summer, simplicity, & surrender

As I write, I have dirt under my fingernails and a bloodied toe. I feel like a kid again. It feels so good that I'm not even thinking about how ghastly my toe is going to look when the injured nail takes its leave. So much for my French pedicure. It's quite laughable, actually. Who sustains injuries while mulching their flower beds? Well, obviously...

Did I think the aforesaid information necessary or enlightening to your existence? Hardly. But if you want a synopsis of my life at the moment, there ya be... Discovering a deep, saturating joy in simplicity. Like being good and dirty for a change.

I learned it from the birds.

No beaks about it.

While watching the nuthatches, titmice, chickadees, purple finches, sparrows, and the resident pair of cardinals visit my backyard feeder, a peace stole into my complexities.

They don't have to be right all the time. They don't try to see tomorrow. They don't wonder how or what they SHOULD be feeling. And yet God sees them. And they praise Him just by LIVING.

Is this called surrender? This stillness in the wake of letting go?

It gives me ears to hear the heartbeat of a creation being redeemed... and the sacred opportunity to play along with its music... just by being who He made me to be. And knowing He sees me.

The rewards are abundant.

The simple joy of

local strawberries,

EATING the strawberries with homemade egg custard on the porch in the evening...

making bread... (sorry the picture is so grainy; my only camera is my phone right now. Ha! Get it? "Grainy?")

Turning this:

into that:

to sunny up my room.

I saw the idea on Folding Trees and knew that's the inspiration I was waiting on to add some texture to that wall. Not having any pipe cleaners on hand, I threaded a needle with heavy thread and knotted it on the back of the flowers. The thread tails made for easy hanging, too. Aren't they fun?

Coffee filters I had on hand + scraps of fabric from a dress I just finished + a wavey-glassed, peeling-painted beauty of a window I scored for FREE on Craigslist (happy day!) = a room that makes me smile.

"Love conquers all; we must, too, surrender to love." -Virgil

...and it is in that surrender that we find what it is to live the day one is given as the person one is made to be.