Reframing the Season

Day Two:  Reframing the Season

I wanted to get the Christmas tree up before taking this shot. This is my first year getting a real tree for myself. Before it's always been with my family or a fake one my parents gave me. This tree symbolizes reframing Christmas traditions and making traditions all my own

Day Four: The Key
(What helps you to slow down, take a deep breath and enjoy the moment? Capture it!)

The first thing I thought of was a Christmas light when I read this challenge. Even now, after a hectic day, I came home, plugged in the tree and took a moment. It reminds me to breathe, to release, to let go and just be. I can look at the beauty of the tree and just take a moment. Somehow in what happens around it - family, laughter, forgetting what happens outside this time - I find reality and for a moment, stability.  

Picture the Holidays

I am doing a project called Picture the Holidays this year with Paper Coterie. Each day a different image in the countdown to Christmas.

Day One was gratitude:

I am grateful for the gift of learning and how, even when we least suspect it, we can learn something new. I was in CA and learned about tide pools, something I never knew about being that I am live in the mountains!

Day Three was love - focus on love. Feel it. Be it. Capture it. Share it:

So I chose to be literal - it is all about love, taken on a shoot with the boy no less :-)

(Day two is coming!)

Gratitude - Day Thirteen

This was my view this morning. Thankful for today and blessings anew.

Gratitude: Day Twelve

Today I am grateful for my car - the car I own. The car I was able to pay off in only 18 months. I got this car in May of last year and paid my final payment today. It's amazing.

I love this car. It is my dream car. VW stopped making this car in 2001 - so it's hard to find, and I was blessed to have a friend who wanted to sells their once I got back from DC.

I love being that during the summer I can drive home with the sun on my face. I love looking at the fall colors in panorama. This little car (my LC!) makes road trips better, especially those on rocky mountain roads.

When I took my niece in it for the first time, she told me we took "its top off." And that might be what I love most about this car - sitting under the stars with the top off and just being.

But today, I love that it is paid off and that is money I can put towards others things - like student loans.

I am grateful for reliable transportation, and the ability to pay off a car thanks to a steady job and the funds to pay my bills.

It has taken a lot of hard work, but I did it!

Gratitude: Day Eleven

Today I am thankful for Worship.

I got this email this morning and it just hit me. I tend to think of worship as David dancing for joy when the ark came into the city. The Bible says, "And David was dancing before the LORD with all his might" (2 Samuel 6:14).

It has been a while since I have been there. But like a dear friend told me recently, I can still put on the music and let it speak what I cannot. I've come to realize the Holy Spirit intercedes for us, bringing our petitions to God and so, even now, with a broken heart and a tired spirit, I hope it still is.

The word “sing” occurs over one hundred times in the Bible—more than sixty of them in the book of Psalms alone. Verses 4 and 12 in today’s passage (Ps 30) both tie singing and giving thanks together. There are a number of illustrations in Scripture of the powerful effect of praise through music.

When I talk with women who are struggling with chronic discouragement or depression, I often ask two questions: (1) Are you memorizing Scripture? and (2) Are you singing to the Lord? These aren’t magic “pills” that will make every emotional struggle go away, but I’ve found them to be extremely effective at recalibrating my heart and restoring inner peace. At times, when I am deeply distraught or discouraged, I’ll open my hymnal and just begin to sing. As I sing to the Lord, my heart and mind are re-tethered to His goodness and love, and invariably, the cloud begins to lift.

Whether it’s a cloudy or sunny day in your heart, sing! Right now, if possible. Put on a CD or your iPod and sing along with others, or just sing to Him on your own.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Right now JJ Heller's new CD is on repeat, it is amazing and fills me with joy and peace.

Some other songs I use frequently when I want to worship:

• Add to the Beauty - Sara Groves 
• At the Foot of the Cross - Kathryn Scott
• Desert Song - Hillsong United
• In Christ Alone - Adrienne Liesching
• The Stand - Hillsong
• When the Saints - Sara Groves
• When you Come Back - JJ Heller
• World's Apart- Jars of Clay
• Your Hands - JJ Heller

What artists do you turn to? What songs do you turn to when you want to sing out and praise?

Gratitude: Day Ten

Today I am thankful for people who know me, people who really know me - who haven't given up (or blamed me) due to my slightly reserved, guarded nature. Those who realize I am an open book, but you have to ask - and then ask again. Who realize I am passionate, strong-willed, determined and expect the best/most of people.

I am very grateful for people who have taken time to LISTEN over the last few years. Who don't just spew answers at me or give me a cheese, empty, flat Christian responses.

Perry Noble wrote this post and it really got me thinking. I think I can list on one hand the number of people who fit this list, and maybe that's okay. I don't need a lot of friends, but I need loyal ones. I am blessed to have some of those people around me. They can come from unexpected places - but they are there.

I've also come to realize that to find those people I have to let people know the real me, I have to let someone see the worse of me and not just assume that just because someone responded very poorly to something that everyone will. But that is hard for me, and so, like I said, my friends with patience and grace are the ones who I let my guard down around.

Judgment is one of the quickest things a person can do to turn me off. Especially ignorant judgment. Do not lecture me until you listen. I think if I have learned anything in the last three years it's compassion, empathy and the beauty of quiet when someone is hurting.

I don't tell people things to get them fixed, I tell people things to unload my burden. And the people I listen to are the people who get that.

Here is the list.

So…who do we listen to?  Who is it that should ALWAYS have access to us…and we should ALWAYS desire their thoughts and ideas…here are EIGHT things…I should always listen to…

#1 – Those who know me, who have spent time with me and understand that there is a person behind the personality.
#2 – Those who have seen me at my best and worst…and love me anyway.
#3 – Those who do not automatically assume the worse about me and always give me the benefit of the doubt.  (ALWAYS beware of the person who seeks to pounce on you as soon as they hear something bad!)
#4 – Those who are willing to stand with me in a tough time–THOSE WHO BLEED WITH ME CAN LEAD WITH ME!!!
#5 – Those who offer correction for the purpose of building up rather than tearing down (people who always seek to tear you down should be ignored!  If they do not correct/confront in love then they are nothing more than a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal – see I Corinthians 13:1)
#6 – Those who are willing to take a confrontation straight to the person rather to an online audience.
#7 – Those who are not always looking for a reason to attack/hate you.
#8 – Those who have the goal of restoring you when you mess up and not wounding you!

Who does these things for you? 

Gratitude: Day Nine

Today I am grateful for the Sane Nurse Program at Memorial Hospital.  

I am grateful for the women at Memorial Hospital who are there to serve those in the midst of the worse day of their lives. They are there 24/7 to care for, treat and assist victims of violence.

They see the worse that man can do to each other, and yet, retain kindness, gentleness and a sense of goodness about the world.

These are some of the best people you will ever meet. I think seeing pain makes them more compassionate, facing the effects of evil makes them more giving. And, at its core, is the knowledge that without self-care there is burn out, fatigue and shutting down.

Only by taking care of themselves can they take care of others. 

I am glad we have this program so that regular 'ol male, ER doctors or ordinary nurses are not attempting to examine a victim and collect evidence with no real idea what they are doing. I am grateful for the nurses who help a victim of violence ensure they are okay, have the resources for care they need and that they have been checked out by someone who knows more about what attack can do to a body than anyone else. I am thankful for the nurses who are willing to see and hear what many of us cannot imagine to ensure their patient is okay.

Thank you ladies, I know our community would be at a loss without you.