My Tiny Little Nana

Online bible study “A Confident Heart” by Renee Swope posed the question: “Think back to your childhood.What are your earliest memories of God?”

Having been baptized and nothing else my earliest memories of God were provided by the colorful interpretation of my Tiny Little Nana. She visited about once a month and without fail some sort of stir would be created and the back ground tension between my mother and her would simmer continuously threatening to erupt at any moment. Occasionally she’d be whisked off to the train station and summarily booted out or suffer the indignity of  my mother slamming doors and giving her the finger behind her back for three long contemptuous days.

That didn’t deter my Tiny Little Nana from pursuing me. She built a relationship with me that had nothing to do with the socialite in her, or the bitterness of her failed marriage. She would endure a world of accusation and strife and meet me in my room and close the door behind her to teach me to pray.

When I was little she took me to church. Since my parents could give a hoot about church and Nana was a city dweller and didn’t drive, we’d walk to church with the promise of a big bowl of farina if I came with her. We get dressed up and walk seven blocks over to the church. I remember clapping after the choir finished singing and she sternly grabbed my hands hissing “We never clap in church!” She taught me how to genuflect and make the sign of the cross. I have no recollection of sermons, or going with her for communion just a warm sugary bowl of farina I could never finish.

When I got older she would give me pamphlets with prayers from the dozens of charities she sent money too. She wrote the Lord’s prayer for me on loose leaf paper with a gold pen, so I could memorize it. She gave me rosary beads, and crosses. She also gave me the Native American prayer which I still remember begins, “Oh Great Spirit, whose voice I hear in the wind, whose breath gives life to all the world, hear me for I am small and weak and need your strength and wisdom…..” so it must have made some impression on me to remember a hundred years later.

Oddly enough, my parents never interfered with her teaching me. If I asked them a religious question they said it was a “crutch for weak people”. They had survived Catholic school and that was enough for them.

When we moved further out on the island my Tiny Little Nana thought we were in the country. I remember her sitting in the backyard on a green webbed lawn chair, her sweater draped over her shoulders and her sun hat tipped to the back of her head. She would chatter to the birds and squirrels telling them how beautiful they were, how precious they were and encourage them to sit with her a spell.

She would find me alone in my room brooding over some injustice and tell me how the Lord loves me. God was always near to me. I could just tell him everything and he would hear me. I should just say the Lord’s Prayer and God would come to me. “If you ever see a ghost, just say the Lord’s Prayer and tell the ghost to go away,” she was of a different time and place. She was very superstitious and gullible, her people were locked in the Victorian era when everyone else was in the Edwardian era, and so she lagged behind in certain ways.

She would go through spells of eating only garlic as a cure-all or oranges and the next week she’d be on to the next thing. Edgar Cayce, or peanut oil. Tiny Little Nana lived in posh digs in NYC but would let anyone into her life, and was once convinced by con artists to accompany them to the bank and empty her account. She never complained about aches or pains, only once made a rude comment to the woman with whom her husband had another entire family replete with children, unbeknownst to her.

When she died on an Easter Sunday 25 years ago, she left God with me. She poured what she knew of him into me. My sisters never received those lessons from her; though for some reason they actually made their communion and confirmation’s.  God made sure that there was someone who I could trust in my life to reveal His nature to me. I can think of many times when He has done that. Remarkably everyone else would drop away so His truth could be entrusted to me without distraction. Phones would stop ringing, co-workers would vanish, my mother would stop giving my Tiny Little Nana the business, and for how ever long it took God made sure I heard about Him.

In my twenties I could call upon Him and feel the mattress sag down with the weight of Him sitting patiently at the foot of the bed. I felt like His back was turned to me, but He was listening. Funny how that sits with scripture I would read 20 years later. He was patient and quiet, like a psychologist, listening, not judging.

When I had my first child Tiny Little Nana was in a very metaphysical place in her life. She believed in aliens and claimed to have had one help her through a closed door when her arms were weighed down with groceries. When she told the story standing in my aunt’s kitchen to dramatize it, I thought, “O boy, she’s going to tell me of an angel!” But when she said alien I was so disappointed!

She even called me once to tell me that when the alien ship landed not to be afraid to just go with “Max and the baby” she could never remember my husbands’s name, and just get on board and not to be afraid. God got all mixed up with the spirit world and aliens for her as she aged.

My Tiny Little Nana would have been thrilled to see the birds I was feeding from my hands this past weekend. Black capped Chick-a-dees, and Woodpeckers, even a Chipmunk and a wild Turkey. But more than that, She would have thrilled to know how much I love the Lord, how He made it possible for me to really know Him. But I’m sure she already knows that.

Father God?

Thank you for the many people you placed in my life to guide me on this path. The ones who really knew me then, who cherished me for me, are all gone now. But you made sure that You would be there to replace them. I can’t thank you enough for your love and mercy.

Amen!

How Green Was My Valley

There are short stacks of books piled all over our home. Stacks available at the foot of rocking chairs, spilling over onto the floor beside night tables, stacks of cookbooks, poetry, text books. More often than not pulling apart a stack reveals a book that is familiar yet obscure; and in its reading opens a rich world that was always at your fingertips.

Such is what happened with How Green Was My Valley a quick pass of the back cover and the words coal mines and fighting had me tossing it back to the heap. But my husband picked it up and began to read it. Over that week we were often heard to say, “How green was my valley?” posed as a question mimicking the New England accent and cadence of Katherine Hepburn, not for any particular reason, except that I had just  finished a book taking place in the Jersey Isles and he a book of London, and now in How Green… he was deep in the country of Wales.

At his urging I read How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn, and it is a most remarkable book. We were both oddly surprised at it’s obvious omission from every list of classic reads we have ever encountered. When I mentioned it to others, no one had read it, but rather saw the movie, which was revealed with eye rolling and ho-hums.

I found How Green Was My Valley a vibrant window into a the past when hard work and awareness of providence at every turn went hand in hand. It tells the story of the youngest in a large family, where the father ruled the household and God ruled him.

In fact in this valley the town has no jail. It has no police department. It has no judge. It has no need of these things. The collective conscience of the people is guided by the rules laid out in the bible. The church is the center of the town, and the doings of the people reflect that.

We follow the young boy Huw, as he matures and learns life lessons. Always watching his older brothers and sisters, he grows and gains right before your eyes, subtlety advancing and piecing together how the mystery of life works. Sacrifice and unity  of family is at the heart of the novel, and the character of the Pastor parses out life lessons and scripture throughout.

And that is one of it’s charms. It takes the life lessons and mishaps of this spirited young boy and adds real application of God’s Word to his life. It is not overwritten and each character comes alive through conversation and a love story is entwined as well.

Huw loves his family, he loves the land and its beauty is an integral part of every page, and he learns how feelings mix with actions and cause outcomes that need to be reigned in or consequences meted out.

He learns to sneak out of the house, how to fist fight, how to fall in love. Huw meets up with  death and love alternately and we watch him process both as a child and ultimately as a man. The indelible writing marks your mind and you can’t forget the family and their heartaches and triumphs.

Llewellyn weaves tender observations of the physical world in and around each plot narrative reeling in the reader with lyrical notes that you always knew but never in a million years would be able to articulate so beautifully. The mountain that they live beside and work inside of is alive serving as provider and  protector and unconquerable foe as well. It is as much a character as are the people in the book.

He explores all the varying types of love exposing their vulnerability and cost. Through Huw we learn the complication of unrequited love, the unconditional mother’s love, the first blush of puppy love, the daring truth of passionate love and the simple loyalty of family love. The prose is colorful and warm with insights as to the joy of eating favorite foods and the many flickers of emotion that pass across the face of the one you love most voiced with unflinching beauty.

Get a copy of How Green Was My Valley and dig in. You will not be disappointed, but thoroughly surprised and impressed. And you will begin speaking with a lyrical sing-song, giving a neat roll to your “r’s”, learning about times past and love worth fighting for, is it?

It Tis!

Feeling Alive

Your hands have made me and fashioned me, An intricate unity…    Job 10:8

I feel too much. I feel too strongly, too wildly, too richly. I’ve always felt it a curse and a burden. I watch others not feel. I watch the straight of their upper lip, their stoic eyes, the composed brow. I search out the mask of their existence that walls up their emotions.

I wonder, “Have they heard this story before? Heard it a million times over and more? Is that how they are innoculated from feeling it?” Perhaps their brains are stone impervious to feeling. Perhaps they’ve forcefully developed the ability to take a hot air balloon ride during the telling; so to be far away in their minds not even listening to the tale. Escaping by pressing the freeze button and edging out cares with a layer of frosty crust.

Why can I not feel? Gargantuan tears gather in the corners of my eyes which widen with the trick of keeping them balanced in place. My breathing starts to catch in my throat clawing to get out in sobs and stopping my nose from storming down the gutter beneath it is nearly impossible.

I will give thanks unto thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: Wonderful are thy works; And that my soul knoweth right well.                           Psalm 139:14

One day about two months after my father-in-law passed away I sat listening to my husband recount a funny story about his father. Since my husband is a natural born mimic he can conjure up his father’s voice so perfectly it can raise the hair on the back of your neck. He retold the story about his father’s following the advise of Norm Abraham, the home builder; and the frustration of the advice totally going awry. “I wanna take Norm….” my husband mimicked. The look on his face revealed to me a smile. Tight at the corners hinged on the cushions of his cheeks, he was looking back in time and gritting his teeth holding back a laugh.

I on the other hand, had heard the story a million times and never tired of it’s telling. But at that moment I was overwhelmed with grief. I was, of course, the only one that cried before, during and after the funeral, in secret, I kept it to a minimum and sequestered myself from everyone as they, naturally, never shed an outward tear.

But this time, the overwhelming cascade of grief I felt, this was other worldly. And–it wasn’t mine. It was a torrent of pain, the bone crushing grief pain, that sets up inside and the only way to assuage it is a healthy round of wailing. I sat with it atop my chest, until it enveloped me and I was thrown on top of it, so real it was that I could stand upon it and surf over it as it subsided. When it passed it was such relief. The entire time my eyes were locked on my husband’s, as he sat impassively with what would pass as a smile on his face.

When I recounted this experience to another, she said quite matter of factly, “That was the Holy Spirit.” She went on to explain it as a gift. The gift of empathy. A transforming gift for a split second being able to truly experience what another suffered. I was left to ponder the ramifications of this.

I didn’t have that amount of grief toward my father-in-law at all. I had the natural daughter-in-law whose inclination was duty and respect toward the man amount of grief. I loved him for who he was, and loved him for the man he raised-my husband. My grief was equal to my shock at his passing, and my concern for my husband’s loss, appropriate and  concerned.

So it stands to reason the overwhelming grief I experienced was not mine. It had jumped from my husband to me. In that tight grinning memory, all the pain of what could have been and would never be, all the gain that drove them from their very first to their last encounter gripped my husband. For a long palpitating moment I could feel it. I didn’t ask for it, I wasn’t looking for it, I never expected it. I couldn’t recreate it. But there it was.

Since then, I have occasionally experienced the same transference of emotion. Once while sailing past the grocery store I spied a young man sitting at the foot of a locust tree. He was alone and seated on the grass with his back against the tree and his elbows on his knees, hands clasped under his chin. I could only see the crescent edge of his face. I saw him for a split second but felt the large regret that comes from being so far from home. The wonder of what in the world brought me to the place that I am so alone, and how can this possibly be. When everything I cherish is not with me, what have I done?  It was powerful and surprising,  as if the feelings levitated out of this man and searched out a person to attach to.

At church that very night I heard the familiar practiced lament of the unresponsive, “This is our country! By God! What is going on?” sort of banter. I felt my mouth open to reveal the pain that this one human being experienced, but knew the futility of fighting with feelings.

Feelings droop  and tangle on themselves as soon as you want to announce them. Fighting the unreasonable O’Reilly sound bites with feelings would be doom. Last I heard “it is not illegal to be a human being” is a quote that really resonates with me.

With cowardice I did not honor the gift God placed on me, and reveal what I experienced. Which might have given voice to a marginalized group of people working here for the mere honor and opportunity of doing so in the greatest country in the world. Something deftly overlooked by people whose need to whine and blame takes precedence over thinking for ten seconds of how they came to be here.

I have since learned that we are each intricately and wonderfully made. We are formed in our mothers womb, knitted by our very God. Our sovereign God. The one who makes no errors. The one who has a plan for our every thing. The one who knows my every day till the last one.

Knowing that, I can rest in myself. I don’t have to aspire to be a pillar of solid unreaction. I can rest in the understanding that when the gates are lowered and feelings splay across my being, that I can learn from them. I can recieve them and look to the source and be grateful for them.

I can watch others and sit with them patiently and see their feelings blossom, swelling to a crescendo and help pick up the pieces because I know where they will fall. I can fathom how one feeling threads to the next and feeds off another. I can dodge and gauge the harmful ones having steered them toward the rocks so often on my own.

This is what it is to be alive. To feel. The changing inner turmoil that splashes outside of our body that is displayed with red rimmed eyes and shining cheeks so that others reach out and wipe the tears away. We feel so that we can connect.

Anything less is not living.

Father God,

What I feel has been such a burden is really a wonderfully complicated gift you bestowed upon me. I am learning to appreciate the way you have created me and ultimately only want to serve you. Help me to do so with out fearing a back lash and let your words always grace my lips.

Composure so often belies tenderness. Help us to reach out to others and learn what they feel and let them know that they are never alone because You, our Almighty Lord are indeed with them.

Amen!

To What Purpose?

To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.  Isaiah 61:3

I can easliy see how hoarding gets started. Aside from obvious mental impairments, which I for one do not think need to be televised, I suspect many people are one bulging grocery-bag-thrown-down-the-basement-stairs away from needing an intervention.

For me it combines my interest in crafts and my inclination to imagine that some day I will take an item and actually use it for a project. Recently I found myself carefully extracting  six heads of garlic from a white netted bag and transferring them to an old netted garlic bag that was ripped. The newer netted garlic bag seemed perfect to hold dried lavender buds for the lining of a cross stitched sachet.

The logic was irrefutable, the pressing question remains– will I actually make the sachet anytime in the next forty years?

Re-purposing has become a main theme for many bloggers with good intentions and great ideas. Old light bulbs become penguin ornaments, card board boxes and dowels become ribbon dispensers, old lobster traps become end tables. These are just some of the crafty ideas that come to mind.

We are adept at justifying saving buttons or paper clips or popsicle sticks. Or those old plaid shirts to turn into star garland…….I know, it’s pathetic.

But what about us? Is there a way to re-purpose ourselves? Then it occurred to me–Who is the master of all re-purposing? The Lord. He takes your mourning and turns it into joy. He gives you beauty for ashes and praise for a spirit of heaviness.

How does He do this? Only when you finally give up.

When you finally admit that you can’t do it anymore and that you are out of your league. When you finally get on your knees and look UP. When you say, “Okay Lord. I’m done. You are my savior. You are my redeemer. You are my rock and my shelter. I’m so sorry for the mess I have made of everything. Please forgive me. I believe that you are in charge. I believe that your son Jesus came down here and lived as a man. I believe because of that He knows exactly how I feel and what I’m going through. Therefore I lay it all down before and give you my heart.”

When you break down to that point the Lord who is always near you waiting, leans down and takes your old broken down self and re-purposes you to a new creature.

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.  2 Corinthians 5:17

Gone are your bad attitude and in it’s place a calming peace. God will take you on a journey that you could never anticipate. He will walk with you one teensy baby step at a time and He will so tenderly re-purpose you into a new person. Every stinky thing that ever happened to you- gone. Every stinky thing that you ever did-gone.

You will be a shiny and brand spanking new.

God has already has a purpose for you, all you have to do is be willing to receive it. Get out of your own little way and ask Him. “Re-purpose me Lord! Re-new and refresh me. Give me a heart like Christ. I don’t want this half-way existence any more.”

Ask. Go ahead. Ask.

Father God,

We humbly come before you with our heads bowed and arms out stretched. We love you, we give you our lives. Forgive us our sins and cleanse us with the precious blood of Jesus who faithfully went to the cross on our behalf. Mold us Lord to what purpose you have for our lives. Motivate and energize us. Lift them us out of our own way and place us on the path  with the purpose that you have conceived for each and every one of us.

Amen!

Ever Present

“Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10

A few years ago I attended a business luncheon at a B&B; I’m not one to want to gather and attend, I’m more of a retreat and decline sort of gal. But there I was at this lavish lunch with pate and brie and I found myself speaking with a Princess.

Not a princess, but a Princess with a capitalized “P”. Her majesty was chatting away about the hardships of running a vineyard with the expectations and deadlines and public grabbing soirees. She was actually up to here with it all, (point to the spot just above your eyebrows).

“I’ve been to the chiropractor, I’ve tried Reike, and Hot Stones, I just don’t know what to do anymore,” she lamented.

“What is Reike and Hot Stones?” I wondered aloud.

“O that’s when the healer places his hands on you and the energy fields combine to restore your well being and the other is with the hot basalt rocks they place on your pressure points. Ugh, I just don’t understand. The other day I was home doing laundry, and all of a sudden I was just so glad. I don’t know what is going on.” She continued.

“That’s because you were actually present in your own life for once. You were connected to a simple act. Caring for your family, and for an actual moment you connected to yourself.” I said.

Her Highness stared at me, as if ticking down the thousands of dollars she had thrown away searching for why her life was a miserable jumble of parties and bashes and press releases. She blinked her splendid sea-green eyes at me searching for my wisdom as if it would present as a horn atop my head that she could snap off and take for her own and said, “You’re right.”

I looked around to see who she was speaking to, and realized it was me. I was right? I spoke to a Princess, and I was right? Hmmhh.

Unfortunately as with most things you don’t always get to take your own advice. But here I am six years later and I am happily left to my own devices. Gone are the impending deadlines, and constant tasks and belaboring inequities. Ahhhh, the joy of unemployment.

I am finally present in my own life. I can stand inside of every single solitary moment. I can   gaze out the window and appreciate the film on the glass. I can breathe in the sordid odor of leftovers. I can appreciate that this moment will trail into the next and the previous one, well, it’s just there; right behind me. I can delight in all the moments that will string together to make this day.

Oh the simple joy of sweeping! Scrubbing the kitchen sink. WooHoo! I can sing about dusting! I’m even tempted to put on a dress and pearls and get out the Lemon Pledge!

But what is really amazing, is reveling inside of every second with the Lord. He is present with us. He is our now. When you are whirling around in long commutes and demanding coworkers who in your normal life you would never entertain for five seconds you are always outside of yourself waiting to get back home. You are checking the clock and sighing and drumming your fingers and looking to the door.

But if you can carve out ten seconds of every minute to breathe deeply and stare at your navel and say “God. I know you are with me” till you can get home, then you will not feel so forsaken in your own life.

I am so very blessed. I am soaking up these moments with the Lord. I will draw on them for all the days to come.

Father God?

Help us to be still. And to know you. To stop fooling around and pick up your Word and dive in. To grab that library book and crack it open and look up the scriptures noted so that in the stillness, we have your words ringing in the silence.

Amen!

You Are My Shepard, I Shall Not Bleat

The Lord Is My Shepard, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, He leadeth me  beside the still waters.  Psalm 23:1-2

My first verbalization this morning was, “That was an awful sleep, and everything hurts.” Oy yoy yoy. I had been awake for a half hour and had said good morning to God and sent up prayers, and it was an awful sleep and everything did hurt; but is that how I should start the day? With whining and complaining?

A comedian recently vented on American’s complaining. I’ll paraphrase: Can you imagine the unmitigated gall? Huffing and puffing because your Smart Phone is not responding fast enough? For cryin’ out loud, the thing is beaming up to a satellite in outer space, give it a second will ya?

It’ so true. Where are we? We are cut adrift in a sea of gadgets that simplify our lives so that we barely have to lift an eye brow. And still we complain.

We have robotic vacuums now; no more hauling rugs outside and beating them with a stick.  Remote controls for television watching, no more getting up and walking four steps across the room to change channels. Our cars are equipped with Onstar GPS  you couldn’t get lost if you wanted to.

A world of information available at our finger tips in seconds. I remember actually counting the ten whole torturous seconds while waiting for a payroll page to load on my pc at work. TEN WHOLE RIDICULOUS SECONDS-jeepers ADP, could ya speed it up a little??!!

Hey! How about instant hot water? Remember when folks had  to fell a tree and chop wood and haul it to the dooryard to start a fire to heat water they had to pump to make lousy pot of coffee?  Or when visiting  meant hooking a horse up to a wagon and setting out several days in advance? Or having to leave abruptly to head home to milk cows so they didn’t get sick and die? How about rambling through the woods to luck upon blueberries to make a rare treat?

We are very spoiled. And still we complain. That comedian has made an entire career complaining about Americans complaining. It’s sublime. Sure we have problems. Sure we have aches and pains and bills and dirty laundry. Yes we have illness and dread and heart ache. But we also have this very moment with our God. It’s true and palpable and sustaining and its what counts the most. The right here and now, where you are okay and safe and breathing.

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory    II Corinthians 4:17

Imagine having the illness, the heartache and the dread and living in a crummy dirt floor house made of rusty tin and a hurricane on its way that you don’t even know about. While you boil old tubers for your one meal a day. And what you can’t imagine is that the military coup going on ten miles away will spill over into your village and you’ll have machine gun toting soldiers to host for dinner tomorrow during the storm.

Imagine the illness the heartache the dread and you’ve never seen a doctor or dentist or dry cleaner or the inside of a grocery store or a church for that matter.

The Lord is my Shepard, I shall not want. Jesus died on the cross for us. What more do we need? He conquered death for you and me. Is there really anything else you could want? A 52″ flat screen tv? Would that do it?

For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.  Romans 8:18

The Lord is my Shepard, I shall not want……to complain anymore. All this head shaking eye rolling dramatics are frankly quite a lot of work, not to mention demoralizing.  I for one am putting a moratorium on complaining. No more murmuring and grumbling. No more scowling and leveling the paralyzing look of disdain.

God knows what I need. The Holy Spirit is with us always, working in our hearts, He will help us ask God for exactly what we need. Like gratitude for the passing affliction that builds our faith. Heaps of love for the spilled milk and dirty dishes and the hot water with which to wash them. Tenderness for the raindrops and the in-laws and laugh lines.

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
 And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.    Romans 8:26-27

Father God?

Could you help me get through one minute with out complaining? Uhm……. and in this an election year? Help me God. Help me tame the snarky comebacks and impatient brow raising demands. Only peace and gratitude for all you have given me and all you continue to bestow.

Help me to be ever mindful of your precious gifts of mercy and grace.

Amen!

Go The Distance

For our light, momentary affliction (this slight distress of the passing hour) is ever more and more abundantly preparing and producing and achieving for us an everlasting weight of glory (beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness never to cease!) II Corinthians 4:17

Lying on the beach unable to stand up I watched a gleaming airliner soar over head.  I imagined the sturdy blue seat coverings and seat tables locked in their upright positions. The jetliner ripped across the sky in seconds flat while I stared up into the skewed blue sliced by its contrail.

Gritty scenes of fragile bi-planes flitted to mind. Mustachioed men with a vision to conquer space and time creating blue prints with complex equations pitting thermal up drafts against Newton’s hard won gravitational laws.

I rolled over in the sand and eyed the distance I had yet to cross. It seemed unnaturally vast. How did I get out this far? One enthusiastic step at a time I supposed. Now how will I get back?

My husband gone on ahead to the point at my urging, I realized that I had desperately overdone it and had to rest. When the rest didn’t materialize I knew I needed to start heading back immediately.

I recalled reading about brave pioneers that had traversed thousands of miles in  covered wagons. Birthing and burying family along the way, risking peril a hundred different ways an hour. Coming to the raw edge of a canyon with cattle and wagon and family with no way forward except  down into the canyon. Not down a flower lined path but lowered down by  men with ropes and pulleys.

As I began to imagine the perfect conveyance out of my predicament  I re-invented the wheel ten different ways. I noted a rock not to far away and focused on it as my goal.

The image of frosty waves plundering wooden hulls as praying people clung to one another below deck fearing for their lives. Hopeful families with their livestock and provisions daring to cross the ocean to a land they could only really imagine.

How far we’ve come. How God made such gifted people. Man can literally drive a plane home from outer space while others plumb the depths of the ocean floor.

Exhausted I flung myself down next to my granite destination. Once again my body betrayed me and what started out a simple hike turned into melodrama. The possibility of a wheel chair became a startling reality; morphing into the most intelligent mode of locomotion ever invented.

With constant prayer I was able to move at 100 yard increments. Charging crazily toward a sandy target and flopping down to slow my breath and regain my balance. I prayed, “Lord help me!”  and that this conniving neuro-muscular disease wouldn’t win, that God would give me the strength to get home.

The was sun nearing the horizon and I still had to venture through woodlands to get back to the parking lot. I might as well have been climbing Mount Everest with a book of matches and a party hat; that’s how disabled I became on this simple outing.  In the sand not two inches from my nose was a striking piece of  aqua marine sea glass. Something on a good day I would treasure. I held it up to the setting sun and asked God if this was from Him, sort of a cheer leading gift. My husband easily caught up with me, with soft comforting words helped me back to our car.

Later the real fun began. I won’t get into the ugly details suffice to say a duel between breathing and regulating my temperature became a discomforting decision. One usually supervised by our autonomic nervous system. Apparently mine was on the blink having used all of my energy and what ever reserves there were on a simple walk on the beach.

God has been using this recovery time to make me hyper aware of my limitations. I have boundaries where I never knew they could exist. I am hemmed in every day by a tangible “energy envelope” which I dare not empty ever again. I can no longer be certain of my capabilities and all expectations have been dispensed.

Rejoice and exult in hope: be steadfast and patient in suffering and tribulation: be constant in prayer.    Romans 12:12

But I am not alone, I never was. As frightening as it was, God was sitting right there with me in the sand, it was His idea to break the walk up into manageable  chunks. He was right there with me in the middle of the night when I couldn’t breathe. He put calming words in my husband’s mouth, and gave me focus as I weighed my options. He gave my children patience as they coached me into resting at all times. He gave them strength to help me get through the holidays.

What passing challenges this disease presents changes by the day sometimes by the hour, yet it is nothing by comparison to what others are suffering. And it is nothing in comparison to what God is capable of or what He promises awaits us–those who believe in Him and what His son Jesus Christ has done for us.

My current situation will pass or become permanent, every second will feel like forever, or my forever will pass in a second. As long as I trust in God it really doesn’t matter.

While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.     II Corinthians 4:18

I can only inhabit this body and view my circumstances with all my past experiences coloring my interpretation.  The greatest distance to traverse is from my limited point of view and The Lord’s all encompassing plan. He can see the end from the beginning. He created me and my pain and by sharing the burden with Him in return He gives me grace –His strength.

His grace will strengthen my faith which brings me JOY.  God becomes my joy because I find it in Him- my constant companion. And so the circle wheels around. Pain, trust, grace, joy, peace, with God in the center.

Father God,

I know that my problems are no surprise to you. I pray that what comes of this trial glorifies you. That in trusting you I am led exactly to where I can do the most for you.

Please keep granting me the faith to trust you and the grace to move forward. Your will Lord. Your will be done.

Amen!