A New Thing

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” – Isaiah 43:19

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Maybe it’s because it’s almost Easter. Maybe because my baby is cutting his first tooth, and my oldest is officially registered for TK. Maybe because, materially-speaking, our life looks a little bit different, and we are, almost tangibly, in the middle of new things.

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We upgraded my car. We’re in the middle of renovations on our current house – first the laundry room, then the downstairs laundry room and the master bedroom fireplace. Next week, the crown molding and the start of the kitchen demo. Meanwhile, we’re looking for THE house and scheming about a future vacation home. The one my sisters and I have been drooling over has eight bedrooms – EIGHT – and TWO kitchens. Also, a home theater with vintage pea green velvet seats and a legit indoor saltwater pool – a girl can dream.

Maybe because it’s officially spring – the season of orange blossoms, baseball games, strawberry picking and new quarterly goals. Or maybe it’s because around us, planes are literally falling out of the sky, children seeking refuge wash up on ocean shores, and deep, debilitating poverty still exists. Maybe the exact combination of joy, hope and reality is the reason why this verse has been reverberating in my mind and in my heart – See, I am doing a new thing!

See. Notice. Pay attention.

I am doing. Present tense. It’s happening now.

A new thing. Something even better than what we could imagine or hope for.

As a mom, I’m always on the lookout for the new thing – the funny new phrase, the skill to add to the baby book. This season, I’m remembering to look for the new in my own life – the practices that bring healing, the goals that bring growth, and the everyday acts of redemption that God is working into my story.

APRIL:

+Gratitude practice. I’ve been using Rachel Hollis’ Start Today journal as part of my morning routine. The combined practice of writing down the specific things that I am grateful for along with my ten biggest dreams and the next goal that I’m working on has been game-changing for me. This practice has absolutely helped revive my joy.

+On reading more. I have books scattered all over the house, ones that I bought and ones that I checked out from the library, that I can pick up easily. Educated is on my coffee table, Keep Showing Up (the quote that stuck with me – “If you’re not praying for your spouse, who is?”) is next to our bathtub, Outer Order, Inner Calm is the kitchen. I read The Song of Achilles (could not put it down!) and Devotion: A Memoir in bed and Girl, Stop Apologizing while I nursed baby M on the glider. On my Kindle: Inheritance. On my vanity: The Situation and the Story. Currently on my nightstand: The Passion Paradox, Circe, and Grumpy Mom Takes a Holiday.

+Things you come home to. If you’re into the Enneagram like I am, this was hilariously dead on. My husband comes home to a list of goals for the next 35 years of our life, and I come home to – “honestly, it could be anything.”

+Sun Bum chapstick (in Mango, Banana, Watermelon, and Coconut). You’re welcome. I have one of these in running water bottle pouch, another in my wallet, one in my car, and one in my jogging stroller.

+I’ll Have Another with Lindsey Hein, Episode 172. My friend Holl recommended this podcast, and while it’s geared towards athletes, specifically runners, I could absolutely relate to being a “pusher”. Also, Lindsey has four boys! (My future life?). The guest on this episode talked about how he was going to go into journalism and ended up studying Economics instead. I received a scholarship to go to the Northwestern School of Journalism, but the cold, Chicago winters turned me off, and I stayed in Southern California instead, and studied Econ. I’m currently reading The Passion Paradox because of this podcast.

MASH and other February Favorites.

The weekend after Valentine’s Day, I hosted a casual get-together at my house, a moms’ night in. There were a dozen or so of us, a mix of women from work and church, sisters and friends of friends. I bought all the Galentines decorations that Target had – everything heart-shaped and sparkly and pink – and a MASH game pad that turned out to be one of the highlights of the night.

Between sips of rosé and bites of macarons and mini cheesecakes, we filled out the templates with cars and cities, crushes and number of children.

In elementary school, when I played this last, it seemed like anything was possible. But when you already have 3 kids, is there really an option but to go up? I wrote 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, and breathed a sigh of relief when I got to cross off the latter three numbers, though I was truly bummed when the Mercedes G-wagen got booted off my cars list.

We went around and read our MASH outcomes out loud. Two of the girls both ended up married to Chris Pratt – sister wives – except that one got the mansion while the other got the shack. Someone ended up living in Positano; another girl driving a Toyota Highlander. I laughed out loud when I read mine because even with all of the possible options, I got, almost exactly, the life I wanted – David, three kids, a mansion, a career as an interior designer, and a reasonable, unpretentious, VW Atlas.

When I texted the photo of it to my husband (“You made the cut!”), he replied, “Yes! Phew. The G-wagen definitely would have come with Bradley Cooper, though. Too bad.”

That MASH sheet is one of my new favorite things. I saved it, in a box next to my vision board for 2019. A small, serendipitous reminder – the future is bright and the present is exactly what it should be.

Other February faves:

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+ The McGee & Co store. The fact that it’s next to Sidecar Doughnuts just seals the deal. I want everything, of course, but the Seoul wall clock and Holzer mirror are currently topping my house decor list. Chloe Hearts Art was in store doing sketches when I went, which was a bonus.

+ Khan Academy Kids. Khan Academy does such a great job with their teaching videos, and the boys love this app.

+ HP Tango Printer. Being able to print remotely from my phone, get ink automatically delivered, and have unlimited photo printing absolutely tilted our lives in favor of more efficient.

+Sleeping At Last Enneagram EIGHT podcast. The Sleeping At Last podcast is always such an great listen because of Ryan’s creative process behind the songs. This episode explored a little bit the difference between transparency and vulnerability, which was interesting.

+Elise Joy’s free daily goal tracker. This reminds me in a very visual and tactile sense that the year is made up of days, and every bubble filled in marks progress.

+Last, but not least, books!: Becoming by Michelle Obama was my book club’s pick for this month. Next month, we’re reading All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir. I started I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer, which I’m simultaneously terrified by and hooked on. I finally read some Anne Lamott – Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year – and Phileena Heuertz’s new book, Mindful Silence: The Heart of Christian Contemplation is on my nightstand.

January: Hope and a Future.

Over and over this month, I’ve seen references to the book of Jeremiah. Hannah Brencher, my patron saint for this season, wrote a post about Jeremiah 30, “The city will be rebuilt on her ruins.” I’ve seen references in sermon notes and in books I’m reading. I’ve seen Jeremiah mentioned so many times that I’m wondering if this is foreshadowing – we’re going to have a 4th boy, and in the tradition of Bible names that end in -ah, we’re going to name him Jeremiah.

2019, and my people.

2019, and my people.

I’m kidding. I think.

But I do take January seriously – blank slate and all that. January is one of my favorite months of the year. That hasn’t changed. The thing that has changed is how hard it’s been to come up with goals for this year, in light of the next ten.

2019 is the last year of the “teens,” the last year before an entirely new decade. So how do I take this year and make it count a decade from now? And how do I take those dreams and distill progress into one year?

Right before our annual family New Year’s retreat, I wrote my goals. Then twenty-something days into the new year, I re-wrote them. And I realized that my goals weren’t just goals. They were prayers. And that “hope and a future” isn’t a checklist. It’s a promise. And after the promise is an invitation – to come, to pray, to seek.

These are a few books, etc. that are lighting that path for me:

Word By Word: A Daily Spiritual Practice – I ADORE this book. Reading it feels like she’s been going through my mail. It all applies.

Boundaries for Your Soul – Such an important book for healing from hard things.

The Rock That is Higher: Story as Truth – Madeleine L’Engle is probably my favorite writer, and I’m learning so much from this book.

A Light So Lovely: The Spiritual Legacy of Madeleine L’Engle – Thinking and planning for the next ten years has me going down the legacy/memoir/biography alley.

Always Enough, Never Too Much – My favorite devotional book right now – I’m re-reading it. And Jess Connolly’s All Good Things Collective came out with an Enneagram line that is so good.

It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way – This book, and the Proverbs 31 study that go along with it, are game-changers for me in this season. So thankful for Lysa’s wrestling and her words.

First, Be a Follower – This is a Bible study, and not a book (see: Come Matter Here), but it has helped me to dive into truth in the best ways. If you’re looking for a study, I would start with this one.

One Word for 2019: Light

‘Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond all measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.’ We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? you are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
— Marianne Williamson
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If I’m honest, I’ve come into the new year a bit jaded and uncharacteristically hardened. That’s not the person that I want to be. And so, an antidote –

My word for the year: light.

Light as in seeing the light, speaking the light, shining light. More than anything, I want this to be a year of looking for God’s hand and seeing His grace. A year of noticing the gifts and seeking out the Giver. A year of cultivating warmth, positivity, and encouragement and surrounding myself with people who do the same. A year of journeying with my boys as they learn to shine their own small, but significant lights.

Light as in unburdened, light of heart, minimal. I want this to be a year of not holding onto what I am not meant to carry. A year of letting go of baggage, both literal and emotional. A year of few things – only what we need and only what we love.

Light as in sunshine streaming through the windows, sunsets on the beach and the glow given off of a fire pit around which we gather in Adirondack chairs making s’mores.

Light as in the opposite of dark. Because darkness in people, circumstances, our environment cannot always be avoided, I want this to be the year of looking for light in the dark places, the places where things are not what they should be. A year of “wak[ing] up with great expectation of these little reminders of God’s goodness.”

I’m beginning this year with Marilyn McEntyre’s book, Word by Word: a Daily Spiritual Practice, and in it she writes:

I invite you to discover, as I have, to my lasting delight, how words may become little fountains of grace. How a single word may open wide wakes of meaning and feeling. How a single word may, if you hold it for a while, become a prayer.

Light – my 2019 prayer and practice.