Delightful Moments in Everyday Life
My good friend Anne Reeves, Ana Designs author, photographer, baker, creator and designer extraordinaire who blogs at http://anadesigns.blogspot.com/, loves to talk about delight. What is delight? For her, delight is all about using your senses and your heart to enjoy and appreciate beauty in our world, even when the news and things going on around us and in our towns, families, parishes, and workplaces don't exactly show delight. She reminds us that it's always there, in the smell of a new rose in your front yard, cleaning off the dirt from a freshly picked cucumber (as I just did from my oldest son's bountiful garden!), the first sip of coffee in the morning (no other sip is as good as the first one), even a smile from a stranger. You may have to look high and low, but delight can always be found no matter where you are. Simple things, simple joys, simple little delights that we can enjoy alone or with the people around us.
If you look around at your day-to-day life, I bet you can find some delightful things about even the murkiest day. I managed to find a few delightful moments in my day yesterday, and yesterday wasn't exactly a stellar day for me! But by the end of the day, I could count several delightful moments God had given me, and I was thankful.
Anne and I met for lunch a couple days ago before her big move to Seattle, because delightful moments spent with good friends are all the sweeter. We enjoyed catching up with one another, saddened by the fact that she would be a four-hour plane ride away from now on, yet still talking about beautiful things, things that make you smile and bring you delight, like her newfound love of Seattle, her art, how you can buy and plant spring flowers there in February, and my writing. We first met while members of the Junior League of Birmingham, Michigan and hit it off right away, and have been talking about delightful things ever since.
What is delight? It doesn't have to be huge, like a trip to Hawaii, or an expensive purse you buy. It can be as sweet as when another good friend (Kelly, I'm looking at you!) calls St. Therese your "gal pal." Or when you and your sons laugh so hard together that your sides ache! It can be a simple, funny moment you'll remember for a long, long time, like when Anne and I became "mitten sisters." One day we met for coffee right before Christmas at a coffee shop and fell in love with adorable knit coffee cup cozies that double as fingerless gloves that were for sale near the register. We decided then and there to buy them and Anne declared us "mitten sisters" and each time I wear them I think of Anne and that day we met for coffee on a chilly winter day. She and I are both "girly girls," and love anything pretty, floral, and pink. Knowing my love for St. Therese, she even bought me a lovely medal of her in Paris. It is very special to me. I had it blessed by a priest and I wear that medal around my neck, along with my Miraculous Medal, every day! See the blog post I wrote about that back in 2009 here. It's a delightful little story!
Anne taught me to look for little delightful things in each day, and I thought of her today when I was at a stoplight. The air was lovely, so everyone had their car windows down, enjoying the day. I let out two loud sneezes. Embarrassed, I looked over at the lady in the car next to me, who also had her car windows down. I knew she must have heard me, so I smiled at her sheepishly. She grinned back and called over from her car to mine, "BLESS YOU!" I gave her a huge smile back and yelled back, "THANK YOU!"
I had a grin on my face the whole way home.
That's delight.
If you look around at your day-to-day life, I bet you can find some delightful things about even the murkiest day. I managed to find a few delightful moments in my day yesterday, and yesterday wasn't exactly a stellar day for me! But by the end of the day, I could count several delightful moments God had given me, and I was thankful.
Anne and I met for lunch a couple days ago before her big move to Seattle, because delightful moments spent with good friends are all the sweeter. We enjoyed catching up with one another, saddened by the fact that she would be a four-hour plane ride away from now on, yet still talking about beautiful things, things that make you smile and bring you delight, like her newfound love of Seattle, her art, how you can buy and plant spring flowers there in February, and my writing. We first met while members of the Junior League of Birmingham, Michigan and hit it off right away, and have been talking about delightful things ever since.
What is delight? It doesn't have to be huge, like a trip to Hawaii, or an expensive purse you buy. It can be as sweet as when another good friend (Kelly, I'm looking at you!) calls St. Therese your "gal pal." Or when you and your sons laugh so hard together that your sides ache! It can be a simple, funny moment you'll remember for a long, long time, like when Anne and I became "mitten sisters." One day we met for coffee right before Christmas at a coffee shop and fell in love with adorable knit coffee cup cozies that double as fingerless gloves that were for sale near the register. We decided then and there to buy them and Anne declared us "mitten sisters" and each time I wear them I think of Anne and that day we met for coffee on a chilly winter day. She and I are both "girly girls," and love anything pretty, floral, and pink. Knowing my love for St. Therese, she even bought me a lovely medal of her in Paris. It is very special to me. I had it blessed by a priest and I wear that medal around my neck, along with my Miraculous Medal, every day! See the blog post I wrote about that back in 2009 here. It's a delightful little story!
Anne taught me to look for little delightful things in each day, and I thought of her today when I was at a stoplight. The air was lovely, so everyone had their car windows down, enjoying the day. I let out two loud sneezes. Embarrassed, I looked over at the lady in the car next to me, who also had her car windows down. I knew she must have heard me, so I smiled at her sheepishly. She grinned back and called over from her car to mine, "BLESS YOU!" I gave her a huge smile back and yelled back, "THANK YOU!"
I had a grin on my face the whole way home.
That's delight.
