Simply Thriving

All you need is love, All you need is love, All you need is love, love Love is all you need It’s almost Christmas – the time of Ultimate Love come down – and here I am with the Beatles stuck in my head. It’s because of something that I read recently in Colossians. I’ve been “stuck” in Colossians this past couple of weeks. While I’m also reading other passages, I just keep coming back, re-reading and pondering it. This is the passage that’s on my mind today (and inspiring the melody that is on repeat in my head): Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Colossians 3:12-14 And……CONVICTION overload. Thinking about it, I’ve been on the receiving end ...

One of my favorite things to do is to sit on my love seat, in the sun (or the grey) – music playing, tea steaming - feeding Ginny. Since she hasn’t yet mastered the art of holding her bottle, she waves her hands around, gently patting my face or grasping my finger with her little ones. As I was feeding her this afternoon, I was pondering the beauty of that grasp reflex.  To me, it’s a physical reminder of how we are born dependent. From day one, hour one even, we reach out and grasp the hand of whoever brought us into the world. It’s as if we know that we need. (Yes, I’m reading into it a bit, but it’s such a beautiful thought.) And yet we are groomed to believe that freedom and independence are synonymous. For example, once we can walk on our own, drive on our own or get a job we are independent and consequently free. Yet, if you think about it, we depend on our feet, on gravity, on the ground beneath us to walk. We depend on our training, the steering wheel in our hands ...

Have you noticed how we seem to compare absolutely everything and are not satisfied until we feel that we’ve done a better job at some aspect of life than the next person? Oh, maybe we don’t say it outright, but that seems to be the goal. Has it always been this way? In ancient days, were ladies comparing things like how finely they ground their grain or how well they milked their goats? It’s possible. I’m guessing that this obsession with validation has reached its zenith in the 21 st century though. Maybe, in part, it’s a result of social media allowing us to project, tally up and compare all of our deeds. Whatever the case, in my experience, it goes like this… Oh, you are great at that one thing? Well: My kids are better mannered. My house is cleaner. I’m more real about my struggles. My schedule is more spontaneous. I grow my own vegetables. I can afford to take my kids on great vacations. We do daily devotions. I’ve dieted successfully. I fill my pantry with canning. I buy...

Ten years! I cannot believe that today my hubby and I have been married for an entire decade. Sometimes it feels like just yesterday we were standing under an autumn sky committing our lives and love to one another. Other days it feels like we’ve been married our entire lives. Remembering a time before each other is almost impossible. As our anniversary has approached, I’ve been considering what these ten years of life could be likened too and it finally came to me. Marriage so far has been like one giant Spartan Race – starting out eagerly, full of energy; soon pushing, pulling and lifting one another up the next obstacle and the next; missing the target but not moving on until we hit it; crawling through the mud while trying not to get ripped open by the barbed wire just above us; carrying our weights and sometimes carrying each other; grasping and reaching and shouting encouragements (or the opposite) to keep putting one foot in front of the other; doubling over in tears and ex...

Wants and needs. I overheard my kids talking about them the other day. Isaac NEEDED the “super special thing” that Emily was using. If you know him at all, NEEDED was definitely in all caps. Emily looked him square in the eye and said, “Isaac. In life there are needs and there are wants. What you have is a want, not a need. You need to learn the difference.” Um. Wow kid! (Did Isaac respond well to that? Well, that’s another story.) As cute a truth as it is coming from an eight year old, it’s something that I’ve been forced to think about a ton these days. It’s been six months since Josh lost his job and two months of living beyond the bottom of the barrel. I’ve never considered myself materialistic or a shopaholic. Most of what we have is discounted or second hand. But I am used to living in the luxury of many wants being met. If I have an itch to go shopping, I just pop on into Value Village and fill it. If I am stressed or it’s a hot day, I zip through the drive thru of McD’s an...