Lead Me to Rest (part 2)

Last week, I caught myself saying, "It's been a bad week." This wasn't at all true, though. I had one bad day last week. Just one. It was a doozy, but it was only one day. The rest of the days were pretty good, if not great. Why did I keep saying it was a bad week? 


It's easy to let the dark moments overtake the good times. It's too easy to let one bad day - or one bad moment - corrupt the days around it. I had to keep reminding myself that every time I did that, I gave that one day way too much power.


I mentioned on Tuesday that I spent a recent Saturday at a Sabbath event. The point of the day was to rest and to reconnect with ourselves and with God. And I did that, not by engaging in the wonderful experiences the planners spent weeks designing but by curling up in a chair and writing, writing, writing. It was something I easily could have done at home. But I wouldn't have. I hadn't. I needed to put the time in my schedule. I needed to set aside the time and walk away from my to do lists in order to do something my soul desperately needed.


In the course of my writing, writing, writing, I realized something about this year - this crummy, sad, grief- and stress-filled year.


It hasn't all been bad. Yes, the bad parts have been deeply disturbing. But there have been a lot of great moments in there, too. I started to think of those great moments as "Sabbath." This fall I started a job that has kept me running harder than I have for a job in a very long time. And I have loved it more than anything I have ever done in my life. This job is an emotional Sabbath from the grief of this year.


Every December I put together a huge poster of pictures from the year. I have it printed up with the year and then "A Year to Remember." I've had a hard time thinking very positively about that poster for this year. 2011 will always be the year of 3 major family deaths in 9 months. How could I possibly find 10 pictures to celebrate this year, much less 30?


But there is plenty to celebrate this year. Plenty of joys to off-set the pain. I'm trying to see those moments as gifts from the Lord. Times of rest to help me reflect, recharge and refocus before dealing with whatever comes next. I am so thankful for that gift of Sabbath.

New Year Tradition

Last year I posted here about a tradition in our house. It started in December of 2007. I had just finished a year long scrapbooking class with Heidi Swapp at Big Picture Scrapbooking. The class was called A Year to Remember and we did pages and projects and a journal to help us zero in on the here and now. I loved it. At the end of the year I wanted to create something to help us celebrate all the fun things we did as a family, so I made a collage poster at Snapfish.

We are now on our fourth poster. Here is 2010:

This poster - 20x30 inches - is a great conversation piece in our entry way. People love to look at all the pictures and ask about the events represented in it. It is also a great "memory book." When we put one poster away, we always pull out the old ones and remember all the fun we have had together as a family.

I think a collage poster is a great gift idea, even if it is a gift to your own family - a reminder of your seasons together.