days of small things

It's June, and the rest of the school year is now measurable in weeks (4), not months.  By the end of this month, Allison will have one year of high school under her belt.  Jonathan will get his report card and Individual Education Plan at year-end, and we'll be able to look back at his goals and see what progress he's made toward achieving them.

As I look back on my own life since September, it strikes me that I have not really achieved any major goals -- although maybe that's because I didn't set any.  I didn't go any farther than an hour from home; I didn't stay away anywhere overnight; I didn't attend any conferences or go to any inspirational talks; I didn't take any courses.  It's hard to see any significant accomplishments beyond the everyday, relatively small things.  I did mark over 200 assignments, walk to and from the school nearly 200 times, make about 400 school lunches and 300 family suppers, and do 100+ loads of laundry.  I read more than 20 books.  I wrote two poems and rewrote a few others.  I sent several pieces of my writing out to literary journals and received rejections on all of them.  I revised several chapters of the tween novel I'm working on ... but I still have as many as five more chapters to write from scratch.

One thing I did make progress on since September, however, is this blog.  In that time I've written 98 entries, the vast majority of those being since December, in fact.  When I decided to write an Advent blog series in which I would reflect on a favourite Christmas carol each day, the enjoyment I got from that sparked a desire to write more, and oftener.  I also started exploring other blogs, which opened up a whole new world and has led to some very satisfying online contacts, even friendships.  My own readership is still pretty small and my commenter-ship even smaller, but I'm trying not to worry about numbers and just focus on sharing reflections about things I've read, what's happening with the kids ... just the ordinary stuff of my not-very-exciting life.

The thing I've come to realize from reading other people's blogs, though, is that even not-so-exciting lives are actually pretty interesting.  I enjoy reading what one person bought her kids for Christmas, what another preached about last Sunday, what another discovered while listening to her daughter's prayers. When other writers reveal their challenges, their humbling moments, and their glimpses of grace, I feel with them and sense that what they're sharing is for me, too.

In the Bible, God told Zechariah not to "despise the day of small things":  a reminder that God completes what He starts and has a purpose in even the simplest and most mundane aspects of life.  So I'm happy to have rejuvenated my own writing life and, in the process, entered into the lives of many other writers who are walking the path set out for them and sharing their insights -- small and great -- from that journey.

photo Jeannie Prinsen June 2013