Goodbye, July

When I was a brand-new blogger many moons ago, I had the completely unrealistic expectation that I could write something every single day. I was mostly successful in hitting the publish button daily, but sometimes the content wasn’t much more than what I had for dinner, which doesn’t make for very interesting reading, and followers tend to stop following that sort of drivel.

I find myself in a similar situation today, Monday, at 8:10 pm, when I suddenly realize I have nothing prepared to share tomorrow and that dreaded feeling hits. It’s very much like the one I experienced a few times in college when I showed up to class having not studied for a quiz I was warned about on the very first day of classes in the written syllabus. Have you been there? I know a few of my kids have.

But then I remembered that this is indeed the last day of July 2023 and that calls for a little reflection before we move on to the next month. I am trying this year to make reflection more of a practice to help myself pay attention to what’s going on in my life, rather than just whizzing through not noticing anything.

You can do this too, and it’s not difficult. You can use the questions I’m using here, or make up your own. There is not a wrong way to do this. It’s just about slowing down enough to see your life and learn from it, to enjoy the good and remind yourself that maybe the bad wasn’t so bad. Or maybe it was, but at least you lived through it, right? You survived and in the words of Jane, that’s not nothing.

Let’s do this.

What was your favorite thing that happened this month?

That’s easy. My daughter had her first baby, my thirteenth grandbaby. I have not yet seen him because sadly she lives far away from me, but I hope to remedy that soon. For now, I swoon over photos.

My second-favorite thing was getting to move into our house that we’ve spent the last year and a half building. There is still so much to do, but we are in it and it is seriously the quietest place we’ve ever lived. Very few cars go by, and once in a while we hear the train way off in the distance. But we can sit on our porch and hear the cows munching grass.

The sun rises over the pasture, and while I’ve never been much of a morning person, the peacefulness of these sunrises has ministered to me.

The sun sets behind us which makes the clouds pretty.

And we see rainbows over the pasture every time there’s a storm.

What is something you read this month?

I just finished The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer. I sort of struggled through the first part of the book, mostly because I just couldn’t see how I could unhurry my life at all. It seemed so unrealistic for my circumstances. But in the next part, he gives concrete suggestions for slowing down and I loved that. I needed that.

Just one of the suggestions I’ve found myself doing more and more: if I’m behind someone on the road who is driving the actual speed limit and I’m tempted to pass so I can get wherever I’m going faster, I pull my foot back off the gas and slow down just a little. Then I just sit behind him, cruising along and enjoying the ride instead of rushing to get to the destination. It’s amazing how calming this can be.

But here’s the overall takeaway for me: Eliminating hurry doesn’t have to be huge and drastic and life-altering. I can do small things that may not seem like a big deal but they slow my brain down just a little, and my brain needs that so much. Does yours? So I make bread the long way instead of throwing all the ingredients in a machine and letting it do the work while I rush to accomplish something else. It helps that my bread machine died—maybe that was providential.

Or I take a minute to stand at the window and watch the nightly herd of deer graze in the pasture.

I take a long, slow breath. I eliminate hurry for just a moment.

What do you hope will be true of August?

I hope it will be cooler than July. I hope I will get to see all of my daughters and their husbands and children. I hope I will get better at not stressing over the little things. I hope Ben and I will take more time to have fun. (This may sound ridiculous but we are seriously working on it.) I hope the Lord gives me words that encourage someone.

A prayer for August:

Lord, may we remember that every good gift comes from you.
May we slow down,
and notice the million ways you show up every day.
And may we stop completely,
and thank you.