The Thankful Project: November 17th

The Thankful Project: November 17th: The Holidays

Insert <<It's the most wonderful time of the year>> here. Honestly though, there is something special about this time of the year. Maybe it's the nostalgia or maybe it's the excessive amount of sweets but there is something a little different about November and December. I love the holiday season for multiple reasons:
- the food
-the music
-the sense of nostalgia
-the movies on TV
-the family time
-the selflessness of humanity
-the thoughtfulness 
-love is in the air

The holidays were always a special time for my family. I'm sure I have a Norman Rockwell idealized image of what we actually looked like, but it always felt so warm and cozy. We would always go to my grandmothers for a Thanksgiving meal and all the cousins and aunts and uncles would come over to enjoy food and fellowship with one another. When I was a teenager my little family moved away (the first rebels to do so) and then we started our own family traditions. It has always been a time where we all come home and spend time with one another, something we don’t always get to do with our busy schedules.

I know people like to complain about the traffic and the sales that seem to be earlier and earlier, the Christmas music that starts playing too soon (for some people at least), the stress and expectations of entertaining- but remember the ‘reason for the season’. Remember to be grateful and thankful for the traffic: that means you have a car to get from one place to the next. Be grateful and thankful for the ridiculous sales because it means you can finish your check list sooner and spend the rest of your time with the ones you love. Be grateful and thankful for that Christmas music that starts playing way too early, it may bring someone joy in a moment of darkness. Be grateful and thankful for the stress of the in-laws coming into town, you have people who want to be with you during a time that is busy!

Looking forward to another wonderful holiday season with the ones I love, both near and far.

Ordinary to Extraordinary

It has been a while since I've actually finished a post and actually published it- a sad thing considering I used to love writing and blogging. In the past four months my work life went from busy to chaos. I would leave work, hit the gym, come home and be so emotionally, mentally and physically exhausted I couldn't even find the motivation to open my laptop or look at a screen for one second longer. As the days turned into weeks and weeks into months, my life turned into a draining monotony of busyness.

Recently a few things have around me that make me realize how incredibly unpredictable life can be; things can change so drastically that it made me stop and ask myself it what I was doing was worth it? No.

A woman at work had an honest conversation with me, about how short life can be and how we need to forget about the fear of the future and the unknown and find joy in the moments we have with those we love. It's pivotal that we choose joy, find joy and pursue the dreams we dream about only to ourselves.

When I get busy, one of the first things to suffer is my quiet time reading the Word. Ironically, the Word is one of the most important things we can stay in to keep grounded,  rooted in His promises and cling onto the hope that He promises us. Deciding to take 5 to 10 minutes of your day to spend with Him and reading the Word can really set the tone for the rest of it. Life gets messy, busy, chaotic, and plain stressful but by rooting ourselves in those few blissful moments of quiet, peace and joy it can really turn your day around and make an ordinary day into an extraordinary day. So I choose to find the time, to make the commitment and to make completely ordinary days into fantastically extraordinary days.

"A busy life makes prayer harder, but prayer makes a busy life easier"