Penning Prayers on Paper.

Prayers on Paper.  My first journal I nicknamed Penning the Soul because that's what the Lord was doing with me -- writing my heart within the lines of scripture and notes and prayers on paper.  He funneled my emotional spirit using one camp counselor, one little black notebook, and my desire to grow with Jesus.  This counselors prayer journal suggestion began to reaped growth in me, internally.

Prayer journals.  Writing, focused, a way to read and scribble through Scripture, to scrawl thoughts on paper, to keep the brain organized and flowing.  I remember telling a friend a week later on a camping trip about my new prayer journal, with full excitement at such a solution.  And now here I sit, nearly twenty years later, and look at the years of prayers contained in pen.

I thumb through them, noting how many scriptures were circled and underlined and remarked on in my pages.  Remembering the tenderness of my heart to the Lord through the years, and seeing my cries and struggles and rejoices lined out before me.  Without opening, the covers bring back memories, of days in the Philippines, my couch on Krefeld, Taylor breakfast mornings, angered confusion through '09, with boys and trips and dreams in-between.  There's a years notes from a challenge to read the whole Bible, and so many times I laid out life choices with fear and trembling and begging for direction from the Lord.  Oh, how He used pen and paper to grow me closer to him!

I've kept them all these years, thinking some day I may use them in writing.  Perhaps referring back to a time He grew me, or an answered prayer, or a way to mark his work in my life.  But today I pull them out from layers of storage, slightly coveting how tender I used to be, but knowing its not the only way God speaks to me.

I'm thankful for the years of growth he's given me.  I'm thankful for the prayers answered, and unanswered.  For a home to rest my soul, a husband who holds my heart, and ministry that continues to provide hope.  I'm thankful for that young Taylor camp counselor, and direction God continued to provide for me each step along the way.  And tonight as I look at the spread before me, I'm thankful for the way he wrote his Word in my heart through penning prayers on paper.

Spode.

 

Spode.  They are the festival of Christmas.  They are beautiful and fragile and timeless all at the same time.  They are the look of the table, decorated with careful thought.  They are the feeling of tradition, home, on December nights.  They are the treasure that unviels each holiday season, and hide tucked away like advent, awaiting the coming King again amidst the months between.

 

My family holds a tradition of Spode.  My mother gathered it, in pieces and boxes, packing it as her own when her parents were no more.  An heirloom she cherished, a piece of heritage that only Christmas could behold.  We used them each year, covering an evergreen tablecloth with red candles and holly leaves with berries spruced inbetween.  They charmed the Christmas' of years at Homerich, and left comfort in our lives with the roots they grew and the food they served.

 

The Spode wasn't shared after my mom's death, though many of us had heart strings attached.  My brother went and purchased his own set, complete with the evergreen rims and presents around the base.  I waited in coveted longing, the season boldly showing the absence of Spode.

 

As engagement for Mark and I unfolded, Spode began to arrive, wrapped with ribbons as bows.  We agreed to leave it off the registry, yet somehow the sentimentaly of the story was told.  Bread bowls, dinner plates, and tea pots unpacked, each tied with a note from one of Mark's aunts.  The Spode heritage began Smith, but now blurred with Stone, just like the heritage we now vowed to create.

 

This year I thought of the Spode with fondess, then hesitated knowing the hectic holiday that instead was abreast.  No Spode would don the table, no plates would carry family dinner.  Yet I breathed assuredly, knowing the faithfulness that grew below my bossom.  Our children will know the story; our children will carry the heritage of Smith and Stone, sharing Spode dinners and traditions for years to come.  What tangible inheritence of the lives of familys, of generations bearing legacy.  What joy to know that Christmas blessings will, for Stone and Smith, still be served on Spode.

 

 



Baby Things I Don't Do.

This comes with a little bit of hilarity, a seriousness that's flippant but grounded, and perhaps a warning...

My beloved author Shauna Niequist writes a chapter in her book, Bittersweet,  "Things I Don't Do" and I think back on it often with such freedom.  Because the worlds ideas or expectations, the feminine or self ideas or expectations, the should do, would do, could do, don't do list sometimes seems endless, but her list was like, "ahhh... thank you!"

My friend Bekah Wallace wrote a post a few months ago I loved too, regarding these concerns as a mom, and I thought, "whew... thank you!" as she took the pressure off.  Somedays I feel like if I don't do cloth diapers or make my own baby food or feed fruits and vegetables at dinner.... If I do let my child watch TV or drink straight apple juice or cry until they sleep, then somehow I have let someone, or myself, down.

So perhaps this is just the beginning of the freedom, and the learning.  Noting now, first, the baby things I don't do, won't do.  To myself, and to prewarn, re-warn others so questions are averted and disappointment can be handled internally, without me.

So here's the start.  Baby things I don't do:

1. Seven Day Baby Pictures:  I'm not into awkward poses, naked gestures, and babies coming from buckets.  Sorry.

2.  Maternity Pictures:  Again, sorry to disappoint.  Those monthly Facebook post glare at me, and the professional photos find me squirming.  So I'll be hiding this belly with prudence and poise.

3. Weekly Sticker Pictures:  I know this is the big trend, but I think I'm going to choose to miss out.

4. Smocked Dresses:  Welcome to the South.  But my mama heart is still midwest and that means no smocked.  No way.  Never.  Why smock when there's Gymboree and Janie & Jack and adorable matching floral anything...

5.  Southern Boy Outfits:  Oh dear, rolling my eyes.  Hate them.  Give me a boy with John Deere and brown boots and mud on his hands any day.

6. Princess Themed Anything: Sorry, but happily ever after only happens in heaven.  And that's what I want my girl to learn.  Not about false truths that princes' here finish your life, and that body is perfect and you are the center of the world.  Can't do it.  Against my convictions.

7. Elf on the Shelf:  Seriously, what happened to Advent, awaiting Emmanuel?