It’s my 28th birthday today.
I am thankful for my life today,
for the opportunity I have each morning to be alive, to be whole, to be free, and to be with the people I love. Each day is rich and full.
The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. I live with dreams and ideas and a reality full of wonder. I still believe in God, in goodness, in love, in absolutes – not because I always want to, but because it makes sense. I still believe fairies live in my flower garden – not because it makes sense, but because I want to.
I am thankful for new starts,
for fresh starts, reset buttons, and time-outs for grown-ups. I am thankful for the ability to feel, even when that means feeling pain. I am thankful for the freedom to say no, to live simple, to create my own enjoyment in life, to ignore negative people and to focus on all things bright and beautiful.
I am thankful for long walks, long naps, long conversations, and all of them being constantly interrupted by my children, because that means that they are whole, safe, happy, and with me.
I love this crazy hectic rushing pausing living breathing dancing feeling falling seeing hearing loving being doing running resting thing we have, this life, these moments strung together, these fly-by days, these vanishing hours.
I love the promise of eternity,
the hope spreading before me, the future opening up for me, limitless in scope.
I choose to dwell in possibility. I choose joy. I claim every wonder as a personal gift to me from the Maker. I relish the taste of each day I am given, I look toward the sun, I accept the clouds and the rain, I believe in redemption.
Everywhere I look I see the possibility of joy.
This year I am letting fly, loosing the things less-than-best. This year I am ignoring details to focus on one important thing at a time. This year I give myself the gift of order and discipline, which comes with a free trial pack of guilt-free, worry-free time-off-for-rest-and-renewal.
This year I will cancel my subscription to Worry Magazine, decline the offers for 1/2 off on “Comparing Yourself to Others: the Series” and will spend the time I save on the better classics:
- Guilt-Free Living
- Time with Family
- Prayer
- Fulfilling Work
This year my word is joy.
This year I will give more time to books and less time to the Internet. I will memorize poetry and ignore the news. I will sing songs instead of whining. I will go on dates with my husband, teach my daughter her letters, and cuddle my swiftly growing sons.
I will play in the dirt, climb trees, forget my weight, give more gifts, and accept the gifts I am given with a heart of gratitude and a life of grace.
Go then, eat your bread in happiness, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart; for God has already approved your works. Let your clothes be white all the time and let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the one you love all the days of your fleeting life which He has given to you under the sun; for this is your reward in life, and in your toil in which you have labored under heaven. Whatever your hands find to do, do it with all your might. {Ecclesiastes 9:7 – 10}
I dwell in Possibility–
A fairer House than Prose–
More numerous of Windows–
Superior–for Doors–
Of Chambers as the Cedars–
Impregnable of Eye–
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky–
Of Visitors–the fairest–
For Occupation–This–
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise–
{Emily Dickinson}
