The pleasure of doing a thing in
the same way at the same time every day, and savoring it, should be noted.”
-Arnold Bennett
What a great quote to
ponder on in these days and weeks and months (and perhaps even a year) of
transition that lie ahead for Team Swanson! There have been many a moment in the last 4+ months, since
we began this journey of separating from Antwerp and Belgium and our routine
and life here, when I’ve sat back and looked at the contents of my daily life
and was perfectly content to say “I like doing the same thing in the same way
at the same time every day”…..even when that doesn’t often happen in my life
here….except for drinking coffee (at least when I’m at home and have control
over getting a cup of decaf how I like it), getting to the gym perhaps, and my
morning time with God routine.
Those are about the three things that remain constant every day….okay,
other than telling my husband Steve how much I love him and what a precious
gift he is from our God!
But the risk of
enjoying the pleasure of doing something in the same way at the same time every
day, and savoring it, is that perhaps we become a bit stale, a bit stagnant in
our routine, even to the point of being a bit boring. I can’t say that about much in my life to this point, and
certainly not often about my life here in Belgium. Each morning, as we read the Bible together and pray
together and put our day in God’s hands, we’re always reminding ourselves that
“we have these plans, God, and if they’re from you, then bless them. And if there is something else that
You, O God, have planned for our day, then may we have the grace to accept your
good and perfect plan. Because
your good and perfect plan is the best one for us ~ in the end!” And sometimes it ‘s that end that we don’t
have enough vision to grasp.
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| You gotta love the trams in Antwerp! |
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| We embrace diversity in our world ~ |
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| Good friends! |
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| Some of the ladies who have been a part of my routine |
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I like the routine of
cleaning out my stove top expresso coffee pot while I look out the kitchen
window into our garden, wondering which tulips and daffodils will come up this
spring, if the rhododendrons are coming back with full force or with half
hearted attempts to bloom, and if the hortensia plants (my new favorites since coming to
Belgium 11 years ago), have enough color and blossoms to be full of cascading
flowers that risk hanging close to the earth with all of their heavy blossoms
full of color and beauty. Some
years I have felt like our hortensia plants have been on steroids, then other
years, like 2015, they were just healthy green bushes with a few sparse
blossoms.
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| Antwerp City Hall at Christmastime |
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| The next part of the journey starts here.... on the kitchen table |
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Amazing how much stuff you can have...
let the countdown of the boxes begin! |
So I wait in
anticipation of my spring flowers popping up out of the ground, my hortensias
and the surprise they will bring, and the pleasure of learning a new thing to
do in the same way at the same time every day, and learning to savor it
too. There will be new routines to
learn, a new language to learn, new friends to make, new public transportation
system to learn, new opportunities to share Jesus with my world. And I will note and savor the
journey…every step of the way!
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| I love how all the small mosaic tiles together make the big picture |
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| The future looks bright....if we choose to embrace it and trust God in the journey! |
