Devotions

The air smells like rain. It rained much earlier today, but ironically, in the heat of summer, the air seems frozen in time. It is warm, but not hot. Evening. On a Tuesday... my last Tuesday of summer break.  Something was drawing me outside tonight... the way the sun's rays were entering our home and dancing on the piano made me wonder what the sky must look like from our front porch. I caught glimpses of what I had imagined it must look like outside... on our now-pink tinted walls, through warm, orange cracks in the curtains. I had to see what the sky looked like, in all of its full glory. The tiny glimpses I caught through the glass pieces in our door just weren't cutting it. And so, I opened the door, breathed in the rain-air, and stepped outside.  I've been sitting out here for about twenty minutes now, and it's already dark. I caught the last look at the orange-pink sky setting behind the houses across the street. There's heat lightening flashing across the ne...

Well, it's that time of year again. The sun is high in the summer sky, the chicken kabobs are outside grilling, and the smell of sunscreen and chlorine are floating off my skin as I smell my armpits to check if I need to shower or not. And I am craving juice. So, a few hours ago I trotted down the cool basement stairs to find my favorite $6 Salvation Army find: a Hamilton Beach home juicer (by far the best ever "AS IS" thrift store gamble that I've ever made). I washed it off, turned it on, and started making some fresh juice. Three hours later, I think I should be good on juice for... basically forever, actually.  But as it turns out, after three hours of being home alone on a Friday night, dancing around your kitchen to OneRepublic and telling your speaker, "Alexa, VOLUME UP!", you tend to get pretty introspective. I think it's because the repetitive motion of chopping apples and shoving them into the top hole of the juicer brings back all the memori...

 I logged on to write today and then I read my last post from back in November. I actually laughed out loud. If you didn't read it, it's actually not ground-breaking or even inspiring, really... it's just a rant about how busy I am and how hurried my life is under the yoke of never-ending to-do lists. I laughed because upon reading it today, the day I finished The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer, it seemed pretty ironic, don't you think? It was almost as if God were smiling on me and saying, "I see you, Carly. I see how you showed up to be with me today, on your Sabbath. I am with you and I want to breathe life into you."  And boy, do I need some life . Spring is coming and I'm eagerly awaiting the new beginnings it can bring-- it seems like this winter has been a long one. It's been cold and I've been in this constant state of fatigue for the past four months or so. It's been a slow-moving winter but somehow it also feels so ...