Thursday Things #80

A nifty invention, the song you suggested, a new podcast and a blessing for the new year. 😳🎶🎙❤️

Welcome! Every other Thursday, I share a handful of things I'm loving, reading, watching, listening to or just discovered. In other words . . . what I'd text you about if I had your number or mention if we met up for coffee! I'm so glad you're here. :)

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It’s the Lost Week of the year, full of Blursdays, otherwise known as that time between Christmas and New Years. There are cookies to eat, puzzles to complete, movies to watch and books to read.

My dad is home from the hospital and we have a few more days before I leave the Sunshine State for the Magic City, so I’ll keep TT #80 short and sweet. Because cookies and puzzles and movies and books. 😊

Hands-free Ziplock holders

“This is so nifty!” Me, immediately after trying this genius contraption

My sincere thanks to Taylor Schumann for sharing this invention on Instagram. I promptly put it on my Christmas wish list and it’s safe to say my soup game has drastically improved.

One more Christmas song, thanks to you

In Thursday Things #79, I asked if you’d share one of your favorite Christmas songs in the comments. (If you scroll to the very bottom, you’ll see a “comment” button. You can leave, read, or engage with comments there. Think of it like a collection of everyone’s weekly addition to TT.)

Y’all came through. I searched each song you mentioned + listened to every link you shared. This one, though… my goodness. It now lives on my favorites list.

The best is yet to come

Did I share this at the end of 2021? Yes.

Will I likely share it at the end of 2023? Also yes.

My list of “favorite new years songs” has exactly one title on it, but still. Love.

New podcast

One of the most steadying and beautiful parts of 2022 for me: Listening to The Bible In A Year every day. Throughout 2021, several people I follow online mentioned this podcast. I thought “maybe later” a good 35 times, knowing I didn’t have the bandwidth for another podcast—especially one with a new episode each day. But then they announced it would re-release in 2022 and I knew prioritizing Scripture over the other randomness I listen to was a change I needed to make (no shade or shame on you—just something that I felt invited to change).

So, I subscribed.

And I’m so glad I did.

I’m most definitely not an auditory learner, but hearing Scripture read aloud every single day swept me up in the Story. It helped set the tone for my day or end the evening in quiet reflection. Somewhere around Day 20 I noticed that at the end of each episode, I found myself thinking “Wait, no! Keep going!” I was immersed in the narrative arc of Scripture, hearing familiar verses in the greater context of the surrounding chapters, and I truly looked forward to each episode.

It also introduced me to the books included in the Catholic Bible. I am not Catholic and was not familiar with them, but appreciated hearing both the readings and the reflections on those specific days.

We only have a few chapters remaining before the episodes begin re-releasing again on January 1st, and I knew I wanted to find a way to continue this daily rhythm in a slightly different way. This year provided a grand overview. In 2023, I want to sit with a smaller portion for a longer amount of time. Enter: Annie’s new podcast, Let’s Read the Gospels. Every month, Annie will read all four Gospels is a specific translation (starting with NIV). It starts on the 1st so I can’t say too much about it at this point, but I think it will be both a continued, steadying presence of Truth and a slightly different but beautiful rhythm.

You can find both shows wherever you regularly listen to podcasts. Let me know in the comments if you’ll be listening in, too!

A bit of a blessing

I wrote this at the beginning of 2022 and odd as it may sound, I’ve re-read it a number of times over the last 12 months. I may end up tweaking and reposting it as the calendar pages turn because I just keep returning to it, sitting with it, reminding myself to remember: Hopeward.

A year from now we’ll look back on whatever story this chapter is going to tell, our eyes skimming the underlined and tear-stained and highlighted pages of a year. This one probably won’t go how we think it will, either. Things will shift and change, storms will rage or maybe, may it be, the sea will still for a moment. Who knows what we’ll see when we look back, but we could still look forward with hope, let the armor rust and end the year a little softer. I guess what I’m saying is that if I’m going to shift, I want it to be in the direction of hope. Not the cheesy, flimsy, rainbows and unicorns kind but the hard-fought, defiant, not giving up, anchor in the waves kind. Because it has yet to go how I think it will, but through every change this has stayed the same: I haven’t walked alone.

Here’s to 2022. May we be surprised by joy and steadied by peace. May we trust in the dark what we know to be true in the Light, and may we never stop watching for redemption. May we dare to laugh, long and loud. May we rest without prerequisites. May we learn to build altars in the ruins and may we always find a hand reaching out when all falls apart. May we become fluent in the language of hope.

May we keep looking and moving toward Hope, trusting that it will hold and will not put us to shame (Romans 5:5).

Enjoy the last few days of the year, friends! And if you recently read, watched, listened to, or discovered any good things we need to know about? Tell us your new favorites in the comments!

P.s. If you’re subscribed to All The Things, the January print and lock screen will be in your inbox just as soon as I’m back in Birmingham and able to print out/test all the sizes. I want to make sure everything is 100% ready for you before adding another email to your inbox, but it’ll be there (along with news on our first author Zoom call!) mid-January. 📬

P.p.s. As always, you can upgrade from Thursday Things to All The Things at any time. More info here.