31 days

the other day when i realized that october was about to knock on our door, i recalled last october when  i participated in the nester's 31 days challenge.  it was a great experience, but surely i would not be participating this year, as i certainly have nothing to write about.  i mean, last year at this time was pretty eventful.  the Lord was doing lots and lots of stirring and moving and jarring and chiseling in my heart, there were things to talk about and things to process and write about.  no, this year i will just sit it out.  maybe find someone else's 31 day journey to tag along on.  

then yesterday as i was sitting in a quiet coffee shop, ear buds in, getting some work done, i found myself logged on to my blog and suddenly contemplating, "if i were to write for the next 31 days, just what topic could i explore....?"  i even began editing a picture to use for a graphic trying out different fonts and phrases to see if my random typing would magically create just the right title for my 31 days series.  sadly, it did not.  

i woke up this morning saddened by the thought that i had not come up with anything and that perhaps this month would go by and my blog would sit untouched for yet another 6 months because i have not had the discipline to sit down and write the thoughts that have been stirring over the course of the last 6 months.  i really thought that if i was able to join in this 31 days challenge, it would force me to get back in the game and give some much needed lovin' to my little corner of the internet.  

throughout the day, i kept coming back to my unfinished graphic in my head trying out more titles.

"31 days of......

.....me just writing whatever the heck i want to and hoping people don't get bored with my random thoughts for the day."

yeah, i know that seemed a little long.  but really, that's what i wanted to do.  just write.  i want to find my voice again and maybe it would mean just recalling my day and finding some beautiful lesson in it or sharing something difficult or something funny or something mundane, but just writing.  maybe just trying to find the joy in the everyday moments so that i don't forget that it's there.  

then it came to me. 

it occurred to me that lately i've been kind of just coasting through life.  my entire summer was a complete blur.  i'll probably share more about that later on, but the end of 2013 and beginning of 2014, God did SO much in my heart and there had been so much that i wanted to share and write about and just didn't.  i shared with a few people that if there could have been a soundtrack for my life at that time, it would have been "the art of celebration" from rend collective.  every single song spoke volumes as to what the Lord was doing and what i felt like He wanted me to experience and learn.  i literally listened to nothing else for months on end because each time i heard a song, even if it was for the 18th time, i found a new lyric to attach myself to and allowed it minister to me in a brand new way.  it was enlightening and refreshing and comforting and encouraging in the most beautiful way.  

today as i was cleaning up from lunch, thinking about our morning, i caught a glimpse of a picture i had taken from our time at the library.  eli had asked us to find "monster truck books" and when my husband delivered on the request, he was so incredibly excited.  my husband called me over from another section of books to snag a peek at eli who was excitedly poring over the book he had been given.  it was a moment i just wanted to tuck away and remember the joy on his face.  

thinking about this moment, i thought back to the idea of the "art of celebration" and how in the recent months, i've missed out on so many opportunities to practice the art of celebration.  i had just been learning what it looked like for me and our family, but without the practice, like any art form, it slips away.  

that's when the lightbulb went off and i realized that for the next 31 days i could revive the art of celebration and take each day to practice this amazing art to find beauty in the everyday moments and find ways to celebrate even in the midst of what seems like a seemingly uneventful season of life.  

and there you have it.  welcome to day 1 of my 31 day series.