Be Kind to Yourself (eBook)

Noticing Small Things

It’s nice to think about those days that don’t include a smoke alarm going off. The movie night with friends. The easy summer Saturday that ends with a glass of wine on the porch. On days like that, the first thing I want to write down is what brought me joy. Sometimes when I start writing, I notice more than one spot of joy and find myself writing a series of gratitudes. These are the days when it feels easy to connect with God and others. They are the days that seem to be filled with grace.

Gratitude leads to more gratitude. Writing down a moment of joy is leading me to notice more beauty.

My friend Christy Buckner Foster messaged on Facebook: “Post beautiful things, please.” I eagerly clicked on the thread. There I saw the following:

• ° a happy cat and dog reunited after four months apart

• ° a GIF of Dolly Parton and Miss Piggy hugging

• ° a moonscape and a sunset

• ° a canoe on the water filled with flowers

• ° beaches

• ° happy babies

• ° horses

• ° more cats

We long for these moments of beauty after days filled with fake news and bad news but not nearly enough good news. And the Good News is that God is near. Stopping to savor these moments gives us the opportunity to stay connected with God all day long.

How can we bring more awareness of beauty into our lives?

Beauty can be found in the small things, in the details, like the tiny hummingbird Dan noticed on our hike later on the day-of-the-smoke-alarm. Because he drew my attention to the one bird, then we were on the lookout. And we saw another and another. Each moment was one of connection between us and gratitude for this tiny, amazing creature of God’s creation.

Connecting with God in the Glorious Moments

I also regularly rotate the startup and lock screen pictures on my computer. There’s a great one of my dad with our three kids. We went at Christmas and saw him in his men’s chorus, so he’s wearing his chorus vest. The kids said, “We came to see Grandpa’s concert,” which seemed like a fun reversal of the usual grandparent-grandchild dynamic. Dad is wearing his red chorus vest and everyone is laughing over something.

The tiny hummingbird Dan pointed out on the hill above Palm Springs is a new favorite.

Swiping past these pictures as I open the phone to pull up an app at the grocery store brings me back to these memories and gratitude for the moments of joy.

A hummingbird in Palm Springs

Get Outside

“You need to get outside. It’s a beautiful day.”

I heard this from my mom fairly often in the summer. I was an unathletic bookworm as a child and teenager. Actually, I’m still an unathletic bookworm.

My brother would go down the street to play basketball on a summer day and come home sweating and dripping to look for food. Mom would send him to the patio to drip or to the shower if he wanted to enter the house. He would repeat this process about four times a day.

I was happy reading a Nancy Drew mystery in our cool basement family room.

But somewhere along the way I did discover that Mom was right (as usual). Though you won’t find me playing basketball, I have learned that I also love being outside. I love nature. I love walks. I’m learning to identify birds. I love gardening—for about an hour.

Those gorgeous winter days in Palm Springs I was doing a bit of work and a bit of writing. Whenever I could, I sat outside on the porch or by the pool to work, and it brought me so much joy.

God is always reaching out to us, wooing us, especially through creation. Scripture invites us to picture God as a shepherd looking after each sheep in the flock. Ezekiel records the promises of the Shepherd: “I will tend them in a good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel” (Ezekiel 34:14). These images draw on God’s invitations to us through nature.

A walk with God can also involve noticing what creates dissonance or a sense of ugliness. In these...