The Best of My Days {January}
For Christmas a friend gave me a beautiful and unique hand-made gift: The Best of My Days. Twelve simple pages, labeled for each month, with long and narrow and numbered space for each day. Just enough room to write a few words for each day of the year — the best of my days. I hung it right above my kitchen sink, where I can see it all the time. And this simple exercise, of reflecting each day on one simple joy, has been a delightful and unexpected part of my 2012. I love the Week’s end with thanks and will continue to do it, but thought at month’s end it’d be fun to just share the best of my days. (Make your own!)
- Aunt Lois celebrating in heaven!
- Afternoon with Elisa.
- Playing Star Wars under the squirrel tree.
- Kids so contented, obedient, joyful.
- Running through pasture, laughing, Heidi in arms.
- Pickel the Pirate — Heidi won!
- Joanna D is having a baby!
- Mace Windu and Yoda lightsabers — Happy Dutch!
- Faithfulness w/ Facilitator’s gathering.
- Clean, cozy, sweats all day — love my home.
- Curled up with Prince Caspian & Newell girls.
- Cup of tea in the kitchen with Melody.
- Heidi asleep in sunglasses and stocking cap.
- The Gospel of Grace!
- WOU girls’ prayers & home early and safe!
- Writing Family Mission Statement w/ my man.
- Day in the snow! Daddy surprise come home.
- Clean-out-the-freezer-soup.
- Calm My Anxious Heart.
- The Nines, Megan, squid, red tea!
- Waterfront run! Amazing!
- I Serve Here class SO good…
- Praying with April.
- Woman flooding in for God’s Word.
- Just Ellie & Matt. My sweet Jeff’s care.
- Nicole, Kelli, Jenni at CC.
- Elisa, oregano oil & a 4-mile run!
- Another lovely sunny 4-mile run!
- Dutch self-control in Sunday School – yay!
- Blessed evening at Yarcos — kids, smiles, dino nuggets!
- Priscilla Shirer BRINGIN’ IT in HS teaching. TY Lord!
#4 Establish Your Evening Routine {52 bites}
It is 6:49pm as I type this — evening routine time — and I’m sick in bed. (Just a cold, but I’m wiped out.) I can hear Jeff reading Prince Caspian and I can also hear Heidi running circles around the house announcing that pixie dust is making her fly. I’m not sure if this is exactly what Jeff has intended for her to do but I’m too tired to get up and check. Jeff’s voice continues, the Narnia narrative unbroken, although she now has an egg-shaker and has broken into a gibberish song. I can envision exactly what Dutch is doing: Leaning close to Jeff, listening, in a trance as Jeff reads the story. He loves story time, and Heidi loves to run circles around the house singing nonsense.
Sometimes it really is a circus around here.
But for all the glorious circus-ness, I do love love love our routine. The chore cards are helping our mornings and our evening routine is a sanity-saver to be sure. The kid’s nighttime routine has been in place for years now:
- Bath
- Put on jammies
- Snack
- Brush teeth
- Rock, read, pray
I’m pretty sure most parents of youngsters have the ole’ bedtime routine down pat.
But what about for us?
Do adults need their own bedtime routine?
Tsh says absolutely and I think it’s not a bad idea.
She suggests establishing a simple 5-part evening routine, little things that you’ll be glad you did in the morning. This, coupled with your 5-part morning routine, provide bookends of order for every single day. A little routine to frame whatever circus-ness your day has held. And, although it might sound appealing to flip on the TV or settle down into some serious Facebook time, consider how some evening intentionality might seriously simplify and beautify your life. Tsh’s ideas include:
• Take a shower • Clean the kitchen • Yoga, or some other stretches • Read your Bible • Journal • Make the kids’ lunches for school • Set out your clothes for tomorrow • Dump your brain (project 19) • Write your to-do list for tomorrow (project 38) • Do a quick, 15-minute clutter pick-up
So, my evening routine:
- Clean kitchen
- Quick 15-minute clutter pick-up
- Look over tomorrow’s to-do list
- Talk to Jeff
- Pray
You may have noticed that I am in fact blogging right now and not talking to Jeff or praying. That’s because I’m sick so I can do whatever I want. Plus it’s only 7:07pm. My goal is just to have the computer off by 8pm so I can wind down and be prayed-up and well-rested for the next day.
Here’s why I love an evening routine: Mornings are hard. Whether or not your a morning person it’s still hard to get up and get going and get everything done before the break of day. Starting the night before sets yourself up for success. Laying out clothes, programming the coffee pot, making sack-lunches, laying out Bible study materials, whatever will help you wind down, rest, reflect, and prepare for the next day — that what should be included in your evening routine.
{So what will you include in yours? I’d love to hear … and now, I’m off to bed. Thanks for reading.}
Bonus: A little humor for your Friday …
Who has shaped you?
Twice recently I’ve been asked about my “Faith Family-of-Origin.” Meaning this: Just as we have a biological family-of-origin that is largely responsible for any number of our habits and behaviors, so we also have a Faith family of origin. Church or ministry roots that shape our faith during critical developmental years. It’s been a fun exercise to look back and understand a bit about what makes us tick and why.
As I re-read Calm My Anxious Heart again I had a similar fun experience, something I hadn’t expected at all.
First, it was tremendously impacting to go back and read my hand-written notes from the 12-week Bible study in the back of the book. They were from 13 years ago when I was single, a Sophomore in college, living in a house of 8 RDGs. Oh how different my struggles were back then! Oh my.
It was a joy to read because of this: God has done SO MUCH. I truly was an anxious, insecure, comparing, compulsive person. I’m not angel now, but He has truly been victorious in profound ways in just over a dozen years. Although I recognized my hand-writing, and can now remember the battles, I had virtually forgotten they’d existed.
But what struck me the most was seeing now that the book had shaped me more than I’d ever realized. As I read I kept stopping, amazed, and thinking, “Wait. I say this exact same thing all the time. I’ve taught this over and over. I didn’t realize it was from her.” I could see how Linda Dillow’s simple words had truly changed the course of my life.
Lastly, I kept chuckling to myself as I’d read book after book that she referenced that I’ve since then read but had no idea or recollection that she’d mentioned them! That make sense? All the books she refers to I have since read and they’ve become pillars along my journey, but I had no remembrance of her mentioning them way back then!
All that to say that going back to read this book is like returning to my roots and see why I’m wired the way I am. Little ‘ol Linda Dillow’s words are like fingerprints all over me. And I’d totally forgotten.
The thought for you and me? What book or person radically influenced your faith-development in years gone by? It might be fun for you to go back and visit, or re-read, and chuckle a bit as you realize why you do what you do.
And secondly, never underestimate the power of your influence on another person’s life. Depending upon the soil of their heart, your words of truth, your life of faith, your example of love, might radically change the course of someone’s life without them really knowing it. I truly had not realized how profoundly Dillow’s words shaped me over the years. But God knew.
{Q: Who shaped you? And who might God want to shape through you? Thanks for taking time to reflect, and thanks reading…}
Consumerist Porn
Revisiting these thoughts from a few years back … as we journeyed through the book of Colossians Joel introduced us to the idea of Consumerist Porn. Consider:
Today Pastor Joel talked about empty philosophies (Col. 2) and how we tend to take the world’s “philosophies” or systems and ways of thinking, and mix them in with our Christianity. He used several examples, but the one that stood out to me was consumerism.
He introduced to us the idea of Consumerist Porn, and how it warps our minds. It’s a strong term, but I think so accurately describes what so many of us do. Consider the magazine industry. How many of us have Pottery Barn catalogs? Crate & Barrell? Do we sit and flip through these magazines, fantasizing about things that we don’t have, in essence lusting after things we think will make our lives better? What is it for you? Joel talked about travel magazines, golf magazines. What about Victoria’s Secret catalogs or whatever it may be. What do we spend our “mindless” time doing? And is it, in a way, unhealthy fantasizing about material things?
I realized lately that without my even meaning to, God had weeded my life from some of this. As I was organizing our file cabinet, I found a manila folder with “House Ideas” on the tab. Inside were torn out pages from–you guessed it–Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrell, Restoration Hardware. The pictures were nice, I guess, but for some reason it seemed kind of silly. Why would I purposely keep pictures of things I don’t need? Just in case I forgot? Praise God I forgot! Long long ago I quit getting Victoria’s Secret or any clothing catalogs of any kind. Why? Because I don’t know I ”need” new clothes until I see them adorning some 6’2″ 105lb. retouched model. Then I realize I need them! And I am absolutely content with my body until I take a good look at that 6’2″ 105lb. model and then I realize how wide my hips are. Fantasy? Perhaps. Lust? Maybe. Unnecessary for my spiritual growth and Christlikeness? Absolutely.
I thought of this again recently as I was window-shopping in some fabulous decor-stores. Again, nothing wrong with admiring beauty, but the question is: Does this incite in my admiration for God’s beautiful creation or does it incite in me a lustful desire to have more stuff? Only we, and God, know our hearts.
So I know the term Consumerist Pornography is pretty strong, but I like it. I like it because it refuses to let us call covetousness by a nice neat name that makes us not feel bad. God gives us good gifts. He is a loving Father. He may very well bless us with a beautiful home or a tropical vacation or what have you. But perhaps too often we are guilty of letting ourselves buy the lie of this world, “If only I had that…” One of the world’s trappings that robs us of our joy …
Give us faithful eyes, Lord. Free from lust and fantasy. Pure hearts, pure motives, content with what we have. Rid our lives of consumerist pornography and give us eyes for You alone. In Jesus’ name. {Thanks for reading.}