Rooted in the Here and Now.

"The man who forgets to be thankful has fallen asleep in life." ~ R.L. Stevenson

I hate this quote.
It's true...and how often I have slept.

She.....is a stinker.

Jesus....help me not to forget to give thanks so that I don't fall asleep to my life.
...so that I remember that You are in the details.
In the moments.

What will I magnify today?
What will I name...  Remember?
The world - all broken and messed up?
The cracks running rampant throughout my own life as a woman and a wife?
The gaps in my mothering?

...Or maybe could I magnify something else....

Paul learned the secret of living...he learned how to be content in every situation...(Philippians 4)
He practiced.  He made habits.  He retrained his brain, his thoughts, his heart...

Naming something offers the gift of recognition..
"When we give thanks for the seemingly microscopic, we make a place for God to grow within us." ~ Ann Voskamp

Desiderius Erasmus once said:  "A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit."  When we make changes...or when we eradicate something from our lives - we have to replace it with something else.  Remove the bad...replace with good.  Get rid of the junk...replace with substance.

Wake up angry every morning because your kids are your alarm clock...realize this needs to change.
So...set the alarm for an even earlier time to give yourself an hour of silence and rebooting.
And do it over and over and over again...until you want it...and you need it.
Until you crave it.

 Feel ungrateful.  Feel unthankful.  Begin to count the gifts...both little and the large.

"Do not disdain the small.  The whole of the life -- even the hard -- is made up of the minute parts, and if I miss the infinitesimals, I miss the whole.  There is a way to live the big of giving thanks in all things.  It is this:  to give thanks in one small thing.  The moments will add up." ~ Ann Voskamp.

The moments will add up.
The numbers will grow.
Hearts will become softened.
Eyes will again see.
And mind-numbing practice of choosing over and over and over again to see...and to count...to remember...will become life changing.

Thanks-living drives out the nails of habitual discontent...and habitual griping...with habitual gratitude.
On the days we feel dead...those are the days when we most need to wake back up to the Glory of Now and the Beauty of Here...

The messes.
The mundane.
The crazy.
And the chaos....

It all becomes a sacred Holiness with God right smack in the middle.
And with His grace That. Is. Sufficient.

"Looking comes first." ~ C.S. Lewis
Our eyes are the windows into our body - Matthew 6
Jesus, give me your eyes to see...always and forever...

Braids.  I heart these.

And remembering is an act of thanksgiving...

~ Lego creations - Imagination Everywhere!
~ Laundry exploding - evidence of our wealth.
~ The way she shimmies up my waist when I pick her up.
~ Him beside me at the end of a long day - warm and safe.
~ Ransom singing:  "Jesus! Jesus!"
~ Sick boys, blankets everywhere, days of cozy.
~ Cribbage and coffee - with them swirling all around us.
~ Dates and conversation...and Grammies who watch our babies.
~ Despite the busy, despite the changes - always assurance of our love...
~ Snowy days at home - and naps.
~ Breakfast for supper.
~ Warm fire inside and the wind whipping without....

Snowed In.

Count the gifts.  Count the graces.  Never stop counting.
Always choose to see.
This is holy work...

This is how we slow our lives addicted to speed and our days that get blurred into smears.
This is how we become present...
And how we bring Heaven to Earthly moments...

Homemade drums...and requests for the real thing.

Slow.
Children at Play.

Seek and you will find...