Kirjahaku

Can we rewind to a simpler time? A time without the world of Facebook. A place where life was small, yet remembered full. A place roomy enough for more moments to be made with family. More space and time available to truly be present enough to notice them, to treasure them. Can we let go of our small, hand-held intruder and robber of simplicity, our phones? As with them, the Facebook app. The need to know all and the urge to let all be known by a too-big circle of "friends" on Facebook. Can this too-big world be made small again? Can we return to what once was? A time when lunch with your children was lunch with your children. Not them looking at you, with eyes begging to be noticed, over the back of that too familiar, unwelcomed phone. Can a date between you and your spouse go back to being intimate? Between two lovers and best friends, without the world needing to be in on it? To see a picture for its proof?Yes, let's go back, if only briefly, to that world of sweet simplicity. Let me take you on the break which was mine. A cool, soothing, refreshing drink to this parched and withered soul. Allow me to show you how life can become big when allowing small to fill up your heart. Allowing God to lavish you with signs of His unending LOVE, not their frivolous, and never statisfying enough "likes." A beautiful, invigorating, and life-giving breath of fresh air to spiritual lungs deprived of the rich oxygen only He gives Go ahead, let the world run ahead of you, without your needing to catch up. Stay back, lingering and slow. A contenteded bird, too satisfied to flit-fly hurrriedly off, back into the chaos and clutter that is cyperspace. Discover yourself stacking small upon small, to crowd your heart big. There, in a world made small again. As was my world, spent with my husband and children. My Father above, the One, and only, to see it all. I invite you on a free-spirited journey of one heart on a mission to find itself loved. A recording of a few, short months of my life, which have been slowed down to a crawl. Where moments are captured and remembered, down to the smell of my son's maple syrup kiss or my daughter's long-legged, elegant dance. Because, life is sweeter when it slows. And, I felt more loved than a thousand likes could amount to when it did.Come, taste this sweet nectar with me. Drink deep of savored, slowed simplicity. And, may you find yourself. Loved

You're not twenty-five anymore. Not thirty either. Tight-skinned, with young children about the house, in the prime of young motherhood and your ever-nesting heart. You're in the stage after. The one you never thought much of. The one devoid of little, pitter-patter toddler feet and a young one to look after all day. The stage where life begins to make its subtle markings about your face. Those lines that shoot out the sides of your eyes like the rays of sun when you smile. You're grappling with your kids growing up too fast, while begrudging your next wiry, gray hair springing up all uninvited out of your head. You're dealing with a new phase of you.And, let me tell you, she's beautiful.Not in spite of those wrinkles forming and smile lines etching, but because of them. You've laughed and cried and felt. You've lived With every fiber of yourself. Claim it And those spry, gray hairs? Chalk them up to mementos earned through wisdom gained. You're wiser these days And let me tell you, wisdom looks good on you Be the authentic, confident you that only ripens with age No covering up. No apologies. Let's tend to our hearts as well as our fickle fretting over our hair. Let us be as the sunflowers, all bright and basking in the day's glow, full of sunshiny smile-lines. Face to the sun, let us likewise laugh at the days to come, with joy and expectation.