LovingHim-RaisingThem

It’s 10.30am, The kids and I are all still unwashed in our pajamas relishing the slowness of this day. So far it’s comprised of eating, slouching, playing, reading and way beyond the recommended daily allowance of screen time. It’s one of those rare blissful days in a large family, one where everyone is occupied and happy, no one is arguing…after a busy, fantastic and fun festive period it’s heavenly.

Whilst I have pottered doing washing, making snacks and fetching things for people, I have also read my book and felt God speaking to me through it. And so unexpectedly I’m writing. I never write in the day when all the kids are home…there’s too many jobs to do, I feel guilty that my attention is elsewhere, it’s too noisy, the list goes on. But today it’s different, I’m still being interrupted every 2 minutes, it’s noisy but I don’t care….the need to write is great today. I kind of need to communicate the swirl inside my heart and spirit and this I realise is how I do it, by writing. I do not need to feel guilt if I’m honest what would I be doing otherwise in my slouchy pajamed state? Flicking through social media or gazing in the cupboard looking for leftover Christmas chocolate..would that be a more helpful use of time?

On the 3rd January 2017 at 33years old I finally understand something about myself in a new way. I’m a writer, not the best, most eloquent or creative one. But a writer all the same. God reminded me today through the book im reading, that as a little girl, a teen and a young adult one free of time constraints and responsibilities…I was always writing. Even as a mother of 1 and 2 children I wrote a lot. Yesterday whilst looking for some lost paperwork I came across 70000 words of a book I wrote a few years ago..discarded and shoved under lots of old files. Hours upon hours of my heart poured out, buried.

Life. What can I say…it’s messy and beautiful, it’s painful and joy filled, it’s dull and it’s wonderful, it’s ordinary and it’s glorious. And it’s flying by….

It’s days that roll into weeks, that roll into months and then into years. But they are made up of moments. The very moment that each of you are in right now is truly the only life that you really have. What’s gone is memories and what’s ahead hasn’t happened yet and truly we don’t know if it ever will.

So how then should we live. As people occupying this earth in 2017 how should we spend this wild and precious life that each of us have? I think it in the micro. In the moments, in the small descisions to forgive or be kind. To pick up an apple instead of a cake, and sometimes a cake instead of an apple. To add an item to our shopping trolleys for the food bank, or put down our screens and share a meal with someone important to us. To stop what we are doing and look our children fully in the face when they choose to share something seemingly small, but important in their world. 

Yet if we only live in the moment and the micro we won’t get to where we want or need to go. These moments need to be lived in light of the macro. In the light of vision and purpose and direction. 
It’s kind of like a giant puzzle made up of tiny pieces. We need the puzzle cover box to glance up at as we handle the small pieces that make it up…or we won’t have a clue how it all fits together.

So I encourage you to take time to figure out what the macro things are in your life. What’s important? Where’s God leading you? What does your giant puzzle look like? What needs to be introduced in the micro, in the daily to get you where you need to go? What’s in the way? What’s got to be eliminated?

Although it’s kind of cliche the new year is a good time to take stock of where you are. One of the things that Jon and I have always done to help position us is to pray for a word, a phrase or a scripture for the year. Sometimes it comes immediately, sometimes it takes weeks. But God is faithful and He always speaks to those who seek Him.

I’ve never shared mine before..it’s so personal. But this year I will as means of example and encouragement. And because someone else who lives miles away that I barely know has the same one…maybe it will be the word for one of you?

My word is ENOUGH.

God is enough, I’m enough, there’s enough time, I have enough stuff……

Well it’s sat for 45 minutes and my window to write this is well and truly over…it’s probably full of slightly over honest musings and typos…but hey if you’ve bothered to read this far I’m sure you don’t mind the unedited me.

Happy new year

May you take time to discover, renew and prune your macro. And enjoy, be present in and relish your micro wild and precious life

Love Emma x x