Fully

I wrote a post recently, just a few weeks ago titled waiting.

For our family, the last year has held a lot of waiting, waiting for a photography endeavor to take off, 

waiting for our house to sell, waiting through the pregnancy, waiting to begin a new daily career, waiting to move, waiting through the summer heat... 

And now, these things have come to fruition and I find it way too easy to continue the waiting game.... Waiting for the weekend, waiting for nap time, waiting for meal time, waiting for the hubs to get home...waiting. 

It's not a sin, necessarily, this excitement of what's to come, but it's a slippery slope as it becomes so easy to slide into an anxious state of constant countdown

I listened to a sermon lately discussing waiting. The speaker clarified our confusion of what waiting really is. So often we see it as a passive passage of time, the purposeless in between required from one event to the next. I, for one, too often let it serve as merely a countdown, my vision for the present dimmed with my anticipation of the next. 

However, the pause is actually intended as a time of preparation, quiet work, peaceful growth, patient development. I find this so inspiring and challenging as, now, blessed enough to spend the daily more accountable for my time with my littles watching and learning from my every move, what a statement it would be to model what waiting really is. 

Investing in each experience, being present in each activity, loving the now, ready for what's to come. Using the pause to the fullest to pursue peace more completely.

Because, there are times where waiting is quiet, 

where peace is the lesson to be learned, stillness the exercise. 

And sometimes, waiting is the pursuit, the hard work, the weary patience.

And these beautiful moments are no less vital to growth than the pressing forward waiting moments, the perseverance of hope in waiting. 

None of these, however, are the mindless ticking down of seconds that too easily encompasses the waiting game I too easily find myself tempted by. 

Instead, whether its preparation or peace filling my waiting moments, 

I'm challenged today to live fully, thankful, grateful in the experience of the everyday.

I'm challenged to grasp what's offered, to live life fully.

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Side note one: family pictures are from a little festival our church threw yesterday.

Note to mommy: September still requires sunscreen.

The verses, however, are not created by me but can be found on Pinterest.

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Side note two: much of lessons being learned right now are solidified by some reading I've been doing in this book.

It's a new fav.

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Side note three: I wrote my own first guest blog post to be shared later this week. Stay tuned.