A Good Song

This evening, I was reading a blog I like and hadn't read in a while-- The Big Mama Blog.  She's super funny and grounded and a nice person in real life, too, so I like to check in periodically.  At the bottom of the post, she had a link that led me to a singer's website, Shaun Groves. 

Back in the days when I would sit around and listen to music and hear new songs and go to concerts, I really liked Shaun Groves. His song "Welcome Home" was one you could listen to over and over, and I even gave a talk on it once at a Young Life club.

I was so excited to find this site and be able to click on the song and hear it again, and then I saw I could download the lyrics, too. It was especially fun to read them right now as we set up our new home. 

Hope you can take the time to listen and enjoy (and low and behold--there are like four other albums of his since then! Where have I been??).  If anyone has good songs, pass them on. I'm stuck in the old days and need some new tunes.

How To Be Content

When we moved a few weeks ago, I was extremely anxious.  We had several delays with the closing of our old house due to circumstances beyond everyone's control.  Those delays caused delays in closing on our new house. What was supposed to be an exciting time was extremely stressful.  I walked around with a continual pit in my stomach.

While unpacking a box, I came across a book I'd read years ago called Calm My Anxious Heart by Linda Dillow.  Oh, what good medicine this book has been this month as I've been re-reading it. Dillow has lived in Europe, China, and now in Colorado, working in international ministry with her husband.  While she offers wisdom on contentment and letting go of anxieties, she also writes profiles of some of the extraordinary women she has met around the world. Each time, she is faced with how much she has and often how little the other woman has; she is confronted by how easy it is to complain when you have been given much, and how her friends that have been given little do not complain.  She reminds us of what it means to have an eternal perspective instead of a worldly perspective:

"I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.  I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.  I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do everything through him who gives me strength" (Philippians 4:11-13).

One particular "prescription for contentment" she recorded was especially powerful.  She told of a woman who had been a missionary with the pygmies in Africa for 52 years.  Along with her husband and kids, she endured temperatures over 120 degrees with no AC or electricity.  Her daughter wondered how she didn't complain, and later found these words in her diary:

• "Never allow yourself to complain about anything--not even the weather.
• Never picture yourself in any other circumstances or someplace else.
• Never compare your lot with another's.
• Never allow yourself to wish this or that had been otherwise.
• Never dwell on tomorrow--remember that [tomorrow] is God's, not ours." (Dillow, 11-12).

Hmmm...seems to me that this list might cut down a lot of our conversation topics--the comparing, the complaining, the future.  But I love how this list leaves gobs of time for gratitude. And contentment.

Oh, Deer

This morning I went for a walk before the heat starting breathing on me.  It was around 9 in the morning, a popular Saturday walking time in our neighborhood, and I wasn't alone.  I saw other walkers, and then I saw a surprise.

As the main road curved, a deer poked her head out from behind a small tree in the yard of a corner house.  She looked at me, blinking and studying me. I stopped and watched.  We were both still and stared.  She stepped out into the yard. Then we both heard a car. A white SUV drove up, and my deer took off running down the street in the opposite direction, her hooves clacking on the pavement.

I followed her into a cul-de-sac, but she disappeared -- probably into that expansive lawn that backed up to the golf course.  Looked like a nice spot.

I couldn't stop smiling for the rest of the walk. Such a fun surprise. I kept hearing the hooves on the pavement and just wondering.  I love little gifts of nature in our busy world.  They just make you smile.

Internet Access

We moved to a new house. Major life disruption. We didn't have a washer/dryer for a week, but I did get to do a load a day at my sweet friend's house.  We didn't have phones for a week, but we did have our cell phones.  We didn't have internet for a week. No blog writing.  And then... here it is later than that...and I'm just now writing.

Because it's not only the access to these daily tools that's important. It's the routine. When we fall off the routine, oh... so hard to get back into it.

I got so far behind on laundry that it just seemed too overwhelming. I didn't have a strategy for catching up; I just started these measly loads of mishmash that weren't really achieving the needs--tball uniform ready for the game, socks ready for a new school day, towels, sheets... you get the picture. I would get a load out of the dryer to fold, and it was like one sock with a kitchen towel and pajama bottoms with no top, etc.  Even yesterday, my husband asked about a laundry item, and all I could say was, "We're really backed up on laundry" and go start a new load.

And with blogging, same deal. It sounded overwhelming. What do I have to say? I'm backed up on laundry? I have a box of toiletries in my bath cabinet that's too daunting to unpack?  The "office" boxes in the garage may never be opened?

I guess now that my excuse for no access is over, I better just try.  One step at a time.  Another day, another box. One word at a time. One post at a time. We'll take it from there.