Intentional

me on the trail to Tirrell Pond
Blue Mountain Lake Wild Forest
Central Adirondacks
November 2014
Photo courtesy of Cheryl A Blask

I hike.  Most everyone who knows me, knows this.

I prefer summer and absolutely love autumn.

 I enjoy late spring. 

 I like the first snowfall.

 I don't really like winter although I'm choosing to live in the northeast.

Instead of complaining about the snow or lack of snow in the winter months, and the ice and slick roads, the scraping of the car and walkways, the trek across sodden grass and mucky mud and ankle or knee or thigh high white stuff just to place birdseed in the feeder, I have chosen to be intentional.  To be intentional about embracing it all...........each and every season that our Creator brings to us.

To finding the blessings in the small things, the everyday matters, the insignificant as well as the major events.  To pause.  To ponder.  To pray.

Being intentional about our everyday moments is not a new concept,  but I find that as I get older and see more and more "stuff" on social media, I just want to hit a "pause" button...or at least a "slow down" button and a "stop complaining" button. I want to be more intentional with my choice of words and I wish others would be as well.

I think of the Christmas season and how it has seemed to just fly by this year.  How we were not so much busy as we were wasting time.  I feel like I haven't had the deep conversations with my daughters that I crave....that I haven't had the alone time with my husband that is needed.........that I haven't been intentional in my walk with my Savior...that He has just been a passing moment in my day like everyone and everything else.

And I think  "I must be intentional!!" 

Just like I had to be intentional last year when I wanted to hike and the weather didn't cooperate.

It was November, and only the first weekend.  Autumn had arrived 6 weeks earlier and it was one where we saw early snow.  Snow before winter began.  

So, this one Saturday, my friend and I decided to head to the Central Adirondacks where I knew there would be a chill in the air but since my town was in the 50s I really didn't expect to see the white stuff!  I hiked anyways as I had the right stuff with me.

But...to enjoy that hike, I had to be intentional about my attitude.  And look what I would have missed if I had turned around at the first sight of that snow:

trail into Tirrell Pond
Central ADKS 2014 November

What beauty there is, in the simple things like fresh fallen snow.

The quiet of the woods....the solace by a remote pond...........

Tirrell Pond
(Buck Mountain in background)
Central Adirondacks

I need to be intentional in my busy days of working outside the home, raising a young adult daughter and a teen daughter and managing the home with my husband as well as church ministry duties and a social life.  We all need to be intentional about making relationships work, schedules run, body and soul taken care of.

But the one thing I need most.....and that I need to be intentional about doing...is spending some quiet time with my Savior.  He wants my attention.  And my soul craves it.

Just like my body and spirit crave time in the woods or on a mountain summit, so too does my soul crave time with the One who is and was and forever will be.

Being intentional......let's make it happen in 2016..........