They’re so friendly. Don’t you think daisies are the friendliest flower?
~ “You’ve Got Mail”, Joe and Kathleen
I went on a daisy walk…
Maybe this will become a June birthday month tradition…
It was SO hot, but I absolutely loved it. My body doesn’t love cold anymore, and the sky, clouds, fragrance of the air was sublime.
Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?
“And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?
“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.
“So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.
Reading and journaling bring me so much joy 🥹 so the marriage of the two is a double dose! I don’t really plan, but just go with whatever is inspiring me in my sticker/washi stash. I had a kind of slow start to my reading in the beginning of May, my reading mood was changing, had some meh/ok-ish reads at the start. I pretty much hated Date with Danger! 🤣 The end of the month reading though was amazing! I loved all the Middle Grade reads for a small readathon on Booktube called Middle Grade May! Especially, Secrets of Shakespeare’s Grave and its sequel, Tower of the Five Orders by Deron R. Hicks. I really enjoyed the Christian historical light fantasy, The Huntress, also. Honorable mention goes to The Little House in the Highlands which is based on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s ancestors. It was a slow start but SO cute! I made some good progress on my newest bingo boards I printed off from Pinterest, also. Georgette Heyer is hit or miss for me, but I loved two of her Regency romances, Arabella and Sylvester. Overall, a great reading month.
Boredom is not a condition to be feared or avoided. Instead, it is a crucial element that fosters creativity, independence, and self-discovery among children. Boredom challenges children to engage with their inner world, to invent, and to explore, thereby laying the groundwork for a lifetime of learning and innovation. We must not shield our children from boredom but instead embrace it as a powerful catalyst for growth. It is essential to resist the cultural pressure to fill every moment of a child’s day with structured activities and digital distractions. Instead, we should provide spaces and opportunities for them to experience the fruitful solitude that boredom can offer.
THE languor of Youth – how unique and quintessential it is! How quickly, how irrecoverably, lost! The zest, the generous affections, the illusions, the despair, all the traditional attributes of Youth – all save this – come and go with us through life; again and again in riper years we experience, under a new stimulus, what we thought had been finally left behind, the authentic impulse to action, the renewal of power and its concentration on a new object; again and again a new truth is revealed to us in whose light all our previous knowledge must be rearranged. These things are a part of life itself; but languor – the relaxation of yet unwearied sinews, the mind sequestered and self-regarding, the sun standing still in the heavens and the earth throbbing to our own pulse – that belongs to Youth alone and dies with it.
Brideshead Revisited, p. 79
Thinking on this quote as I navigate young adult relationships. I’m prayerfully trying to put myself back into “their age shoes” to respond with love, compassion, and a listening spirit.
A few simple things to aim for this spring/summer! Prayerfully asking the Lord to help me focus on relationships and rightly ordering my affections. Do you have anything planned or something on your heart? ♥️ Journaling brings me so much joy! 🥹♥️🥰
I’m slowly getting into my buddy read of Idyll’s of the King and I was struck remembering this lovely picture book version of this part of the poem. The Kitchen Knight retold by Margaret Hodges is lovely, largely due to the illustrations by Trina Schart Hyman!
Happy Monday, friends! Our weekly quest has begun! Go forth boldly and without fear! 🙏🏻♥️😍
I sometimes think the worst thing a young person can feel is when you can find no answer to the question of what you are supposed to do with this life you’ve been given. At moments you’re aware of it balanced on your tongue, but not what comes next. Something like that. I can now say that another version of that happens in old age, when it occurs to you that since you’ve lived this long you must have learned something, so you open your eyes before dawn and think: What is it that I’ve learned, what is it I want to say?
If the old earth could wash herself and begin again so often and so humbly, why could not a man do the same?
A City of Bells, Elizabeth Goudge
What are motherhood, art, our very life but second chances, beginning again, over and over? ‘Second-chance’ is a term that the book industry labels romances that have the same couple making another attempt at a relationship. This is a very narrow definition. We take second-go-arounds at multiple things DAILY. Our faith walk, being kind, loving on those tough to love, and asking forgiveness over and over again. There are so many wonderful stories and art that when you dig deep, focus on a chance to begin again. I want to focus my attention on a few of these with an expectant heart for what truth the Lord wants to show me. I’m not sure how this will play out as I have so much swirling in my heart. A couple of stories that really jump out to me are Marilla, Matthew, and Anne’s from Anne of Green Gables, Valency from The Blue Castle, Jocelyn from A City of Bells, and Mary from The Scent of Water. All these people have been given a chance to start again or at least begin to truly live. I actually made a huge list of stories from books and films that mean a do-over and fresh mercies to me. I was so surprised by how many of my favorites fall into that category!
2nd ~
my hundredth and one second chance, leaves curl into bud faithfully once again
Happy First Monday in January, friends! 🌲❄️ A bit of a ‘what’s-on-my-heart-currently-collage”…
…There is a Tenant here.
Come home, roamer of earth, to this room and find
a timeless Heart under your own heart beating,
a Bird of beauty singing under your mind.
~excerpt from ‘The Kingdom of God’ by Jessica Powers~
I’ve been thinking a lot about the character Kel in the Protector of the Small series by Tamora Pierce. I really like how fiercely tenacious, loyal, and single-minded she is! It made me think of this clip of my favorite K-pop star. It is insane how hard he throws himself into this dance. How am I living out my life and my faith? Am I fierce, tenacious, loyal, insanely hard-working towards all the Lord Jesus is whispering to me? I realize that these art forms are fictional and unrealistic, but they inspire me deeply! And that makes them real to me. How ‘bout you? What’s jumping out to you?
A beautiful, rich song from Josh Garrel’s album Home for you as you start a new week and for those of you back-to-{home}-school moms out there! This is why we sow and invest!
Words I loved in 1 Chronicles ~ sing, proclaim, declare, thank, testify, boast, remember, ascribe, save, gather, rescue, humble, strong, courageous, willingly, undivided, keep, carry out ~
I’m slowly starting to work on poems for my annual joining of the Peace Poem Project. (There’s still time to sign up! worldpeacepoets@gmail.com ~ you mail out a poem on a postcard throughout February) I’ve started So Big Edna Ferber with 3 buddy reading friends! It’s beautiful so far! I’m also 3/4ths my way through The Goblin Emperor. It’s a very interesting fantasy so far, so slow and full of cozy details. I’m going to be limiting social media, in the hopes for beautiful boredom and a quiet mind to settle down over me, mantle-like.
When you pay attention to boredom it gets unbelievably interesting. – Jon Kabat-Zinn
Feeding my body as well as my heart & soul…☀️
I’ll leave you with this quote of gorgeousness and a poem…
I have been finding new comfort in the two words, which are used by each of the four evangelists in telling the end of the story of the feeding of the Five Thousand. They speak of “broken pieces”, and the same words are used by two in telling of the later miracle. There was nothing over but broken pieces, and yet of those fragments our Lord said, Gather them up that nothing be lost. Even so, our dear Lord cares for the broken pieces of our lives, the fragments of all we meant to do, the little that we have to gather up and offer, and He will use even these fragments. He will not let even the least of our little broken things be lost.
Amy Carmichael, p. 177, Edges of His Ways, emphasis mine
