I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.”

The story of Abraham and Sarah is extremely special to me for many reasons, most notably because their child is my sweet son’s namesake– Isaac. But really, I just LOVE how their story is thick with promises and God’s fulfilling work.

If you’ve read the Old Testament for a hot second then you’ve seen references of ‘the promised land’. This is of course, because it was one of God’s ginormous promises to Abraham. It’s easy to glide right over that phrase -the promised land- without sinking into it’s incredible depths. Canaan literally means something like “lowland” but carries the intense spiritual connotation of “covenant”. Covenant for Abraham was about God inviting him into a relationship with Him and gracefully adopting him as His son. (And of course, this same invitation was eventually extended to us through Jesus.) The incredible thing in the promises of Canaan and Isaac is how God paved a huge legacy for Abraham…and how God is paving a huge legacy for you. (And me too, of course.)

However, I’m certain that if Abraham had focused on his circumstances instead of trusting his future/family/identity/etc. to God, then he would have laughed at God (hm…I think that does happen for a brief moment later in Abe’s story). Abraham didn’t even have any children yet. NONE. His wife was nearing the centenarian mark. And this land didn’t even belong to him. And God said, ‘hey! I’m gonna give you an entire land that will be FILLED with your descendants. You’ll be the father of a nation, and this land will belong to you.’ I’d be laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe. But guess how this story ends? God delivered. Abraham fathered the nation of Israel through one son, Isaac (which means awesomely and ironically means ‘laughter’). And it wasn’t exactly easy, but eventually that nation marched into Canaan and straight-up owned the promised land. God showed up in his promises. And that’s exactly what covenant with God is all about: God showing up. God’s invitation into covenant is still good, you need only accept. And He will show up.

1. Life keeps moving. Duh. But this is really actually difficult for me. Get married? Life keeps moving. Lose your job? Life keeps moving. Have a baby? Life keeps moving. Get overwhelmed at any point in all of this? Life keeps moving. Even while passing through the waters of circumstance, deep as they may be, you must continue on. And you will encounter God when you get to the other side.

2. Perfection is elusive. And an illusion. Like the anthem of Ecclesiastes says of so many earthly desires, chasing perfection is ‘meaningless, a chasing after the wind’. My version of what it means to be a perfect wife, mother, Christ-follower (wouldn’t a perfect girl write Christ-follower first?) is totally 100% make-believe. I mean, how would one woman keep an immaculate house, raise a stellar/over-achieving/prodigy child, lead throngs of other women in ministry, have hour-long daily quiet times, cook gourmet meals, and be a cheerleader for her husband (and work out!)? This would quite honestly take a team of people. Thus…I have given up. Not on life, but on perfection.

3. I can win. I can achieve a goal I set out for myself. Although, this is really less about me and more about believing God. There are lots of times that I lose hope or feel defeated maybe even before I begin, but I’ve learned (correction: am still learning) that our hope is in Christ alone, so when I’ve “lost hope”, then I’m really just forgetting that God is there with me, with promises in hand.

4. I may never be a morning person. I used to think, once I grow up, I’ll love getting up early…grown-ups love that, right? Then I thought, once I get married, and then, once I have kids. But I’m sad to say, even now that I have a baby, I still have a hard time getting out of bed before 8:30 (the same time as my sleepy-headed son…he obviously has my ”sleeping” genes). I just keep praying, God, you can use night-people too, right??

5. Busy-ness is a state of mind. So getting un-busy takes more than just clearing your schedule. And actually, I’m cheating with this one because this has only very, very recently occurred to me. In fact, I’m not entirely sure what all it does take to get the busy-mind out of my life, but I’m starting with a Sabbath and being intentional about rest, which does not equal laziness and does equal re-energizing.

So that’s all I’ve got for now.

PS, it’s now after 1am. Sigh.

First, I like a new year. Something about it just feels good, like a brand new notebook. And this is a year that I’m very excited about filling its pages. You must keep in mind though that I love Christmas dearly, and every year I feel a little mopey when its over. We’ve been known to leave our Christmas tree up until mid-February just because it makes me feel so cheerful. But four years ago, I made a strategic (maybe coincidental) move in marrying my hubs on January 19th…just a few short weeks after Christmas. So now, when Christmas ends I mope for a minute, and then I start getting excited about our anniversary, which I just love, love, love. More on the anniversary in just a minute.

Second, resolutions. I refuse to make them. Instead, I have an aspiration. I want to do things that are difficult. I feel a major sense of accomplishment when I conquer something that I know is hard for me…and this year I’m going to grab a few things that are difficult for me and wrangle them to the floor just so I can feel good about kicking some booty. Boo ya.

Third, fasting. We will be wrapping up our 21 day Awaken fast in just a few days and here is the run-down: week 1, we did the Daniel fast; weeks 2 and 3, fasted tv and video games. My focus for this fast has been, well, everything. I was thinking about a month ago what I felt my focus should be, and I decided that my reason for fasting is “to be more like Jesus”. I just keep praying that God would just bring revolution and transformation in my life in every way and that he would just make me more like His Son. He’s been revealing big things in little glimpses, and I just keep getting excited over and over again about things He’s got in the works. Another fast revelation: my life is filled with a lot of junk, be it food or entertainment. During week 1, I realized the tv I watch is junking me up just as much as a pint of ice cream every night, so weeks 2 and 3 have got me feeling nice and lean.

Fourth, blessing. I literally love my husband more with each passing day. We were blessed with so many treasures on our anniversary trip to Charlotte/Asheville that it felt a little like Disneyworld but with fewer people dressed in large costumes. My favorite blessing was the 10+ total hours of riveting, awesome, encouraging, love-filled conversation with my hubs. I could bubble over just thinking about it.

Fifth, (yes, there’s a fifth bullet) my sweet baby Isaac. He will be turning one in just ten weeks. This year has flown by. In fact that feels like an understatement. I’ve been thinking so much lately about his bday party (and how I’m planning for it to be the best bday party of all time) and how the time flies, but I’ve also been thinking about how having a baby forces me to slow down a bit. It’s funny how most of the time taking care of an extra little person squeezes my schedule a little tighter, but there are so many moments every day when I just stop to laugh with my baby or blow raspberries on his neck/feet/tummy/cheeks/etc. He is just so much fun. And it almost gives me chills when I think of my amazing little guy with the melt-you-in-your-tracks smile and how his name means laughter. God is just the best.

Anyway, there you have it…the reasons that I’ve been too busy to blog since the new year. Yep. No shame.

Merry Christmas.

“I’ve always been a team player, a utility player, a workhorse, and to do something sheerly out of a deep love for the act itself feels foreign and vaguely scandalous. It feels, I’m realizing, selfish. But little by little, when I start where I’m stuck, over and over and over, getting stuck and unstuck, something cracks through, and life reveals itself to me like a scroll unfurling, and I write about it.”

I felt more alive just reading those words because they resonate with this desire I have to regain some kind of *spark* in my heart. And the odd thing is, my life right now is more like how I want it to be than ever before. And I still feel like I need a spark, something creative and expressive and raw, which is a direct contradiction of my natural tendency to constantly want, nay strive, to be perfect. My own perfectionism ironically kind of squashes me. 

Maybe my spark will simply be the freedom to be blissfully self-unaware. How liberating it might be to forget that my hair is acting up, that my shoes are worn out, that my car makes a funny noise, that my sink is layered with dirty dishes. What would I spend my time thinking about if I stopped thinking about these things?

ps, the book is Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequist.

This morning I was driving to work with Taylor Swift blasting and me singing along (loudly and off-key), when I started thinkin’. I love country music for the story-telling and the down-home, backwoods, small town, way-it-used-to-be, wholesome-ness of it. Except I’m not certain that it’s really all that wholesome. And the more I thought about it, that cozy feeling I typically get while enjoying this genre started turning a little sour. Is it wholesome…or just ignorant? Hmm, let’s consider:

Song about man who enjoys his young family? Wholesome.

Song about girl who vandalizes ex-boyfriend’s car? Ignorant (and a little funny).

Song about man or woman getting wasted out of loneliness? Ignorant (and not so funny).

Now, please understand. If there was ever something I am passionately opposed to, it is ignorance. (Note: By “ignorance”, I’m not referring to those who just haven’t had a “formal education”. I’m referring to those who have had a million opportunities in life to be educated and yet choose to remain uneducated, in thought, in action, in deed, etc.) And unfortunately, it is rampant in our society. Some people might generalize this characteristic to Southerners, but no no! Make no mistake, ignorance is a disease that knows no bounds. I can sniff it out a mile away, so you can imagine my surprise (at myself) when I realized its little stench was sneaking through my radio. I just can’t allow that.

Now this is to say, I will not stop listening to country music. I will however, listen with a more astute ear in the future; I will recognize lyrics that romanticize ignorance and mediocrity.

And I will change the station.

This is really kind of upsetting when you think about it. For the most part, none of us would ever want to go back and do the high school thing over again. A lot of us would rather run a marathon up the side of a mountain in wet shoes than even see a lot of those people again. But we somehow re-create this experience all over again…as adults! We think we’ve grown up; we don’t act like that anymore.  We don’t create cliques. We don’t judge those who don’t fit into our cute little pattern. We don’t ostracize people. The problem is we’ve actually become so good at doing these things, we don’t even notice when we do it. But guess what. Other people notice. And God notices. Yikes!

I think it comes down to asking ourselves this: when is the last time I hung out with, nay! the last time I had a real conversation with someone that I didn’t already know decently well??

And it’s not just about saying ‘hey’ to a new person. It’s about actually befriending someone new. Not sure about you, but this is way out of my comfort zone. This takes a lot of stretching. And yep, it hurts. But let’s face it: this isn’t high school anymore, and I think it’s time we act like grown ups. Duh.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about blogging, and how I’d really like to be one of those people who, you know…blogs. Problem is, I can’t figure out how those people who blog find the time to do it. Seriously. If you’re a stay-at-home mama, or a single working gal, I totally get it. But how does someone like me become a blogger? This is something I ponder. Other things I ponder:

-New mommies who are tweeting/facebooking within days of giving birth. (?!?!?!) How? I was very much in a black hole for at least 6 weeks after Isaac was born…how are they in a frame of mind to tweet?! Let alone post thousands of darling pictures on Facebook. I was more like, “He’s four weeks old?! Already?! Shoot, we should take some pictures of this kid before he’s 14!”

-Exercising. I ponder what will be my magic motivator to get on the bandwagon and finally start exercising frequently and for the length of time recommended. Once again, how do people that aren’t single, aren’t morning people, and aren’t stay-home mommies exercise for 1 hour, at least 5x a week?

-Could I ever really go back to school? Now that Isaac is 6 months old, we are in a pretty nice groove. But people really don’t seem to be kidding when they say parenting just gets harder. So if I’m far too busy for something like school right now, how could I ever do this in the future? Of course, this is all on the assumption that I figure out what I’d like to pursue as a career before I’m 50. Or perhaps the “career” I should pursue is being a stay-home mommy.

I think the reason that I ponder these things is that I sometimes feel like life is a train, chugging swiftly along about 50 yards ahead of me. And there I am, trying to catch up. I am one of those incessantly late people. And if you’ve ever been 10-15 minutes late for a class, then you know the feeling that you must’ve missed something in the beginning that has put you behind for the whole class. Sometimes I feel life is like that. I see people who really seem to have it all together, and I can’t help but wonder, did I miss the first 15 minutes or are they just really good at “seeming”? Knowing God makes me lean toward the latter, but man, some people are really excellent “seemers”.

You’d think by now I’d be reaching my conclusion for this post, but I’m not sure what that is. There are many things I could re-assure myself with here, but that isn’t really my point. I think I’m sort of reflecting (or something else deep) as opposed to wrapping this up in a pretty little package (and trust me, my gift wrapping skills are ninja).

Anyway, I could use another freshly baked batch of highlights, served wonderfully warm and with fresh cold milk. Mmmm, comforting, chocolate-y blog.

- Today’s weather. Wow!!! I absolutely needed bright, warm sunshine to wake me up a bit.

- The Thorn! I got to see it again last night, and man oh man, I love every minute of it. Whether it’s the acrobatics, fire twirling, the heel-kick of a 95-year-old man, or conceptualizing Jesus in a way that is up close and personal–I can’t get enough.

- Ephesians. My small group has been studying this book for a few weeks now, and no matter how trying my week was, I walk away from our group discussion feeling super encouraged.

- Seeing or hanging out with my hubby. These moments are rare over the past few weeks (that will change after Easter!), but I love, love, LOVE how he makes me feel more like myself than anyone else in the world.

- Bella. She’s crazy, she’s cute, she’s so stinkin adorable, and I love our newest (and furriest) member of the Russo family.

- The pictures that Nathaniel and Ella drew of themselves (which are now hanging on our fridge). They are such sweet little self-portraits, and I love seeing Nathaniel’s 4-year-old writing that says “I -heart- you”.

- Also, I love the homemade tortilla chips I make. They’re pretty wonderful.