Living IN Canaan

How Soon....

I took Dawn's wonderful suggestion to bake bell-shaped cookies for the New Year after sharing the Tennyson poem with the children.  It was sweet and simple and they enjoyed it.  As you can see, I let them go whole hog with the icing. 

I had dough already in the refrigerator that was another one of my 'we didn't get to it' Christmas projects.  They are deliciously light and lemony German butter cookies that I found here.  The photographs of her cooking/baking are marvelous. 

Martin Luther once said, "How soon not now becomes never."  I have been thinking on that a lot this New Year's.  It is the great lament of the procrastinator, but I do not want it to become a recurring theme for my life  So tonight, as the hours ticked away, I was not feeling like making a cookie mess with the children and realized that we hadn't marked this holiday together in any real way.  I remembered Luther's admonishment. How soon not now becomes all grown up. How soon not now becomes never.  And I immediately called them downstairs and began to gather the flour, dough, cutters, and wax paper.  It took maybe 10 minutes from first flour sprinkle til I slid the cookie sheet into the oven.  I would have missed marking this moment with my children, completely and totally missed it. 

So in the spirit of not missing a moment, I am really committed to chronicling 2009 on this blog.  Not so others can see but so I can stay accountable with my own self about the 'not nows.' 

Happy 2009!

Happy National Chocolate Mint Day!

Yesterday was the day all Americans everywhere celebrate the glory that is chocolate and mint!  Who came up with this spectacular combination and why didn't that person receive a Nobel prize?  Why don't we know his or her name?

Mint Chocolate Cookies.  Mint Chocolate Ice Cream.  Mint chocolate candy.  Mint chocolate pie.  Mint Chocolate Cake.  Well, that's about it. (Said in my best Benjamin Buford Blue from Bayou La Batre accent.)

Anyway, we celebrated with what else but Girl Scout Thin Mints and some milk.  It was a nice break from our afternoon and the children insisted on calling Mimi to tell her "Happy Chocolate Mint Day!" 

Wiped Clean, Beginning Anew

I love January 1. The timer resets, a new calendar opens, the slate is wiped clean.  Everything begins afresh. Regrets for all that was done wrongly or left undone are exchanged for a new year in which each of us can do a bit better.  If ever there was a perfect time for starting something new, January 1 is the day.  It seems that New Year's Day falls in the wintertime perfectly, as the world lies dormant and resets itself for the coming spring full of newness. The New Year allows us time to recover from the busy-ness of Christmas and the anticipation of Advent and to begin to turn our hearts, ever so slowly, to the redemptive work of Christ crucified.

I am excited about this New Year.  I feel as if the Lord is calling my family to higher things in every area--spiritually, educationally, practically. However, I also feel the Lord calling me to intense prayer and contemplation, reflection and meditation on those stumbling blocks in my life, those sins that never seem to go away.  I feel I must recuse myself from all this worry about what others will say or think. This is going to be the year. 

I also have to wonder if this will be the year when the Lord blesses us with another child.  Wouldn't that be a marvelous thing?  I am praying that this will be the year Bob the Builder's speech improves and he learns to read.  I am praying this will the year when Tiny Dancer begins to see those around her as having needs and wants and she begins to show compassion for others.  I am praying this is the year that I get our homeschool moving in the direction that I know the Lord wants it to go.  May this be the year that I defeat perfectionism in my life.  Who knows what the year has in store for us.  What I do know is that the Lord has ordered my family's path for the year and He is faithful and steadfast in whatever may come.  This year, more than ever, I want what He wants.

Our Pastor often says that the Sacraments and traditions of the church are like the windshield wipers on our car.  Wiping the fog away from our eyes to see all that we already possess.  I think New Year's can act like this as well.  It really is a metaphor for what God has already done for us. We carry around the burden of our sin when His forgiveness has already put it as far as away as the east is from the west.  He has wiped our slate clean.  But as the silly humans we are, we lug the burden around with us until at New Year's we start anew.  In Christ, every day is New Year's.  His mercies are new each morning.

**For more New Year's Meditations, visit Laurel Wreath.  There are many beautiful New Year's posts to read there!**