The best thing about turning the calendar page? Starting fresh each new month. I love the fresh spread of paper and possibilities that the new month holds.
To everything, turn, turn, turn. There is a season. I can’t sing it, but I can sure hear it.
And today, I turned the page to June.
I’m feeling poetic this morning as I look forward to June, the month for weddings, flowers, abundant sunshine instead of gray skies, long days, longer nights.
So as I turned my planner page, I also did my PowerSheets work. (Just giving you the link here for PowerSheets, so you can check it out if you want, but I’m not in their affiliate program.) My organized daughter introduced me to them this year because she knows I love, love, love to plan, check items off my to-do list, make lists, dream, write about dreams, doodle, plan some more, scratch things out. And I’m still doing this as I step into my sixth decade of life. Still don’t have it figured out. This habit is helping me turn the page.
What about returning?
I can turn the pages of my planner and look back. I can turn the pages of my calendar and look forward. But I can’t return to May 2018. Or June 2017. Or any moment, day, week, month, or year that has already passed.
Starting Fresh Each Month: There are no do-overs for those days that have passed.
One of the lovely parts of the PowerSheets are their “Let It Go” pages where I get to brain-dump all the junk that isn’t helping me, the “worries, fears, stresses, and to-do’s that are taking up your mental and heart space.”
I scribble, pray, scribble some more, release, and breathe because there is no returning to yesterday.
And that’s okay because today and tomorrow and tomorrow, there is returning to the Lord. Always a new page and a new place where His love pours over me. Always His grace. Check out Lamentations 3:22-23 for a beautiful reminder. And Psalm 116.
How about you? How does it feel to turn the page into June? Are you returning to anything? Looking forward to joy?
I love the Lord, because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live. The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish. Then I called on the name of the Lord: “O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul!” Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; our God is merciful. The Lord preserves the simple; when I was brought low, he saved me. Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.
For you have delivered my soul from death my eyes from tear my feet from stumbling; I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.
I believed, even when I spoke:“I am greatly afflicted”; I said in my alarm, “All mankind are liars.”
What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord, I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people.
Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. O Lord, I am your servant; I am your servant, the son of your maidservant. You have loosed my bonds. I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people, in the courts of the house of the Lord, in your midst, O Jerusalem. Praise the Lord!
Psalm 116 (ESV)
This post was prompted by the word RETURN at Five Minute Friday link-up where Christian writers encourage each other and share their free-writing weekly. I love being part of this community! Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash
