Photo via I Can Read. It's true: the only one who can determine you is, well, YOU.
Readers, yogis, people of the world: can you believe it's almost September?
The fall season is my favorite. A better time to cuddle, wear a scarf and leather coat, eat soup, drink hot coffee, and of course read by the fire. In my case, the fireplace filled with candles, but hey it works!
There's nothing quite like breaking out your couch cuddle blankets, either. Movies are just better when you can burrow under a warm fuzzy, I say.
It's also a beautiful time of year to reflect on where you are as the sunny days come to a close, and where you'd like to be as the skies change over to a stormier, darker, colder time.
What do you need to accomplish while you've still got nice weather out? A bike ride to the Botanic Gardens? Flying a kite on the beach with your little one? More yoga in the afternoons?
What about the friends and family you've neglected to visit with while there's time to sit on restaurant patios? I highly recommend a few appetizer plates or beers or both at an outside table before your chance ends! Take advantage of what's in season and the fact that this is the golden time of year to share tasty morsels and true conversation with the people you care most about.
Last night on the big Critical Mass tour of Chicago, I was so thankful to take advantage of the gorgeous weather and chance to wave hello and shout "Happy Friday!" to all the Chicagoans lounging outside of little cafes and bars all along the city streets. Especially the ones that waved and shouted back with big smiles. Seemed like such an intimate yet fleeting moment as I whizzed by on the bike. Incredible!
It got me thinking, too: how much of the time we live so fully inside ourselves, so disconnected from the world around us, holding back from even our close family and friends much less strangers in the place we live. Not that there's not a benefit to understanding our own selves -- goodness knows in the past few months I've been discovering more and more the beauty behind introspection, meditation, and strengthening your own soul with what you love.
But the bottom line is this: we weren't created to experience the world all on our own. We were made for relationship. In the past year, I've been developing, fostering and falling more and more in love with my Wonder Spouse, my husband, my best friend.
And what's more, planning our wedding and enjoying the Big Day brought me closer together with my parents, his parents, my siblings, and his siblings, too!
The more we have given all summer, the more we've received in terms of love, support, and guidance along the way. It all hinges on this idea that's so central to our faith, too:
'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.
(Matthew 22:36-40)
What a huge demand which includes an incredible blessing beneath it! God calls us to love Him fully, wholly, with all our identity and our life, but also to love others with the same pure, life-changing practice. What isn't stated explicitly in this passage, but what reigns true throughout the Gospels is that our reward for these efforts -- and however imperfectly we love our God and our people -- He will continue to love us, forgive us, hold us, and help us.
No matter our faults, we will not be forsaken or left alone by Him. We are never alone. Not on cold fall evenings when we sit alone on the porch. Not on nights when we're cuddling with our spouses, or tucking the babes in for bedtime. Not when we feel lost, confused, tired, or in pain. Not when we ride in the middle of the Chicago city streets, waving to strangers and locals who watch with a perplexed look as we pass by.
On this lovely last Saturday in August, my challenge to you is to see what you can let go of about yourself. See what fear, shame, or regret you can give up. See whose opinion you can ignore, knowing that it does not in any way have to shape who you are -- but only if you decide not to let it to. Chances are you're like me and you're your own biggest critic. And guess what? You don't need to be!
Breathe, let go, move on. And get pumped for fall!
Photo also via I Can Read. Whose opinion do you fear? Can you let go and know that you are beautiful as you are?
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