As I write this, it marks one week in our new house. We’ve lived in seven places in the past six years, but we’ve never truly felt “home,” until now.

It’s one of the biggest gifts and miracles I’ve ever been given, and yet even in the Garden, our mind can easily slip towards distraction or worry. How easily my heart bends in the winds of transition, spinning in a state of unsettledness.

Newness brings wonder and delight, but also more uncertainty and transition and an unsettling that can quickly turn to anxiety or fear.

We must return and remember.

In every season.

Without exception of how much wonder surrounds us. And arguably more so when wonder does surround us, because how tragic but easy to miss such splendor when you find yourself beside the streams that you so deeply longed for.

Maybe you can relate?

To the spinning feeling in the dark seasons, and a similar spinning even in the light, as if we finally exhale and then forget to inhale again. Because there’s always something that begs for our attention - like fear, or agendas, or boxes, or tasks, or work, or pain. And it’s naive to think that any earthly gain makes us invincible of distraction.

I was surprised and bothered by my feelings of unsettledness, fear, and even some darkness during the first week in a home that offered the eye so much light and the heart so much peace, until I was reminded that no season is void of a need to bow a knee and exhale the baggage of tension and control that so easily entangles our fickle human hearts.

Even when the tide that changes is extravagant, beautiful, and good, still there’s this deep spinning feeling that arises when the winds change. For some of us it even feels like a constant embedded part of us. And I think that’s ok. It’s an invitation to quiet our soul and to walk towards the light, because only then can we truly and fully enter into the gift of the present.

Every season holds different realities - we’ve seen quite a lot of them the past few years - some that would be considered dark and others light, but I’m learning that no matter the depth of the darkness or the height of the beauty, the human struggle to keep our lives and minds tethered to the light remains impertinent in experiencing the fullness of each season. For in the margin moments our hearts so easily cling towards worry or distraction, but we grasp a lifeline from worry to wonder when we return and remember.

Presence.

It was the lifeline when I cried myself to sleep through brutal months of bacterial treatment two years ago.
It was the lifeline when fear filled my mind as I laid in the bathtub two weeks ago in a fierce POTS flare up.
It’s the lifeline when when I question if I have what it takes to shepherd a home or when it feels lonely to once again build a new community.
It’s the lifeline that keeps me from missing the moments of splendor dancing outside my window as we humbly find ourself held in the extravagance of this corner of our Eden.

Maybe I’m not alone?
Maybe you aren’t either?
Maybe this suspended feeling is imprinted in all of us. So we must stay conscious, returning and remembering, anchoring feet to earth and mind to moment, lest we miss the fullness of each passing hour, time and beauty passing by without our awareness.

Presence.

We invite our senses to come alive.
We allow every emotion to belong.
We don’t condemn darkness or shun light.
We open our palms and we exhale.
We let the full goodness of the blessing wash over us like water on dry land.

And somehow, the perception of time slows. We are here, a part of all of this, more alive and more whole when we fully enter in.

If we look behind or look ahead, time goes by too fast to hold. But when we tune our heart to the moment, we hold the mysterious power of what feels like a slowing down of a ticking clock, the ability to absorb every ounce of the blessing, to not miss any moment of the secrets that are uniquely ours to behold. The birds or the leaves or the sound of the wind that dances for you at that exact moment in time.

I don’t want to miss it. Any of it.

So we tether to presence.

Presence is an anchor between the was and the will be.

Presence is a salve for all fear and fatigue.

Presence is the way the hands and the heart open to let joy enter unhindered.

Presence is the silhouette the surrounds all beauty.

We count the moments that are here. Now. Ours. The majestic and the mundane.

So these are my moments, the ones I don’t want to forget…

The month of November of 2019, the first month of a new chapter. Of prophecy fulfilled. Of countless boxes, new critters, some frightening night noises, missing the neighbors we’d grown so fond of and the friends we’d just begun to make, feeling so unworthy of this gift and yet so enamored by the extravagance of the Father. The sacred infant breaths of the first moments in our first home……

Crossing the threshold on day one, October 31, 2019.

Empty white floors and walls.

Bright green vines wrapping tight around three guardian trees .

Filling every corner with unpacked boxes.

Silence piercing quiet country air, giving way to the drip of water filtering through the Berkey, the evaporation of the oil diffuser, the steps of my Stephen upstairs.

Mud trampled on floors.

Dirt in the laundry room full of loads of unfolded clothes.

Muffin, Flurry, and Amy gathered on the porch for food.

Orange, yellow, and amber trees reaching tall for the sky and down through the earth that holds us.

Filling creaky kitchen cabinets with stone bowls and plates.

Swinging by the stream.

Warm oatmeal on the stove.

Sunlight blanketing the dining table.

Fingerprints on windows, brush strokes on walls, drips on floorboards, the birthmarks of a home well lived and well loved.

Cold winter air filling the window room where Stephen paints.

Dancing vines dangling from indoor plant pots.

Ladybugs clicking their wings on the silent ceilings.

Boots dangling over the stream as day turns to dusk.

The smell of cedar wood and sweet spice candles burning.

Music dancing through empty rooms.

Projects until midnight, paint in his beard.

Rummaging to find a shirt and pants from the giant bags of packed clothes.

Muddy boots lined by the door.

Legs dusty from on cleaning on hands and knees.

The morning smell of coffee in the chemex to blend with thick coconut cream.

Stephen’s voice on work calls, sound bouncing from empty walls.

Standing on the hill to watch the silhouette of the trees as day turns to dusk.

Him placing the warm heat pad on my raw stomach from symptoms flared after long days of unpacking and projects.

Slippers on cold feet.

The feeling of being so alone and yet so held.

The wonder of new creation swaying around us.

Dreaming of the prophecy of this home as a willow tree of respite for others.

A promise and a blessing, a salve for the soul.

“The more present we are to the now, the more grateful we are for what is, the more we tap into joy.” - Japanese theologian Kosuke Koyama

Presence opens wide the eye of the soul, whether you’re in darkness - hungry for more light, or in light - not wanting to miss one glimmering leaf that falls from amber branches through setting sun.

So what do you want to remember?
What’s your list?
Write it down with me?

Friend, may we together invite a sacred grounding in every season, that we may be pilgrims of the light, foragers of delight, and shepherds of our holy ground through every season.

All of my love and light,
Christina