But for the last few days, I’d been sifting through a few emotions about 2022. A new year comes with some gravity–especially after a tough 2021 for my family.
Recently I completed a yearly prayer of Examen–my second year of a new personal tradition. Like the Israelites standing at the Jordan and choosing stones of remembrance (Joshua 4), I’m looking back at how I’ve seen God writing His story in and around me. And how his presence has met me there.
May all your kids come home, and may they get along with each other. Or at least fake it.
May you have a white Christmas to the point that you feel Christmas-y and can say no to an activity you didn’t really want to go to, but don’t lose electricity and heat. May everyone wipe their boots.
Confession: My heavenly intentions for Thanksgiving are often clobbered by my oh-so-real life.
I would love to be preparing our hearts all month for gratitude, but I find myself picking up someone else’s rank gym socks. I would love to be stuffing a jar with slips of paper declaring our thankfulness, but can tend to stave off a little more teenage complaining instead…?
Confession: In the past, I have personally known Lent is almost here when fast-food signs start advertising fish sandwiches. So maybe your kids ask, “Hey, what’s Lent?” around Ash Wednesday (PSA: today is the start of Lent!). But if it isn’t something your family typically observes, you might be scrambling for answers that don’t include “Filet-O-Fish.”
So allow me a brief rundown of lent for kids, in language they (/we) can understand—and some tips to help it sink in.
While living in Uganda, my language acquisition developed to an equivalent of that drunken-sailor lurch of a new toddler. That is, my ability to speak resembled lurching, grinning, and occasionally falling on my rear.
And of course just because you can speak a language doesn’t mean you use it in the same ways. I’d occasionally get weird looks for wishing someone Merry Christmas (Seku Kulu enungi!) in December. Apparently Ugandans keep this phrase pretty much for Christmas day.
May all your kids come home, and may they get along with each other. Or at least fake it.
May you have a white Christmas to the point that you feel Christmas-y and can say no to an activity you didn’t really want to go to, but don’t lose electricity and heat. May everyone wipe their boots.
![Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language](https://www.janelbreitenstein.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/love-languages-text-1.jpg "Now You're Speaking My [Love] Language")
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