Leaving A Trail of Beauty

New. Like new. Newborn. New again. Renew. All words and phrases tumbling around in my head as I try to wrap my brain around what the start of a new year has for me. As a youngster I found it a bit disappointing that though the fanfare of a new year was big, I woke up January 1 much the same as my December 31 self had gone to bed. Once deemed old enough, I joined in the fun of watching both Guy Lombardo’s New Year’s Eve special and the much cooler New Year’s Rocking Eve hosted by Dick Clark — with whom I was already acquainted from countless Saturday afternoons watching American Bandstand (the only acceptable segue from Saturday morning cartoons). As an adult, I am still a bit underwhelmed at the reality of awakening New Years Day with any significant change underway. The view from this side is slower to come into focus than I’d probably prefer. I wish I were better at switching gears. Unfortunately, the date on the calendar does NOT make everything I’d like to leave behind ...

Part Two: What is "customized" armor anyway? I mentioned the last time that our armor is customized. A friend of mine challenged me . . . four years ago now, to draw what I thought my armor might look like if God was designing it specifically for me. While this is a four-year-old pencil sketch I unearthed three years ago and colored -- rudimentary at best and with a need to tweak, maybe even paint on a canvas at some point -- the basic concept is still intact. The concept is this: God knows us. He knows exactly what we need and when we need it, right up to how He chooses to clothe us for battle every single day. He knows what we need to wear and what we need to "take up." I was reading a Priscilla Shirer devotional via @youversion on the armor of God. In it she says this (and so much more you can find in the full study), "In Ephesians 6, Paul conveys the belt, the breastplate, and shoes as a spiritual uniform that should be worn by believers at...

Day 6 hope*writers Fall Writing Challenge: TRANSFORM ___________________________ Not sure of your routine in reading Instagram posts/captions, but if you don’t normally swipe first then read — do that now.  Okay, so I was originally going to briefly discuss the transformation that takes place when you add a dollop of whipped cream to an ordinary bonus half cup of Saturday morning coffee.  It was delicious and took on a celebratory feeling just with a tiny phsssht from the can! Then I was going to wax eloquently on how easily we can now transform anything we publish here on IG with the simple press of a filter button (refer back to photos of me and Poppy)  ️ While that is fascinating for about a millisecond, then realized this exercise was about how writing itself has transformed me.  🤦🏻‍♀️ Ah! That’s sometimes easy and sometimes tough to nail down.  Writing in its purest sense gives me a voice. I’m an introvert, and I have a...

Do you ever just feel too tired to be grateful? Everything feels like an effort, and your one day feels like you've lived several? That's me today. I've been up since before dawn and segmented my day in such varied parts I feel like they've each been a day. Let me share how God filled my tank through each segment today: I finally got my mammogram -- after three tries at three different locations, this one met my insurance requirement and found me a worthy candidate to be squooshed. I know it's a little early, but make your appointment now to be seen during Breast Cancer Awareness month in October. I had a little time to enjoy the cool morning breezes before temperatures soared again into the mid-90's. Hmm . . . it didn't used to be this hot at this time of year . . . I got a chance to spend some good time with my son and then some concentrated time writing. Poppy got to go to the vet, and getting her nails trimmed was my favorite so far! Ma...

I often feel like this. I try to stand out but end up wanting to disappear altogether. If you mention the word "follow" I cringe. Though leading is far from my jam, I am not a great follower or one I think you'd want to follow. I often fade away entirely when called on to step forward to a place with everyone's eyes on me. I hear I need to have a "following" as a working writer who wants to eventually publish anything you can hold in your hands in book form, and I immediately hear this chorus of taunts rise up in unison and then break out in solos from within the fluff of my brain: You've made too many mistakes for anyone to follow you. You're divorced for goodness' sake. Why would anyone listen to what you have to say? You're too old. You're broken. You're messed up. You're not pretty enough. You're not thin enough. You're too much. You're not enough . . . From my perspective, I fall short in so...

Have you ever just wanted to take a photo from another angle? I know I have. For whatever reason I think it will be more flattering, more easily viewable, gentler somehow to my sometimes fragile spirit. Some days are that way as well. I've been having one of those today. I'd like to just be able to look at it from a different angle and have it not ache so much deep down in my soul -- that place I rarely if ever go with y'all. It started this morning while trolling through Instagram stories and Emily is sharing snippets from today's "Next Right Thing" podcast. I'm literally slayed by the first strains of the "Friends" theme song today. ( still haven't been able to go back and listen to the whole episode . . .  but I will. ) It's the 25th anniversary week of the premiere, apparently. I remember exactly where I was the first time I watched it and its companion/neighbor "Mad About You" with newlyweds, Paul and Jamie B...

Let's be perfectly honest and gut-level REAL today. I DON'T feel thankful. at. ALL. I woke up this way: Frustrated Anxious Irritated Angry Exasperated Grumpy Eyes burning Nose stuffy Feet pain-filled from their first contact with the floor Ears ringing and itchy ( maybe somebody's talking about me says the old wive's tale) Not a wife A mother to adults who selectively adult and set my teeth on edge A new puppy mom to a quickly growing and energetic one who is also on my last nerve today. Annoyed that I am still blogging here even though I bought my domain and have been spending my pennies since July on a website where I still feel like a guest, can't figure out how to even set up a blog, or make the whole thing private so my failure in this venture isn't out there for everyone's eyes or WORSE no one's eyes ever to see. Soooo . . . what to do with my crabby, cranky, ungrateful self? My worries are so miniscule in comparison to ...

I'm just going to be really honest. I feel utterly and completely guilty for not being more grateful than I am. I've spent the last 72 minutes giving myself a headache over a website I started working on almost two months ago and still have yet to figure out. At this point I don't even know how to unpublish it! To my dismay, it has been visible to the public for weeks without my knowing it. Talk about feeling like you showed up  to the party without getting dressed first or really knowing you'd arrived at all! I keep coming back here to this familiar place with its familiar format to let my words spill from my keyboard and find their way onto your screens. So, enough of my bellyaching! Let me make some space for thankfulness, turn my bleary-eyed gaze and my heart toward what God has been doing, and leave a trail of beauty rather than griping about something I cannot change in the next five minutes. Here's how God has been filling my tank (or what I am t...

( a time to intentionally redirect my gaze & give testimony to the ways God blesses me each week) I have been keenly aware of how my attitude may shift in new season beginning this week. Though I had no clue when I walked out the door of my former job that I would spend the next almost four months under-employed and awaiting God's provision in an up close and personal fashion I'd experienced almost exactly two years ago -- I can now draw comparisons and contrasts in how that time was oh so different from its counterpart. Those musings may show up in another post soon, but let's get right to the focus of this post -- THANKFULNESS.  How has God been faithfully filling my tank? Providing me with a fantastic job as the nanny of a sweet baby boy and his older brother, who is in pre-K. I get to spend my days singing, reading board books that I remember all too well from my days as a mama to the pre-talking crowd, and taking strolls around the neighb...

Seen and known. We all long to be seen and known. In our quest for this reality, We are hopeful. We invest ourselves. We are present-- Ever present. We make eye contact. We listen. We catalog tidbits and nuggets Gaining ground, getting close. All a strategy in the seeing All a pursuit of the knowing. We know so much . . . And so little. Our longing hearts Seek more. Not just the seeing Not just the knowing. Seen and known. We want what we cannot make. We give, but with no giving back; We cannot take. We feel the lack. And so we still sit alone. Seen and known.

( a time to intentionally redirect my gaze and give testimony to the ways God blesses me) A little technical difficulty with Chrome this morning, in addition to my own late start means a delayed Thursday Thanks Tank. I hope y'all are having a great Thursday so far! This was the key passage this morning in my devotion on  YouVersion . I found it timely and pertinent. One of the details of this short devotion stood out to me: "The mere act of being thankful can transform a grumpy heart into a joyful one." I have absolutely found that in my own life. I can start the day feeling three steps behind, awakening later than I would have liked, and begin beating myself up for all the ways my day is going to go down the tubes due to my bad choices. However, if I take a moment and refocus my attention on gratitude rather than on myself and my shortcomings . . . I find a salvageable day already filled with reasons to be thankful. Here are a few that came to m...

I can go days without hearing my name. Does that ever happen to you? You spend your entire day never hearing your name called by anyone. I have two names I routinely am called these days. Pam, of course, and Mama or Mom (used only by my son). Yet in the course of many of my days in this season, I am addressed as nothing.  Oh, I exchange words with my son, but he doesn't necessarily call me by name. He knows who I am, and we fall into conversations without addressing and using each other's given names. I share pleasantries with the people at ALDI, and while I use the names of those I know -- they are not obligated, nor do many of them know my given name. I can slip through my day without ever hearing my name aloud. A bit disconcerting now that I've allowed my mind to drift there. It doesn't change who I am or make me question my value as a person. It is . . . maybe just a reason for pause. Do I do the same thing with the Lord? Do I wake up and begin ...

GOD WINKS. What are they? A "God wink" is anything that comes your way out of the ordinary, or any unexplainable circumstance designed to delight and bring joy. We are His beloved, and He delights in giving us good gifts. I'm not exactly sure who coined the term, but I've been routinely using it to describe those treats in my days that I point right back to my Abba Father, who I am sure must wink just like my earthly Daddy does when he does something extra special or outlandishly sweet. In the photo to the left is an example of a God wink. Let me give you a little back story, my dearest friend on this earth, Mary Lou , is a jewelry designer for jBloom Designs . Each year she goes to their national conference. Recently she was there and waiting at the end of a long line to score some specials available only to designers. The item pictured was a pre-customized bracelet--isn't that amazing!?! She took one look at it and knew it needed to be mine. God wi...

( a time to intentionally redirect my gaze and give testimony to the ways God blesses me) Good Thursday morning, all! Some weeks feel like a blip between Sunday and Thursday. This is one of those weeks where I'm not quite sure where the time slipped away, but I definitely feel like the speed was accelerated. Let's dive right in to how God is filling my tank: Provision and sources of income that could only come from Him. Relying on the Lord strengthens my faith and gives me reasons to intentionally take my hands off my circumstances. Dog sitting for my daughter. The year-plus without Shelby has been heart-wrenching at times, and having Ava here fills a void for a small window. Painting and setting up an online store for my art. It's a learning curve, but the results will be exciting on so many levels. More to come on that front! Processing opportunities and decisions with my dearest bosom friend. There is nothing like hoping and dreaming with so...

I do NOT look strong. I am barely 5' tall even on my fluffiest hair day anymore. My image definitely ascribes to and lives out the following verse: "So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is  wasting   away , our inner self is being renewed day by day." 2 Corinthian 4:16 ESV However, the pictured verse is where I will choose to camp for a moment today: "I ask the Father in His great glory to give you the power to be strong INWARDLY through His Spirit." Ephesians 3:16 NCV  Though my outward appearance and my own perspective of myself may indicate I have no strength or power on my own, I can ask the Father for that power through His Spirit. I can ASK for it. Inward strength. I firmly believe our Father is delighted when we recognize we can't do it. We have no strength on our own. We finally lie down at His feet and seek Him and His power. We admit we can't do it. I know I can't. I am a veritable weakling in my own strengt...

I've mentioned and featured this beautiful visitor a couple of times already. I am all about the tiny ways God chooses to bless me and try to find tangible, daily reminders of His care for me in the tiniest of ways.  I am always on the lookout for what I've termed "God winks". These are ways I feel like He  shows me how tenderly He seeks out ways to delight me with His goodness. On a couple of especially lonely days last week, He sent this beauty to hang around my front steps, clinging to the standing phlox my precious daughter planted there last summer. I spent at least 20 minutes with my phone poised and ready to capture the fluttering and dancing of my unexpected guest. I turned it on "live" mode and caught quite a few shots of her in action. I held the button down and sent "bursts" of her careening from petal to petal. She was in the midst of my amateurish photo shoot and had no clue.  She is pretty from all angles, but w...

Eighteen years. Yes, it takes 18 years for that newborn to officially be declared an "adult", but I'm referring to another group of years heavy on my heart today. For the past 18 years in a row I have joined the throngs of other mamas on the first day of school. My news feed today is loaded with smiling faces, new clothes, new backpacks, lunch boxes, and my absolute favorite -- a brand new box of crayons! School starts early here in my area, and though we are far, far away from a real seasonal "Fall"-- summer is effectively over for so many. Though it's been many, many more years since I participated in the back to school frenzy as a student, I cannot lie that I got butterflies in my stomach every single night before the first day of school for my three for the past 18 years. I sit here this morning in a very different place in almost two decades. I have no one starting school. I have no new backpack in front of my door waiting to be scooped u...

( a time to intentionally redirect my gaze and give testimony to the ways God blesses me) Good Morning! I'm not good at faking things. I have one of those faces and apparently even one of those texting styles that reveals my true thoughts in spite of the emojis I choose to tack on to the end of my full sentences. Yes, I am a " grammar girl " and text with case sensitivity and punctuation. ( You never know who might be watching, of course!) Back to my first comment . . . I'm not good at faking or pretending. I can't hide it if I'm not doing well or feel deflated. It's written all over my face and bleeds through into my writing. So, I am going to follow through with a commitment I made to myself in breathing life back into my blog.  I will intentionally take time at least once each week to give thanks for how God is filling my tank. He doesn't stop doing it just because I don't feel upbeat and grateful.  He doesn't...