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Tea Time Tuesday: My kitchen window by my sink where I wash dishes looks out on a lovely patch of a wood. I have seen baby dear born on the grass below, as well as countless spectacular sunsets. Even as the sun sets on another day, closes the doors of possibility of life and work for that day. So, another year, like the sunset, comes to a close. No more work to be completed in that year, cheeks that could have been kissed, words that could have been said. The possibilities of last year are closed and over. It is right and natural that we ponder how we will affect the outcome of a new year before it also is closed.
How then, will we invest in this new gift of time? A year granted to our lives in which to bring light, beauty and goodness to our world, to those precious ones in the scope of our days.
Today, I have been thinking about how to move through the different years, the varied seasons of life with generous grace. And life requires intentional endurance to keep going strong with determination to make it a beautiful story.
The seasons of endurance are many and varied:
Pregnancy, baby sleepless nights, physical demands of littles, all the stages of learning, training, loving serving — years of building character and attending to constant needs. Followed then by pre-teen hormones, next teen feelings, late nights, and need to talk, and rolling their eyes. Then comes helping young adult children find their way forward in life. Next, adult children and their various opinions and needs for independence, often not even understanding your own stages or sacrifices of life.
We eventually hit old age, hospitalizations and surgeries, and along the way, marriage ups and downs and all the seasons—house work, etc. Yet, I look back now and see the wisdom of exercising grace, straining towards steadfastness and celebrating beauty at each juncture of life.
The decisions you make, the faith you exercise, the steadfastness you exercise all determine the legacy of the story you leave. And it all matters so much.
Such fun and interesting ideas on today’s Tea Time Tuesday podcast!