Joy Dare :: Dancing with Peace

I love new things.
New calendars.
New journals.
New highlighters.
New pens.
{I might just have an obsession with office products!}

I enjoy starting fresh.

We all do, don't we?

Beginning anew in January with a clean slate, it seems, makes our hearts feel that we can conquer anything.

This month each day has been filled with excitement for the latest challenges, wanting to meet them head on, yet some days anxiety grips like a vice ready to squeeze you until you beg for mercy. It is almost as if the pessimistic, fatalistic, devil-on-my-shoulder is determined to conquer the year, the month, the day, even the hour.

And I find myself wondering what all of these "things" are for, these routines and goals and aspirations that seem to drive me forward. Why do I, the one who is falling back into grace again, constantly need this regimen to keep me from going mad?

I am a structured free spirit
A disciplined revolutionary
A conventional maverick

I want to march to the beat of my own drum and yet still make sure the tune blends in harmony with the world around me. The days bleed together in madness and ecstasy as I am both sorrowful and inspired to charge forward.

And I find myself counting my gifts, the graces in my life, not because of an emotional thrill but because I have made a decision to SEE. Sometimes the seeing is just merely stopping to remember -- the week, the day, the moments, the love, and sometimes there is an odd twinge of delight drawing me forward.

For fleeting moments, I even see Peace on the horizon dancing wildly like the Pied Piper beckoning me to follow her merry tune on a journey of discovery that is stranger to me than my own worries, which hold me in their uneasy comfort.

So....I dance.

and choose again to follow her song

until one day

it truly

becomes my own....

70) USPS and how it takes packages to my parents

71) Blue ink -- the new printer arrived to finish off the EWO Haiti newsletter

72) Blue bean bag warmer for my back & neck

73) Time with my goddaughter, Macy Hope

74) How my heart is changing in the foster care process

75) Mom's love of people

76) The freedom to set my own schedule

77) My friend, Ashley, coming to help me clean my house

78) Color pampering with the girls!

79) If I didn't go to Relevant, I would never have known her encouraging words in the very moment that I needed to hear it.

80) Walking out after midnight to put out the mail, the air and stars and chimes just took my breath away

81) Downton Abbey {all because of Twitter}

82) Alison's listening ear

83) Tricia's jokes

84) Ashley's servant's heart

85) "All Things New" {reminder of 'my verse'}

86) "I came to give you a kiss."

87) The way the light shone on Morris' orange coat on the step

88) My Apple

89) Old pictures edited and shown

90) Planning for our "new" house with the "old" stuff