heart full of thanks

Sometimes I wake up less than excited about life. Sometimes I just want to curl up in my bed and forget the world around me and sleep away the day. I have the tendency to lose myself in those darker places and shut the curtains on the world around me. I don't always know where it comes from; sometimes it's weather induced, other times it's situational. I'm tired of waking up less than excited about life, because life is something to be excited about.

I've started a new morning ritual and it's made all the difference.

Right when I wake up, before my feet touch the floor, I grab my laptop from the floor and write in my word document, "heart full of thanks". Each morning I just make a simple list of things I am thankful for. Sometimes it's a long list and sometimes it's short. Sometimes they are trivial things and sometimes they are meaningful things. It has done wonders for my attitude. I start my day in a posture of gratitude and praise.

I just read something I had scribbled from a sermon I had heard in college.

Praise is the permanent pulsation of the heart

Praise and gratitude should be like the rhythm of our hearts. We breathe in the brokenness, joys, sorrows and heartache that life often brings and we breathe out praise and gratitude. Each breath is an opportunity to see all that is in and around us and to be grateful. Grateful because we know we are being kept by one much greater than ourselves.

I am my Father's daughter

I’m sitting in my bed feeling the warmth and heaviness of blankets and down. It’s absolutely winter outside and I can hear the icy wind blowing outside my window mixed with the sweet melodies playing from my computer. It’s a mellow evening at home, a night where there are things I could do but I shamelessly choose to do none of them and just sit in the warmth of my thoughts and music. It’s from my bed that I catch my reflection in the mirror and see a face that is like my mother’s in so many ways and still there are a couple features remind me that I am my Father’s daughter, like that widow’s peak of a hair line or the pug face wrinkles that appear on my forehead when I make various expressions.

I found out this week that my Dad’s cancer is gone. The surgery was a success and he is cancer free (!!). Oh what a sweet phone call to receive. To hear my Dad on the other line telling me that he’s in the clear and that we don’t have to worry any longer was the biggest relief. I could finally breathe again.

I’ve spent a lot of time lost in my own thoughts since my Dad found out he had cancer. I traveled down the countless paths that could have been with each diagnosis or treatment and what each would look like in our family and in our relationship. I held my breath as I thought about losing my father without ever really knowing him. There are customers at the Dragonfly that I know better than my own dad. That fact alone makes my heart sink. I want more than that.

That’s enough of a start for me. The fear of losing my dad is enough for me to get my act together and have the sort of relationship with my dad that we never had, the kind where I can call him without any reason but to say hello, to watch football together and actually understand the terms he throws around as easily as I do laughter, to go out for breakfast and feel at ease in conversation and the generous amounts of syrup we pour over everything (Hannon’s have a wicked sweet tooth), and mostly to feel that I haven’t missed out what could be an amazing relationship that has been so close yet so far away all these years.

thankful in the midst

The seasons seem to be changing again and I feel as though hard things come around in the winter. I have a hard time thinking of a winter that wasn't tough. The leaves change into glorious colors all vibrant and bright and then they fall leaving everything barren.

As hard as it is, I appreciate the rawness of winter. There are no leaves, less color, gray skies and a season of waiting of anticipating, of advent.

Thanksgiving is next week and though I have an abundance of things to be thankful for, it's hard to be thankful when cancer becomes part of the equation. Walking alongside my Dad as he awaited tests, results and the end result of cancer was and is not an easy path to tread. He is going in for surgery on Monday. My family and the doctors are hoping a surgery will be all that is necessary so please pray with me.
I know I am not ready to even think about where the path might lead. I feel far too young to think about losing my parents. I fear the path ahead but I also have a great hope that a transformation is possible; in the medical outcome and in our relationship. God does his biggest work when we're at our worst and I am holding onto that trust that He will be faithful in the work He has begun. I'm thankful for a lot of things God has done, but I'm hanging onto the gratitude that I'll feel for the work He will do.

a quote from my favorite pastor in Seattle, Richard Dahlstrom,
We think that gratitude is all about remembering the good things God has done for us and giving thanks. Surely this is a piece of gratitude and thanksgiving. If we limit our thanksgiving to recalling the gifts that God has given us, we will miss most of the story, because most of the story is about how God transforms us right in the midst of challenges in this fallen world...
So perhaps this is the year when we'll give thanks, less for what's happening in this present moment (though God knows that there's still plenty of reasons for gratitude if we take even a cursory look around us), and more for what God will do as we collectively walk through these 'very interesting days', as I recently heard them described. I hope and pray that on the far side of these crisis, we who claim to follow Christ will be shaped, liberated, and transformed, so that our lives will overflow with the purity, generosity and joy that is the heart of Jesus.

may we all choose to be thankful in the midst...

the view from here

What I love about this morning and the view from our breakfast nook.

-It is a gloriously sunny morning and it just pours into this little room like heaven.

-Over the Rhine is playing in the background (Put your elbows on the table. I will listen long as I am able. There’s no place I’d rather be…)

-Karyn always makes a whole pot of French press which means I can wake up later and have coffee waiting for me.

-My Golden Grahams were starting to get soggy, so I ate them really fast and remembered a funny conversation on the Mallory Porch.

-There’s still a piece of honey oat bread that Jeannie BAKED FROM SCRATCH, what? And for the moment I can breathe enough to taste it. Another piece of heaven right there.

-I see Leisha’s beautiful photo on the LaHash magnet on the fridge and miss her a lot but love that I have friends with passion that move to the other side of the world to do the incredible work they were designed to do. It’s incredible to see the stories God writes with my friends. I’m blown away over and over.

-I look to the chalk board on the wall and see a new note about gratitude and I love it and smile and feel grateful all at once.

-Behind the spice rack is a brainstorm drawing of our plans to surprise john on his birthday and kidnap him with balloons and take him to underground glow in the dark, black light, pirate themed miniature golf. I remembered how the plan was executed perfectly and how fun that was and I smiled again.

-I look on the walls and see the beautiful Painted Hills photo and gush to myself about how stinkin’ beautiful it is and how I want to go there, like right now. Then I look and see the picture of flowers above the brainstorm and love the photo perspective. The flower’s underbelly is my favorite and no one seems to take pictures from that angle.

-I see the empty brownie jar. The jar that had all the fixins for brownies (just add eggs and butter) that I got for Christmas…of 2007. I laugh at how Mike and I attempted to make the brownies anyway. Ok, well not attempted. We did make them. Attempted to eat is more accurate. Turns out making brownies that are a year and a half expired is not a the best idea. Haha. Mike was a trooper though, he ate a piece. A week or so later, we threw it out.

-I look across the street at Bob and Matt’s house and think about how great they are and how they invited us to their housewarming party via a note on a pink piece of paper. And how Karyn and I went and drank Miller High Life and how Bob and Matt are very close-talkers and how they are the sort of neighbors I dreamed about having and how we got cheered for as we left.

-Charlie and Caper are being cuddly dogs this morning and I like it when they are sweet and cuddly and not all barky and bitey. I think they like Over the Rhine, too.

Mondays aren't so bad.