Joy Dare :: Snow-Quiet Moments

I peeked my nose outside first.

Maybe it is a habit I have picked up from my cats, assessing the outside world before I step into it.

And yet either way, I know that I must step out into the midnight darkness to send off those newsletters prepared for consultants of beauty to plan their weeks and months ahead. With my nocturnal tendencies, getting them out in the morning for the Saturday post is too great of a risk, so I brave the nighttime cold.

I step out with trepidation, anxiously awaiting the biting winter winds to whip through my too-often-sensitive and aching body, my senses are flooded with awareness and memories all at once, and I turn around and run to my love, slumbering on the couch,

"It's snowing! It's snowing."

Considering the Haitian and African heritage from where our childhood remembrances come, snow is a precious and rare commodity in our house, so his eyes alight and look out the door, but the precipitation has just begun and barely visible to the naked eye so his oh-so-tired eyes fall back to sleep with a smile.

With more energy and life now, I pick up my postal delivery and flit out the door to bask in the not-quite-yet-wonderland. As magical as the morning dusk to some, this midnight hour is to me. The world is quiet. The snow falls tiny and unnoticed. There is no one around.

THIS.

This is....MY gift, and I will enjoy it.

I breathe deep this oxygen-soaked air, lifting my face to the sky allowing the barely-there flakes to fall upon my cheeks and nose and eyes. I cannot help but raise my hands to the sky, for they do not want to miss out on the joy of this moment.

It is only a few minutes before the chill in my bones beckons me back inside, but I am enraptured as I amble back into the living room.

"I love the sound when it snows."
His words pull me out of my reverie.

"You can hear it from in here?" I ask him.

"The whole world is so quiet when it snows. I like that sound," my ever-laidback man sleepily answers.

Hmmm...his words make me ponder. This anxious heart of mine. This one who craves peace like an addict. How I fill my world with noise so the noise inside does not overwhelm me.

Emily Freeman at Chatting at the Sky talks about the kind of faith that can change your life, the kind that is life-BREATHING to this easily troubled soul. It makes me realize that I am not alone in my madness of a mind and heart.

"Even though the house is quiet, I'm running on the inside

as if things are in full swing.

My feet haven't moved by my soul is rumbling."

Oh! Isn't this me?

EVERY.

SINGLE.

DAY.

"Everything in me wants to fight the unveiling of the anxieties that threaten to overwhelm, push them back from showing up in my day. Christians aren't supposed to be anxious, right?....But we must let them rise up, so that we can release them into His hands. Speak fear out loud, so that He can give words of truth."

So while for me those snow-quiet moments of the soul are few and far between, I am choosing like Emily and like Ann and like SO MANY OF YOU.....to LOOK and to SEE Him...to breathe and to receive HIM in....to choose and to accept HIS peace...

49) Olivia & Jake Ray laughing as I "fake cried"

50) My friend, Holley

51) The 35 minute ride home when my phone died {making me soak in the quiet}

52) Isaiah 43:19

53) grace

54) Judge not lest you too will be judged by that same measure.

55) yummy, healthy microwaveable meal on a busy day

56) Beautiful sunshine in the brisk winter day

57) Learning about grace from the judgments still deep in my heart

58) The way of my own reflection through the lens onto the mirror, seeing the fresh skin

59) My URL friend, Alece's, pic with LONG hair

60) The little "m" on the M&M's

61) Beautiful snow falling on my head

62) Last year's 2 feet of snow {we do not see much around here most years}

63) The rain melted the snow {sad} but the puddles on the pavement were pretty in spite of the muddy places.

64) Those pesky little laugh lines forming around my face

65) The Ragamuffin Gospel gifted to me by Christy Polek

66) Newsletters - a job I get paid to do from home

67) His daily new mercies

68) His RELENTLESS love

69) His peace in the midst of my storms

Won't you join me? Take The Joy Dare!

Here is a list of ideas to daily help you to SEE in the midst of the anxiety-driven world...