To Remain in Him

Think

To remain in Jesus is to live a life of constant prayer. The doesn't mean that our heads are bowed and eyes are closed all the time. It means that praying is as constant as breathing, that we remain in dialogue with the Lord all the time. There is no part of our days that we don't give to Him and no thought that isn't part of a loving conversation with Him. Henri Nouwen writes, . "Prayer requires that we stand in God’s presence with open hands, naked and vulnerable, proclaiming to ourselves and to others that without God we can do nothing. This is difficult in a climate where the predominant counsel is ‘Do your best and God will do the rest.’ When life is divided into ‘our best’ and ‘God’s rest,’ we have turned prayer into a last resort to be used only when all our own resources are depleted. Then even the Lord has become the victim of our impatience.Discipleship does not mean to use God when we can no longer function ourselves. On the contrary, it means to recognize that we can do nothing at all, but that God can do everything through us. As disciples, we find not some but all of our strength, hope, courage, and confidence in God. Therefore, prayer must be our first concern."

Pray

Act

For a few minutes this morning, put aside your busyness and just be still with God. Not everything is pragmatic and measurable, not every act of love is an actual action. Just be a for  few minutes. Make yourself vulnerable; pour out all the little details and every concern. Do it as the first thing, not the last resort. Then, take that time together--that precious memory of intimacy-- and carry it with you all day. Bring it to mind again and again and bring God into every thought and every deed. Remain, all day, in Him.

I like to pray when I run in the morning. Often, I listen to Divine Office and pray Morning Prayer or the Office of Readings. Then, I just take up a conversation with God. I'd love to pray for you! Please leave your prayer requests below and we can pray for each other, no matter how we spend our morning prayer time. Meet me back here tomorrow and I'll share the ponderings from my morning run.

Morning Run

Think

So often, we begin our days with all the best of intentions. We have our lists and we say our prayers and we commit the whole thing to the Lord, hoping that we will do His will. And then someone drops an egg on the floor, and we realize that whoever was up for a midnight snack drank the last of the milk, and the details of the day sweep us up and into the world. 

It's not bad and it's not hopeless; it's just messy and busy. At midday, the Church invites us to pause, just for a few moments and to pray together for a holy re-setting. We invite God in to see the progress we've made and we ask Him to {gently} re-direct us where we've gone awry. We can come away from this midday prayer, refreshed and ready to take on the afternoon. 

Pray

The prayer above is from today's Divine Office. Just click the Daytime Prayer tab.

Act

Make Midday Prayer your new habit. You can pray along with Divine Office--it doesn't take very long, fewer than ten minutes today. Or you can just closet yourself in your room with your Bible and let the Lord speak into your noontime. There is respite in that. It's actually a lovely habit for children as well, a chance to pause and give thanks and re-commit the day to the Creator. Give it a go! I think you'll be glad you did.

I like to pray when I run in the morning. Often, I listen to Divine Office and pray Morning Prayer or the Office of Readings. Then, I just take up a conversation with God. I'd love to pray for you! Please leave your prayer requests below and we can pray for each other, no matter how we spend our morning prayer time. Meet me back here tomorrow and I'll share the ponderings from my morning run. 

Christmas Pajamas Sew-Along (and a Giveaway)

It's almost Nutcracker time in our house and I'm looking at a costume list that rivals Santa's naughty and nice list. Mostly, there's lots of lace and tulle to be prettied up. But at the top of the list is the complete creation of three pairs of Christmas PJs. Once upon a time, on the day that Sarah was born and began her NICU adventure, twin boys were sent home after their NICU odyssey. They were the sons of Mary Beth's ballet teacher. Six years later, when Sarah was allowed to invite two friends to celebrate her birthday, she chose Brett and Dominic. They're best buddies from birth. Conveniently, they are all also tiny for their age and just about the same size. They will dance together during the party scene in the beginning, playing the roles of Clara's youngest siblings. (Yes, we make stuff up to suit our cuteness potential.)

Photo courtesy: Oliver + S

Photo courtesy: Oliver + S

So, three sets of Christmas pajamas--two for boys and one for a girl. I'll be using the Oliver + S Sleepover Pajamas pattern and fabric to be ordered tomorrow. No later. I'll be ordering from the Fat Quarter Shop. It doesn't necessarily have to be Christmas fabric, though there's lots to choose from in FQS Christmas Cloth Store. It could be red and green something else. Because FQS has super fast regular shipping, I know if I order tomorrow, it will be here by Friday and I can share it with you on Saturday's Needle & thREAD. I'm thinking about dots--red with green cuffs on Sarah and the reverse on the boys, maybe. And Sarah's will have ruffle trim. I'm going to use quilting cotton, because they have to dance in it, but flannel would be really nice.

Here's the deal: Help me find the fabric. Leave a link below with your suggestion and you will be entered to win $25 towards your own fabric purchase. But wait! There's more! As we sew along (I have to be finished the week before Thanksgiving), we can share our creations. At the end, all the sewalong participants will be eligible for a $50 giveaway from Fat Quarter  Shop. This a super quick turnaround on the first giveaway: winner announced this Saturday. And then, just a three week sewalong and another winner.

Who's in?

Leave a link below to a fabric selection at the Fat Quarter Shop and you'll be entered to win $25 towards your next purchase there. 

Happy 18th Birthday, Mary Beth

We have a tradition of birthday posts here. It's a tradition my children look forward to every year (and one for which I'm three behind this month, but there's grace...). We also have a slideshow tradition. For big birthdays or when someone is leaving home, there's a slideshow. It involves much sifting and sorting through all photos, mom laughing and crying at the discoveries of memories, and Mary Beth staying up late to pull it all together. 

Today is Mary Beth's birthday.

Someone else stayed up late with all the memories. The same guy who used to walk across the hall from his room to hers and stay up late talking about anything and everything. The brother who is her hero and the standard by which she subconsciously measures all other men. The one who left her without a best friend when he was called up to the National Team at 16 and went to live in Florida.  Her best friend is back in his place of honor again, and their constant banter continues, if from afar. With some help from the forces on the ground here at home, he created his very first Youtube video for his first little sister.

So, Bee, Happy Birthday from Patrick:

Gathering My Thoughts

Outside my window:  The leaves are turning. It seems like the colors are duller this year, but there are spots of glorious maples, so I’m soaking those in. It was very chilly this morning. I need gloves and a jacket and a hat to run, but the sky is so gorgeous every day, at both sunrise and sunset. Well worth the shiver when I first step out. The morning glow was so gorgeous yesterday that, despite the instructions to “rest” (which I translate to “walk”) in my training plan, I found myself running so that I could see several of my favorite places as they came awake in the light. Autumn light shows are spectacular in Virginia.

Listening to:  Doctor’s office noises. I’m sitting in the waiting room at the physical therapist while Stephen works his Achilles.

Clothing myself in: Jeans and clogs and a sweater. I even pulled on a long jean jacket this morning. I’ve been so sad to see summer slip away this year, but I do love that jean jacket and it’s nice to have lots of handy, deep pockets again.

Talking with my children about these books:  Nicholas and I listened to Son of Neptune on the way to New Jersey and back and I’m now, officially, a Rick Riordan fan. I so enjoyed the book. Highly recommended narration, too.

In my own reading: it’s been all about the running reading binge lately. I’ll have a list of running books for you this week. I’m sure you can hardly wait;-).

Thinking and thinking: Actually, the brain is quieter these days. I’ve long been wrestling with some decisions and now they’re made. I feel so at ease with the course that lies before me that I’m thinking I decided the right thing. It took me almost 50 years to figure out that, really, I can’t be anything I want to be.

Pondering:

“It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill. Let the thrill go – let it die away – go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow – and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time. But if you decide to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will all get weaker and weaker, and fewer and fewer, and you will be a bored, disillusioned old man for the rest of your life. It is because so few people understand this that you find many middle-aged men and women maundering about their lost youth, at the very age when new horizons ought to be appearing and new doors opening all around them.” Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

Carefully Cultivating Rhythm: I think we have settled into as much of a regular rhythm as I can expect. I still foresee leaving town for Charlottesville at least a couple of times in the next couple of weeks and it seems like there’s always some big thing happening, but the airplane trips are behind us, and so is the drama that is The Homecoming Dance, and a few big soccer games. The days are finding their rhythm. It’s good.

Creating By Hand:  Christmas pajamas. Tune in tomorrow for some news on a sewalong and a very generous giveaway from the Fat Quarter Shop.

Also, much pointe shoe sewing, costume altering, and tutu-embellishing.

Learning lessons In: Embracing new seasons. Life has changed so much in the last two years. Three of my children have moved out. One has married and made me a grandmother. I’m no longer nursing a baby; indeed, my “baby” is quite the little lady now. My body is shifting and changing nearly as quickly as my twelve-year-old’s. We’re both taking up running to meet the new challenges. I find parenting a handful of teenagers requires every last ounce of wisdom I may have acquired over two decades of babies and little ones. And it requires as a big a leap of faith every single day as something as crazy as, oh, I don’t know, openness to life.  There is a little chill in the air as this season settles in. Still, I am called to meet it with arms wide open.

Encouraging learning in: Carefully reading the assignment, doing exactly what one is asked to do, and completing it cheerfully and on time. As homeschoolers, one of the biggest benefits is the ability to tailor a lesson, a course, or an entire childhood education. If the lesson as written goes on and on with endless repetition well beyond what is necessary for mastery, we just cut it short. If the method doesn’t work, we switch to something else.  Creativity is encouraged wildly. Rarely is a kid sent off on his own to muddle through vague directions. We’re right there to keep things on course. And if they were away all weekend at a soccer tournament and the bus broke down on the way home and it’s early on Monday and they’re tired, I cut them all kinds of slack. What I’m learning though, is that they need to learn how to work that other system—the institutional system—before they leave home. They need to understand how to follow directions and that sometimes we do stupid assignments because that’s what it takes to get through the class. Unless I teach them how it all works, they’re in for quite a shock.  I’m not sure how to balance the reality that they need those institutional skills with my own philosophy that everything must have meaning and the best education is a creative one, carefully tailored towards a child’s strengths. Daily, there is a striving for balance between two worlds.

Begging prayers: It was cold enough this morning to pull on my favorite pair of Elizabeth DeHority socks. I’m praying so hard for her. Every minute is a struggle and she’s fighting valiantly to meet the struggle with love and grace.

Keeping house: I’m all about the domestic. During September, I was gone so much that the homemaking routine was seriously out of balance. Now, I’m back and it’s autumn—the perfect time for some deep-down cleaning. I like to do a big decluttering and deep scrub-it-til-it-shines kind of cleaning before we batten down the hatches and before the population in my home swells with school breaks and holiday visits. The time is now.

Crafting in the kitchen: There were thinly sliced boneless porkchops on sale the other day. Mary Beth wanted Chicken Parmesan. I made Pork Parmesan instead and it is destined to be part of the permanent rotation. “Bread crumbs” were actually crushed rice Chex and Italian seasoning. Everyone liked it (that’s ten of us because Kristin was here, too) and there were serious fights over leftovers for breakfast the next morning.

To be fit and happy: The on-again-off-again 31 day series on life and running will resume tomorrow. Or the next day. I don’t know; life keeps happening. It will be back soon.

Giving thanks: For a man who works so hard and provides so well that I am able to say “not now” to an opportunity I thought I always wanted in order to invest wholeheartedly in the places where God truly calls me.

Loving the moments: Kristin and I have committed to getting outside every Friday. We're going to work our way through a list of trails and nature parks in our county. Oh, and we're planning to let the children come along with us.

Living the Liturgy: Advent ideas. Among my lofty yearlong plans, etched in ink back in January, was an ebook full of the best of Advent ideas. I’d love to deliver that to you, but it would take a miracle at this point because not one word of it is written. I believe in miracles, but it’s far more likely I’ll just share here in less-convenient-for-you fits and spurts.

Tip one: Order your Advent candles right now. You will be very glad you did.

Tip two: This book is amazing. Karoline is working on a review for you, but seriously, AMAZING. You want to have it.

Planning for the week ahead: My first baby girl turns 18 on Thursday. Takes my breath away. She’s got some excellent celebration ideas. We shall begin with lunch out with mom, move on to Pioneer Woman’s whiskey steak for dinner, and then continue the celebration on a mountaintop with some of her dearest friends over the weekend. A girl after my own heart. Truly.