Food Crumbs :: January

1.23.2014


If I had to sum up January so far it would look a little bit like the picture above. 

Gritty. Bright. Hopeful. I might throw the word "chub-chubs" in there too. We had a lot of pinteresty-baked goodness in this house (see that blueberry? That totally belonged to a God-blessed muffin). Praise the Lord.

I would also point out the dirty bits. the million nasty things on that floor.The way this month has gone so fast and yet so slow. The way the daily grind has worn on my heart and made me wonder if my body is becoming far too efficient at metabolizing caffeine. the never. quite. clean. It would hold the words ache, ready, ambivalent.

Actually, that last word would be my entire 2013.

But, I digress. January. I'd say it's too soon to write a post about it. But I'm going to anyway.

We're ready for the "what's next." We've been waiting for along time, and we're ready. It's at that point now in my heart where enough has been enough and the comments of "wow that must be hard" are starting to ring a little truer than I would prefer. It's starting to sound a little less true when I talk about peace and patience and it's replaced with 'uncomfortable and restless.'

Waiting is hard work, people. 

Then there's the reality of how fast life happens. How every morning I'm reminded of the practically-adult-child I have hollering for me by my very own 'mama' name in the other room. There's the reality of the daily eat, work, sleep that we cycle through. There's the way I notice my face changing and my weight changing and my mood changing and my days changing and there's so much change happening I can hardly handle it. I get nervous and clamour and convince that maybe staying right here forever is okay.

But...it's not. Not really. That's like eating the food crumbs when there's a feast on the table.  

Perhaps thats where my error is. Being convinced of the feast on the table. That this waiting is the food crumbs and not the feast. I've written about it before. The whole "waiting is all of life" shpeal and I'm reminded of it even now. Is this it? Is this what life is? Will we just exchange sceneries a few times through life and keep waiting on new things? New hopefuls?

In short, yes. 

If thats the case, (if I'm honest and in sass,) then I'd retort: then give me my new things to wait on.

But, for whatever reason the Big Guy I turned my whole life over to has looked at all my circumstances in the scope of His story and decided that waiting in this is the far more beautiful gift for these days. And that gift is for me, intentionally. And I do believe him. He's proved himself to me too many times to not believe it. So, when it gets too much I keep doing what the Jesus Calling devotional talked about. "I trust you." I mutter under my breath. 'I trust you" as my eyes mist. "I trust you" laughing at those beautiful surprise moments. "I trust you." Even when the feast you're feeding me feels like food crumbs. "I trust you."

Perhaps the beauty of this waiting game is finding the feast. It's collecting all the little crumbs to make a whole meal regardless of the provision my eyes can see. 

So, I make a practice of finding. For starters, this mom gig is a feast. That kid. So much.  As is our marriage right now. That man. God is kind to this woman. And I go through my pictures and I reflect and I see that God is faithful. God is faithful. God is so Faithful. And even if there weren't pictures of chubby cherub cheeks he'd still be faithful.

So, I'll look at January and go back to the original words that I wrote. 
 Gritty
 Bright
 Hopeful
(LASHES!) 


and choose to collect a feast.

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