The Naming Of A Year

The Cowboy and I have been chatting long about time. About how we spend our time. 

I've been thinking about this upcoming year and what roads I might walk. Wondering if my eyes will ever really be able to see all this life as sacred... 

The thousands of small moments making up all these glorious gift days. 

This farm, this place, us all slowing down, slowly learning to soak up the joy of even the messy moments.

Been thinking about the past years, what He's spoken to me, how He's gentle lead me into more than I ever thought I could come into.

For three years now I have found myself learning the same thing over and over again...

It started when we lived in the big house on the hill.

It kept coming when we moved across the states. 

It hit hard when work was scarce and all the familiar was gone. 

It's the practice of acceptance with joy. The art of living content right where He's got me.  

Sometimes I wonder if it just might be every woman's battle. What's natural, is me looking around and wondering why I don't have her talent, or her ability as a Mother, or her gift of living and breathing God's Word with her life. And so daily I have to purpose to thank Him for His perfect plan in making me just the way He wanted me to be, for this place in time, for these treasures, for this Cowboy. 

And oh how I give Him praise, simply by living content.

Today, it's probably been one of my absolute favorite New Year's Eve's ever... 

We said no to the shindig and found ourselves eating dinner together at the farm table. When we had all pretty much licked our plates, The Cowboy read from the Psalms to a bunch of rowdy treasures who crowded around him at that same table, while this Mama whipped up a batch of chocolate chip cookies and a small cup of hot coco for each. Then on a picnic blanket in the living room, My Siah and I took turns reading aloud... a family all together. And when 7:30 rolled around the Cowboy found a countdown thing on his iphone and the kids got a thrill out of counting down into the New Year. 

With the kids in bed, the Cowboy and I we came together, found ourselves wrapped up in vulnerability, a man praying in the New Year, a man praying intimately over his bride. 

These moments. Contentment in the here and now. 

Last year she named her year, The Year Of Here.

'The only place I can ever be alive is right here.

Be all here: and be holy. Be all here: and be happy. Because the Presence of I AM always fills the present moment.'

I'm tempted this year to do the same.

Tempted to Praise Him by accepting with great joy, all that He gives.

 

And so it is that 2012 has found a name for this learning farm girl...

Acceptance with joy...

2012

The Year of Here.

On New Habits

I don't know much about good-old-healthy habits.

Nights on the farm go something like this... Kids in bed at 7. Mama and Papa purpose to love, purpose to pray with one another. HGTV comes on around 7:35. The Cowboy is snoring on the couch by 7:43. Mama sneaks out from underneath the Cowboy's head that was resting (snoring) on her lap and the night has just begun.

For the Cowboy and I,  it's the perfect scenario. I LOVE the time He gives me at night. I love hot tea and the blankets piled high over my lap in our giant bed situated just right in the comfort of our safe-haven. And most of all, I absolutely love to read in the quiet... nights by the lamplight... now that's a habit that comes easy for me. But most other habits are not nearly as easily accomplished.

What I know about habits is that they might come slow.

What I know about habits is that the ones done in my own strength flounder and flop.

What I know about habits is that really they're one more way to really step into His presence, one more way to learn to trust in His strength, one more reason to bask in His grace.

This past year He's been growing us up a bit around here. We've gotten in the habit of starting our day in the Word both memorizing and reading, the treasures and I. Some days, it feels as if we're doing it out of obligation, but so many more days it has grounded us in hope that, with His help, we really can learn to live in gracious kindness under this roof, all six of us sinners passing out grace around every corner.

The Cowboy and I, we're learning to pray together. Prayer is so personal, so intimate, and it's a habit that we've had to purpose ourselves in. It's a place in our days when we've had to let down our guard with one another and move forward in it even when we don't necessarily feel like it. I would think that after so many years of marriage, prayer would be natural for us, but really, we're still in route, slowly moving into a more consistent habit of prayer together. I'm grateful for what God and time has built up between the Cowboy and I over the months and years.

Since we've moved to this frozen tundra, I've struggled to find ways to be as active as I was back in California. The cold seems to put a damper on things, not to mention that taking four precious treasures with me on walks or to the gym, is no easy task, and thus I find myself putting less effort in to even try. But I truly believe that taking care of the body He's given me to the best of my ability is something that is worth my time and efforts. So I've set extremely reasonable goals for myself this next year and roped in some tangible accountability to encourage me in my endeavor.

Another habit that I'd love for Him to grow us in that we started this past year, but is far from being consistent... it's reading a small portion of the Word at dinner together as a family of six. Part of the struggle comes with the business of life. But the Cowboy has been talking with me this Christmas season about the importance of protecting our time, about purposing to simplify. Our world, our culture, we're a busy bunch. I fall into the constant going of it all without much thought. And what happens is, the Cowboy and I, we get worn, our tone gets short, and the habits we're trying to cultivate get lost.

This year I'd like to purpose to pour out more patience with joy, more grace on the ones that I love most, and I'd like to soak up more of His wisdom, bask in more of His grace.

The more that we soak long in the things that we're purposing to grow in in this life, the stronger and firmer the habits become. The process takes time, the months turning into years. He never said we had to get it all right, right now.

Maybe this year I can let go a bit. Maybe this year I can find rest and hope along side the deepest kindness and most extravagant love of a perfect Father. Maybe I can try to remember that it is Him who does the penetrating soul work that I simply cannot do within myself.

Maybe the best habits come in the letting go, in the release of all that was never mine.

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us..." (Ephesians 3:20)


It is His power is at work within me... Therefore, there is an abundance of hope! :)

Merry Christmas

'May the God of Hope fill you with all Joy and Peace as you trust in Him....' 

 

Love came down...

Merry Christmas! 

All That We Can't Create

This  years lesson on Christmas...

Stop trying so hard to create, and instead, joyfully soak up whatever He brings.

I couldn't have planned a day like today. 

The snow has been falling like mad and the farm is covered in pure white.  

This morning, there were sleds behind four-wheelers, and speed and snow flying everywhere. And when the treasures flew off into thick blankets of white and the snow soaked through and fingers and toes froze; then there was a nice warm fire and a friends' homemade chile.

After we got warm, we piled into the burb and spent the afternoon at an old folks home in town, singing carols and watching all their faces light up. That simplicity of childhood, how it brings an older generation to happy tears, how it reminds me that when we love others, we're really loving Him. 

Nyah, a courageous nine-year-old that I love, has been practicing the piano for weeks now. She leads us all in singing carols, leads us all into servanthood. 

I watch a particular woman in the wheelchair parked closest to piano. When the caroling is done and we walk about, and we greet, and we offer each a 'Merry Christmas', this woman, she reaches out her frail arm and she makes sounds, but no words come out. My little Reesie, she asks, "What in the world is she talkin about Mama?" (She's three and she's as real as they come and she doesn't yet know how to protect her words) So I gently lead her.  I tell her that sometimes when we grow old we lose our words. But I assure my little girl that this women can understand everything that is being said to her. And I tell my girl that we can show this woman God's love simply by holding her hand. My Reesie, she reaches out and takes the woman's hand and the old woman in the wheel chair, she lights up... I mean literally, her whole face turns into one gigantic smile and she pulls my Reesie's hand close and gently kisses it's top.

And that's just it. 

We can't create the moments when we can tangibly feel Love Come Down. 

It's only the works of His very hand that enable us to really know. Christmas comes when a child and a wisdom woman hold hands and exchange love at an old folks home in the middle of town on the Friday afternoon before Christmas.

And when we get home, we have pizza and do our Jesse Advent Tree... together.

We're all gathered close in the living room watching this for like the hundredth time, and a friend suggests it and we just go for it... Our own reenactment of Christ come down. The kids pick their parts and scatter all over the house to find costumes.

And the Papa He reads it straight out of the Word... 

But the kids do their own version and here's how it goes...

An angel (in pink) appears to Mary and tells her,

"You have BABY in your tummy!!"

Mary is so very happy.

She tells Joseph and Joseph is sad.

Joseph goes to sleep. 

The angel appears to Joseph and tells him, 

"It's all good."

The angel and Joseph laugh. 

Mary and Joseph ride a donkey to Bethlehem. (Or around the living room.:)

Baby Jesus is born and is wrapped in a bright red Christmas onesie. 

A star appears to some shepherds and three kings.

The three Kings come to see Jesus and...

They bring him gifts of dry-erase markers.

Everybody Loves Jesus, even the star.

The End.

*****************************

Christmas is near.

And it's so freeing to know that we'll never be able to create something greater than what only He Himself can give. 

Make plans... but lay those inevitable expectations down.

Slow down... and open our eyes that we might be able to see His best for us in this season.

Soak up... all that He has already given, the unsurpassable gift of His one and only son.

Pour out... Joyfully jump into whatever He brings.

Today was... great. 

Thanks to Him. :)