The Last Monday of 2024:

Some questions that you may want to consider:

• What’s working?
• What isn’t?
• What do you need to let go of?
• What do you need to grab hold of?

A quick look back at something that caught my eye and a viewing of it now:

During Lent 2024 I read a piece of a poem thumbing through the book I would read for that year called “The Bright Field” by R.S Thomas.

Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after

an imagined past. It is the turning

aside like Moses to the miracle

of the lit bush, to the brightness

that seemed as transitory as your youth

once, but is the eternity that awaits you

~The Bright Field

Now looking back, it is the words, “the turning aside like Moses to the miracle of the lit bush, to the brightness” that catches my attention.

I changed the structure of how I lived my week at church. I chose certain days to do certain things. Instead of running after every “whatever was put in front of me,” I simply added it to a list of things and prepped my next week to finish things on time. Somethings were now things but most, like 98% of the things were added to the list and scheduled. Guess what happened?

SLOW entered my life. I went from rushed, hurried, falling behind, stressed, and looking like it to restful, calm, and ready for what was coming. I also found a lot more time in my day, in the 2024 flying by, year.

I still have this schedule, and it serves me well. But those words, “the turning aside like Moses to the miracle of the lit bush, to the brightness” that catches my attention. I feel light on those words. Like God is highlighting them for me, to turn toward the “light and brightness of things” this year and let every “dark and ugly thing” just pass on by. Pay it no mind.

HER

This girl in the middle of the photo is like a light for our family. When she left for a camp internship, returned to get married, and then moved out. We really had no way of knowing until she was gone that she would take a vital part of us with her. So much joy…

She is my husbands (I was there for this) first kid. (He would later reconnect with his first-born son.)

She was my first go with me everywhere and talk about everything friend.

She was my sons first BBF.

She means the world to us! She has since built her own little family with her husband and going on now 4 kids.

We are about a year and a half from our son graduating from high school. So much helping and taking care of things will go when he goes. He gets it done. He does the dirty job. He will be an amazing provider and care leader of his own family… like his father.

I guess… we can look at them and say, “We did good!” What more can you ask for then children who worship Jesus, do hard things, help their family, and keep on keeping on.

VITAMINS

Pneumonia and Pneumococcal are A and D deficient.

Pertussis is D (although it is treated with high C therapy) deficient.

Flu is D deficient.

That is interesting considering when these normally show up in the fall and winter when the sun is giving more indirect light. Keep up on those vitamins.

Thanks for Listening,

Starla