Does anyone else feel like January has been 87 days long? I think I’ve lived many lives since New Year’s Eve!
Family
My Baylor Bears played in the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day, so we spent January 1st hanging, working a jigsaw puzzle and watching with my parents and my PawPaw. We would soon learn that we are losing our beloved coach to the NFL, but word has it that His replacement brings a lot to the table. Now I have to wait until August to find out! Baylor basketball is coming in HOT (men’s team #1 and women’s #2), but alas, I don’t dig hoops.
Allie’s choir served as the chorus for her high school’s theater production of Mary Poppins, so we are fighting against with the urge to speak primarily in a British accent. And others are struggling as they hear it! Allie also attended LIVE weekend – a discipleship retreat for teens at our church. We had 240 plus teenagers attend! The worship, preaching, fellowship and small group time make it the best weekend of her year.
While she was doing that, Chuck and I escaped with the help of our parents to try to relax from the weight of family issues and recent tragedies. Oh, and we celebrated 21 years of loving and supporting each other. I can’t begin to explain how grateful I am that Chuck chose me and continues to choose me every day. There is no one I prefer in the good times and we keep holding each other up through the bad. Thank you, Lord.
Friends
I had the blessing of helping some great friends with medical appointments. I took one to the hospital for hip replacement surgery and sat with her granddaughter for the duration. The next day I went with a childhood friend to an MRI appointment. Then I got to take a meal to a recovering mentor. I know most of us – myself included – have a hard time asking for help. I often feel like it’s an imposition. But I can honestly say, it is such an honor for me to be asked to support a friend. So don’t deprive me (or your friends) of an honor by trying to do the thing all by yourself.
Every week I get to meet with a group of women who refer to themselves as “life group misfits”. We’ve all had trouble fitting into and maintaining a place in traditional church life groups. But we found each other and call ourselves “Lady Friends”. That name brings me almost as much joy as being in the presence of these precious, funny and real women. And I finally had enough flex in my daytime schedule to squeeze in lunch with another lovely. We had so much to catch up on that she brought a list of things to make sure we covered! I loved it. She made me feel like a celebrity being interviewed on a talk show! Then the two of us and our husbands double dated the next night. We planned to eat a progressive dinner, going to three different restaurants for appetizer, entree and dessert. Well, it was Saturday night in a Dallas suburb so we should have known wait times would slow us down. We only made it two places, but had fun in the process.
Entertainment
When I could steal a few moments alone to read, I devoured Why I Hate Green Beans: And Other Confessions about Relationships, Reality TV, and How we See Ourselves by Lincee Ray. This felt like laughing and relating with a girlfriend. And last I checked it was free on Kindle! Sharing Love Abundantly in Special Needs Families: The Five Love Languages for Parents Raising Children with Disabilities by Gary Chapman was a little disappointing. I learned so much from his original Love Language book, so it seemed like a good idea to read this with a young mom I’m mentoring. We found it, quite frankly, lame. But it gave me one really good idea. So there’s that. And I finally came back to and finished Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Kate Clifford Larson.
We caved into some FOMO and subscribed to Disney+. Our first show? High School Musical the Musical the Series. We loved it. Clunkiest name for a series ever, but we pushed through. And having all the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse videos available for Shelby on demand is both a good and a bad thing. During the Christmas hiatus, I enjoyed catching old episodes of Wings, but now all our regularly scheduled programs are back in full force. Plus, it’s awards show season. Something I kind of like (as long as I can fast forward through the boring parts), and my husband kinda hates. Even though we didn’t watch any of the Grammy’s, we watched Gayle King’s Grammy Special!
We only went to the movies one day this month, but made up for it by watching two in a row. Knives Out is a fantastically fun Clue-style who done it with lots of twists and surprises. Just Mercy wrenched my heart, opened my eyes, and called me to do better. I highly recommend both. And I added a couple more podcasts to my earbuds. After hearing at least 10 people rave about Dolly Parton’s America, I am now 4 episodes in. So good. I have never really been a Dolly fan, but she is pretty fascinating. I also downloaded Showmance: The Glee Recap Edition. I loved the show (the first two seasons anyway), but the jury is still out on the pod. 
My husband and I still carry heavy burdens of grief and struggle for on-going things in our families. We humbly ask you to continue to bring us and our loved ones before the throne of our Heavenly Father. Your prayers mean so much.
Thanks for looking over my January with me. What did you do in yours?
Featured Post
Today the featured post from last week’s link up is from Laura Thomas. She shares a touching story from her own life to illustrate God’s faithfulness to us. You will be so encouraged if you click over and read.
Now for The Featured Post
Treasures From the Sea: Family Miracle, Faithful God
by Laura Thomas
Now for this week’s link-up! Let’s bless and encourage one another in our walk with the Lord.
Grace & Truth exists to point people to Jesus! We hope this link-up will be a source of encouragement every week. If you’re a blogger, we hope you’ll use this space as a way to meet new friends within the Christian blogging community. If you’re a reader, we hope that you’ll encounter new bloggers that love Jesus as much as you do! Most of all, we hope you’ll meet Jesus here.
Join us each Friday for the Grace and Truth Link-Up!
To receive a weekly reminder of when the link-up goes live subscribe to laurensparks.net in the right hand column of this page.
Maree Dee
Lauren Sparks
Heather Hart & Valerie Riese
1.) Following your hosts via their blog and social media channels is not mandatory, but appreciated!
To receive a weekly reminder of when the link-up goes live subscribe to laurensparks.net in the right hand column of this page.
2.) Leave 1-2 of your most recent CHRISTIAN LIVING posts. Please do not link DIY, Crafts, Recipes, etc. We will delete these links. We also reserve the right to remove articles that don’t align with the theme or are deemed by the hostesses to be inappropriate.
3.) Visit 1-2 other links and leave a meaningful comment! We want to encourage community among us, so please don’t link and run!
4.) We sort all links randomly – feel free to link as early or as late as you’d like. The playing field is even!
Featured Post Requirements
5.) Grab a button or link back to encourage new linkers. It is not mandatory, but it is required to be featured.
6.) Each host will choose one link to emphasize and promote via their social media channels next week.
Grab a Badge and Link Back to this Post.
And now, let’s link up!
Sharing is caring! If you liked this post, do me the huge honor of using the buttons below to share it to your favorite social media accounts. And if you want to get these essays emailed to you once a week, subscribe! Lastly, my posts may contain affiliate links and I earn from qualifying purchases. If you buy anything from one of these links, I will receive a few pennies to help offset the cost of this website at no additional charge to you. Thank you in advance for your help.
To find some great places where I might be sharing this post, click here.
My youngest said “goodbye” to her volleyball career with an end of season banquet. She received the award for being “most social”. A good indicator that she made the right decision to hang up her knee pads. Then she treated us to her Winter Choir Concert. Thirteen fans came to hear her sing. Both sets of grandparents, brother, sister, niece, nephews, and an aunt supported her with us.
If right about now you are thinking that you can’t relate to all my merry-making this year, let me point you back to last week’s blog. We had concerts and parties and shows, but we are also had something really heavy and hard drop into our laps. Because it is not really my story, I’m not at liberty to share the details. But I do want you to know that if you are hurting this Christmas, I understand. Even when life gets hard, Christmas is worth celebrating. The Eternal One entered time. The Lord of Glory veiled that glory in a human body for us. And even though He came as an infant, He lives still. Jesus saves people from the penalty of sin, from the power of sin and eventually from the very presence of sin. (from Bible commentary)