Making Every Day Holy

I know people who are bold, courageous, and inherently tough. I know people who are humble, focused, and intuitively seem to know just what needs to be done in every situation. I know people who don't have a habit of second guessing themselves. I know people who find living and breathing in their mortal bodies effortless.

I am not one of those people.

When I first started writing this blog last year, I felt like I was trying to expose what's really going on with me, deep inside, the way you might pop off the back of a watch to see all the little gears and springs inside. I've got a box full of old journals in a closet right beside the desk where I'm sitting. The chief difference between what you're reading now and those journals is audience. I'm letting you see what I have to say if you want to.

I just read a book called An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor. As I read the introduction, I found a kindred spirit, not someone I would agree with completely, but someone like me, someone anxious about everything, someone who struggles with pride, someone who finds herself most often weak and afraid. In that introduction, Taylor issues the question her entire book seeks to answer. She says if you want to get to the heart of your spiritual situation, you've got to ask yourself, What is saving my life today?

Throughout the book, she plainly explains how simple daily spiritual practices keep her grounded in truth, what she calls the Really Real. She addresses simple things like prayerfulness, walking, and just figuring out how to really be inside your own body.

The book spoke directly to my heart; I realized long ago that Christ can best be encountered here, now, in the present wherever you are. But realizing and remembering are two different things. Remembering is the hard part. It is so easy to slip into worry about tomorrow or to start wishing I were somewhere else (like an exotic beach in the Carribean). The people I know, the ones I mentioned at the beginning of this post, they do a much better job at remembering. They have figured out that being where they are doing what they're doing is the most precious, holy thing.

I'm trying. That's why I write about Christ so much. When I'm putting these words together, I forget all the other junk and see what's "Really Real." The Truth is that there's a God who loves us, that Christ died for us, and that all the joy and pain we're experiencing is part of a bigger more beautiful plan to bring us right where we need to be when we need to be there.

So what's saving my life today?

God opened my eyes one more time - still loving me, still not giving up on me, still perfecting me.

People who love me.

The Virtue for Women podcasts that remind me first thing in the morning what's Really Real.

The walk with my dog that moves this imperfect, human body of mine.

The beauty of creation right here beside my house.

P. S. -- I went out and snapped these pictures right before I sat down to write. I was hoping to share the beautiful gifts I've been receiving every day, but there's no way the pictures show the true beauty and movement of the hummingbirds, butterflies, and flowers in the breeze. Enjoying them has been teaching me reverance and reminding me that God is always only a heartbeat away if we're just willing to pay attention.