Thankful
THANK YOU, THANK YOU
I am filled with immense gratitude today for a lot of things. For health, for family, for God winks, for sunshine, for warmth, for food and fellowship…I am also so deeply thankful for each one of you for continuing to show up here and support me, encourage me, collect my work. It means more than I could ever say and is more then I could have ever imagined possible. It humbles me, brings tears to my eyes, and makes my heart swell to know that my work resonates with so many of you.
Wishing you and yours a rest filled next few days with the ones you love and lifting up all who the holidays are hard for too- you have a special place in my heart.
In honor of Thanksgiving and in reflection of gratitude and this season of harvest, today I wanted to share some images from my camera roll of some, as I call them “God winks,” from over the past few weeks that have touched me and inspired me. Moments where God met me in nature and wrapped me in peace and comfort and hope, some in moments when I needed it most. Beautiful glimmers where I was reminded of the joy that can be found in seasons of change, of harvest, of the cyclical rhythms of life and where I was filled with joy and awe and thankfulness.
And I also wanted to leave you with some sentiments on this harvest season that I have saved recently that really resonated with me in hopes they lift you up too whatever today and this season looks like for you. I think they apply to a lot of instances across the board whether that be family dynamics, motherhood, friendships, career, new pursuits…Both are by Jennifer Dukes Lee.
“Autumn has come, and with it, the harvest. Autumn’s harvest is both sacred and miraculous. Look to your fields and see the things that grew. Whether you are harvesting crops or ideas or efforts, there is nothing quite so satisfying as holding that fully ripened thing in your hand and relishing all that went into its growth. The planting of seeds, the watering, the waiting, the prayers, the perseverance, the weeding, the tending, the jaw-dropping moment when- against all odds- your seeds burst forth from hard ground to bear fruit that lasts. But along with the relief and satisfaction, harvest time can bring sadness, no matter what you’re growing. For some, the sadness comes in knowing that everything you’ve worked so hard for is now complete. You wonder what’s next. For others, sadness comes because the harvest doesn’t look the way you expected. Either way, autumn and its harvest always come. There is a season for everything, and a time for every purpose under heaven, even this. It’s a sacred gift to know: The Lord of the Harvest celebrates with you when the harvest brings you joy. And he walks with you around the wounds of your fields, when the harvest looks different than you dreamed.”
“To the person who is frustrated that nothing is blooming…I see you. There are times when I look out on the land that is my life, and it’s fallow. The fields are quite, painfully so, and I feel alone on the edge of my field. This is the time when I must remember that growth is happening in hidden places, under the soil where only God can see. Not every season is a season for blooms to appear. Not every season is made for growing UP. The seasons that grow us most are the ones where we gave ourselves permission to grow DOWN. We carry within us this great and mysterious promise that unseen growth is slowly happening, even now. I am alive, wondrously alive, carrying breath and heart and soul. I will not dig up the field looking for life and growth. I will trust, simply, that it is. In the years ahead, I will look back and know that this slow-growing was the growing that mattered most. That I was growing the whole time, putting down deep roots that I didn’t know I’d need. So I will let my wild roots run free and deep in the hidden places. I don’t have to grow up today I will just grow down.”