Knowing

I love to count my blessings. I am a woman of faith and often, when I feel like this...

"She was so tired her legs felt burnt out from under her, but she believed she could get through this if she did one thing at a time and thought of the remaining things left to be done as sequential, not cumulative."

-Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain

...as so many of us often do, listing the many many beautiful blessings in my life is what gives me strength to get through. It reminds me that my Father in Heaven knows me and knows what I need, and it is the knowing between us that forms the shape of my days and the path of my life. Lately, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for the people He has put in my life. My family, of course, but particularly on my mind have been my friends...two new friends...women I have known as acquaintances for some time but who I can now, because of time spent together in the last several weeks, truly call friends. And they are just who I needed. And the place we go together is just what we all needed.

We've been meeting with all our children on Thursday afternoons at this magical wilderness place...

...a gully thick with brambles for secret forts and paths to explore...

...a giant, overgrown weeping willow tree (truly Bridge to Terabithea worthy) for climbing...

...scented by the earth and painted in the colors of fall.

The children run and climb and learn about the world and each other through play while we moms sit in the dry grass and talk and look on, our hearts bound together in the wonder of mamma-hood and our spirits kindred in the knowing who we are. 

I count my blessings. And I count those Thursday afternoons among them. 

xo

Now, for the purposes of literary mood and fluidity, I'd like to end this post here. But I did promise you, oh blogland, that I'd be starting a sale in my shop today. So here once again is the coupon code, good for 30%--ah, heck, let's say 40% off-- any item in my Etsy shop now through Saturday October 1st: 

Shop away!

xo (again)