Spring Cleaning

I love Spring; the newness, the songbirds that live in our trees (and on the top of my chimney flue), even the mowing and yard work because it smells and looks so good after.  I don't even mind the housework.  There is always a sense of accomplishment to have something really scrubbed to a shine and things in their place.  Even if only for an hour.  Yesterday was that day in the kitchen and my arms and back are protesting that I should do it more often and it would be less work.

I could say the same for diet and exercise - when I do it regularly, I love the way I feel and the results are easier to maintain.  As I get complacent and skip a day (or week), it takes monumental effort to regain what would have been so much easier to maintain.

Bible study is the same way.  When I open The Word every day I feel fulfillment and the desire to learn more - come back again tomorrow.  Then I go out of town, miss a week with my small group, or break the cycle and get out of the habit.  Why is it so hard to keep doing those things that are good for us?

Today we start a new sermon series on the book by David Platt, Radical - Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream.  I was asked to research some study guides for our small group to use and have found a couple that seem to be good.  In reading the first two chapters of this book, it is clear that I will have the opportunity to do some "Spiritual Spring Cleaning" over the next 6 weeks and this is exciting!  I hope to share my observations and changes that I make in the routines and complacency that have settled over me and in doing so, to carry that into all the areas of my life where little dust bunnies linger.

I can smell that spring freshness now!

Little Miss Pouty

If there were an award for pouting, we would have a winner in the following categories:

• getting out of bed
• getting dressed
• brushing hair
• eating breakfast
• clearing dishes
• going to school
• coming home
• doing homework
• doing chores
• running errands
• friends not home to play
• fixing dinner
• clearing dishes
• getting ready for bed
• brushing teeth
• anything in between that I may have forgotten

And that is just on the weekdays.  Weekends are a separate category but closely resemble M-F.

Miss Pouty is also a contender for most likely to argue about nothing, attitude of the week, slower than molasses, and most likely to be grounded until she is 30.

I live for those 1 in 10 days that Miss Pouty is on vacation. 

Winter Texas Photography

January 20, 2012
Sunset near Giddings, Texas
Can you feel the warmth?

Same time of day, different angle.

Beautiful winter weather.

God all around us.

Letting Go

I have been thinking about this for a long time.  There are many lessons I have learned through mistakes that I made in the past.  These are not "bad" things necessarily, but they make up who I am today.  There are also some things that I needed to forgive in myself to move on, to learn to accept the love of God and others.  I like to think that I have done this - those things don't haunt me - but self-forgiveness was required.

Likewise, there are hurts that others inflicted on me and I on them.  I want desperately to let go of that and move on to something better.  I have forgiven, but I wait to be forgiven.  How do I get that message to her?

Someone suggested recently that I write to her.  If she doesn't read it that is her choice, but I can tell her how I feel, that I have forgiven and there is something better for us.  So this message is for my step-daughter, whom I love today even though at times I did not like her in the past; who is welcome in our house and our lives when she is ready to let go of the past and welcome something better.

The Ant

Imagine you are an ant.  A whopping 250,000 brian cells (compare to 10,000,000 for a human).  Your purpose in life is questionable, at best.  To till up soil, eat dead stuff, and be food for really strange creatures.

So what goes through your mind in that moment that you decide to bite the piece of flesh that belongs to me?  Did you possibly think that the painful blister and swelling would scare me away or make me have pity on your tiny being? Or that there was any possible chance you would not die in the next few seconds? 

Well, now you will live in infamy, a dead speck on a blog and in my flower bed, to bite no more.

Be Still

I just came back from one of many "Best Day Ever" kind of weekends.  A group of 38 amazing women met for our not-quite-yet annual retreat at Camp Tejas.  We met in small and large groups to study more about living a Prayer life.  We had personal quiet time to reflect on our discussions, and be still.  We climbed a tower so that we could fall on a zip line and cheer for each other.  We prayed for each other and ourselves.  We sang and worshipped and celebrated.

And we were still.

Sometimes, the most difficult thing in life is to be still:
To not tell God what we want, but to look for the path He has laid out.
To stop the noise from the outside, but also from within,
To be still.

Small things matter

This year around Christmas I decided to make a pomander.  You know, then thing where you poke cloves into an orange and let it dry out.

My husband looks at me, "What are you doing?"

"Poking cloves into an orange."

"Why?"

"It smells good.  Didn't your Mom ever do that?"

"No." Shakes head and walks away.

Surely she must have.  She is one of the more crafty people I know.  This is an old Colonial custom used to freshen a room, or give as a small gift.  They are beautiful ornaments or displayed in a bowl.  

I remember making them with my Mom (though I don't recall rolling them in all the preservative spices and powders the way they tell you to now).  Mine is on the kitchen table.  I am pretty sure he shakes his head at it every time he walks by.  "Why?"

Why not?

Happy New Year!

My wish for you - a year of peace and prosperity, discovery and fulfillment.  May God be a part of your lives and bless you as you are a blessing to others.