So Very Thankful

So very thankful for friends and family
For my precious twins and my soul-mate husband
For healthy parents who live nearby
For Diet Coke
For Charmin Ultra
For the Sunday Star read on the velvet chaise lounge in my kitchen
For deodorant and Always
For throaty V-8 engines with killer stereos that blare Van Halen 1984
For rag tops thrown back on sunny summer days
For this great country
So thankful for bosses who do not micromanage
For indoor plumbing and steamy hot showers
For electric blankets and toasty fires
For peptides and hyaluronic filling spheres
For skilled hair stylists and Kenra 25
For cameras
For great shoes
For the trailblazing women who’ve gone before me
For strong men
For Carol Anderson and Ann Taylor
So thankful for El Jaripeo
For electricity
For mascara and lipstick
For Glee and The Office
For Cousin Eddie and Clark and Ruby Sue
For cards mailed with stamps
For photos and scrapbooks and memories that grip your soul
For time spent and tears shed
For howling laughter and deep mourning
So very thankful for opportunities not missed
For lessons learned
For mountains climbed and valleys survived
For knowing the value of a hard day’s work
For loving well and being well loved
For baseball and pianos and songs sung with your whole heart
For trumpets and jokes and paintings and stories
For prayers and goodnight kisses
For fresh cookies and warm bread with real butter
For foot massages and snugly boys
So thankful for passion that burns deep
For hurts and healing and fear and nudges
For life lived and not missed
And for Christ’s blood shed for both you and me

Happy Thanksgiving

Question: What are you thankful for?

35 Minutes Anywhere, Frankly

I really love Rascal Flatts!...I mean luuuuv them…Have seen ‘em several times live & have even been back stage (super cool). I love so many of their songs… (I interrupt this blog to suggest a really great Christmas present for anyone looking to buy me something life-changing: I want them to come over for dinner, I’ll make whatever Gary wants, and then we will all sit around my living room and I get to sing with them…every single song! Heaven.) …Anyway, one of their songs that really makes me think is Mayberry.

What they sing? I agree.

The world spins way too fast.
We need to slow down.
Take some time.
Connect.

I’d like to add another verse, too. Something about turning off the technology and actually looking each other in the eye, talking – deeply. Embracing. Sitting. Abiding…

I recently attended a leadership conference at my church that was filled with outstanding points. One of them was that we have to connect with God. I agree.
Daily. I agree.
The next point was new…and freeing:
Some of us love to read the bible and journal, in the morning, for the oft-proposed 35 minute block of uninterrupted time, and if you love it, absolutely do it. But this point was also made:
That’s not how all of us connect to God.
That’s not how all of us connect and it’s OK.
And in scripture, Jesus connected with His own Father in all kinds of ways, at all kinds of times. Jesus was not boxed into 35 minutes of journal writing every morning. And we are certainly not meant to close that journal after 35 minutes and say, “OK, God…great talk! See you tomorrow!”

WOW!

In fact, some people have been made to feel guilty and inadequate because they find journaling to be a chore…and they’re not morning people…and if they’ve got 7 kids under the age of 5, they don’t have 35 minutes in a row. Ever.

The speaker asked us to concentrate on our times of most powerful connection with God.
Mine?
I do love to read and ponder scripture.
Journaling…not so much.
In the morning…rarely.
But 35 minutes, when I gotta get out the door…That’s a laugh.
(I know some of you are thinking, “Just set your alarm for earlier, sister!”…Apparently, you don’t know me well enough. Night owl…God wired me like that…Hmmmm…)

Maybe it’s just that I can’t be that boxed in.
Maybe it’s because I don’t like other people telling me the best way for me to connect with God.
Maybe it’s because this life-long goody-two-shoes has a rebellious streak when someone wants me to do it like everyone else.

But this much I know to be true:
God wants us to connect with Him. Daily.
He wants a deep, abiding, rich, personal relationship with us.
He cares about every little detail of our lives.
And how about this radical thought? He wants us jotting down the insights he sends to us, running to look up a verse in scripture, sending up prayers right and left, talking and joking (yes, I really did say that!) all day long.
All. Day. Long.
I really doubt that He is concerned with all of the other stuff surrounding how we get there…just as long as we do get there.

Some of my most powerful moments and deepest connections have been late, late at night. Some have been while witnessing some spectacular aesthetic in nature. Some have been while witnessing to another person. Some have been while serving another person. Some have been while realizing how small and insignificant I really am. Some have been in the shower, where streams of tears join a river of steamy water. Many have occurred in the car. Many more have involved music.

Were those any less significant because they were not from 6:00 to 6:35am with a pen and a journal? Of course not.

So be free to experience God in your way. In your time. Throughout the day. All day. But every day. With no guilt about how. At least 35 minutes total, anywhere, frankly…just me and the power of God…just you and the power of God.

The point about connecting with Him is this: Just find a way to do it!