on my mind this cloudy tuesday

I've been thinking about:

-Decisions.  Many decisions about my life and job direction.  Like a tangled knotted necklace chain, each knot is individual and complex, but yet they all connected and contingent on another.

-About how some people have their eyeballs in backwards.  They challenge me not to give in to my natural tendency to do the same. 

-About how some people have such mature and beautiful perspectives on things, and life.  They (some are my dear blog buddies) challenge me to see the world through shades of their lovely colors. 

-About how some people make me feel like I should apologize to them before I ever open my mouth, but then how I realize that it might be them that has more of a problem than me, and how life is too short to spend worrying about offending people that surround themselves with eggshells and require that you not step on any of them.  Do you know how hard it is not to step on eggshells when they are all over the place??  For this too-honest-for-her-own-good-at-times gal it is very hard.  So, I joyfully quit.  But, I do ask the Lord to help me to be more gentle... and more careful to consider how other people were raised, life experiences, etc., and how it makes them respond the way they do.  

-I think about how thankful I am for the dear friends with whom I enjoy candid, honest, and edifying  colloquy (isn't that a great word??).

-About how I love the warm, vibrant, enthusiasm of my family.   

-About how I need to revise the little white Christmas tree here in my room from a Christmas tree to a Valentine tree.  

-About how I need to start managing my time better and wrapping up those ever nagging to-do list stragglers. Somewhere along the way, last year I guess it was, I fell off that bandwagon and I don't feel like I get near as much done as I did when I had twice as much on my plate as I do now.  Or, maybe it's just that I don't need that much grace now, because I was, in reality, working myself silly back then.  

-About how I really should start blogging more.  (again, the time management issue haunts me)  And being a blogger-perfectionist less. 

-About how I need to make a list of all the sewing projects that I need to finish, and then finish them.  

-About my natural tendency to be self-reliant.  And how that is sin.  And how I should hourly be reminding myself that it is only through God's grace and strength that I can do anything worthwhile.  

-About the GOP debate last night and how it was the best one yet.  I so love election years.  

-About how I really should shut up now and go work on those nagging to-dos.  

remembering

I'm sure I can't think of a lovelier way to spend a Sunday afternoon than to sit on the branch of a ground-sweeping oak tree at the back of our land in the middle of no place in particular and to think and pray... to listen, feel, and simply be.  Sometimes, there in the meadow, it almost seems as if one is on holy ground.  The Holy Spirit seems to be in the very breeze, and in the quiet, things come into proper perspective.

We've all crossed the threshold of a new year since I last wrote... new years are good times to take a long look into the inventory of our souls and at the compass of our lives.  And, to remember.  To recollect lessons learned, joys experienced, and trials weathered.   A friend of Facebook recently asked if anyone named their years, based on an idea or writing from Ann Voscamp.  I hadn't heard or thought of the idea before, but it seemed like a ponder-worthy thing.  My friend said her 2011 would be named "Letting Go".  I had a hard time thinking of what I would name 2011, if I so decided.

But then, I stumbled across a word that summed it up:  Selah.  Yes, that sums it up in one beautiful word.


2011 was a year of pause... of rest, pondering, and growth that wasn't much chartable.  At the time.  Now, I see, looking back, that the year called, Selah, was, as all the others, a year of growth, even though I felt like nothing was happening.  The very inactivity of it was what was accomplishing things.

The beginning of 2011 found me severely burnt out, and a general human heap of exhaustion, brokenness, and confusion.   The end of 2011 found me standing, rested, rejoicing, and hopeful.   That is nothing short of God's work.

In 2011 I:
-took three months for a sabbatical from pretty much everything but work.
-I lost a lot of dead weight... dead weight relationships, closet clutter, schedule clutter, spiritual clutter, and the weight of what other people thought.
-I waited, and waited, and waited on God to give direction jobwise.  And I learned, by the very end of the year, to sing praises even before you cross the Red Sea, even before you know how God is going to get you across... but just because you know that He will.
-I reconnected with my inner pianist... :) a part of me that had gotten left behind somewhere along the way.
-I was given a piano (more on that to come!)
-We moved and I learned to embrace the quiet country life, once again... reconnecting with your roots is a very good thing.
-I started the journey of learning how to live well, blamelessly, beautifully, and simply.

God did good things... many good things.  Much more than the above, but those are a few.

One of my favorite milestone memories of 2011was on my birthday... during homechurch I requested that we sing a favorite hymn of mine, Great Is Thy Faithfulness.  We barely got through the first verse, and I started crying.  Really crying.  I couldn't even finish singing along to my own song request!  I was so thankful, so joyful, at recalling God's faithfulness that it was all I could do but weep.  Those who know me well know that that is so not like me (although I think I have cried more in this past year than all the other teen and adult years put together- praise God for brokenness!).... but it is so like the Lord.  He takes a stubborn girl and breaks her, so that He can rebuild her with a tender and grateful heart.  I so love that about Him.  I so appreciate the trials... the winter seasons of the heart... the years of Selah.

I don't know what 2012 will hold...  it'll be fun to see.  But it's so nice to know that His faithfulness will be as great in 2012 as it was in 2011.  What about you... what would name would best reflect 2011 for you?