Away For A While

I will guide you along the best pathways for your life.

I will advise you and watch over you.

Psalm 32v8 NLT

Dear girls~

I nestle into the comfort of my cabin in the woods, savoring a pot of tea, staring out the window as trees emerge like silent sentinels from the dripping darkness of an early Northwest morning. A hint of the soon coming Spring in the midst of sodden green. Moss brightening trees. The faintest buds on climbing hydrangeas assuring me of life, of promise, of renewal.

Winter is waning and I listen to the rhythm of the seasons. If winter is a season of less: less sunlight, less activity, less gardening— it is also a season of more. More sleep, more scented candles and soft blankets, more fires crackling.

In the flurry of Christmas, the festivity of the book release, the study and speaking and planning and doing, I seem to have missed the quiet of these darkening months. All those joy-filled happenings have left me craving quiet. Rest.

Without realizing why, I have been running at a pace that isn’t sustainable for me to thrive and create and feel good about my life. All that doing what needed to be done, while writing about slowing down to listen, to create beauty, to hear God. Hmm.

At the same time, new beginnings are coming, people and callings that need space to flourish.

The most important one is a baby girl named Beatrice. I’ll be leaving in just a few weeks to await her arrival alongside Elizabeth and Brook, Duke and Scarlet. Staying in L.A. until she emerges into a world made ready for her story. While there I want to play with Duke and pretend with Scarlet, get a pedicure with my daughters, go to the beach and savor the days.

I want to be undividedly present in moments I will remember forever.

By the time I get back to Firwood Cottage, Phil and I will be launching the website for Intentional Parents— a place for parents to learn and be reminded that our first and highest calling is to create in our children a heart that beats for God. I’ll be writing a weekly post to moms who need what I needed thirty years ago: practical help in real stories from the Scriptures and from life. Eventually I dream of a place where many writers— experts in their fields— weigh in with wisdom about the how’s and why’s and what-if’s of guiding and growing the next generation of passionate, all-in Jesus followers and people lovers.

Which is why I need to quiet my voice on this space for a while, lest I fall into the trap of just adding more on top of more because something inside  says I must and should.

I’ll be back, of that I am certain. I plan to begin again in May… or early June, whenever I just can’t stand it anymore and need a place to spill my heart.

In the meanwhile it’s time for some redesign, some prettying up; implementing some of the features that appeal to my writerly love of words. Going forward I want to recapture the intimacy of this space, once again writing as a means of sharing beauty, of bringing my girls into my story, of listening together to the riches in the silence. Most of all, it is on my heart to practice the art of listening to God in the midst of real life.

If that sounds like something you’re craving too, may I suggest that you subscribe to this space? I’ll post no more than once a week, just a fresh invitation of what it looks like to love God with passion and to love people on purpose.

I’ll be sneaking frequent peeks into the comments and I’d love to hear from you. Drop me a note— I’ll be missing you!

From my heart,

Diane