grace & gratitude | may

“May is the month of expectation, the month of wishes, the month of hope.” - Emily Brontë

Somewhere along the way, I blinked, and it’s May again. The blueberries and blackberries are ripe and the sun is bright and the garden is flourishing and the flowers have come and gone. Graduation season’s here again, and I’ve spent most of this week contemplating life and its uncertain course, now that it’s been a year since I graduated. I had all these ideas and expectations for what adulthood and graduate-hood (I need a better word for that 😅) would look like, and suffice to say, it’s nothing like I thought it’d be. But that’s not a bad thing, and I’ve been reminded that there’s something glorious in uncertainty, because it leaves us wholly dependent on God’s guidance and totally open for His gracious surprises in our life.

So instead of expecting something specific, something I want or think I should see happen, I’m going to expect God to move this month and place my hope in Him for May and the remainder of this year and next May when I reevaluate life over again and for the rest of my life.

scripture of the month

Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!

Psalm 37:3-7 ESV

gratitude

fresh blueberries

Anne of Green Gables

God speaking through the little things

playing Scrabble with the fam

✨excellent boiled potatoes✨ (that I then proceeded to smash and bake because I don’t like boiled potatoes [read: I am a monster])

Pride & Prejudice

birthdays

good books

beautiful weather

new ideas & old ideas becoming new again

well-done movies

Aragorn (just…Aragorn)

grace

April was one of those months that felt busy and yet unproductive. Only one day was spent writing, one day editing. The rest of the time was get-it, get-it, get-it. I managed to squeeze in a couple of unexpected things amid the craziness—starting an updates list for the rewriting of Held Captive and sending out my first three emails, and starting a newsletter for Sky’s the Limit Press and setting up a mini-course/automated sequence. And I came back to Instagram after disappearing for a month and a half with two new posts.

As far as my reading went, I was thiiiiis close to having three books under my belt, but alas. The last week of April was by far the busiest, so I wasn’t able to finish up the other two books on my list. BUT I did read Anne of Green Gables (basically for the first time; I’d previously read an abridged version as a kid), and OH MY GOSH IT WAS SO GOOD WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME HOW BEAUTIFUL IT WAS?!

I feel like everyone talks about the characters and their dynamics. Everyone talks about the springiness of it and the Canadian representation, in a vague sort of way. BUT NO ONE TALKS ABOUT THE PROSE. THE THEMES. THE LITTLE WISDOM NUGGETS. LIKE WUT?! WHERE HAS THIS BOOK BEEN ALL MY LIFE??? (Answer: right at my fingertips. I just was ignorant enough to think the abridged version would suffice. It did not.)

It was genuinely such a gorgeous book, and I’m in love. I cannot get my hands on the rest of the series soon enough. 😭

goals

I’m literally not even going to write anything in this section. After 2-3 years of me saying “I’ll do what I didn’t do last month” and proceeding to not do what I didn’t do last month, I think we all know what to expect.

poetry

Thus, to make up for my intentional lack of goals, I introduce a new section (which you’ll probably never see ever again): poetry. I wrote a lil’ poem inspired by April that I thought would be fitting to share (although it isn’t my best work by far) and a springy poem inspired by Song of Solomon. (Also, just a disclaimer, I'm not guaranteeing good poetry. Or poetry worth reading at all. Read at your own risk, I guess.)

April Is

April is red like bottlebrush in Nana's backyard

Like the clay in the roads leading home

Like blackberries slowly ripening

Like radishes fresh from the earth

April is warm like the grill outside

Like greetings from friends on busy mornings

Like sunshine on the turtles and gators

Like bread just out of the oven

April is sweet like honeysuckles on the vine

Like chocolate chip cookies with crisp edges

Like the icy tea in my glass

Like hymns sung on Sundays

Until the Day Breathes

tell me where you lay in the grass and watch the clouds

where sheep frolic in the meadow and flowers bloom around you

I will meet you there where it is only you and I

lead me into the forest, beneath the branches of the apple tree

where the sunlight dances in your hair, in your eyes

there I’ll sit in your shadow and you’ll hold me in your arms

run to me over the hills, over the mountains

where I wait for you behind the lattice of my window

ask me to come away and I will go, I will go

until the day breathes and the shadows flee

where you are, I will be, I will be loved by you

and you will be loved by me, tangled in me

---

Your turn, lovely! Where do you expect to see God move in your life this month? What can you do to surrender your hopes to Him and rely on Him more? Have you ever read Anne of Green Gables? If so, what was your favorite aspect of the book?

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