Earplugs muted jazzy music and buzzing conversations as I sat at a coffee shop the day before Christmas Eve.

I was reflecting with an old friend affectionately known as “the poet,” the soulful side of me.

I named this part of me in a counselling session last winter along with “the workhorse,” a more driven and disciplined part of me who had signed up for a heavy load this past fall.

Naming these parts invited them to ride together rather than as rivals.

On Christmas morning, before unwrapping cross-country skis and poles and trying on my new boots, I opened a touching painting my husband had picked out at a conference in California.

Tears fell as I read the paragraph the artist, Jess Boldt, used to describe “The Wild One.”

Then I turned the frame over and looked into the uncovered eye of a mysterious yet familiar-looking horse.

As emails arrived in my inbox at the start of this new year, it was amusing and a bit overwhelming that one after the other, they asked to steal the sacred time my family enjoys on Saturday mornings.

Four sacred Sabbath Saturday mornings in a row could be gone just like that!

I was relieved when I brought this concern to my husband, and we narrowed it down to one meeting that was mandatory and released the others from our calendar, typing “skip” beside each one in our Google calendar.

This past Saturday, we enjoyed our usual slow, extra special Saturday breakfast where Benj and the kids make some kind of delicious baking, usually topped with berries, syrup and whipped cream, and then piled into our minivan for one of our “experience” Christmas gifts.

We cross-country skid in the beautiful winter snow for the rest of the day.

Like never before, I am reminded that the Holy Spirit is drawing us into sacred rhythms of life if only we would listen.

My older sister sent me a Marketplace link the night before my 15th wedding anniversary.

I happily sent an e-transfer and drove a 60-minute round trip to pick up a sizeable wood-framed wall sign from “the back porch with the Christmas lights.”

That same night my husband measured and nailed the sign into a spot that had been waiting for something meaningful for almost four years.

It showcases a bold statement ‘blessed’ in scrolly letters, and I didn't see the deeper meaning until weeks later.