In Between

I'm certainly not a Grinch when it comes to the Holidays. But I have a confession to make.

My favorite moments during the Christmas season aren't the parties and lights and music.

My heart is the happiest in the moments in between. When frost and woodsmoke are the stars of the show. When December sparkles all by itself, without help from me or General Electric. When there aren't school lessons to complete, so the kids and I can breathe and relax and enjoy quiet moments.

I try my darndest to keep it simple and focus in on what really matters, but it seems that things still get away from me during the holiday season.

But those in-between moments when I can breathe; that is when I find the peace that I know this Season is supposed to be about.

Lately

Tea :: Moon and Stars :: Winter Branches :: Fir Tree Lit from Beneath :: Defrosting Window :: Backing Up :: Winter Herb Garden :: Simmering Elderberry Tonic :: Mentos and Coke :: Refracted Light :: Rosy Light :: Sunset Behind a Filbert Orchard :: Favorite Restaurant :: Pattern Folding while Skyping with my Sister :: Hot Cocoa :: Lichen on Fence :: 80,000 Miles :: Tire Swing :: More Tea :: New Bass Guitar

Forward

So much of this past year has been hard, uncertain, left unfinished. Dreams yet to be fulfilled, goals put off for yet another year, visions of peace marred by the incursions of sadness, anxiety, frustration. I found myself this past week, as I lay on the couch fighting a fever that lasted for days, wishing I could have just one more month to get everything in order before the New Year started. As if the turning of a digit cared one whit for my to-do list.

I wanted to feel closure, accomplishment, a happy resolution to 2013.

Then I read this post on Ann Voskamp's blog (go ahead, click the link and go read it, I'll wait right here).

"How in the world do you step hopeful into the next year when you tripped messy through the last year? How do you stand brave with all the smiling rest and ring in the new year when the old year still feels a bit like a millstone around the neck? What if everyone else is making New Year’s resolutions and you just want New You solutions?"

And so, I let it all go. All of it.
I breathe, long and slow and deep, and with the exhale,
all the things that I've been holding over my own head,
they fly free into the atmosphere.

I'm starting fresh today, with a clean slate, asking with an open heart,
"what do You, who holds the world, hold for me this year?"

"And there’s the utter release of being more grateful for what is than feeling guilty for what isn’t — The moving forward always happening in the relief that all the guilt is covered by His grace."

A Happy, Fresh, Clean-Slate New Year to you all!