Beginning Again with Thank You

It's time to start over...again. I use a small blue book for my morning time. The readings in it are based on the Christian Year. So I got to the final page again last week. I like it that the Christian year is different from the calendar-on-the-wall-year. I need that difference.

Anyway, my "morning book" ran out again so it was time to turn to the beginning for the first week of Advent, which is the inaugural season of the Christian year. I've been using this book for twenty years now, so the readings have become like old friends that I reintroduce myself to after a year's absence. As I read them I wonder how I was feeling when I read them last year. As the old wisdom saying goes, "You never put your foot in the same stream twice." Life is always moving even if you do not want it to move.

Advent always comes around Thanksgiving time. So I ponder those pages of my life that I have turned in years past at Thanksgiving. There was that Thanksgiving when our second child interrupted the family gathering by having the audacity to be born at 11:17. She was 10lbs 2oz. I let her know over the years that she was my 10lb turkey.

There was another Thanksgiving a few years later when we left my parent's house after having a wonderful evening. Our oldest daughter Abigail had written a tribute to my mom for an assignment in her High School English class. She wanted me to read it to see how it sounded. I cried as I "listened" to her recount days of childhood when she sat on my mother's lap as mom sang "Fly Little Blue Bird Through My Garden." Abigail also remembered those special "granny breakfasts" that were prepared just for her.

After reading it I said to Betsy, "Wow, mom needs to read this before something happens to her." My mom was not that ill but she did battle various ailments most all the time. Mom read it that Thanksgiving evening and cried. She said through her tears to that first born of ours, "I thought you had forgotten."

Later that night my mother leaned her head over while reading a book in her favorite chair and died. I was broken hearted but....the first thing I said was, "Well, we had a sort of going away party without knowing it." I was thankful for that evening.

Now it is time to start over again...again. I'll pick up my little blue book full of old friends and start the journey. I'm not sure how I'll feel each day as I read familiar words. I'm not even sure that I will make it to the next end, which will proceed the next beginning. These readings and this new year remind me that all we have is "daily." I forget that so often. I worry about tomorrow too much. It is as if I'm skipping the readings for today.

Anyway, I'm thankful for memories. I'll try again this year to be thankful...daily.
Bless you,
jody