On What’s Saving My Life Right Now

Once in a while, maybe four times a year, I consider what I’m enjoying in my life. Not just generally, but specifically. I realize that these things aren’t exactly saving my life. But they are the things that quietly and persistently take my breath away, nurture hope, and give me a sense of settled peace.

Spring. We’ve come out of one of the hardest winters in forever. It wasn’t that way for most of the winter. But February arrived, and the biggest snow storm I remember in the history of my life, hit us. We had two feet of snow on Lake Joy. It took my breath away. All I wanted was for winter to. be. over. When I was absolutely certain the ground would be frozen forever, it warmed up and Spring sprang. The cherry blossoms bloomed, the tulips started appearing at the front of the super markets, along with the herb starts. Life is somehow just like this. Just when I think my fate is sealed and there is no hope, something new springs up and I realize that all is not lost. Spring is saving my life right now, reminding me that winters pass, hope bursts forth when we least expect it, and things do turn a corner.

Wisdom Distilled from the Daily by Joan Chittister. I love to read, but I came out of New Testament Greek exhausted and spent. My final took me just over five hours to complete and used up all my mental faculties. I wasn’t sure what to do when I finished New Testament Greek. John gave me Joan Chittister’s book over a year ago. He passed it to me one afternoon from his bookshelf and said, “You might like this.” Finally, I turned to it, wondering what I’d like about it. Maybe, just every single word. It is one of the most practical, helpful books on the Christian life that I have ever read. Honestly. It’s grounded, real, dead serious, and full of wisdom. Wisdom on daily living.

My garden. Particularly, asparagus. John and the kids built me a beautiful garden last spring. It’s a raised bed garden with six foot fencing around it. I have wanted to garden for most of my life, but lacked the wherewithal to do it. No more. I finally decided to just start planting and let things succeed or fail and learn from those successes and failures accordingly. The other day I was at a garden store with my friend Christy, and she pointed out the asparagus. Asparagus are funky little roots. They take three years to harvest. Three. Years. Which means, if you plant asparagus it’s like deciding to go on a long journey. I planted three of them. It takes commitment to plant asparagus, and perseverance. More than that, it takes vision. To plant something right now that won’t bear fruit for years to come requires vision. It requires we trust that the good life is not always the immediate life. The beautiful life is not the quick life. Instead, it is the cultivated, grounded life. It is the life that believes in waiting for the fruit, in holding out hope that something good will come, and it is the belief that trusts in the work we cannot see with our eyes.

Manicures. Yep. Manicures. I take everything in life way too seriously and I tend toward stoicism if I’m not careful. But I don’t do stoicism very well. I’ll hold out and hold out and hold out and then go on a splurge and buy a bunch of things, or indulge in wonderfully rich food and then feel super guilty. Like the Mayor in the movie, Chocolat. This is not the balanced life that I seek. My tendency is toward extremism, which is not grounded or balanced or helpful. If I live too extremely, I swing extremely.

For years, I drank far too much red wine, and finally decided to quit. I quit for Lent and then for a year. This Lent I gave up flour, yeast, and sugar, except for chocolate chips. The thing I’m realizing is that it’s important to take care of myself. To cultivate habits that get to the heart of real, authentic self-care, which is not reactionary self-indulgence at the end of a hard day. That’s what we call coping. I want to do more than cope with my life, I want to flourish in my life. Real self-care requires thoughtful reflection on our authentic needs, intentionality, and balance.

Recently, I realized how much I enjoy having my nails done. It takes an hour, the ladies make me laugh hysterically. They teach me Vietnamese. I can’t read while they’re doing my nails, so it forces me to just sit there and be in my body. It also makes me feel like I’m taking care of my body, and it’s quietly telling my true self that I matter and that I’m important. As a mom, who spends much of her time driving children around, doing laundry, and making food, it’s good to remind myself that my hands are beautiful. That the work of my hands matter. Taking care of myself is part of being a good steward of my life. What I might have coined as self-indulgent in my younger years, is actually nothing more than good old-fashioned self-care.

As I read through these four things, I definitely see a theme. The theme of balance, and daily wisdom, what it means to steward the good life, and not a life of immediate gratification. The themes of hope and waiting, of honest reflection and learning to listen to my real, authentic needs and what it looks like to meet those real needs, to give them space. I’m learning how to make room for my humanity, for my body and my body’s needs. I’m learning to trust the long journey, instead of the fast sprint. To trust that God is in the long journey and that God is also in my every day, practical, mundane life.

What’s saving your life right now? I’d love to hear. 

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It starts on May 1 – June 12. I do not want you to be deterred by the cost. If you do not have the financial means to pay this.
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