Making Ordinary Time Count

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” ~Robert Brault

January comes in stark contrast to the extravagant month of December. After weeks of feasting, parties, gatherings, and gifts, we settle in for the more sober months of winter.  We trade cookies for lettuce. We find bills in the mailbox in place of Christmas cards.  Depending on where we live, the change even seeps into the weather: cold, stark, barren, and monochromatic gray.

I am ready for a return to ordinary life when early January arrives. My mind and body crave simple things after the decadence and bustle of the holiday season. January brings a time of quiet and contemplation in my life. I evaluate the old and make plans for the new. Books and tea become my constant companions. I pile on blankets and sleep longer on the cold, dark Michigan mornings. My body and soul are thankful for the slower pace of life.

This yearning for quieter, simpler times feels natural to me, almost a part of my DNA. I think that is because God ordered time in seasons. Ecclesiastes 3:1 reminds us, “There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens” (NIV). We need only look at the trees outside our windows to see evidence of seasonal life as they go through periods of dormancy and growth, life and death.

Seasonal living can even be found in how the church observes time. Faith traditions that follow the liturgical calendar call the period starting in early January Ordinary Time. The liturgical year has two seasons of Ordinary Time, the parts of the church year that are separate from the big seasons of fasting and feasting: Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter. In fact, Ordinary Time makes up the majority of the liturgical year.

Isn’t this true of our lives as well? Ordinary days make up the bulk of our time on earth.

Celebrations, holidays, and even trying times are memorable, serving as distinct markers in our memory. Ordinary days run together, a blur of dishes washed, lunches packed, squabbles and reconnections with friends, spouse, or children, meals prepared and eaten, spills cleaned, emails sent, tests studied for, and toilets scrubbed. In ordinary time, it is easy to have a week go by and leave you wondering what even transpired.

It is significant that the early church leaders chose to mark Ordinary Time, counting it week by week instead of letting it pass by unnamed and unrecorded.

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We can learn from liturgical traditions by marking the ordinary time in our own lives. When we intentionally count our ordinary days, we notice the beauty wrapped up in the mundane. Chances are it will be a perfectly ordinary day when you meet the person you will one day marry or when you begin a project that will become your life’s passion. A conversation with a friend on a humdrum Tuesday may impact their life for eternity. A perfect sunset serves as evidence of God’s marvelous creativity on the most unremarkable days.

Keeping a journal is a great way to mark our ordinary days. You will not find long passages in my journal. I usually only have time and energy at the end of the day to jot down a few memorable things I noticed. Things like a lingering embrace with my husband, a conversation with the grocery clerk that left me feeling blessed, or a special prayer said with my kids at bedtime.  My notations are short, but so important.

When I count my ordinary days, I see how God is making my days count in living a life of devotion and service to him, a life that reveals a love of God and a love of people in the everyday. These small moments add up to something big–the evidence of an extraordinary God at work in the little details of my ordinary life.

Lindsay Hufford is a happy wife and homeschooling mom to three kids. Whether she is reading, running, gardening, teaching, cooking, dancing, writing, or chasing hens, she counts it all as joy. Lindsay writes about this beautiful life at searchforthesimple.com.

Photograph © Freestocks.org, used with permission