I’ve been sitting alone outside in half sunshine, half shade for the past four hours, which is just about as blissful as it could be. Life doesn’t always feel like it’s so spacious, but for this afternoon it does, and I’m thankful. Between yesterday and today, I’m recognizing God’s graciousness toward me in the way He provides time. Again. It’s easy to forget that He is so good to us.

If I don’t make time or seek it out, my hours can slip away to the unimportant and the insignificant. But I don’t want to waste them, and I’m trying to become a better and better steward. I’m learning that this is both a practice and a habit. Though I’m improving at it, I have a long way to go.

While yesterday was about recalibrating, today is about grounding. Grounding myself in Truth with a capital T and claiming things over my life and my family and this growing baby that I want and need to believe are possible and true. I’ve been living too passively in this area for a while, but I know it can be different. Better. Incredibly good.

Today is a new day and a new place to start.

I’m so grateful in these hours for the summer breeze, and for a quiet spot to sit without interruption. I’m grateful for this belly growing bigger, and for our kiddos who fill my days with laughter and new perspective and simple joy.

I’m grateful for whoever this baby is and is becoming, and for who he or she will be in our family as our lives create even more space for this addition in the days and weeks to come.

I’m grateful for Jason and the way God made us friends as well as partners. That we can laugh at the end of the day, and that even though we might forget in the midst of life circumstances sometimes, we’re on the same team. I’m grateful that God gave us each other to refine and strengthen and celebrate who we are, both independently and together.

I’m grateful for the simple things. For air in my lungs, for waking up each morning, for food in the refrigerator and for clean clothes on our bodies. For books to read, friends to visit, a house to keep in order, a safe place to sleep at the end of the day.

I need to practice gratitude as habitually and purposefully as I practice other things. It makes a world of difference in the condition of my heart.

making space because it’s necessary, and because it heals from the inside, out. better for this day,

mm