{"id":13941,"date":"2015-01-29T07:59:55","date_gmt":"2015-01-29T13:59:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/?p=13941"},"modified":"2015-01-29T08:00:27","modified_gmt":"2015-01-29T14:00:27","slug":"thankful-thursday-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/2015\/20150129-13941.htm","title":{"rendered":"Thankful Thursday: Normalcy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/category\/thankfulness\/thankful-thursday\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft\" alt=\"Thankful Thursday banner\" src=\"images\/buttons\/thankfulthursday2.jpg\" title=\"Thankful Thursday banner\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Life is starting to settle into comfortable patterns, signalling a return to some manner of normalcy. I don&#8217;t have big, earth-shattering things to give thanks for &#8211; but I am thankful for the ebb and flow of life, for seasons that come and go, for finding rhythms in each new season. <\/p>\n<p><strong>This week I&#8217;m thankful&#8230;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;for <strong>an afternoon off<\/strong><br \/>\nOnce a week, Daniel comes home early so I can go grocery shopping without Tirzah Mae. I breastfeed her, load up my books to return to the library, and head out on errands. While shopping itself is not my favorite tasks (except that I love cooking and love to be frugal, I&#8217;d probably hate shopping), I love the brief (or not so brief) visit I can make to the library before I shop. Those afternoons off, and especially the quiet of a book-filled library, do wonders for my soul.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;for <strong>connections<\/strong><br \/>\nIt&#8217;s taken a long while to get connected at our church. We love the preaching, the worship from the Word &#8211; but relationships have been difficult to establish. We still don&#8217;t have bosom friends there &#8211; but we are starting to develop friendships. Sunday reminded me of that as I had one conversation after another with acquaintances who are becoming friends.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;for <strong>turkey dinners<\/strong><br \/>\nWe were just bringing Tirzah Mae home at Thanksgiving, and neither of our families do turkey for Christmas &#8211; which means Daniel and I haven&#8217;t had a turkey dinner yet this fall\/winter. But turkey&#8217;s were on super-sale following both of those holidays and I picked up a couple for our freezer. I cooked one on Monday and we&#8217;ve been eating from it ever since. Yum, yum. <\/p>\n<p>&#8230;for <strong>a wonderful, beautiful, very-good day<\/strong><br \/>\nDid you <a href=\"\/blog\/2015\/20150128-13938.htm\">read about my Tuesday<\/a>? A blessing from on high, that day was.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;for <strong>breastfeeding during shots<\/strong><br \/>\nTirzah Mae had her 2 month shots yesterday &#8211; a total of 3 pokes. When I first mentioned breastfeeding during administration to the doctor, he was pretty uncertain &#8211; he thought there&#8217;d need to be two people there to hold her and didn&#8217;t think everyone would fit around my breast. But when the nurse came in and it was just her, I asked again. &#8220;Sure,&#8221; she said, &#8220;doesn&#8217;t make any difference to me.&#8221; But it did make a difference for Tirzah Mae and I to be able to cuddle and breastfeed to comfort her before, during, and after those shots.<\/p>\n<p>This newborn season has been a long one, filled with ups and downs &#8211; and I am so thankful that God has brought us through this long, hard newborn period. And now, as we enter the season of infant proper, I am thankful for the normalcy He&#8217;s wrought &#8211; and acknowledge His goodness whether the normalcy continues or a new challenge throws us off-kilter.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:<br \/>\n a time to be born, and a time to die;<br \/>\na time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;<br \/>\n a time to kill, and a time to heal;<br \/>\na time to break down, and a time to build up;<br \/>\n a time to weep, and a time to laugh;<br \/>\na time to mourn, and a time to dance;<br \/>\n a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;<br \/>\na time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;<br \/>\n a time to seek, and a time to lose;<br \/>\na time to keep, and a time to cast away;<br \/>\n a time to tear, and a time to sew;<br \/>\na time to keep silence, and a time to speak;<br \/>\n a time to love, and a time to hate;<br \/>\na time for war, and a time for peace.<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\n<strong>He has made everything beautiful in its time.<\/strong>&#8221;<br \/>\n~Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, 11<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Life is starting to settle into comfortable patterns, signalling a return to some manner of normalcy. I don&#8217;t have big, earth-shattering things to give thanks for &#8211; but I am thankful for the ebb and flow of life, for seasons that come and go, for finding rhythms in each new season. This week I&#8217;m thankful&#8230; &#8230; <a title=\"Thankful Thursday: Normalcy\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/2015\/20150129-13941.htm\">Read more <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Thankful Thursday: Normalcy<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13941"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13941"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13944,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13941\/revisions\/13944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}