Thursday, October 2, 2014

(on fall and holding some things loosely)

participating in a challenge to write for the 31 days of october - in classic hayley-style I jump on board at 11:39pm


Hello there, it's me, plinking from my phone again. 

Fall is here and school and football - it's my favorite season of all.  My mums are already dead, which is a bummer - I would so love to be able to keep plants alive. They started out gorgeous anyway: 

And then there's the rather sad story of all of my autumn/thanksgiving/pilgrim books, which were stored last November in a plastic bin along with two real pumpkins. Hopelessly moldy, I had to throw my carefully curated autumn book collection away. 

It was sad but God is teaching me a lot about what to hold loosely and what to hold tightly on my hands. 

Hold the book collection loosely; hold the autumn beauty tight 

Hold the fall flowers loosely; hold the open door attitude tight

Hold the schedule loosely (it is not my god); hold tightly to the Word and the Spirit's whisper - place the phone call, drop the note in the mail, make the trip, invite the child in, throw on the coffee pot, set another place at the table. 

The stuff will go, the people will not.

Today I listened to God and we laid aside my often-idolatrous schedule and the kids helped me throw a surprise birthday party for their beloved Matt, who works for Daniel but is our friend as well. It was the sweetest. They blew up balloons and wrapped lil gifts and drew pictures and wrote birthday wishes. 

I want this for Matt, sure, but I want it for my kids as well, to value people and spontaneous joy above accomplishment of selfish goals that can shut others out. 

Who cares about the schedule- it all got accomplished by the end of the day.

What are you holding loosely and what are you clinging to? 

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