It’s the difference – how you see the half.

It’s the difference in a wholly broken world full of half-hearted half-truths and people half-desperate half-disbelieving with broken-in-half hearts because half their hopes have been taken and tossed.

How you see the half – it’s the difference between fullness and futility. And the fullness floods in when we remember thanks and forget ourselves. How you see the half – it’s what fleshes you out whole again.

I’m halfway to counting 2013 things for the year that answers to that name. Here are this week’s 39 things:

 

976 Half a crumpet – last one – shared

977 Living in a country that is half first world, half third world – layers of colour and texture and grace and hope and the marvel of rich, difficult, beautiful paradoxes

978 Halfway between dough and baked – the part where the biscuits are in the oven and the house smells like poetry

979 Eyes that are half-chocolate-half-emerald

980 Halfway through a year and a winter – longest night behind us – summer in the southern hemisphere before we know it –

981 And halfway to Christmas

982 Half a minute on the phone – confusion to clarity

983 Murray leaving tonight for America – grateful, when half of me is missing, that I have another half to miss –

984 And that halfway across the world this is true: May the LORD keep watch between you and me when we are away from each other. – Genesis 31:49

985 Half the laundry done

986 Halfway through reading a spellbinding book – hoping it won’t end ever because I’ll miss the people in the pages –

987 When half a friendship forms and you’re pretty sure it’ll grow whole

988 Dawn – half quiet night, half burgeoning day

989 Dusk – half bustling day, half satisfied night

990 Half asleep, half awake – enough of each to know the deep wonder of bed and oblivion

991 Halfway stopovers on road trips

992 Cam – halfway through Grade 00

993 Half the house strewn with toys and hurtling happiness

994 Watching Argo: half terrified – wholly enthralled

995 Half a cup of tea forgotten – microwaved – just fine

996 Sanctified: halfway between justified and glorified

997 Half a pizza – better for calorie intake than a whole pizza

998 The luxury of knowing half the people in the room –

999 And the gift of getting to know the other half

1000 Terry Brauer who gave me my copy of One Thousand Gifts –

1001 And Ann Voskamp who wrote it and got me started on this journey

1002 Half a bread roll on the bird feeder pecked hollow

1003 Half an hour on the couch watching cricket – half-interested

1004 Half a box of Smarties. (Ok, a whole box of Smarties.)

1005 Halfway through a journey – when you’re away but not yet there and there’s time to think and recalibrate and process the time zones or mind zones – rhythmic shift in place and perspective

1006 Half a grapefruit each for breakfast

1007 Past the halfway mark: 1006 blessings left to count this year, God willing

1008 Half a sentence choked out – wholly understood

1009 Halfway through the process of selling one house and buying another – uneasy excitement

1010 Murray pouring us the last of the fruit juice – half a glass each

1011 Icon of half a battery in the corner of my screen reminding me of the wireless wonder of our unplugged lives

1012 Little boys – half as tall as their Dad

1013 Half-finished renovations – imaginings of paint and potential

1014 Half the slowly spinning world always in sunlight

 

Got some halfway blessings to count? I would so love to hear from you.

 

 

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