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Happy Go Stuckey

Tethering Grace & Togetherness

What I can learn from my old bedroom: on celebration, change, and staying little.

January 1, 2016 by HappyGoStuckey 1 Comment

While the popping firework cannons sound the end of 2015, I’m bringing in the New Year in my pajamas with fingers tap-tap-tapping on the keyboard. I’m ending one year and beginning a new one in my childhood bedroom, which consequently is no longer pink and white with 92 stuffed animals– now I sit in what looks like the inside of a ripe avocado. The curtained canopy bed is gone and my mom finally removed all my high school choir tour photos from the back of my bedroom door. One stubborn piece of photo backing is all that stands of those years. It’s probably for the best. That much stonewashed denim and Aussie sprunch spray should remain in the past.

Nearly everyone in this house of safety is fast asleep, including my own little look-alikes, they went to sleep hours ago after a driveway parade that even my silver-bearded dad marched in. When the girls discovered a NYE Party box full of plastic leis, sparkly hats, and the LOUDEST party-blowers a sane person has ever survived– they immediately planned a marching band-parade- extravaganza for right before bedtime. In pajamas and rain boots they led us around the back of the house and up and down the gravel drive. My dad and their dad blew piercing noisemakers and followed behind this gaggle of their girls. We marched and blew, marched and sang, marched and laughed out loud at the awful high-pitched band of chaos we made. I’ve never actually heard six geese being rhythmically strangled with all deliberateness– but now I know. It’s LOUD. That was a good fun way to end 2015.

Can I be honest? This year was a challenge. Like putting control-top pantyhose on an octopus- challenging. As a family, we had a fabulous year. As a writer? I worked many months on a book proposal only to get to the very end of the year and recognize that perhaps I *could* go in a different direction. Harrowing. I floundered a bit here and there. I allowed the pressure of great opportunities to paralyze me into doing very little. I put my work out there and got rejected. Three times. In one month. That took an already small me and made me a bit smaller.

writing-4

But let’s be honest. Small is good. Small is really good sometimes. Here I sit, in “my” bedroom in “my” old house and I feel small enough to be someone’s little girl still. I feel small enough for extra blankets and flannel sheets and snuggling down deep. I feel small enough to remember when these dreams were just beginning. When there was all fresh hope and lots of good stuff ahead on the cusp of tomorrow. I am small enough to remember that all that hope was spot on. That all that good, all those good plans, were good because they were God’s good plans and He is good.

And I trusted Him. And I trust Him still. And though we ended one year with lovely, boisterous, chaos and happy noise-making–

I’m beginning the next one with a prayer.

May we pause long enough to hear the needs inside us.
May we slow often enough to meet the needs around us.
May we laugh loud enough to share the hope within us.
May we feel small enough to recognize the big God that holds us.
And shapes us.
And saves us.
And covers us.
And comes for us.

May we sing more, listen more,
Pray more and say more– of what we should– and less of what we should not.
May we curl up with more books and read,
Curl up with our human-ness and rest,
And curl up with our children and just be– there.

May we see the things that need to change in us and then allow the only true Change-Maker– to take over and truly change us.
And then may we not be frustrated when we find we need more change still. 

May we find and use and worship with the gifts that are ours–not hers or his— but ours… only ours given by Him who hands them out to His expectant children.

May we stretch and try and try a bit more and stumble and return to that drawing board or blank canvas or blank document or blank sheet begging for music. May we never stop using the gifts and living out our callings, all of them at once- and not waiting for someday. 

May we never once doubt that we hold the light and we are in that city– that city truly on a hill and we must keep shining His light and His love and His creativity. Every single day.

Amen.

Thank you for joining me this year. It was truly a privilege to share my little table with you here. I plan to share my 2015 Recap/ What I learned in the next couple of days. Hope to see you there. Happy New Year!!!

Why Knowing “God With Us” is Enough In Our Parenting.
My 2015 in Review (the year that I drank a lot of coffee.)

Comments

  1. DazzledByTheSon says

    January 10, 2016 at 7:31 pm

    Thank you, Cynthia – for your honesty and encouragement and wisdom. I needed the reminder you shared.

    Reply

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Hey There!

I'm Cynthia and I'm so glad you're here. I am an introvert with an extrovert's love of gathering people together. I love good books and capturing moments. Whether you visit me here or on my own front porch, I'll be the one holding the Iced Coffee for us both.

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happygostuckey

Throwing it back but not way back: remember last y Throwing it back but not way back: remember last year when we *discovered* the whipped, frothy, goodness of Dalgona Coffee?

I made it again today for the express purpose of seeing if it would still work with less sugar and I rather like my lightened up version!

(Tip: in my opinion, it makes enough for two— especially because I use instant espresso— so it’s pretty strong! Not warm where you are yet?  Tap the little flag to save this post for later.)

✨Whipped Coffee✨ 
2 TBS. instant espresso
2 TBS. cold water
1 TBS. maple syrup or simple syrup
1-2 glasses of ice and milk

Whip/ Beat the espresso, syrup, and water with an electric beater, immersion blender, or hand-held milk frother until frothy and light in color. Scoop over the milk and ice and enjoy!
🪡Do I seamstressed to you?🪡 Really though, 🪡Do I seamstressed to you?🪡 

Really though, after completing my first embroidery project, I feel like it might just be the cheapest, prettiest, stress relief out there. I am officially a believer in relaxing this way. And PS, if I can do it, you can.

Thank you, @thebarmyfox for bringing this lovely art into my life!
Joy is the courage of people who don’t have all Joy is the courage of people who don’t have all the answers, yet.

While you sit in a season of waiting,
the calendar can often be a cruel companion, reminding you that days go by, weeks, months— with what feels like very little change in the right direction.

Perhaps you can easily assent to: 
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick,

but you strain to see just how it will be when: “...a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12)

Wherever you and I are today— whether we wander, wait, stand firmly planted, or some pressed together combination of all three — we can take heart.

We are not alone.
And this will not be wasted.
What seems to be an unending blank space, an indefinite pause, is a space for new things.

Long before all is made right, and whether or not it all is tied up neatly with a perfectly crafted bow— we can know this:

We do not have to know the outcome to be faithful today.

✨Joy is not disregard for reality as much as it is obstinacy against despair.✨
Hi 👋🏻 I’m Cynthia and I’m a bit weary. T Hi 👋🏻 I’m Cynthia and I’m a bit weary. There. I said it. These days I’m gravitating to the true & the beautiful as rest for my weary self... and I wonder if you are too.

So much so, that I’m starting a new little offering, it’s called “The Feast: Wonder for the Weary” and the first issue goes out this weekend. It’s a bit more personal (okay this first one is WAY more personal. 🤭) It will be a little bit of everything, all with the goal of offering REST to both the feasters & foragers alike. If you’re already a subscriber— no need to do anything, if not— click through my bio to “keep in touch” and join the feast.✨
We are a people of both lament and praise. We hol We are a people of both lament and praise.

We hold questions without answers— yet we hold them in hands already full of good things.

We hold our daily bread, our daily gifts, and we hold the daily closeness of the God Who Sees.

The God who is no stranger to our lament, and Who Is the reason for our every hope.
He does not grow weary of our asking. Of our need to be told again, He will. 

You friend, are not invisible.
You are seen and cared for by the God who does all things well. (Even when they feel anything but.)
Married love ambition: making the kids roll their Married love ambition: making the kids roll their eyes at our “gushy-ness” as often as possible. 

President & CEO of the Lance Stuckey Fan Club— in every season, but especially on days like today.
Rainy day Mocha date, courtesy of our own toasty k Rainy day Mocha date, courtesy of our own toasty kitchen.😍🌧📚

On this chilly Saturday, we spent entirely too long browsing for books at our library and then all came home to a fire, mochas, and cocoa, respectively. Of all the things we do not know at this very moment, we know the gifts abound, and are worth counting.

PS, if you haven’t spread whipped cream on a foil-lined baking sheet to freeze, and then cut out cute shapes with cookie cutters to top your coffee or hot cocoa, may I suggest you get thee on that at once.
“If God sends us on strong paths, we are provide “If God sends us on strong paths, we are provided strong shoes.” — Corrie Ten Boom

✨File under, things to save in a fire.✨

The prayer journal pictured here contains six months of the hard & the sweet.
Six months of prayers asked & answered for ourselves and for others.
Six months of seeing through prayer, not how it changed our circumstances necessarily but how it changed us.

I always appreciate a record like this— being able to clearly see the paths we are led down, rocky though they may be? Priceless.

The ways God has come near us & drawn us to Himself again and again are written on these pages and I’ll treasure it forever.

Also pictured: Psalms Illuminated Scripture Journal. Highly recommend. Thank you always, @allifarnell
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it th “The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

While scrolling through my photos today, my heart was heavy to realize how far back “before” was.

Before masks and distancing, before loss, before other, more personal bits of hard. Multitudinous change, neither all bad nor all good.

With our free time, we’ve introduced our girls to Tolkien, Bilbo, Frodo, and especially Samwise the Brave. They are officially hooked and we are delighted to watch them discover another world where evil doesn’t win, and the courage of the small matters much. {they close their eyes at the Orcs and we haven’t had a nightmare yet!}🤞🏻😂😬
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