One More Monday

I penned this back on January 1st when the world was new and I was faced with the Difficult Beautiful:

Sometimes you have faith and hope and joy and gratitude and life is good and fantastic and you can't wait for your feet to hit the ground into a new day.

But lately life has been hard and you know if you focus on what you have lost in 2013 and might possibly lose in 2014, you will go insane. You will spiral into a really, really, bad, stinking dark place.

So, this is my resolution in 2014 and maybe you would like it to be your resolution too:

To Enjoy the Gift of One More.

One more sunrise.

One more memory.

One more kiss.

One more squeezing of fingers.

One more prayer.

One more conversation.

One more reason to be thankful.

"All we have to decide is what to do

with the time that is given us." - Tolkien

I want to be present in the

Difficult Beautiful

of now. To walk this journey with my family, my friends and my God.

That is my New Year's Resolution.

I wrote that at the beginning of this year. During that time people came to visit. Hands were held around my table. Devotions were read before the light was turned out in my mom's room. Pain meds were given. Doctors were consulted. Hospice care took over. Meals were brought by friends.

A last kiss. The brushing of hair across a forehead. The final closing of the door and walking away.

We lived well the Gift of One More.

And though Mom is gone, I want to continue looking for these gifts as I walk through grief. Deep grief.

I need the discipline of the one, because it is impossible, some days, to see beyond that. I find myself in a middle of a story where I don't know where the plot line will take me. In the book, Bittersweet, author Shauna Niequist writes, "You don't know what the story is about when you're in the middle of it. You think you do, but you don't. You make up all kinds of possible story lines: this is about growing up. Or this is about living without fear. You can guess all you want, but you don't know. All you can do is keep walking. There is nothing worse than the middle."

The beginning of this journey was filled with hope. Dad's clinical trial would result in a cure. Mom would get remission. We would get more years.

And I can look at the end and know that I will be stronger and more compassionate. Kinder. I will sleep again through the night and will have vision for tomorrow.

But now, it is the middle - that dreaded place in the back seat on car rides. That difficult place in stories. The reality of my life right now.

And maybe you are not in a season of grief, but you are in the Difficult Beautiful and you are struggling to find your way. You feel a bit lost in your story and you are looking for bread crumbs to find your way back home.

Will you join me? 

Will you follow the crumbs to take you out of that lost place in the middle of the woods? 

Will you open your eyes to look for One More? 

Since January I have been jotting down 7 One More's in my journal:

One prayer I am praying.

One verse I am pondering.

One beauty I am creating.

One thanks I am giving.

One person in my inner circle I am loving.

One person in my outer circle I am reaching.

One step I am taking toward a bigger goal.

On Mondays, on my blog, I am going to be writing about the Gift of One More. It is a weekly discipline for me - written each Monday in my journal - but it could also be a daily discipline, twice-weekly. Whatever. Grace, grace, grace is my motto these days.

So why these seven things?

In my mind the seven things fit in four important categories.

1. Faith. Focusing on one more prayer and one more verse trains my heart to pay attention to the details of my relationship with God -- and not to forsake the disciplines of my faith in this season.

2. Everyday Life. Looking for beauty and reasons to be thankful trains my eyes to see those attributes in my daily, mundane world. 

3. Others. Choosing to love others in both my inner and outer circles is the best way I know to get me out of myself. Pain and loss tends to shrink our circles and intentionality is needed to break out of those constraints. Also, I have been so focused on caring for Mom, that others, who also matter to me, have been neglected. As a family, some things have fallen through the cracks.

4. The Future.  Life beyond today is a bit overwhelming to me at present. My youngest graduated from high school in May, the day after Dad died. Then Mom needed care. I have not even begun to unpack what this now-that-my-kids-are-grown season of my life looks like. So, I will break it down bit by bit. And by taking one step toward a bigger goal, I am hoping the process of the daily will propel me into the future. 

So how about you?

Are you noticing some cracks in your own disciplines? Your own goals? Your own loving of people you care about? Are you dealing with pain and loss that threatens to shrink your world to a solitary journey? Are you stuck in the middle?

Will you join me on One More Mondays and jot down some goals for the week ahead? You will see my list at the bottom of this blog.

My hope is that when we practice the discipline of One More we will look back and realize we have collected something worth saving, something worth having.

Something worth living.

And in the process we will have gathered enough crumbs to maneuver our way out of the middle of the woods and will have discovered the new path that will lead us home.

So on the blog: Monday we will look at One More Monday, posts written in narrative style about any of the One Mores.

And now, from my journal on the One More Monday:

One prayer I am praying. 

Jesus, help me in this lost, wandering place of being in the middle of a story I would have never chosen off the shelves, let alone, have chosen to live in the pages. Open my eyes and my heart to discover crumbs that will lead me one more step in this journey toward healing and wholeness. I long to find my way home.

One verse I am pondering.

I am currently memorizing 2 Corinthians 4:16 - 5:4. I'm going to be focusing on these verses at least a month, as I find the words are healing broken places inside me at the loss of both parents. The section ends, "So that what is mortal will be swallowed up in LIFE."

One beauty I am creating.

On Saturday I am taking a class on desert landscaping. We are redoing portions of the backyard. There are dirt piles everywhere, like some pirates were frantically digging for buried treasure.

One thanks I am giving. (This is a discipline I do every day. And I don't always stop at one. FYI.)

The smell of orange blossoms in Arizona springtime.

One person in my inner circle I am loving.(Inner circle to me is family, but you can set your own perimeters)

Plans to connect with a daughter. This plan involves tea.

One person in my outer circle I am reaching.Lunch with a friend.

One step I am taking toward a bigger goal.

Figure out how to add a new gadget to my blog.

That is my list. How about you? What are you doing with your own One More's? I'd love to hear about it.