Glory Days
Now that we have intros out of the way…
Let’s get into what’s really important.
Does anyone else have a toddler who watches and giggles at you while you’re sitting on the toilet? Nope? Just my life?
Okay, sorry, that’s not important. Here’s what I really want to talk about today…
Do you ever have those rare days where everything is sort of perfect?
Yeah, maybe a small thing goes wrong or something frustrates you for five minutes, but other than that, it’s kind of a glimpse of heaven? Maybe you get to do a few of your favorite things or your family actually gets along or you eat really good food or rest or play and just generally feel joyful for almost a full 24 hours?
Those days are rare, but I had one the other day. I call them “Glory Days.”
Josiah and I both got really good news we had been waiting for. My daughter didn’t have a single 2-year-old tantrum. Greta and I met my sister and nephew at the mall. We took the kids to the park. I got to sit quietly in the car while Greta napped. I saw a video that reminded me of my purpose and reignited my excitement for life. We went out for an awesome celebratory dinner. We saw an incredible sunset on the way home.
I journaled a prayer about the day in my notes. Here it is:
I used to get frustrated at the end of a Glory Day. “Ugh! Why can’t every day be like today? Life could be so much better. Am I doing something wrong? I better not get too excited because I know tomorrow will probably just suck again.”
Adult life kinda hollows you out (can I get an exhausted “amen”?). It’s exhausting. Things rarely go your way. You disagree and get hurt by the people you love most. You fail. You’re unproductive. You’re [insert negative adjective here].
Life is hard, so Glory Days are rare. That’s not your fault, it’s just the state of the messed up world we live in.
So maybe, like me, you need the reminder to not spend your Glory Day wondering why every day can’t be like this. The day is coming when every day will be like this. That’s why we long for it.
But right now, the best way to approach these beautiful days is to just sit back and enjoy them for what they are. Know that tomorrow won’t be as good, and that’s okay. The joy from today will carry your pain tomorrow. Today, you can smile, be still, and whisper a small, “thank you.”
Don’t be afraid to live right here.
What are your Glory Days like? What do you love about life? Let’s talk about all the good things!
Book Update/Progress
Can you tell by this week’s Amazon order that I’m in the organization phase of book writing?
Pray for me. I hate organizing. I wish I could just throw ideas onto a page and watch them magically shift and place themselves in the best order.
My friend Rebecca recommended using giant Post-It notes with little Post-It notes to get all my thoughts organized into chapters. I’m going to attempt that this week.
Here’s my chaotic running page tally:
20-page intro and chapter 1 (and those are pretty dang solid. Feelin’ good.)
38 pages of semi-organized content that I no longer like the organization of
27 pages of random notes (can you tell how chaotic my brain is?)
Here’s to finding themes and creating some order from the chaos!
Five Faves
This Christianity Today article. Okay, I’m totally biased. I was actually featured in it! A CT writer reached out to me because of a viral Instagram post I wrote, and I loved the opportunity to share my thoughts on a topic that means a lot to me. (Psst…it may or may not be about Taylor Swift. But more importantly, it’s about the connection between creativity/art & God in general.) You can read the article here! You may need to make a free account to do so.
This Chicken Gnocchi Soup recipe. It’s probably my favorite soup ever. We make it at least once a week in the fall/winter.
This 7-day devotional. My friend from college, Felicia, wrote this beautiful, vulnerable devotional called Worthy about knowing and walking in your worth regardless of your past, mistakes, and shortcomings. You can also get it for your Kindle here. Let’s show some support for this amazing author!
Weekly Sabbath. Our lives have been absolutely CRAZY lately, and our bodies, minds, and spirits have been paying for it. We’ve been trying to commit to a weekly day of rest from Friday evening to Saturday evening. We rest, eat, play, watch movies, nap, pray, take walks, hang with family, and just breathe. (And most importantly, we don’t work, do chores, have stressful conversations about to-dos, etc.) It’s not perfect, but it’s healing our souls. God wasn’t wrong about this one, I have to say. Highly recommend.
Reading newsletters instead of social media. Since I’ve been mostly off social media, I’ve been keeping up with my favorite writers and influencers via their email newsletters. It’s been SUCH a relaxing, refreshing way to consume media—just like sitting down and reading a print magazine or book in 2008.
“The Coffee House” station on XM radio. This is one of the only things I listen to in the car. Every song puts me in the best mood. And it helps me discover new songs that are totally my jam. Here’s one of my favorite lines from a song by Mac DeMarco that I just heard today:
“Don't let the world outside the windowpane get to your head
And hopefully make some sense of all this shit before you're dead”
Here’s to hoping we’ll make sense of at least some of this shit before we’re dead. (And hopefully, add some beauty and hope to it ourselves.)
Sarah
p.s. Did you miss my first newsletter? I talked about why I’m starting a newsletter again and what you can expect each week. You can read it here.