What I Learned in January

Happy end-of-January friends! Before we get to “What I Learned” this month, I wanted to let you in on something. Recently, as I was reading Stacey Thacker and Brooke McGlothlin’s fantastic Hope for the Weary Mom Devotional, I came across these good words:

“These are busy years. We have so many people who need us to love them well. We can’t put off our soul-healing restoration for a day when we have more time. We must find time to be in the unrushed presence of Jesus, even if it is only a few moments here and there.”  ~ Stacey Thacker

High five to you, Stacey, and right on. We all need to take time in our day–even if it’s just 5 minutes in the school carpool line–to allow Jesus the opportunity to rest and restore our weary selves. For me this sometimes happens in the carpool line. Other times it happens for longer periods of time before the kids wake up or while they are at school.

What I’m learning too is that sometimes we need to hit the pause button on certain parts of our lives so we have more available white space to work on extended soul restoration. So, that’s what I’ll be doing for most–and maybe all–of February. I’ll be hitting the pause button on blogging and many avenues of social media so I can tend to that soul restoration.

It’s quite a bit of work to launch a book, and I’ve been going full steam for a while now. Also, our family is going through many changes. Nothing huge, really, just normal life stages stuff. In Girl Meets Change, I wrote, “If I want to feel steady in this tilting, changing world, I would be wise to simply lean into it.” So that’s what I’ll be doing for the next few weeks, taking my own advice and leaning into the changes God brings by leaning more intentionally into time with him and my people.

While I may still pop up here and there on facebook and twitter, I will definitely be around via instagram. (My fave!) I look forward to connecting with you there.

What I Learned in January:

1. I like doing live videos with other people much better than by myself. For the month of January, I held a #2016changechallenge with the good folks at (in)courage. Inspired by my recently released book Girl Meets Change, this challenge featured conversations with several ahh-maz-ing guests in which we talked about how to see the difficult change in our lives in a more hopeful light.  Those conversations took place on a social media tool called blab.

  

Basically, blab is like periscope but for groups of 4 people or fewer. Blab still has a lot of kinks in it, but I like it so much more than periscope because it allows for shared conversation on screen. If you’d like to watch all 3 blab videos from the change challenge, you may do so right here. 

On this same note, I also shared a bit about change in another quartet.

Author Elisa Pulliam recently released a lovely book entitled Meet the New You: A 21-Day Plan for Embracing Fresh Attitudes and Focused Habits for Real Life Change. I was honored to be a part of a webcast with Elisa and some other great gals in which we chatted about life change and God’s hope-filled purposes found in it. Click here to view our chat together. 

Here’s to sharing the screen with kind, smart women!

2. Parenthood is one of my favorite shows in the history of forever. This month I wrapped up Parenthood thanks to Netflix, and holy smokes did I ever love this show. Adam is the older brother I didn’t know I wanted. Drew is the sweetest, most selfless teen ever planted in a pretend family. Crosby made me laugh like a crazy person nearly every show. And Ray Ramano–Ray Ramano! I didn’t even know he was on the show till I got to the episode where he was, well, on the show. Gah, what an endearing character. Also, I don’t think I’d seen Mae Whitman (aka Amber) since she played Sandra Bullock’s young daughter in Hope Floats. Man, can that girl act.

3. Crosby from Parenthood is Kristen Bell’s husband. I kept watching Dax Shepard (aka Crosby) on Parenthood thinking he looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him till I saw this video of him and his wife Kristen. And then I was all Oohhhh! That’s right! I’ve seen him on the Samsung commercials they do together! (I’m quick like that with pop culture.) They are both the cutest celebrity couple ever.

4. Downton Abbey has a big ol’ soundtrack you can buy! I love writing to soundtracks, so this one called Downton Abbey: The Ultimate Collection is right up my alley. Also, if you’ve never heard the words that go with the show’s theme music, listen to track number 6.

5. I’m a legit Broncos fan. Our family has officially resided in Colorado for 5 1/2 years (which for this former military family feels like forever), and I officially drank the orange ‘n blue Kool-Aid. I’ve had a growing interest in the team for a while now. But last Sunday when I found myself hollering and suffering heart palpitations as I watched them play (and beat!) the Patriots, I realized my fondness for them goes beyond mild appreciation. May their next game bring the same results as the last!

That’s all for now, friends. Visit Emily to read more “What I Learned in January” stories and as always, please share what you learned this month with me in the comments! I look forward to seeing you in a few weeks. So much love to you. xo

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