30: Hopes and Dreams

Hopes and dreams. Is it not woven into the fabric of every human heart to dream? Is it not part of our human existence to be restless? In the weeks and months leading up to 30 a curious thing happened, which is that all of my more superficial hopes and dreams (travel, fitness, family) became rolled up into one neat little package. As I looked at my life and how it was speeding by, as I examined my tendency to melancholy, as I witnessed tragedy in the life of many near and far, it became clear to me that for all the list making I may do nothing is certain. And so, while it is good to have those dreams and lists, my deep hope for 30 became a dream of being. 

A happy family moment of being last month in Canmore
Oh, how she loves him! How he loves her!

My dream for 30 is to live each moment with a pervasive sense of gratitude, understanding that the joy I so desire is tightly bound to seeing the world with eyes of thanksgiving. My fear of time passing is abolished when I seek to make each moment pregnant with a grateful heart. Mysteriously, the moment pauses and hangs there to be revelled in when it is acknowledged with intentionality. I dream that my own grateful heart can only do one thing, which is point me to the Giver of the gift. May my life in 30 be more and more one in which the Giver is centre of all else.

How can one not contemplate the Giver of such a gift
(in and out of the chariot!).

These ideas have come from two books that I've been reading. Seeking First the Kingdom and One Thousand Gifts couldn't have come at a better time. I highly recommend them both, but for a general audience especially One Thousand Gifts. It is a life changing meditation on the healing power of gratitude.

I wanted to quote One Thousand Gifts to close this simple post. Ann Voskamp's eloquent words about overcoming the fear of time's fleeting nature by holding onto each moment with thanks are a perfect way to start today.

I don't really want more time. I just want enough time. Time to breath deep and time to see real and time to laugh long, time to give You glory and rest deep and sing joy and just enough time in a day not to feel hounded, pressed, driven, or wild to get it all done - yesterday.... 

Time is a relentless river. It rages on, a respecter of no one. And this, this is the only way to slow time. When I fully enter time's swift current, enter into the current moment with the weight of all my attention, I slow the torrent with the weight of me all there. I can slow the torrent by being all here. I only live the full life when I live fully in the moment. And when I'm always looking for the next glimpse of glory, I slow and enter. And time slows. Weigh down this moment in time with attention full, and the whole of time's river slows, slows, slows... 

Giving thanks for one thousand things is ultimately an invitation to slow time down with the weight of full attention. In this space of time and sphere I am attentive, aware, accepting the whole of the moment, weighing it down with me all here....Really? Give thanks and get time? Give thanks....slow time down with all of your attention - and your basket of not-enough-time multiplies into more than enough time... 

The real problem of life is never a lack of time. The real problem of life- in my life - is lack of thanksgiving. I am a mother-tired, but when my soul doth magnify, my time doth magnify....I redeem time from neglect and apathy and inattentiveness when I swell with thanks and weigh the moment down and it's giving thanks to God for this moment that multiplies the moments, time made enough. - Ann Voskamp One Thousand Gifts

Stay moment, stay!

May your Sunday be filled with joy!

With love,