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Here's to the start of my 365 mornings, yay! It's really just a project intended to help me be authentic, accountable in journaling and remembering my days, and really, in a word...to be. That's my word of the year. One that I hope will sort of define, and shape, and sum up who I want to become this year. God has been showing me that it's not so much about doing--not so much about what I accomplish, what I do, where I go, what I say...but more about who I AM, who He wants me to BE. Humble, happy, authentic, kind, prayerful...it's about my being, not my doing.

I want to learn to be here. To be present in the moment. To not look across the sea to some place lovely [or to some place warm and sunny!], but to simply enjoy and make the most of where I am now.

"When I go to farms or little towns, I am always surprised at the discontent I find.
And New York, too often, has looked across the sea toward Europe.
And all of us who turn our eyes away from what we have are missing life." || Norman Rockwell

Recently I've been meditating a lot on the biblical characters Elisabeth and Anna. Both women walked blamelessly in the sight of God, had more than their share of hardships, and yet chose God. One was barren, one lost her husband and was a widow for nearly seventy years...neither had hope that their feminine desires for the future...for children...for families...for love would ever be fulfilled. But they chose God, finding satisfaction in Him instead. And He proved to be enough for them. They were sure that neither things present, nor things to come would be able to separate them from the love of God in Christ Jesus [Romans 8:38,39]. And that's what I want to learn.

"Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment
of what was spoken to her from the Lord." [Luke 1:45]

"And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to
speak of Him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem." [Luke 2:38]

xoxo,
♥ Sara