The snowball tree out at the mailbox is this flurry of flakes in the middle of June.

So you can go out to get the mail and stand there with all these petals round your feet.

You can realize: A year can evaporate before you know it.

In the middle of a culture of outrage, where judgement can be be our dialect of choice and angry, finger pointing posts can go viral and sicken our communal well, you can just want to stop at the end of the lane and watch the sun over the fields.

“The best way to live a good year is to do a reset halfway through the year.”

You can want to smell the flowers and inhale deeply, you can want to make your moments make your days make something meaningful, that will last beyond the loud.

You can walk into the house, sort the mail, put the farm paper down on the table, turn and look at the calendar and just quietly exhale:

The best way to live a good year is to do a reset halfway through the year.

June is the Second January.

DSC_1002
DSC_0158
DSC_0456
DSC_9185
DSC_9172

Get up early and watch the sun rise. Open a window so you can breathe it all in. Open His Word. Pour a cup of orange juice. Don’t try to face anything until you’ve faced Him: First 10 Minutes always with your First Love. Word In. Work Out. Work Plan.

I set a vase of snowballs out in the middle of the table. The light catches in them, frees something in us.

Since the Farmer first planted our crops, you can see how he’s walked the fields. How he has time to breathe, how he has time to bend and watch how seeds grow.

You can see it, when you watch how he works:

“To love your life, do nothing with rush or resentment, but do everything as if you love it.”

To love your life, do nothing with rush or resentment, but do everything as if you love it.

Every morning, I make it a habit to make our bed, smooth out the coverlet under my hand. This is how I love us.

He works late into the night, stays up with a sow giving birth. He tells me this without saying a word, just by the way he smiles:

He makes the most of his work — who makes most of the gift of getting to do his work.

Because this makes the most of the grace of God.

When he walks the rows of his fields, I watch him at the window:

He’s not looking to be seen or noticed, he’s not looking to jump on any soapbox or get anyone riled up — anger and outrage and striving and discontent can be exhausting.

Let the world go ahead and get loud and large. There are fresh starts in quiet starts. There are small and hidden seeds that are growing into forests, that are growing into the greatest yield.

When the Farmer walks the fields, no, he’s not thinking of sales or return on investment — because he knows that: successful people are the ones who choose to let the joy and satisfaction of simply getting to show up be their payment.

Keep practicing the presence of being aware of His presence.

“Genius is only one percent cleverness and ninety-nine percent a very long endurance.”

He lives that everyday: Genius is only one percent cleverness and ninety-nine percent a very long endurance.

Keep going and never, ever give up.

He chooses that everyday: When you work faithfully, creativity comes faithfully.

Keep showing up — because this is how you never, ever give up.

It’s never, ever too late to begin again. June can be about new beginnings.

DSC_0960
DSC_9156
DSC_9161
DSC_6646
DSC_9174

You can even tell by the way he wears his cap, by the way his smile comes easy out in a field of seeds: He makes it a habit to hope. Even in the middle, even when you have to begin again.

“Change your habits and you can change anything into a possibility.”

Change your habits and you can change anything into a possibility.

I light a candle every day. Write a bit in my journal, not words of mine, but Words of His, copied out, like writing them with my hand can shape my hand, can shape a life. These are simple practices, life-giving habits.

We set timers for our work, each of us, the best timers, used at the piano, at the computer, at the desk.

Our habits unclothe us — they expose our wounds, our insecurities, our idols, our addictions — or our hopes, our dreams, our prayers. Our habits are us. The patterns of our lives reveal the form of our souls.

“A pail with a pinhole loses as much as the pail pushed right over.  A whole life can be lost in minutes wasted… in the small moments missed.”

Read more words on papers than on screens.

A pail with a pinhole loses as much as the pail pushed right over.  A whole life can be lost in minutes wasted… in the small moments missed.

Make gratitude your attitude of habitthere’s no other way to make joy your life.

Every little day just has to be just a little bit better: Small things done consistently, consistently make the biggest change.

And you get to do hard & holy things, you can do hard and holy things — for the joy, for the love. Because whatever you do for joy, you can do forever.

DSC_0939
DSC_6642
DSC_6651

“You change your life when you change what you do everyday.”

Habits matter because: Habits are the spine of our self-control.

You change your life when you change what you do everyday.

I listen to His Word while I wash my face. Set the timer on my phone to make a complete hard stop and pray — because life without hard stops crashes. Habits are small gears that leverage your life — and the habit of hope can resuscitate anything.

Even what looks like it has a snowball’s chance in hades of happening or changing… 

The snowball tree releases petals in the wind, a habit of letting go and hoping better things….

And all these small seeds keep across the field grow —

like this growing trust that the smallness of A Seed Life, of faithfully stewarding seed moments, is what grows a habit of astonishing abundance.


When you want to know & see signs of His loving-kindness…

When you want to know the heartography of the world — the map of your own heart, and the map of God’s….

When you’re looking for love, and Love Himself looking for you…

For every person who has faced a no-way sign on the way to their dreams, WayMaker is your sign, that there is hope, that there are miracles, and that everything you are trying to find a way to, is actually coming to meet you in ways far more fulfilling than you ever imagined.

Grab Your Copy of WayMaker — and begin the journey you’ve secretly been hoping for.