The Gift of Presence

-
Written 12/21/15: Apologies for the sudden stop in posting. I got caught up in finishing an icon (it's still in progress) and finishing up LifeBook lessons for the year. I'm taking the class again in 2016 as there's a cool new crop of teachers.)

Written 2/27/16: I finished the icon and will post about it later. I got obsessed with Hamilton (the musical). I forgot all about blogging. But found this post, last edited in December with "READY TO GO" written next to it in my Notes app so here's as good a place to re-start as any.

"I will not be driven by perfectionism or performance - because I was formed by Love, for Love. I will simply Enjoy the Ministry of Presence today: God's presence, people's presence, the present moment, the gift of now. The greatest gift I can give back to our great God is to let His love make me glad." - Ann Voskamp.

This is on the card for December 2 of Ann Voskamp's Advent reflections, which is also in her book The Greatest Gift: Unwrapping the Full Love Story of Christmas. I've had the book since it came out and do you think I've set aside time with these reflections during the Advent season? Nope. Maybe next year as this year's Still Forming Advent Meditations is enough. Ann shared this on her blog during Advent and the quote really caught my attention.

Being present to each other is an act of love. We are so easily distracted today by our small electronic devices (myself included here!), or by worries and concerns (oh, look, I am describing myself again. Preach it, sister!). It's hard to be present: present to the other people in the same room as me, present to God's presence. On my last retreat, it was so hard for me to make space for God's presence. I should have locked my phone away somewhere.

The act of being present to others is allowing them to be seen, to be heard, to be loved. 

When was the last time you let God's love make you glad?



Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment.

Popular posts from this blog

Where Bloggers Create Party II: My Room 2010 (with lots of pictures)

-
Image
I'm excited to be joining the Where Bloggers Create Party for the first time. I discovered it last year, ages after it happened and I literally spent the day looking through them all! I hope you enjoy my space. The sign on my door. I made it as a make-and-take a couple of years ago. Here's an overall view of my room. You can't tell because of the lighting but the walls are not pink. They're pale lavender. The bookcase I bought from Target a year or two ago. It's "Shabby Chic". The bottom drawer holds my German scrap and the "transparent" stuff. The bookcase from Target that used to be under the window is now vertical. The addition to the top of pink chest of drawers is a library card file that was gonna be tossed from church until I rescued it. It holds rolls of seam binding and millinery. I might paint it next year.... Next to it is a tiered holder of mostly lace, but some feathers and flowers. The chest of drawers holds glue, large photos, fa
Read more

Where Bloggers Create 2015

-
Image
I am going to start out by saying, I could do with a serious purge of stuff. That said, I have so much because I've flitted from scrapbooking to 3D creations (birdhouses) to fabric creations to painting on canvas to art journaling. It shows. On the other hand, I've gone from working part-time to not working to working full-time, so I know there are projects I really want to get to. (Like the Madonna art display quilt from a swap I was in several years ago.) I've taken a break from this blog party for the last couple of years, but if you want to see how my creative space has changed and developed (just in case you haven't seen enough creative spaces for one day!), you can see: in 2009 in its barest of bones (I didn't participate in the blog party, but wanted to show in 2010 how my room, which is a small third bedroom, had looked before.) in 2010 which is like a complete reveal with an additional post on my homemade hanky curtains in 2011 after an overha
Read more

Where Bloggers Create Party!

-
Image
My Desert Cottage Not much has changed in my art room since last year . I had a substantial to-do list this year and I didn't quite get to all of them. Here's what was on my "to-do" that got t'done: 1) I made pretty labels for my binders: 2) I cleaned out my closet. (There is no before picture: just imagine stacks of boxes, giant plastic containers and the like.) The closet now holds some stamp storage (off to the side behind the purple velvet dress that's hanging; a chest of drawers packed with fabric (now consolidated into one space except for another drawer in last year's pink chest of drawers); and a sacred space. The wall has book pages taped onto it. I got the idea and the technique from Aunt Peaches . Eventually, the small stained glass cross will move and be above the ombry that I have on permanent loan (currently holding my prayer books and a bible), which is a bit of a long story, but basically when I no longer have a use f
Read more