Even though my head knows the great faithfulness of God and those mercies that never come to an end, sometimes my experience lies and tells me that those mercies are all dried up. I walk around with the footprint of circumstance stamped dark across my face. I’ve been down on the ground, walked on.

Choosing to believe Love and Faithfulness feels absurd sometimes. It is the invisible fight that wears me out, this striving with all His energy. When I know it isn’t up to me, when I remember not I, but He, it is easy to believe. It feels natural and normal and right.

But there are other times when belief feels delicate, as if the smallest shift against it will send it shattering to the ground. It is in the uneasy belief where I think things happen; the unseen things of grace and trust. But just like those pink tulips in my yard planted by those who came before me, I can’t always see the results.

As you may have noticed, I took a week off. I went to Hilton Head with my kids and my mom-and-sister-in-law. It was an all-girls-plus-my-son week as The Man was away on a youth trip.

I didn’t work all week. I didn’t make one list. I didn’t write even one sentence on my manuscript. I barely did laundry. I happily ate way too much here. I read this book. We watched this movie. And this one. And this one, too.

The ocean water was freezing, but it didn’t keep them out. The pool water was colder, and even I got in. I didn’t see the ocean until I was 12. I’m so glad they are growing up with it.

It is rare to get even a Saturday with nothing planned to do, let alone an entire week. Still, it is good to be home. And now on this anti-Saturday, the challenge will be to find the bliss in the midst of the ordinary chaos. When you find yours, write about it and come back to unwrap it with us tomorrow.

He wakes up first, makes breakfast and coffee. I choose outfits, settle hairband drama, and make their lunches. He walks them to school while the smallest one and I snuggle up to cartoons until he gets back. I could sleepwalk through our morning routine. It never changes and feels like home. But a year ago in March, I couldn’t have imagined everyday school, early early mornings, lunch without them at my table.

Things feel as though they will always be the way they are now and will never change. Until they do. And then that becomes normal for a while. Until it isn’t anymore.

Maybe you are leaning heavy against the door of change, grasping for familiar furniture to push up strong against that door. Maybe you are in the middle of a field of change, spinning in circles to find your bearings. Maybe you are stuck in your fear of change so much that you have traded in living for hopes of a risk-free existence. Still, change comes. And we get to choose what we’ll do with it.

Edie writes about change with the house that found her.

Melissa writes of making plans on her financial journey, but of things not going exactly as she thought.

A trip down memory lane helps Emily and her husband see the good side of change.

Lysa writes about an opportunity for a different kind of change, the kind that calls you out from behind your predictable routine and gently asks you to listen to that dream you’ve always had.

I love and hate change. I long for it and resist it, I welcome it and push it away, I dread it then forget it when the next change looms. How do you feel about change?

The wall’s not crooked, the candle plate with the f on it is. But I didn’t want the shot with the foreground wrong, so I changed reality a little. I tend to do that. I like for the thing up front and here now to be right and hope that the thing later in the background works itself out. Sometimes it does. Other times, I regret my neglect of the crooked walls.

He could have had anything, but he asked for wisdom. And so it went that he was granted more wisdom than any man, ever. The third chapter of Ecclesiastes was his observations on how these earthly things go. There is a natural rhythm to life, an ebb and flow that we can’t bypass or ignore. There is no override button.

The thing about life is it was meant to be lived. Sometimes, that seems like bad news. I saw this chapter printed out on display in an office space last week. The middle of verse 8 was left out, so all it said was A time to love and a time for peace taking out the hate and war part. I like that better, too. But that’s not how things are.

As it is, I can’t read these verses without silently inserting turn, turn, turn (can you?), but that is the truth of it. Time turns and turns and rolls over itself, the awful and the lovely mixing in like colored play-doh. I can’t say that the awful makes the lovely more lovely, because I think the lovely would be just fine on its own. Somehow, though, it can be redeemed; even the hate and the war parts. As much as I’d prefer the lovely all by itself, beauty from ashes tells a more compelling story.

The nights have been late and the rooms have been loud. Tomorrow we leave Nashville for home. I look forward to de-briefing on BlissDom soon-ish. Unitl then, link up with Blessed Moon. She wasn’t there, either.

We celebrated the new year at 6pm tonight – midnight in Spain. My sister-in-law did it up right and had us over to celebrate the Spanish way. We watched the countdown in her native country, we ate 12 grapes in 12 seconds and shared a toast in fancy glasses. I think a 6pm New Year’s Eve is my new favorite: I was alert, the kids got to play along and still be in bed by 8.

Perhaps starting 2010 six hours early will be a good sign for the new year. Only time will tell. I have so enjoyed chatting it up with you in 2009 and look forward to another year of celebrating the gifts of the everyday, even in the midst of the crazy.