Everyday Life: January

January spreads out long and slow

and I live in the days and the nights that seem to spread me out long and thin.

If you ever want time to slow down, simply wait for something important.

It used to be my birthday that made January crawl by at snail's speed, anticipation mounting daily as I checked off each calendar day until we arrived at the last day.

And then it was the bleak, cold winter that made it drag by day after long-midwestern day.

Now, it's waiting for signs of life growing well in the depths of my body, knowing that little green sprouts don't shoot up from the black dirt until due time.

Spring.

It will come.

The popping of flowers from the ground will God-willing bring the popping of a belly filled with baby and little flutters of movement.

Green and lush.

But today, January spills one day into the next.

I give thanks for the gray and attempt to live well in the length

trusting that the Creator changes seasons at just the right time

and is busy behind the scenes in the stillness of winter.

Bigger Picture Moments: I Am Ready

After the leaves break free of the trees and race away leaving behind barren branches, I know it won't be long.

Winter around here is a full-invasion of forces -- the whipping winds, the blustery cold, the retreat of the sun ... each hand-delivering the winter blues that nestle seasonly into my mind.

Halloween afternoon, and I sigh as I layer my clothing; I pull hand warmers onto my hands, wrap the boys in scarves and hats and gloves and then squeeze them into costumes all while wondering why on Earth we live where we live, why we call home this six-months-out-of-the-year cold lay of land.

We decide to brave the elements and trick or treat the neighborhood behind ours; we take the small, tight, beaten path through the preserve to our destination rather than the trail or main road via car.

In glorious surprise, we come face to face with the parts of winter we don't often see as magnificent color spread out during our single-file march through trees and bushes skirting the edge of one of our prairie wetland marshes.

I'm reminded that beauty doesn't flee during the quick march of winter into our neck of the woods.

Rather, it's me.

I'm the one who retreats, waves the white flag of wool-socks, heavy scarves, down coats as I sink into the indoors while winter settles for its stay.

And.

I'm reminded that sometimes we just have to suit up

layer

by layer

by layer

to not just brave the elements

but enjoy them.

   

*****

Starting NEXT week, we will be gathering our harvest of blessings and naming them one by one, sharing the gratitude in our hearts every Thursday through the end of November. Won't you join us? Share a picture, words, creation or list; just come to the table with thanksgiving in your heart. 

Live.
Reflect on the blessings that were apparent to you this week.

Capture.
Harvest them!

Share.
This week link up your BPM moment at Alita's. And next week, come to the table ready to feast on gratitude at Brook's. Please be sure to link to your post, not your blog. Your post must link back here or have our button in your post or the link will be deleted.

Encourage.
Try to visit at least the person linked before you and encourage her in this journey we call life.

Everyday Life: Songbird

There is this songbird heart tucked inside my chest, that's always beckoning me to fly away in search of more.

More beauty.

More lovely.

More warmth.

There is never an open arm embrace with dwindling day light and my heart; I never fall gently into cooler days turned cold and colder days turned gray.

So I fly.

When winter spreads itself out across the gray of skies for months on end, I fly away.

I fly hard and far and deep, straight into heavy sunshine, thick like honey oozing from its hive.

Every February, I fly and land safely in the nest of my snowbird-grandparents aside the gulf waters in Fort Myers and I breathe out the cold and let color seep onto my face beneath wide open blue skies and wide open turquoise water.

A friend said February always brings out the restless in her heart, too, in a different but oh-so-same way, I think.

Her words gave clarity to what I've been doing each winter for the past six years as I make my cold-weather exodus to the promised land.

As much as I love home, family, friends, the life we've built, my heart always must be dragged away from the warm oasis by the sea by an equally unwilling body stuck with a too-reasonable mind that whispers that I cannot join the branches of the other warm-weather birds who hold out until the warmest of sun beckons them home.



Because the Son beckons me back first.

He calls me back to the everydayness that is interspersed with sweet frustration and overwhelming fullness and crazy-running-into-spring cold snaps that melt into blooms.

We traveled two entire days through the south, watched tropical bloom fade and signs of midwestern spring blossom before our very eyes before we landed at my mom's house in countryfield Illinois late last night.



Cold winds still sweep through the midwest, rustle barren trees.

But the sun is stronger than when I left three weeks ago, lighting up the prairie longer each day.



I am an early songbird returning home to the grass-and-snow-checkered ground, my song singing of the colors creeping north and the daylight seeping into more and more of the dusks and dawns.

This songbird heart sings of spring spreading out over taking the winter from branches of naked trees.

But it sings of spring, nonetheless, because it's coming.