All heart.

Most of the time I write with a bit of intention intertwined with a bit of heart...

Then there are those days when I have time to write in my journal. Times where I'm able to let go and write with all of my heart. No agenda. No topic. Nothing but my pen, a blank paper and the depths of my heart and soul. 

What I find in these moments are rest for my weary, tired being. 

I was able to write like this recently.

This is where I landed. 

I don't take kindly to resting well. I like to be moving, serving my family, and working with my hands. My mind is always going back and forth with ideas and thoughts, dreams and plans...But somewhere over the last week or so I felt like I crashed. My body ached and I felt like I'd hit a brick wall. Actually, I felt like one landed on top of me. My mind wouldn't stop and my head pounded.

When I finished journaling all that I could hear left over from the ruckus in my head was Psalm 46:10,

"Be still and know that I am God..."

He's the one in whom all things hold together. 

It finally dawned on me that:

 1-It's ok to rest when I feel weary, weak and tired. God sees that as a means to give us strength in and through Him. 

 2-It's also ok to rest because I'm not always in control and the outcome is not always a result of my "busy"ness. It's Him- Always has been. Always will be. 

 3-He calls us to rest in Him. He says we are blessed when we come to Him this way. 

When we come with nothing left to give, it makes more room for Him. 

When there's more room for Him, our lives become a picture of who He is and His purposes are fulfilled. 

Motherhood.

I stumbled across this poem I wrote about motherhood and for my children back in 2011.
It made me tune in a little more to their fragile little lives today. It initiated thoughts and dreams of what their future might look like.
My hope is that they choose to love well...that no matter what life brings them- good or bad- that they will keep their hearts open to love and be loved well in return.
I hope they bloom where they are planted.
But most of all I hope they choose grace- That they trust in the Lord above all and are content with His plans for their lives.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl,
Who dreamt of moving mountains and conquering the world.
The sky it had no limit for she knew someday she'd be
all that God created this quiet girl to be.

"But what, she wondered will I be
when I grow up and see,
all that God created this curious girl to be?"
Oh the things that she could be,
Too many to decide.

Then one day that girl grew up and soon she realized,
She did not have to pick just one;
She would not have to choose.
Being a mommy requires them all,
everything under the sun!

That dream of moving mountains,
of conquering the world-
now looks like toy trucks and trains;
Like ribbons and of curls.

Now she wonders what you'll be and how you'll change the world.
How many mountains you will move?
Which choices you will choose?
Will you trust the Lord in all you do?
The mountains He will move.

For the sky it has no limit,
His love it reaches there.
So cling to this love so beautiful;
This love so rich and rare.

Messes.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart;yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. -Ecclesiastes 3:11

I said in a few blog post's last year that I was going to make a point to find beauty in places that were unlikely.
I meant it.
Last weekend was one of those weekends. I was trying to get things ready for Monday. It was the first day back to school from the break and if i didn't have the house and everything else in order before the kids got back from their Dad's..it likely wouldn't get done in a timely manner. I was almost finished when the kids arrived. I was so excited. It had only been 44 hours since I had last seen them but I was more than ready to love on them. I got their things then grabbed the last bag. The last bag- A plastic grocery bag with boots that had a huge mess on the bottom and sides of them.
I took them straight to the back yard to sanitize and hose them off. I wanted to cry.
I really just wanted to spend time loving on my children after they'd been gone and especially before school started back and things got hectic again. The last thing I wanted to do was spend time cleaning a nasty mess off of my daughter's boots.
I still wanted to cry about it later that night, but the more I thought about it the more I was humbled; the more I realized that this was simply a metaphor of what Christ did for me.
2 Corinthians 5:21 say's, " God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."
I thought about this verse..about how Jesus cleaned up messes that didn't belong to him.
My mess. Your mess.
He gave us beauty instead of ashes. He cleaned up our mess so that we could be spotless.
Despite my continual sin even as a believer, he still loves me and continues cleaning up messes that aren't his. He desires to love on me over cleaning up those messes.
If I as my children's earthly mother would rather be loving on my children over cleaning up a mess imagine how much more our heavenly father wants that.

I hope you have a happy weekend!

Happy New Year!

Today is the start of the first page of the first chapter in a new book of my life- My white blank page. It's day one of a year that will tell the story of the beauty of spring in it's celebration of all things new after a long winter of cold winds. It is the first bloom after a season of forfeiting the things that were no longer for me and of shedding the things that weighed me down.  

Here's to 2015. May this year be full of love, contentment, joy, memories that warm the soul and cherishing loved one's even more.