The Goal of My Days

Another week starts, the holiday season presses in, birthday and Christmas celebrations are quickly coming, and December travel plans are being made. Time is flying.

At 9:15 this morning, long after the day had started, I sped down the boulevard towards the high school with a folder containing forgotten homework. I was in my jeans and sneakers, but a sporty pullover concealed my night shirt. I recently fell doing something I don't regret but could have avoided and now my ribs are tender to movement and touch. The plumbers are on their way again despite having the whole of our outgoing pipes replaced a couple weeks ago. They need to make some more adjustments to this old house. Thirty minutes before our guests arrived on Thanksgiving our downstairs toilets quit working, and by the end of the evening there could be no outgoing water drainage.

This is real life. The good and the bad, it all swirls together each and every day. And the swirling never ends and the pace of time never slows, and here I am again wondering how I am supposed to ever relive all the beauty of life here in this little journal. I choose to see beauty, to find the adventure in the hardship, and to know that trials are eventually for our good. We've had some wonderful weeks, times of rest and times of work, times together with friends, a night away as a couple, days off school, festivities, play, wonderful and thought provoking discussions... When several weeks pass between posts, though, I never know where to begin, or how to pick and choose what to record.

So maybe I can't. Maybe the journal of my heart will have to suffice.

Each day I wake with a daunting list of tasks. Mostly, thought, my thoughts and prayers are quite simple. In the myriad of details and in the complexity of life, one thing remains plain and simple: Love.

I pray that the God of love Himself would teach me and enable me to just simply love those He has put in my sphere. Mostly, I want to love and cherish those right here under the same roof of my home-- my husband and children. Oh, to truly know how each needs to be loved in specific and unique ways! And then to do it... Without agenda, without expectation, without requirement. Pure and undefiled. Grace and Truth perfectly intermingled, perfectly practiced, perfectly granted and received.

When the day closes and tasks remain unaccomplished (ever mounting, never ceasing!), may I rest knowing that I had prioritized loving over accomplishing. And when I don't, may I remember that pointing myself and others to the One who loves perfectly is the most loving thing I could ever do or say.


~Katherine