Embrace the Ordinary vol.1
It’s late Saturday night. It’s been a long week, with my hubs working long days. We were on the go every.single.day. All good things going on, but always going on. I’m spent!
And I’m drawn to an idea, which I want to share and I hope you’ll join me. With all the things I have going on in my day to day life, I crave time to rest and recognize the beauty, the wonder, the gift of each day. Maybe I spent three days doing laundry and cleaning after having sick kids, maybe I spent two and a half hours at the doctor yet again while my son had a cast removed and his arm x-ray-ed, maybe even it was a day that I felt nothing went right. Those days are just as much a gift as the days which go right from the start, the kids are happy, the sun is shining, you get the idea. I want to delight more in every day. I want to embrace each day for what it is, for better or worse.
So, I’m starting something, which I am calling “Embrace the Ordinary”. Aren’t our lives made up mostly with ordinary moments? Aren’t those moments really the stuff of life, the things which make us who we are? The ordinary moments are precious. St. Ignatius of Loyola encourages us to find God in all things. I have a feeling that the more we embrace the ordinary, the more we find wonder and joy in our day to day, the more we take on the struggles and grow through them, the more we’ll find God in our days.
Embrace the ordinary. Each moment is a gift. Each moment embraced as a gift, and infused with God’s grace, becomes what I’m growing to understand as “holy ordinary”. It’s these moments that make us (hopefully!) saints.
Join me, sharing one way you embrace the ordinary. It can be a picture, a story, even both. Link here with your post and visit each other’s blogs. We just might find that the ordinary is anything but ordinary.
Embrace the Ordinary, vol. 1 July 19, 2014
Snuggles with my sleepy boy are absolutely irresistible.
Beautiful! I love the idea of embracing the ordinary. Those are the moments that are so fleeting and so precious!
Thanks! I look forward to you joining the link-up sometime, if you want!
I’m new to your blog but I saw your link in the CWB FB page. I’ve been browsing around and love your writing (and photos.) This is a great idea and I hope to join you later today. 🙂
Thanks for stopping over, Bobbi! Looking forward to your link!
I love this, Gina! I just added my link 🙂
Awesome! Glad to have you linking up!
Of course you can use that St. Josemaria quote! He is my absolute favorite saint for encouragement in striving for holiness THROUGH my ordinary life (not in spite of it!) Here’s the link to the homily (“Passionately Loving the World”) the quote is from. Honestly, almost everything he wrote is a guaranteed home run in terms of encouragement, inspiration, and conviction for folks like us – working and serving in the trenches and longing to meet Jesus there 🙂
http://www.stjosemaria.org/articles/199-passionately-loving-the-world
His quotes keep popping up all over the internet lately! I think I need to focus some time on reading his writings!
This is such a great idea for a link-up. I love it and look forward to joining *hopefully* today! Time and kiddos permitting 🙂 Sweet sweet photo!
I know how time and kiddos can be! If you still want to join this week, just leave another comment since the link-up closed. Next link-up will be open on Saturday through Tuesday again!
Oh darn! I finally got around to writing a post for this, and I see that your inlinkz is closed now….hope to join next time around.
So sorry, Christine! I wasn’t sure how long to keep it open when I posted last week. It was live Saturday through Tuesday, I think. I’d love to still read your post, if you want to link in comments or wait until Saturday morning! 🙂
http://ourordinarylifeextraordinary.blogspot.com/2014/07/embrace-ordinary-vol-1.html
Here’s the link. Thanks again. I won’t be able to join next week, but hope to in the future!
I’m looking forward to you joining in when you can!