It's time for a new blog post.  

A post I'm not sure how to start.  I've deleted my opening line several times.   I guess when all else fails for an opening, I should start with memes :)

That last one.  Oi.

I am emotionally exhausted from the one hour I spent with my kids before they went out the blessed door.  Sheesh.

Anyway, on to the meat of this post.

Wait.  Speaking of meat, please enjoy these two menu plans that happened recently at my house:

My kids exhaust me but they also make me laugh on a daily basis.  I guess it's God's way of keeping me from selling them on eBay.

Ok, for real this time, on to the important stuff.

Yesterday at church Pastor Brian introduced a 40 day prayer challenge to our congregation.  It starts today and runs thru black Friday.  There was an email sent to us with a  simple one page reflection/scripture/prayer for each day.  

The only thing that is simple is the layout.  I'm not even sure I can pray the first one sentence prayer.

"God, you have my permission to rearrange my life however you see fit."

For the love.

I have finally (I think) gotten used to our fall schedule.  I'm feeling like my days are taking on a rhythm and a shape and now I'm supposed to tell God he can rearrange my life however he sees fit?!

I feel like a two year old in a full blown tantrum.  Face down on the floor, arms and legs flailing, screaming "NO!" again and again at the top of my lungs.

It's a good thing God is a patient Daddy.

And, as if that one line prayer wasn't enough, there are four questions to consider:

#1. Eliminate:  What in my life must I get rid of?

#2. Reduce: What am I doing that I need to do less of?

#3. Increase: What am I doing that I need to do more of?

#4. Introduce: What must I add to my life?

Aahhhh!

These questions are enough fat to chew on for the rest of the week (if not longer!).  I am scared to see what tomorrow's challenge brings.

And yet I am ready.  I know that my initial reactions are proof that I need this.

My prayer as of late is that Jesus would help me to be the best me I can be.  To be intentional in my everyday life.

I know immediately what I need to reduce and what I need to increase.

Screen time.  Ain't nobody need more of it.  I need less of it.  My kids need less of it.  And it scares me spitless because I know if I reduce their screen time it will involve more intentional parenting from me (read that as: breaking up all the fights).  I'm exhausted just thinking about it and am tempted to just lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling.

But these people I live with?  They deserve my intentionality.  It's easy to lose myself online.  To give half my attention to listening while I'm still scrolling Facebook or Instagram or Pinterest.  And, let's be real, half my attention is an overstatement.  My kids, my husband, they deserve eye contact when they are speaking to me.  They need to feel like I actually heard and comprehended what they were saying to me.  They want a thoughtful reply.  And I want those things from them.  It's time to stop hiding behind a screen.

Intentional connecting.  I need more of it.  It goes hand in hand with reducing screen time.  But it extends beyond that.  Hospitality is one of my gifts.  That involves inviting people to my home but it goes beyond that.

I can take hospitality with me wherever I go.  I can make people feel cared for, listened to, loved wherever I am and whoever I am with.

I can be intentional and hospitable (and silly) at my job.

And I can take intentional time to notice the gifts God gives me every day, to be grateful, to be hospitable to the One who created me.

I am humbled anew that the Creator wants to know me.  I am blown away by his love for me.  I am hesitantly holding out my hands and saying "God, you have my permission to rearrange my life however you see fit."

And I'm following those 13 words with a lot of three word prayers.

"Help me, Jesus."

And I know he will.

This is only my fourth blog post of the year.  I've been trying to figure out why I used to blog so much and this year I've blogged so little.  Really, the only thing I can attribute it to is the ebb and flow of life.

And also Netflix.  When I first started my blog I did not have it.

Hmm.

That probably deserves a closer look but I don't want to do that today.

On to memes.  I'm not sure if I can blog without them anymore.  I've started sending them to people on their birthdays.  Here are some of the *ahem* more appropriate birthday memes I've sent.

Then you have your everyday memes that you send to your friends.

Lastly there are driving memes you send to your sister while she is a passenger in a vehicle driven by your dad.  The first one accurately describes his driving method, the second does not.

The last one is no meme but a screenshot of maybe one of the grossest alerts WGAL has ever sent.

Chicken Sludge.

Moving on.

My summer has been full of all the things, as I'm sure yours has as well.  Connecting with friends and family. 

Gardening (or as I like to call it "dirt therapy").

Cutting flowers and arranging bouquets.  I seriously cannot get enough of the vibrant color, the exquisite shapes, the pure joy of the simple things.

Can we just take a moment (or the rest of this post) to talk about wildflowers?  Back in March (while my sister and I were on vacation in Georgia and it was blizzarding at home) I came across a Facebook post that said Cheerios would send you a packet of wildflower seeds as part of a bring back the bees movement.  So I signed up.  And then my dear friend, Adrianne, got married the same month and gave wildflower seed packets as wedding favors.  When it was warm enough to plant the seeds in the ground I did so, but not without some skepticism.  

I hate skepticism.  

I remember dumping the wildflower seeds out in the palm of my hand and marveling at the different shapes, dry and brown now, wondering what they would become.  And then that ugly little voice.

"They probably won't even bloom."

But hope tells that voice to shut the heck up.  And I poked holes in the dirt, stuck these little dried up bits in, poured water on top and made mud.

I kept pouring water on every day, making the dirt wet, waiting on some green to show.

And then it did.  

I cannot tell you how delighted little green shoots make me feel.  It borders on ridiculous, really.  But that's kinda how I live my life.

Bordering on ridiculous. 

 Or leaping wildly over the line.

Balance is not my strong suit.

Anyway, back to wildflowers.

I watched the green get taller and taller, wondering what would eventually bloom.  And I was not disappointed.

This is a photo of the first day that gorgeous pink and white poppy looking thing (does someone know exactly what it is?) bloomed.  When I saw it, I literally gasped out loud.  It was so beautiful, delicate, and brave I could hardly stand it.

It feels like life, right?

Have you ever felt like someone shoved you in a hole and dumped dirt on you?  And then poured water over top so you were not only in a dirty, dark, cramped space but now you were wet as well?

It's an uncomfortable place to be, to put it mildly.

Then, to make it worse, you break open.

So now you are dirty, dark, cramped, wet, and broken.

But then something curious happens.  You start to grow.  Somehow life begins to come forth.  And now the water that made you wet and uncomfortable is life giving.  You push up, up, up out of the dirt.

Then, sunshine.

Is there anything like it?

Fresh air.

How glorious.

Vast blue skies, puffy white clouds.

Incredible.

You grow and grow and then one day, what's this?  You bloom.

You are glorious, breathtaking.

Life is a struggle sometimes, isn't it?

But I serve a God who brings beauty from ashes.  In the struggle, in the hard times, that is what I cling to.  And I pray that I would live my life in a beautiful and brave way.  

That even if all around me seems lifeless, I would cling to the hope and life that is Jesus.

"...to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes..."