get so wrapped up in Lisa's story drove everything else out of your head, including the fact that God wanted to remind you to connect with your friend and ask about her father. 

Now, don’t get me wrong - reading books is all well and good.  In fact, it’s one of the healthiest things you can do for your mind - in moderation.  But if the voice of a book - even a great book - drowns out God’s still small voice, it has become an idol.  

You can’t hear what’s truly important if your ears are too full of other voices.  

So, self!  Welcome to this new year!  Looks like it’s going to be a year of transparency, clarity and a lot of honest reflection.  Hopefully your ears will surprise you with their ability to pick up things you may have missed, tune in to the quieter voices, and pay close attention to that Still Small Voice that has all the comfort and direction you need…

Keep listening, Carolyn!

Love,

Me 

{If you haven't figured it out, I highly recommend Lisa McKay's memoir Love at the Speed of Email… Once I started, I couldn't put it down for two days until I finished, it was that good.  I think you will especially resonate with LIsa if you're currently living overseas or have in the past, but her writing is so down to earth that any reader will enjoy her succinct, funny, poignant descriptions of traveling, cross-cultural adjustment, reverse culture shock, long-distance relationships, and the ultimate question everyone faces eventually - how to define "home"?  And no, no one paid me to write this review!}

there is no point B!

There is no point B.

Did you know that?  I didn’t.  In my Christian life, I always thought I was supposed to be moving from point A (acceptance of Christ and initial salvation) to point B (final perfection and glorification).  And this assumption always left me with a nagging sense of guilt, because no matter how many lessons I learned (or how many times I circled back around to learn the same lesson at a deeper level), I never seemed to be getting any closer to the goal.  Nor did I ever seem to be experiencing any more of Christ, regardless of what spiritual disciplines I tried or how much I dutifully read my Bible.  

Guess what?  There is no point B!  

“There is only point A, and more of A, which is to say, there is only Jesus and more of Jesus until his love envelopes all that you are, defines all that you are, and is powerfully expressed in everything you touch.”  

~Judith Hougen, Transformed Into Fire

Wow.  If this is true, I have already reached my destination.  I’m already there!  I already have the complete, glorious fullness of Christ wondrously living, breathing in me.  All that’s left is to discover the reality of Him-in-me more deeply and fully every day, to learn how to experience His love minute by minute, and to live out of that experience of love.  

On the previous page, Judith shares a quote from Thomas Merton, prefaced with the comment, “A few times in my life, I’ve read something and instantly known that my life lived on the other side of those words would never be the same.”  I felt a little skeptical, like, would what came next actually live up to that description in my own life?  

It did.

Merton is talking about prayer, but his thoughts can be expanded to the whole spiritual journey into discovering your true self in Christ:

“We were indoctrinated so much into means and ends that we don’t realize that there is a different dimension in the life of prayer.  In technology you have this horizontal progress, where you must start at one point and move to another and then another.  But that is not the way to build a life of prayer.  In prayer we discover what we already have.  And you realize that you are already there.  We already have everything, but we don’t know it and we don’t experience it.  Everything has been given to us in Christ.  All we need is to experience what we already possess.  The trouble is we aren’t taking time to do so.” 

~quoted in Transformed by Fire, p. 119 (emphasis mine)

I closed the book and got into the shower, with those words reverberating through my soul.

All I need is to experience what I already possess.

I closed my eyes and felt the warm water beating down on me, and I imagined the warm river of God’s love flowing over me and through me.  All I need is to experience what I already have: I’m already full to bursting with Christ’s Presence and power and love!  All that’s left is to choose to take long, slow minutes here and minutes there to close my eyes (or fully open my eyes) and experience Him, in me.  

I’ve been suddenly full of peace this morning.  The knowledge that there is no point B and that I can stop striving to get there and just be filled with Christ, the knowledge that all I have to do is enjoy what I already have, is setting me free.  

grace poured down {Remembering December: Part 4}

For the month of December, I counted doggedly to 1000, scribbling blue-inked gifts lists across fields of white paper, pounding new habit-nails on top of complaints, criticism and stress…. Hungering for joy.  In those moments, joy came slow, if it came at all.  I didn’t feel much of anything.  

But now, warm January sun streaming through the window, paging back through lists of hundreds and hundreds of graces - all poured down in just one month - the joy begins to well, deep and strong.  

All is grace.  I lived it, counted it, for 31 days straight, over 30 gifts every day (and for each one written, so many more slid past unnoticed).  

I review the gifts of December, and I remember… 

December 26

834. Cleaning out the toy cupboard 

835. Presents to give away
836. Poor people to give to
837. Ben carrying Arli’s present all the way there by himself, bouncing the bag along the ground, refusing to let me take it

838. Boys learning the joy of giving
839. Three boys, with no common language except joy and boyhood, playing wild in a threadbare living room 840. The ability to buy this family a ton of coal
841. That Jesus loves them enough to die for them

855. Having the perfect Christmas present for a friend: bamboo knitting needles
856. Her genuine pleasure
857. Being able to say God arranged it (I bought them in August)
858. The hope that their curiosity in God will grow
859. She and her husband pairing up with my boys to “box”
860. Fits of laughter all around

861. The stars on the way home862. Explaining to William how God knows each star by name, 

and William saying, “Does He just call them ‘stars’?” 

 “No, each one has a name.” 

 “What are they?” 

 “I don’t know - why don’t you ask God?” 

 “God, what are the names of the stars?”

863. The faith of a child

December 27

886. Twenty packages of cookies assembled for the neighbors
887. Planning ahead
888. Thirteen homes visited
889. Thirteen presents given

892. Thirteen conversations

893. Two or three interested parties
894. The Holy Spirit’s discernment
895. Words to explain things in this language
896. Open homes
897. This friendly, hospitable culture
898. The hope of glory

899. Discovering that our new street has four other ethnicities besides ours
890. James serving lunch when I got back 

909. The way Ben cuddles into me when I read to him before naptime
910. Led to open the word during rest time
911. The joy and challenge of personal goal setting
912. The way my “Year of Letting Go” (more on this later) is overlapping and dovetailing with my “Year of Here” 

December 29

933. Grace for a new day

934. Avalon’s “How Great Thou Art”
935. Climbing out of the pit
936. That Your lovingkindness never ceases
937. And Your mercies are new every morning
938. Building new habits, one nail at a time 939. Hope
940. Being in the 900’s at the end of this year
941. Being blind before and now SEEING

942. Fighting crankiness with thanks 

972. Water for showers and laundry and dishes
973. When I turned Avalon up loud, Will exclaiming, “Let’s get all the instruments! PRAISE GOD!”
974. How gospel music can make it fun to wash the dishes
975. Shaving my legs in stages to get ready for our holiday at the beach in two weeks -- the bigger the smooth patch, the closer we are to having a break! 

December 31

991. Breakfast in bed! Banana pancakes and coffee!
992. 6 happy years of marriage 993. My husband gifting me time for a lovely walk by myself
994. Poetry forming
995. Glory all around: mountains, fields and sky

998. How blessed we truly are

999. My husband’s gifts to me: poetry, a promise of dates to plan, a promise of music to make

1000. The privilege of living in this place, with these people

1001. Salmon for New Year’s dinner!

1002. Fireworks in our backyard!
1003. Mulled white wine with rosemary, lemon and honey
1004. A fire in our fireplace
1005. Counting past one thousand gifts in one month, and knowing they will just keep on coming -- and coming -- forever

a new way of seeing

like a bird on a wire

awareness of grace

turns commonplace

into glory and fire

like wood to a tree

like waves to the sea

let thanks become

the fiber of me