Breathe: CELEBRATE This Week {105}

11 Comments

I’m glad you are here to celebrate! Share a link to your blog post below and/or use #celebratelu to share celebrations on Twitter. Check out the details here. Celebrate This Week goes live on Friday night around 10(ish). Consider it as a weekend celebration. Whenever it fits in your life, add your link. Please leave a little comment love for the person who links before you.

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I am constantly fighting the battle of things to do and places to go. The world spins and squeals about all I need to do.
The world lies.
In truth, there is little that is a must-do in order to live well.
Breathe in and out.
Love.
It is here that life is lived fully. When I unhurry long enough to breathe in and out and recognize the significance of being allowed each breath, life becomes more of a celebration. It’s not a promise or a requirement that I get the next breath. It is a gift.
I woke up Sam and he stretches out his bony arm to hug my neck, then he snuggles deep into is warm comforter. “How are you today?” I ask.
“Alive.” His single-word is muffled and it makes me laugh.
“Well, that’s good! What are you going to do since you’re still breathing?”
I should know better than to predict an answer. I thought he’d say something about running trains, building legos, or eating breakfast.
He stretches and blinks. “Well,” he says, “I think I’ll praise God.”
He gives me pause. Of all the things to do and places to be, in the rush of starting the day, in the middle of a busy life, this young boy already knows what to do when he wakes up in the morning and realizes he’s alive. I want to respond to being alive in this same way. “I will too,” I decide.
When I boil life down to the necessities, this is what I get:
Breathe in and out.
Love.
Love more.
In this hurry-up everything world, it takes discipline to unhurry.  I’m learning the start of the discipline is recognizing I’m alive and then living the celebration that this truly is.
My offerings to encourage writers (and their teachers), because I’m smitten by the way writers work…
{Discover. Play. Build.} Website. It’s designed to be my offering to writing teachers. 
You’ll find video minilessons and a link to the {Discover. Play. Build.} YouTube Channel where they are all housed.
{Discover. Play. Build.} Newsletter. They come each month. Register in the sidebar. 
( For more information on these resources (and others), check out this post.)
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Places you can find me celebrating throughout the week:
Instagram:  @ruth_ayres
Twitter: @ruth_ayres
I’m glad you are celebrating today!

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celebrate, celebratelu, faith, family

11 Comments »

  1. I so enjoyed reading your perspective. My favorite line is “it takes discipline to unhurry”. As a teacher we have so much to fit in and never enough time so we tend to rush. Yet, as I take a little more time at morning meeting to play a game that gets all to laugh or take 4 minutes to have a dance break between Reading Workshop and Writing Workshop, I realize after reading your post, that I am setting an “unhurry” tone. Let's hope we can both stay disciplined!! Thank you for sharing and for providing me with a place to celebrate!! It also helps me to feel “unhurried” to stop on a Saturday and celebrate ONE thing!!

  3. Ruth, Your post was so timely for me this morning. I just finished reading a chapter in Bruce Main's book Spotting the Sacred and it the chapter was about taking the time to let children teach and show you the way to God. I believe your son was a beautiful example of this. Imagine waking up and saying I am alive and I and I praise God. How beautiful.

  4. This is so beautiful Ruth. I love your reminder to yourself (and all of us who read your post) to un hurry. Thank you fro sharing that moment when you woke Sam.

  5. “It takes discipline to unhurry.” Thanks, Ruth,for this beautiful reminder of what's important. I can picture you and Sam in today's story. Sam gives me pause, too, and reminds me to praise Him from whom all blessings flow.

  6. Ah…Sam, he teaches me how to worship with my life! Inspiring! Ruth you are a blessing, an encourager to live a life infused with seeing and valuing the sacred! God repeatedly uses your words to speak to me at just the moment I need to hear them. I am ever grateful!

  8. Ruth, I love these words of wisdom: “In truth, there is little that is a must-do in order to live well.” “it takes discipline to unhurry.” I will take both of these nuggets with me this week as I try my best to sort out life at an even pace. While I was ready to publish my post yesterday, it vanished into cyberspace. Since I was writing about celebrating change, I had to accept the issue and move on. Today, I am back recreating my thoughts and adding new ones because change happens and I need to embrace it more with a positive mindset.

  10. Breathe is my One Little Word. I feel like I could practice that for years and still not have it mastered. Rushing and over-scheduling and letting stress get control are habits for me. Stepping back and appreciating the moments we have is harder to do. For me it takes a great deal of control and conscious effort sometimes. So great that your young one is wise.