2010 mini-reflection

I can't wait for school to finally be over, I can't wait until I can spend my time doing things I want to do. One thing I can't wait for is to be able to read books-books, and not text-books. Over this little Christmas break I have, I declared (silently and to myself of course) that I would do more craft projects and read a few books that I had heard were good. I started with Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequist.

It was supposed to be about getting past the sucky parts in life and embracing the everyday tiny joys (paraphrasing here.) I don't get into sad stuff here on the blog, but if I'm going to use this as a place to look back on later than it needs to be said that this year really sucked. There were peoples divorces and almost divorces. Too many new beginnings to wrap my head around. Lots of stress for various different reasons. Towards the end of the year Zach & I had a miscarriage and subsequent surgery, that also I'm still trying to wrap my head around. By the time December hit, I was begging for 2011 to start. I have the tendency to be bogged down by the negative things and this book was good at showing me the contrast between life's vastness and minuteness (word?). On the whole, I wasn't totally in love with Cold Tangerines and it's definitely not a book I'll read again; but she did make me feel like I was chatting with a friend and I did find myself writing down a few tidbits and tabbing a few chapters that would be good to go back and read again.

Some of those tidbits that are really good to be reminded of:

"Today is enough, God is enough." "Everything is interim." "I can't live there in the disappointment anymore. I've missed whole seasons of my life. I look back and all I remember is pain, or I don't really remember at all." "A friend really, and truly, from Jesus." "Choose Joy." So true! mothers' prayers go "please, please, please.... thank you, thank you, thank you..." and something I really want to grasp: "being thankful for the complicated joys that come from loss."