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How to have a truly happy new year.

For the first time in years, I don’t remember my New Year’s resolution from January. Usually, I write it down in my journal or on a note I stick to my mirror. There’s been many of those dog-eared sticky notes from years past. The year of contentment. Speaking life. We passed pancakes across the breakfast table on January 1st this year. “What do you want from 2018?” I can’t remember my answer. I know what I didn’t want though. I didn’t want to walk into her office and share the parts of my life I’m inclined to hide. I didn’t want to Facetime her the day after she delivered her baby that never breathed. I didn’t want to spend four months wondering how I’d walk into her house on Christmas day and see her empty chair. I didn’t want to go on another first date that led nowhere. We sit across from each other in a little coffee shop in Colorado, picking at a charcuterie board. “When I think about all of the things I have left to go through,” her voice cracks....

How to Make Life Easy

Monday morning begs me to text something to a friend to get her through a messy day. So I type out: “The joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). I’m the girl who thinks of joy as a requirement though, another hard thing to add onto everyday trials.
           
We’re back in the fields again, picking stones. I look at the sky, black clouds rolling closer. “I think a storm is coming, Mom.” At first I can count the large drops as they fall out of the sky onto my arms and face. Then, they blur together and we’re swimming in rain. We jump on the four-wheeler and I squint through the downpour on the long drive back to the house. That’s when I realize I have a choice: complain about the drenched clothes and the wet skin or “count it as joy”. I laugh right out loud as we skim through mud. Joy is a person, lifting the weight off the life that I make so hard. Joy makes the moments easy. 


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