Friday and Saturday: Movement Towards Contentment

Yesterday was so full of things.

I walked nearly 1 hour, briskly with lots of steps... 

I wrapped gifts.

I made meals.

I prepared the dough for the fruit and nut bread. 

I did dishes.

I loved the quiet and how beautiful dishes can look in the 

white older dish tub. 

Today we walked, not as much as yesterday.

I baked the bread and we enjoyed some for breakfast.

We had a real Trader Joe's lunch:

fish sticks + root veg frozen that I sprinkled vegan chicken-less spice mix on,

sprayed olive oil and and splashed white balsamic vinegar as well.

And then promptly ignored the instructions to flip them half way

and they got a bit on the burnt side but my Husband likes them that way

and they were just fine. 

Tonight I had lentil soup from a restaurant near church.

Church I always find so very beautiful.

I feel like I am always trying to capture the beauty of it

and never fully doing so.

I've had Christmas songs in my head all day. Beautiful.

I've come to realize that while I don't have a lot of community like 

I used to have, I have a few really good friends 

and while we live in different cities now,

we still have a great bond and friendship.

***

I am really grateful. 

I am reading this book for the first time

and it feels like such a deep gift.

I've had it a few years.

I am so grateful.

I heard them speak at about the time they were writing this book.

Madeleine just radiated love, the love of God, to us.

This is what had me reading her again, and by the next fall

(I heard them in the Spring of 1996), 

I was reading Walking on Water which Madeleine wrote

and Luci edited.  I read that book second to my Bible

and it was transformative; I read so much L'Engle after that. 

I was really nourished and Mothered by L'Engle.

Now I know more of how to nourish and mother myself.

And that surely includes reading books! 

***

I am still, while super thankful for my strong friendships

with friends who have known me 20+ and 14+ years & those who are

about 9 years or so in my newer NJ life,

I am still praying for friends for myself; people I can talk about 

what matters with, which is Christ and then everything else.

Our world is so off kilter, so little space for dialogue.

Just a lot of people speaking their position and not at all

wanting to engage in the other's person's thoughts,

esp. if they are divergent from their thought. 

***

Well. It's late.

Actually I had been nearing sleep when all of a sudden

we heard a BEEP BEEP BEEP and both of us 

scrambled to figure out WHAT and WHERE.

I finally did, when asking my Husband if he had thrown away

a smoke detector (he had just changed them out

as they were old).  BINGO.

***

So all week I feel like we have been weaving webs of 

peace, re-balancing from a busy Thanksgiving time and 

a lot of various stresses. 

I want our home to be a haven of peace for ourselves,

even in the midst of a pandemic. 

Living safely but without gut-wrenching fear.

***

May God bless, guide and have mercy on us!

May our Lord Christ help us and light our way!

Lord have mercy on us!