Tag Archives: spiritual journeys

Unspeakable Joy

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Welcome back, my beloveds, to the last week of Advent and the countdown to Christmas! We are so unprepared! Nevertheless, time will go on and Christmas will come and go – whether I am prepared or not. Hopefully, this little post will help us all get in the mood. Thought I’d share about the final theme of Advent for this week: Joy. Our youngest experienced the joy of her first snow day today. A new experience for us… buses cancelled and therefore no one shows up to school? What’s with that?! I’m not complaining though… it means I don’t have to drive in it. Bonus. 

(and so has the snow !!)

This is not the first time I’ve mused about Joy. It’s a recurring theme on mittonmusings.com. If you are interested, go back and check these posts out. They’ll make you smile:

Unspeakable joy. It’s one of the lyrics in the adapted Joy to the World hymn that’s circulating around this time of year. I wonder, though, what does it mean? Unspeakable joy. Usually when you experience “joy” you wanna chat about it, no? Shout: ”Snow day! No school! Hurray!” Tell the world about your experience? Spread the news? Does unspeakable mean indescribable? So dumbfounded that you can’t speak about it? Or awe? Like the marvel at something that just takes your words away. I’m thinking it must be like that.

I’m also guessing it takes a little bit of discipline to see those things around you that bring that unspeakable joy. I’m imagining a new mom… hectic chaos in the midst of bottles, burps and bathing. It’s not until that early morning feeding when the quiet allows you to take a moment, when no one else is around, to marvel at your baby’s tiny features. So perfectly designed. The softness of their delicate skin, and the sweet smell of sour milk and baby powder. If you know, you know. I wonder if Mary had that moment with baby Jesus. I’m sure she did. In fact, I am sure she had it a few times. 

I’m learning to discover it more and more as I take the time to slow down and practice seeing those little things in the world around me. Tiny footprints in the snow. The flame of a warm fire as it dances. It’s dangerous. Fire consumes. Yet, if you take the time to quietly observe things, you will see the beauty in it. That’s when that marvel comes in to play. That’s when you begin to get that awestruck “joy” that there is Someone so much bigger than you who has mastered the tiny intricacies of life as we know it. And that Someone has set them in to place so that this big wide world goes ’round with the exact precision it needs to be set at. Amazing.

We had a unique experience this past week when we were decorating our front porch. We discovered a dead pigeon on the lawn. Now before you scroll away, hear me out. We don’t know what happened. There was one tiny blood streak. A hawk maybe. Or a cat? We don’t get a lot of pigeons, so I think it was dropped in from elsewhere. And I don’t want to glorify death, but there was something beautiful about this bird. Each feather layered in a silky, smooth collection. Some feathers glistening in green and purple iridescence. A striking contrast to the grey and white body feathers. Each wing stretched out to reveal strong flight feathers. Yet so light as to carry this creature on the wind. It hit me with that awe and wonder for a moment. I was able to somehow experience the joy in death. It allowed me to observe a creature I would otherwise not have been able to examine so closely had it been alive. Do you get it? I hope you see it through my words.

Beauty in the everyday. Photo via Popular Science

And it’s the wish I have for you, my friend, as you go into this holiday season. I wish you the chance to experience “unspeakable joy” this Christmas. To practice seeing the beauty – even in some not so beautiful experiences. Perhaps, like many, the holiday season is not an easy one for you. It is not the “happy” season everyone talks about. Joy is different. It goes beyond the happy to a deeper, somehow indescribable and unspeakable emotion of awe in the essence of Christmas. The emotion behind the truth that the Creator of the entire world came to the earth as a tiny, helpless babe. Do you feel it? I wish it for you, my beloved. Joy, unspeakable Joy, to the world!!

Treasures and Time

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Greetings, my beloveds! Another week… thought I’d shake it up a bit and post a day late. Truth is, we had our first power outage last night and no posting was going to get done without power. The winds blew something fierce and we got a bit of freezing rain and then, poof! darkness fell upon the land. Thankful for our wood stove and the hubby’s persistence in purchasing wood, we survived the five or so hours of “living like pioneers”. Minus the data on our phones, and the battery operated flashlights, and the printed card game we played…

Would you like to live like a Pioneer? Photo by dogadakisakal on Pexels.com

I suppose the blackout added to my muse for today, which was prompted by a question I saw posed a week or so ago: What would be an era you would have liked to live in? Take a moment with me. Live in forever? Visit? Future? Past? I suppose the scenario may change if you were stuck there versus time travelling through… so let’s say we were just visiting. I’m hearing many of my generation and the next saying “Oh, if only we could go back to the good old days — live off the land, no pressures, no this or that” Which seems fair coming from a girl who just moved to the country to raise chickens and bunnies and learn to grow her own veggies. Still, there’s a never ending amount of work involved with those things… and no Home Hardware to help in 1800.

Perhaps some of you would say Bible Times would be the ticket. Meet Jesus and the disciples. Get a true feeling for the scriptures and the parables as a people of the time. Still, as a young woman, my life would look very very different. Perhaps my stubborn attitude would’ve gotten me into trouble. Jesus or not. Or swing the pendulum. Future? Automated everything. Convenience extrapolated to the max. What kind of satisfaction, or lack thereof, would that elicit? All fair assessments, and worthy of musing.

Where would you go if you could time travel?

A week or so ago we made an impromptu visit to an old friend who is now living in an old century home in a quaint little town not too far from us. Her place is fabulous! Perfectly accented with antiques and knick knacks that truly bring her showcase home to full beauty. I craved her secrets and sources, and kicked myself for being the realist I am, and that I am entirely too cheap. Besides, our century farmhouse has to be knocked down a notch due to dog hair, house flies and the manure patch next door. Pioneer times, my foot.

Still, I am taken in by things that various people treasure. I marvel at home reno shows and thrift finders who have a gift for finding that perfect thing. That little gem that fits exactly on that shelf and screams I am the G.O.A.T! Perhaps, you’ve DIY’d something or inherited a family heirloom that you display with pride. I found a little egg cup at the thrift store the other day that did me in. Normally, I gloss over the knick knack section (“frugal” remember?) but I picked up this little thing and hummed and hawed at the price tag (a whopping $1.98!) and decided it was too cute. Chickens. Farmhouse. Maybe even bordering on “vintage” … a farmhouse needs a chicken egg cup, right??

And so I enjoyed my hard boiled egg in my new egg cup on Saturday morning. And dream of chickens come spring.

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Matthew 6:19-21

Does this mean we cannot collect the goods and find that perfect piece? I don’t think so. It’s a good reminder to stay balanced. To live with Heaven in mind. To treasure our relationships and nurture our love for others not things. I can easily get sucked in to the beauty of “things” (or creatures…) instead of my people, so I must check myself every now and then. A good power failure reminds me that all that I have right now, in this era in history, in this moment in time, was designed perfectly just for me. I am given what I need and blessed with so much more. And so, although it is fun to dream and ponder and muse about this time or that treasure, reality tells me that you can’t take it with you. Be grateful and generous. Be thankful and thoughtful. But dream a little.

Persistent

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Persistence. It’s what I’ve been musing about today. The thought popped into my head as I sat watching a lone ladybug crawl up my windowsill this morning. Golly, these insects are persistent, I thought to myself! This morning we had our first dusting of snow. It’s the end of October, and the weather has been exceptionally warm up until today. We are finally getting the seasonal temperatures we expect. Which means the bugs should be dying off. Except they are not. Persistent.

I suppose I need to back track a little. Mornings are entirely too early here on “Itsnotta” farm. The youngest now has to be up and ready for the school bus by 7:10 AM. For us, that’s an early wake up call. And, the baby of the house is like her momma… mornings are not our best time of day.

Photo by Acharaporn Kamornboonyarush on Pexels.com

I’m trying. We set our alarm early enough to snooze a little before crawling out from the warmth in order to get the last teenager surviving up in time to catch the bus. Who decided high school should start at 8:15 anyway??!

I tried gentle parenting with no lights on and warm thoughts and kind words. It didn’t work. The hubby now gets up, flicks on every light in the house and we both do a lot of shouting. We pack everything the night before but the kid still manages to not eat breakfast. In fact, she’s barely dressed as we haul her out, shoes in hand, so as not to miss the bus.

All of this to tell you of my encounter with the lady bug. After the chaos of the morning routine, I have been sitting staring out the front window, still in jammies, warm coffee in hand, tucked under some sort of covering, thankful another day has started and wishing the sun to rise. Depending on the amount of shouting and, shall we say, non-gentle parenting that has happened, this quiet moment of solitude plummets me down into a deep hole of thoughts – sometimes good, sometimes not so good.

As I watched the ladybug, I flashed back to the day they invaded. Swarms of them. I hear they are not true ladybugs but some invasive species of Asian beetle who have these seasons of literally taking over. They were everywhere! All along the front porch outside, on every door frame and crawling up the ceiling in a mass swarm of orangey red waves. Bleck! Trusty Google told us not to squish ’em as they emit some sort of nasty stink, so we vacuumed them up in our ancient vacuum – which also emits a nasty stink – so not sure we were one ahead of the game anyway. At least the bugs were gone from inside the house. Except for these few persistent ones.

The houseflies are still here too. I can’t seem to get them under control, either. Occasionally, on a warmer day, a lone wasp still pays us a visit on the sunny porch. My spiders are no where to be seen. Luckily for the hubby, neither are the mosquitoes. Here I am panicking that the rabbits are warm enough and the blessed bugs are still surviving! Persistence.

So, as I muse about the eternally present insects, I think about persistence. Perseverance. The tenacity and determination to keep moving forward. To stay alive, even, when all other circumstances say you should give up – and just die off. Many of us have heard stories of the athlete or business entrepreneur who musters up enough gumption to continue to survive rejection after rejection. I think there are certainly those extreme cases of climbing the mountain to the top, but it seems like most of us ride the wave of persistence daily. At least I do.

We start out every early morning with big plans to be consistent, pray continually, seek grace and gratitude. Be thankful and look for kingdom opportunities. Often we manage to do all those things… for awhile. Then one too many early mornings take hold of us and we are too tired to fight. Or cutting words from someone else makes it super hard to treat them with grace and honour. It’s hard to be grateful when doubt and worry weasel their way into our thoughts as we balance the cheque book, or make another visit to the clinic or counsellor.

Ephesians 6 is one of my favourite chapters in the sense that it reminds us that spiritual growth is a journey of continually getting ready and getting dressed for battle. It reminds us to be persistent in our prayers. To stand your ground in battle and have an attitude of obedience. The apostle Paul knew the battle was difficult, but like my little ladybug he continued to climb heavenward even in the face of death. He knew the battle was worth it.

Photo by Dastan Khdir on Pexels.com

To be honest, I struggle with it. I pray, I write, I read, I study. Yet, circumstances and my own stubborn attitude prevents me from being the gracious daughter of the King He’s asked me to be. Some days I physically don’t have it in me. No one said the journey would be roses and rainbows. In fact, Ephesians 6 reminds us it’s a BATTLE. Oh beloveds, be encouraged that battles are not fought all alone. It takes an army. And each one of us have to put on our suits of armor and stand our ground. Shall we march heavenward together? I’ll see you next week!