The music of now…

While we were inside the church, the gray fog blew away, and we exited the building to find blue skies and almost 60 degree weather.

Right now I am home alone. 

Our weekend out of town company just left. My husband is at our church’s Latino service.

The only sound in the house is the hum of the clothes dryer, tumble drying our guest sheets and towels, and the clickety clack of my own typing.

I am in my bedroom.  I am sitting on the bed, laptop on my lap.  I’m wearing my favorite pajama pants and a purple t-shirt, having shed my “church clothes” as soon as I got home.  My bedroom is light and bright. The sun is coming through the window and falling across the white bead board wainscoting on the wall.

I could be thinking about tomorrow…pay bills, grocery shop, pick up medicine at pharmacy, schedule travel immunizations with nurse, worry about my daughter and grandbabies leaving for Africa in 16 days, think about my youngest leaving for Cyprus and Israel in three weeks, fret over my youngest granddaughter who is sick with a terrible cough, wonder how we are going to raise all the money we need for our church building project, be anxious about our own two week trip to Africa next month.

I could be thinking about the past…at church I didn’t get a chance to talk to a person I probably really should have talked to, at lunch I gave in to the chips and salsa at our favorite Mexican restaurant and that is not part of my current healthy eating plan.

In his book, Ruthless Trust, Brennan Manning writes, “God can be encountered at no other time and no other place than the present moment.  Being fully present in the now is perhaps the premier skill of the spiritual life.”

He says, “if you attend to something only superficially, you will not hear the music of what is happening now.”

If I spend my now regretting and grieving yesterday, or worrying and fretting about tomorrow, then I am living a superficial life. I am not truly present in the present.  How then will I hear the music of now, the hum of the clothes dryer, the chirp of the birds, the neighbor girls playing on their backyard swing set? And if I am deaf to the music of now, then how will I truly live a life of thanksgiving? As Manning says, “what would we give thanks for? Tomorrow’s turkey?…to live in the present moment requires profound trust that the abundant life Jesus promised is experienced only in the now.”

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I’ve taken the Joy Dare.

I’m counting one thousand thanks in one year.

I hunt for thanksgiving using the prompts Ann gives us each month.

If you are interested in joining in, click the link above or at the bottom of this post.

I continue to count my thanks

piling up gratitude day by day

in my little green journal…

#1697-#1720

3 ugly/beautiful gifts-

-scheduling travel immunizations

-fruit and veggie diet/cleanse

-the Hub’s birthday…the reality that he turned 55 and six months from now so will I!

3 gifts from the past that help you trust the future-

-God’s Word that never fails

-all my old journals, testimony of His faithfulness

-bookshelves filled with books that have mentored me…Ruth Bell Graham, Edith Schaeffer, Catherine Marshall,

so many…

a gift dull-

-my cast iron skillet

a gift shimmering-

-my wedding ring, a gift from the Hubs on our 25th anniversary

a gift clean-

-the kitchen, all cleaned up after breakfast

3 gifts at 3p.m.-

-the Bible study I just taught

-a bit of quiet time before I have an appointment to counsel someone

-help putting away the tables and chairs from the Bible study

3 gifts green-

-spinach and mushroom frittata for breakfast

-my mint green cruiser bike and going on a bike ride with my husband

-the greenish water of a local creek we pass on our ride

3 gifts wore-

-my favorite comfy exercise pants

-my hair worn in a pony tail

-my cozy, gray Columbia fleece

a gift bent-

-those funny-looking, twisted lily of the valley “pips” I planted, now sprouting

a gift broken-

-my old, cracked butter churn

a gift beautiful-

-meeting our nephew’s little girl for the first time

3 gifts hard to give thanks for-

-a daughter struggling to know God’s plan

-grandbabies moving to Africa

-lots of travel immunizations coming up this week

 

Gratefully yours,

Elizabeth