Purpose 2019

Definition of purpose from Merriam-Webster

1a : something set up as an object or end to be attained : intention

b : resolution, determination

2 : a subject under discussion or an action in course of execution

on purpose

: by intent : intentionally

purpose

verb

purposed; purposing

Definition of purpose (Entry 2 of 2)

transitive verb

: to propose as an aim to oneself

Synonyms: Noun

aim, ambition, aspiration, bourne (also bourn), design, dream, end, goal, idea, ideal, intent, intention, mark, meaning, object, objective, plan, point, pretension, target, thing

Synonyms: Verb

aim, allow [chiefly Southern & Midland], aspire, calculate, contemplate, design, go [chiefly Southern & Midland], intend, look, mean, meditate, plan, propose, purport

***

Ok, 2019. I've got some time to make up. About 48 years, to be exact.

By the end of 2018, or rather, by the end of forty-eight years, I was really tired of chasing dead-end relationships. And tired of chasing. It's exhausting.

"Stop expecting those to hold space for you who never really have. Place a boundary around them if it is causing you heartache. Bless and release. Not everyone can come with you where you're going. Hold tight to those who are showing up for you." From Often Ambitious cofounder Lindsey Plevyak. 

These words were freedom over frustration.

I got really serious about discerning relationships that were life giving and those that were life stifling. I made margin for several people I don't normally see, and realized soon why it is I don't normally see them: they don't show up.

Bah. Boo. Bah.

I've been working on 2019 goals. Scheduling time to work on myself. Scheduling time to be at home. Scheduling space for the ones who show up.

I'm excited for a new year. I am excited to live in purpose, on purpose.

I remember his words, "We can be anything we want to be."

How I love that man.

Happy New Year!

And still counting (12,946-13,031)

What a year. Good. Bad. Ugly. Freeing. Restoring. A gift.

I handled some hard responsibilities this year. Cried a lot (a lot, a lot, a lot) of tears. Cried some more. Learned things. Grew from them. Was changed by them. I'm finishing this year world's away from how it started.

Thankful, thankful.

Powersheets 2018
66 Books
Angela
Amilcar
Melanie

a buyer who loved his house as much as I loved mine
a sale
a runaway hound
a puppy
worsening vision

a deer on my bumper
forced days home
a last celebration
her telling heart
the lawyer's table

a glass of red
an end
a beginning
weight loss
running

yoga
progress
books in the mail
this wonderland
Sofia

Sherry
Becky
Denise
Marshall's Mom
Anita

Sandy
a trip
a grandson
a ropes course
a rock wall

a goal, met
another goal, met
a Viking heritage
a Viking ship
special friends

a new church
new vision
new clothes
new life
Thanksgiving

a fleece pullover
Christmas cards in the mail
puppy toys on the floor
lunches with friends
cancellations from others

fire in the wood stove
new perspective
Tracey
the heartache
the heartbreak

the tears
the growth
His presence
my guy
the friends who cheered

the ones who didn't
peanut butter blossoms
good coffee
good neighbors
another year on 66 Books (hello, 2019)

new writers
returning writers
a new reading plan
the quiet after Christmas
hats for my head

slippers
mantle lights
a handy man
restoration
the woods in winter

kids who want to stay kids
home, sweet home
peace
podcasts
step goals, met

God's provision
God's protection
God's presence
God's purpose
God's peace

Powersheets 2019

2018--death and resurrection

January: got my dad's house prepped for sale; set down some goals; tried to carve out some home time with the kids; Nella ran away and was found

February: tea parties; snow days; a house contract

March: got Ruth; got wise

April: decided I wasn't getting anywhere significantly with my goals; got running shoes; put myself on my priority list for real

May: started running; hit a deer; vision got worse; Lanie got a merit scholarship for piano lessons

June: started calorie counting; started yoga; started losing weight

July: kept on

August: became a grandmother; prepped for a new school year; (world shattered)

September: back to school; co-op; piano; started living; lost 25 pounds; went places together as a family

October: took a trip to see our people; Vikings; Beowulf; genetic testing; sweet 16; lost 30 pounds; cataract surgery; felt the love of friends

November: healing; lost 35 pounds; Thanksgiving; grasping new joy and holding tight

December: gratitude; new rhythms; laid down new goals; celebrated our life and the people who chose to stay in it

Seek

1 : to resort to : go to

2a : to go in search of : look for

b : to try to discover

3 : to ask for : request seeks advice

4 : to try to acquire or gain : aim at seek fame

5 : to make an attempt : try —used with to and an infinitive

synonyms: chase, forage, hunt, look up, pursue, quest, search, shop

I don't know what I hoped to find this year. A word from the Lord. Direction. Maybe because of the stress and noise this year, I didn't recognize its work around me the way I have in the past with other words: community, wholehearted, service. 

Seek was quiet in the noise, until it was loud in the silence. The slamming shut of sound in August's discovery. And then it was there, where it was all along, and maybe it was all I needed.

Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. Matthew 6:33, NLT

Seek God's kingdom above all else. 

Live righteously.

He's got this.

Keep your eyes on Jesus. Do the right thing. He will take care of the rest.

I know that I was looking for truth this year, answers to things that were keeping me stuck in grief. I didn't get those answers. But I got the truth. It changed everything. It changed me. It was just enough glimpse, enough to show me that if I kept looking back, I'd stay stuck. And if I brought that along with me into the future, it would be to my further grief. 

God has revealed things like that to me in the past. Just enough. To show me what he'd been protecting me from. (Thank you, God, for protecting me. Thank you for showing me just enough so that I can move on. Thank you for helping me to see what are distractions from purpose and a kingdom focus.)

Seek broke me. It buried me. It planted me. It grew me. 

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. ² We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne. ³ Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people; then you won’t become weary and give up. Hebrews 12:1-3, NLT.

And still counting ... (12,919-12,945)

cancelled plans
applesauce bread for my kids and me

margin made for friends from the past
Kristine
Jackie and Vivi
a red dress for Christmas
time together

a full calendar for 66 Books
gifts for neighbors
and a special gift from a neighbor
Jackie's text with the bald eagles
yoga

a full fridge
heat from the woodstoves
a hat for my head
cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning
the little lights from Aldi along the fireplace mantles

a lovely Christmas home, together
an afternoon nap on the couch
books to read
fleece pullovers
dogs with bows

Christmas Eve nachos
ice cream in the freezer
that man of mine
a new church
family

Christmas service

Christmas Eve book reads

this guy keeping the fires going

Christmas Eve book reads

their first Christmas with Caden

grand love, that smile!

fully grateful

Remember well

Shavasana one night, and I was trying to restore balance in a busy season. We were stretched out on our mats, and she guided us beginning at the little toe, and moving across our foot and up one side of the body. I listened to her prompts and focused my attention where she directed us, and suddenly in my mind, I'm sitting in that space between the store front and the ovens, the room where the cakes were iced and the donuts fulled and trayed. It is Christmas time and I'm with the One Who Loves Me at the bakery Christmas party. I'm sitting on a five gallon bucket of icing, like it's a chair in the space, and there's eggnog and merriment, and I'm telling jokes to anyone who will listen. I was eight or nine years old. It was Christmas time, and I was happy.

***

We attended a Christmas service at a new church this year. I was so acutely aware that we weren't at the church we had spent at least ten years, but it was ok being someplace new. Some neighbors go there and I recognized many other families. The message was probably one of the best I had heard, as so many are often geared toward people who are far from God or have never heard of Jesus. And this was also part that message, but part reminder to me: you fit here. 

Introductions on the stage and telling of Christmas memories. One guitar player a father, and his daughter on keyboard and vocals, and her husband on another instrument (I don't remember which), and she shared a memory of family and cousins and Christmas and caroling, how they ended their time together singing "Silent Night." I imagined this musical family, a large family, a place of welcome and celebration, and how they spoke of paper plates reinforced to bear the weight of all the food and feasting.

(Didn't my heart wonder in that moment? That those memories could be real. And at the end of the day, I'm still thinking of how blessed they were and are, to share a table of generations and love. And I am reminded of my own emptiness.)

We ended the service holding candles (with real fire), singing "Silent Night." 

***

I took an evening walk with Shane tonight while the kids manned the kitchen and made dinner. He and I walked in the growing dusk and appreciated the lights and glow from nearby neighboring houses.

"Next year, I really am going to get a lighted wreath and put lights on bushes. And I might get tiny evergreens to flank the doorways," I said. I imagined wrapping the cherry tree trunk and limbs in white lights. I am so often ambitious. Lanie will be seventeen. It would be a first year ever of decorating outside. But I am new, and starting over is freeing and foreign. I have so much time to reclaim.

As we finished a pass down a street, a truck pulls up at our friend's home, and guests step out holding gifts in hand. I was wistful watching this anticipation of gift giving, of friend or family, of a gathering at a table.

***

I wore a red dress to church today.

"You are not a red person," Erin commented.

"I wasn't a red person," I agreed. "But today, I am." And maybe more days too.

***

The pastor was going to talk about Jesus and his other name, Immanuel, and broke for a moment to encourage us to share another name or nickname we went by as a kid. A woman turned around to face me and said, "I was called Kate."

I smiled.

"My dad called me Chopper," I told her. I don't know how I got that name.

***

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and we'll spend the evening, the four of us, like we have in the past, eating Christmas Eve nachos. I got us our own copy of "It's a Wonderful Life," to my delight and Shane's dismay.

Christmas day, we'll wake to cinnamon rolls and Christmas music in the rooms, and there will be fires in the woodstoves and we'll set the table for a family feast of duck with Chinese 5 spice, for Erin--Brazilian cheese rolls, and for Lanie--mac and cheese. I'm going to try a flan in the Instant Pot. 

***

"I look at her face and I feel sad for her," I told Kristine. I looked with sadness at the January image of me, the me who didn't know what this year would hold. And even I want to abandon her.

January 2018

It is too much.

I can't forget the first forty-eight, as much as I would like to, but maybe I can remember well.

December 2018

Reflection of 2018

Well, 2018, along with some gifts for Christmas, I'm wrapping you up too.

Every year I like to do a look back reflection from a questionnaire I got years ago from blogger Jamie Martin, of the Simple Homeschool fame. I've been doing this a long time, and I've discovered something when it comes to Most Valuable Relationships--Mean People are quite possibly the biggest catalysts for growth, rivaled only by their nemeses: Super Awesome People.

I want to take a moment to publicly and broadly thank all the Mean People who've sat at my table. If you weren't sandpaper against my soul, you wouldn't have roughed and sloughed off the places that needed smoothing. Oh, just when you thought you left me for dead, the Samaritans came along, picked me up, fed me, clothed me, sheltered me, checked on me.

Sillies. Good always wins.

So to publicly and broadly thank all the Super Awesome People: THANK YOU! Really and truly. While Team Mean has shown me what bitterness, anger, hatred, complaining, contempt, and jealousy can do to a heart, the Super Awesome People have shown me the power of inclusion, love, acceptance, gratitude, joy, service and humility.

And now, a bloggy brief look at the whirlwind death and resurrection of self in 2018.

It was a full year. I hustled responsibilities. I worked myself toward the grave until God supernaturally intervened and worsened my eye sight and flooded our region with what seemed like an excessively rainy season. And to keep my butt home, a deer made itself a target for my front bumper. And then, a couple of months later, I died.

But wait, there's more.

I am finishing off 2018 a completely different person than the one who started. And that is all God's goodness and grace.

8. A favorite read: Walking with God by John Eldredge.

15. The most enjoyable part of my work: tending my home and homeschool.

16. The most challenging part of my work: being fully present and not letting outside issues distract me from life now.

18. Best use of time: mercilessly wrestling balance in my life. It took the form of running, yoga, meal planning and preparation, podcasts, family trips, and margin for happiness.

What's really crazy is how I felt guilty for taking time for myself and making my own happiness a priority. My husband and kids got to be part of the journey, and so did friends who respected my boundaries. The ones who didn't respect boundaries were the most put off by my change and progress. There were also people who were not encouraging as changes took place, and that left me a little sad. I'm reminded it has more to do with what is in their hearts than the extent or quality of my own achievements.

Life observations from around the internet to ponder with your coffee and cookies:

"Your circle should want to see you win. Your circle should clap loudly when you have good news. If not, get a new circle."

"Pay close attention to the people who don't clap when you win."

"It's the people NOT LIKING your pictures who are paying the most attention."

Merriest wishes to you this Christmas and best hopes for your happiness in 2019.

And still counting ... (12,892-12,918)

a foggy start
a task completed and behind
the exhale
laughing on walks

tissues at the counter
her vulnerability
and a safe place for voicing my own
that song
peppermint patties in the freezer

the fullness of a finished run
a fleece pullover
a hot cherry pit bag
peppermint meringues
podcasts on a walk

a cheery call from the hospitality house
Olivea's hug
the best mashed potatoes
a basket of chocolates and lights
mini mugs to gift away

acrobats
a holiday performance out with the family
twinkling lights
a Sunday afternoon with Rebecca and Abi
kids laughing over cocoa

hot fires
books to read
Ruth

Day story

December 2018

Outside my window, it's completely dark. The temperatures are in the twenties. Heat is humming. My neighbor leaves his holiday lights on through the night, and it is a wonderful sight. Hello, December.

Giving thanks for festive seasons and celebrations. December was transformed when I birthed Erin. A month that always represented darkness suddenly became full of lights. I have a friend whose birthday is in December, and she loves sharing the season with Jesus and Christmas. It's a month-long celebration. Erin feels that way too. Thankful for a season of lights and sparkle and sweetness. It's all the hygge.

In the school room, advent readings and Robin Hood; fires in the wood stove, and bits of hygge to go along. I love the lights along the mantle. I love the warmth of browns in this room. Today, an abbreviated schedule to celebrate my girl.

From the kitchen, mint ice cream is softening on the counter. I'm getting ready to make her ice cream cake, and Erin is all about mint (Lanie loves lemon). She has requested, on this day, her birthday, to sleep in as late as she wants (funny, because she's my late sleeper EVERY day). And then we'll begin the day with heart waffles and maple syrup. Wasn't December made for this? A hot breakfast, a sweet syrup, a celebration?

I am pulled into this moment. I don't know when it started, but my kids' birthdays sometimes take on the preparations of a full blown feast. Lanie talks of what cake she'd like on her next birthday, or what lunch. This day is full of feasting. All the best stories have a feast. We just left Robin Hood's feast in Sherwood Forest, and soon we are beginning to enter the winter feast of Sir Gawain. But today, we are feasting here on a menu selected by a middler: pizza for dinner. 

I don't want to forget twelve. She's turning twelve today, and as I hugged her last night, she was taller in my arms, and her personality takes on new edges, and I wondered, "Where did eleven go?" It was all the same 365 of any year, but why do I feel like I missed it? (It's because I did. It's because I was so consumed with the tasks and the worry and the stress and the busyness. I was filling up the days with all [the other their] tasks, and trying to keep up with my own, that I missed the very wonderful of what is right under my roof.) I held her in my arms, eleven for the last, and wished I could go back to ten and live it over and be present. I missed eleven. Lord, help me to be here for twelve.

Around the house, holiday lights. Practicing hygge. Christmas music. Humming heat. Mantles bright. I filled in the grid with a smattering of commitments, and I hold my hand in halt against the tipping point between full and overflowing. After two years of hustle, empty blocks are a salve. I want to slow and enjoy this small break between an end and a beginning. I want to leave margin for opportunity.

I am hearing Ruth scamper through the school room, playing. Puppies know how to play. They entertain themselves if they can't engage their humans.
 
A view of my favorite things:

bright mantles

pie for a recent breakfast

winter sunrises

baking with a friend

eleven, a last

humming

schmutt

hound

At the table, tonight, pizza and warm lights and festivities and ice cream cake. Celebration. Life. Happy birthday, Erin. xoxo

And still counting ... (12,867-12,891)

a stunner sunrise on a morning run
66 Books
good tutors
Marshall's Mom

girls baking Christmas cookies
holiday vibes
a warm fleece pullover
a balaclava for cold weather running
podcasts that bring me to tears

a soundtrack
gold bowls that hold prayers
yoga
a warm mug of creamy coffee in my hands
hygge lights

Ruth
cancelled spaces
hot fires in the wood stoves
Christmas music in the house
Advent readings

Robin Hood
medieval history and literature
her love of science and math
our thirteen years of cayenne colored couches
eyesight

health

And still counting ... (12,853-12,866)

for science, piano and math tutors
little lights of hygge
heat from the wood stoves

a hug with Olivea
a pumpkin roll that turned out lovely for her
a tea with Rebecca
and the unexpected uncovering in our conversation
a day cracked open for thought

worship in church
communion
66 Books
yeses confirmed
friend visits on the calendar

yoga

Whatever befall

These are the photos, that when I see them, I see through them.

This was in 2016 when we went out to get ornaments. This is before we found out Shane's mom had died. We found out later that evening. When I see this picture, I know we are getting ornaments. But more so, I remember it as the day Jane died.

There is a picture I have of Erin and me, our shadows stretched out long ahead of us. We were on a morning walk in January 2017. The day my dad died. I already knew he was gone when we went for the walk and when I took that photo. Every time I see that picture, I associate it with his death.

This was a June day cherry picking at a neighbor's house. We were walking back home, and Lanie was ahead of me. This day seemed so charged, or maybe that's how I see it now in hindsight. It was the day my niece was killed.

This was on August 10, 2018. It was a day so much came to light, and a day that either was turned upside down or right side up. But it was the last day of life as I knew it. It was the day I died, but I didn't know it yet. This picture represents an end, and a beginning.

A very good friend and I were talking about ends, and she knew I was still stuck in the stun. I told her that I felt that not just a chapter of my life was over, but that the whole book ended. She said to me, "When you finish a book, you don't leave it open on the counter on the last page and keep re-reading it. You close the book and put it on the shelf."

Another friend and I discussed friendships and insecurities, and after she left I spent the day processing what our words brought to the surface. About a painful time that everything I believed to be or hoped could be true wasn't, and that it wasn't just a time, but all time. (All time.) And when that truth was revealed, a book was closed, not just a chapter. I'm still trying to accept it.

Shane said it looks like I'd been crying. I had been. And I was trying to muster up all the strength to move on. Queue Big Smile.

This year was an end and a beginning. I don't leave it unchanged. In fact, I hardly resemble the woman I was when this year started (but I still think that that woman was a rockstar, considering all she was trying to keep going. I'd go back in time and hug her big time if I could.).

January: 35 pounds more and a lifetime ago

October: past goal, still going, worth every effort

I'll be finishing out the year here, but I'm not sure if I'll keep this blog going. Eleven years is a good run. Thanks for reading.

On, on.