There is just something about September🌾🍂🍁 that has gotten under my skin and deep down into my soul. The golden tinge, the lazy, drift-y woodsmoke through the warm sun’s slant, the cool, autumn-touched mornings, and the swirl of leaves 🍂 behind my van as I go a toolin’ down the road. Sigh. I declare September as my ‘new year’, the sitting among fluttering Queen Anne’s Lace with the Chicory and Golden Rod as my only resolution. Oh, glorious September, don’t go with your woody smell of freshly sharpened pencils, favorite cardigans pulled out, and bold Zinnias flaring out of gardens. The cicadas screaming buzz, green speckled grasshoppers, and that deep, dark secretive cricket singing from behind the refrigerator. There is an end of summertime, early autumn 🍂 rustle and crunch to everything, cornstalks, leaves, and a rattle and roll to the landscape. It is SO unbelievably beautiful and I’m thankful for new seasons and new, fresh beginnings.

Never put the key to your Happiness in somebody else’s pocket.

Tom Ziegler

{Previous Whole Person Work Posts}

Spiritual:

I’m really trying to get into focused prayer and devotions. I have a well established devotional time, but it has been very distracted and disjointed. I’m loving the second half of Ezekiel! It’s an intense book, but oh, there’s some richness and encouragement, too.

Again He said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! Thus says the LORD GOD to these bones: “ Surely I will cause breath to enter into you and you shall live.

Ezekiel 37:4-5, NKJV

Physical:

I’ve really struggled and I know it’s because my good habits were not well established again after letting them fall by the wayside. Homeschooling began and it has been a battle for me in getting enough well, everything. 😕😔 Sleep, water, walks, and healthy, nourishing meals. Pray for me to slowly integrate these back in as our homeschool days are evening out now.

Mental:

Honestly, with school beginning, I’ve felt myself feeling “crazy” and even though homeschooling is going well, it’s just that added “on- ness” that I know contributes. We have extra outside obligations, also, and I know that adds to this feeling. I’m recognizing I need to adjust some of my summer habits and be very choosy about what I’m giving mental space to and also remembering to judge my feelings by Truth. Taking my thoughts captive! My sister sent me this quote to think on:

The wonderful thing about praying is that you leave a world of not be able to do something, and enter God’s realm where everything is possible. He specializes in the impossible. Nothing is too great for His Almighty Power. Nothing is too small for His love.

Corrie ten Boom

Emotional:

I’ve been *trying* to turn off social media (curse you, Booktube- jk, jk! ) and actually use my hands to make bouquets, write penpals, and lately, create altered composition notebooks. Creating with my hands always helps encourage and calm my emotions. We took a little ‘Tookish’ adventure the other day to a cemetery with gorgeous leaves and had a chocolate chip oatmeal cookie 🍪 snack there, yes, I know that’s sort of weird , but we loved reading the history of people’s lives on the headstones 🪦 and enjoying the autumn atmosphere. We then visited a new-to-us public library and it was fun setting aside my Baggins habits of wanting to hide in my house all the time. 😉😏

Servanthood: thinking 🤔 on this quote! 😨♥️🙏

Nothing disciplines the inordinate desires of the flesh like service, and transforms the desires of the flesh like serving in hiddenness. The flesh whines against service but screams against hidden service. It strains and pulls for honor and recognition. It will devise subtle, religiously acceptable means to call attention to the service rendered. If we stoutly refuse to give in to this lust of the flesh, we crucify it. Every time we crucify the flesh, we crucify our pride and arrogance.

Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline, p. 130

Verse focus:

I will make them and the places around My hill a blessing. And I will cause showers to come down in their season; they will be showers of blessing. Also the tree of the field will yield its fruit and the earth will yield its increase and they will be secure on their land. ♥️

from Ezekiel 34, NASB

Last, but certainly not least, I’ve been so encouraged and enjoying my reading. I finished Volume 1. of Charlotte Mary Yonge’s delightful family saga, The Pillars of the Home, with my favorite online book people, Victorian literature lovers. Victorian literature is fast becoming a favorite genre! We will continue Volume 2 for Victober! I also SO enjoyed Distilled Genius by Susan Branch, a collection of her illustrations and hand lettered quotes. Branch and I differ in some worldview and lifestyle aspects, but overall, I loooved this collection. I’m currently rereading for the third time, her Martha’s Vineyard: Isle of Dreams, one of my favorite memoirs of all time.

How about you? How are you? 🕸️🍪🕷️📓🪦🍁🍃🍂♥️😄☕️📖📚💌📝🖋️❤️‍🩹❣️💕💟 Please chat below, I’d love to catch up!