Small Succcess Thursday

Another week has flown by and now, we start to count our blessings as part of preparation for Advent.  Nothing of the blur of the season matters but this, that we grow in grace, in gratitude for the gift that gives us Christmas.  It's so easy to get caught up in the moment, with needing to get cards and cookies and gifts and outfits, haircuts, shoes, trimming the tree, setting lights, and all the demands that come from everywhere and everything.  

But we're supposed to use this time of blessed waiting to learn how to wait blessedly, to wait on the blessed, to be blessed by the waiting itself. 

I admit, I catch sniffs and snatches of that, but they are the momentary, erased by the next moment when reality interrupts in the form of a car needing a repair, the toilet plunged, holes in socks, dishwashers that don't wash for some reason today, but do fine tomorrow, extra pounds, grey hairs, homework slips, cold weather, bad news on the news, colds and bills.  There is a noisiness to this world that can shout to the point of being seemingly legion and unstoppable. 

But that's the great gift of Christmas, the quiet blessedness of that scene of Joseph, Mary and Jesus and the star.  There's beauty. There's light. There's Awe and there's the great silence of that time, when all the ills of our hearts were stilled with the mere hope represented by the Incarnation. 

We need not live angry, we need not live only for this life, or stay steeped in sin, mired in pain, stuck in the dullness of scratching out a day to day existence.  To reach the stable, we need only look to the Heavens for the Star.  To seek out wonder and awe is to practice imitating the Silent Night of that Holy Night in our souls and let that blessed stillness permeate our being.  I remember how, it is the same way a mother can get still by holding a newborn to her chest.  

I understand what is necessary; it's just I'm very stubborn and take a while to learn to "Be still and know."  That grace takes time to build in me. And then every once in a while, I surrender to it. Then my soul wonders why it took so long and why I leave that moment so quickly.

So what did I do this week?

1) I went to a party with my husband.  It was lovely and fun. 
2) Got haircuts for six of the kiddos.
3) 14 loads of laundry including socks sit awaiting final transport to their proper rooms.
4) Organized Christmas outfits for all children.
5) Walked 2 miles on Sunday.  Okay, so that's a lame start to an exercise program, but it is a start.