Blue

Earlier this week as October was coming to an end, I found myself looking through the calendar wondering how quickly the month vanished. I was left feeling a little blue. My chest was heavy. My mind was racing. I walked in circles. I thought about you and how you reacted to our busy schedule...how I reacted!?! Since August our routine has changed with the completion of speech, soccer season's end....but someone how life still seemed rushed even in the quiet walls of our home. 

As I'm reflecting, I think back to this song that played once again this weekend for me.......as we rode home from dinner tonight K-Love's song sang out to my heart....."Chasing after this world makes me tired..Praisin’ my own name leaves me dry...There’s gotta be so much more to life than this...A higher calling that I missed..I want my life to count, every breath." As I cupped that small, little green gum ball in my hands and pretended  it was I microphone, I sang off-key with Daddy riding next to me and you in the back seat.....and my heart praised HIS name for giving me eyes to see and a spirit willing to refill my life with unexpected joy throughout this season-----restarting where I am. 

It wasn't more than a week ago when ALL was quiet in the house. I looked for you. I found you painting a BLUE sky on Mommy's window seat cushion. You looked at me with the paintbrush in your hand (continuing to paint)......"I'm sorry Mommy.......I just wanted to paint....." Luckily, for us both (right!?!), Daddy was home to help clean up or spread the mess.....blue acrylic paint in thick strokes covered our window cushion, blue paint stained a kitchen towel, your hands, the paint brush, the sides of the paint bottle, the bathroom shower's rug, a beach towel.......my white bra!?! Somehow blue was our home's theme for the day------the week.....seeping into my heart. I searched. I looked for the colors---the joy to count. 

Wednesday, we painted blue skies on canvas! As they dried, you played. Blue, blue, blue.....stricken with melancholy, I opened the backdoor to find leaves falling silently from the sky in cascading promises beckoning us to come out and play. The breeze......the sound of the trees calling our names....we gathered ourselves and played outside for hours....you catching leaves with your pink butterfly net, gathering pecans in a little turquoise pail, playing with kittens around the picnic table, having fresh cucumber slices and green kiwis outside for a late lunch/snack......the blues were fading as the promises of color....of joy pelted away the loneliness for what wasn't but what is......

Halloween night brought about October's true end and November's light. Today, we enjoyed time together outside underneath blue skies filled with clouds--perfect puffs of imaginative play immersed not only as we drove but as we played outside underneath the canopy of trees---among the leaves, gum balls, and hidden treasures. You discovered......"Mommy, Mommy look I found some bells!" "Mommy, will you get me out if the leaves cover me up!?!" Looking at the clouds: "Mommy, do you see that dragon!?! "Mommy, there's a piece of pie! Look at that triangle in the pie......."

I didn't know this little gum ball would be my microphone tonight but for it I'm forever grateful that you unearthed it today---and requested that we take it home with us!

Investigating the world around us---with our eyes, our touch....

Mommy's little girl......

Our perspective of the world around matters. What we hold onto can either leave us blue or push us to look beyond the feelings of despair----it's a matter of choice. This November I choose joy....to paint alongside you.......canvases of blue skies with images of our lives....for as Ann Voskamp writes,

"How we behold determines if we hold joy. Behold glory and be held by God.

How we look determines how we live … IF we live.

The strange quiet paradox of this 
 our lives change when we receive life with thanks  
and ask for nothing to change.

Let the rain fall in November.  Let the clouds scuttle west. 
Let the kettles whistle of better things.

And let the thanks rise."

Thank you for the little morsels of joy that you scattered throughout our day with each exclamation of "Mommy......!!"

I love you little one!