These Sacred Everydays

Last week marked our very last in the series {This Sacred Everyday}. I have loved this series. I’ve loved hearing other writers consider what makes their simple lives holy. I’ve loved being challenged by how beautiful the common tasks of living can be. Thanks for being part of this with me.

I kicked off this series in May when I had no idea that by the fall I would be living 1700 miles from our then home. I talked about walking by a flowering bush on my block in Austin that reminded me of the bush beside our first apartment in San Francisco. Oh, how things come full circle!

Then Ed Cyzewski taught me the phrase “The Spiritual Gift of Inefficiency” and shared how he encounters God in the garden.

Sarah Bessey floored me with her beautiful piece about the grace of discovering God in the night with a child who will not sleep.

Preston Yancey met God while “beating the hell” out of his chocolate custard.

Chuck DeGroat dared to find “the feminine soul of Christ” in his daughters’ “nail art and perfect cartwheels and their admiration of a female hero named Katniss.”

Tamara Murphy cheered for her son as he crossed the high school graduation stage.

Angie Mabry-Nauta found wisdom and emotional freedom in a conversation with her daughter.

Enuma Okoro met God in the face of her neighbor, Gretchen, and grief was shared across the kitchen table.

Erin Lane danced like mad with God and techno girl music. “Me and you this morning. Just me and you, God…”

My brother, Jason Boyett, wrote about our PawPaw’s last painting and why its imperfections matter.

Holly Grantham found herself the anchor for her kids in the pitching waters. And she found herself clinging to a greater anchor. She found herself safe.

When Andrea Palpant Dilley failed to be the mother she always thought she would be, it was her daughter who blessed her with a song and “with a hand set softly on the head.”

Mihee Kim-Kort sought sanctuary “not only the physical space, but the feeling of connectedness. Rootedness. In community with others. In communion with God.”

Suzannah Paul stunned me with her Sacrament of YES. “YES, we’ll run fast, paint wild, and bake messy. YES, let’s cuddle, please. YES, eat peanut butter by the spoonful, sculpt with tin foil, and tape All The Things!”

Anna Broadway discovered God in the scent of an orange tree.

Addie Zierman wrote about her son’s summer of catching all the slimy, squirmy things and his painful work to set them free. “Every day, we practice the surrender of opening our hands, the hard trust of letting go.”

When Amy Julia Becker’s kids described her reactions as “screaming” and “ungentleness,” she thought maybe their Sunday School lesson was really for her.

Tanya Marlow’s prayers had never felt “like war.” They felt like “bulky packages.” What makes does it mean to be powerful at prayer?

Megan Tietz “spent many years striving so hard for community.” But sometimes community just shows up at the front door.

Lore Ferguson camped in the Ozarks and prayed  “Maranatha: Come, Jesus, come.” She really meant: “Take me, Jesus, take me.”

Amy Lepine Peterson worked to bring herself “before God in each mundane task” and challenged me with a most beautiful prayer.

And Annie Barnett sent us out with a blessing: that “we were made and we are making, always.”

Thank you for joining me, friends. It was a lovely everyday.