My First 31 Posts Archives -

31 Days of Seeing Beyond

October 21, 2019October 22, 2019

This was my very first post. It appeared on October 3, 2014. I’m reposting it in celebration of my blog’s 5th Anniversary. Thank you to everyone who has supported me on this journey.

Three deaths over the last month have left me tired…..and sad. My beloved great aunt……a dear friend’s niece who took her own life… and my stepsister – who passed after nearly 4 weeks in the ICU fighting to recover from extremely rare childbirth complications. It’s my stepsister’s passing that brings me most often to my knees. I cry out to the Lord on behalf of her third child, a now 1-month old baby boy who will never know his mother.

They say there is a cycle of grief. It has various stages. And I’m watching devastated people go through it now. But in the midst of all this anguish, I have been blessed to remain thankful and aware of God’s infinite goodness. I have also been given new opportunities to serve Him, and follow Him more closely – sometimes in ways that push me beyond old boundaries. I posted a prayer for my stepsister on Facebook. And soon, the family requested more. It seemed the Lord wanted to use me. It made me both nervous and strangely excited – not because people appreciated my writing, but because I had stumbled upon a way to really serve. And I learned – when there are people hurting, perhaps then more than ever, the Lord wants me step out of my safety zone and walk in new terrain, keeping my eyes on Him.

About 10 days ago, I saw the invitation from Myquillin Smith to take the 31-Day Challenge and write in October. I could hear the whisper that always leads me to good places — “Try this” — and felt that tinge – of joy. And as I sat down to write tonight, I remembered a verse I taped to the front page of one of my journals four years ago when I first intended to write in earnest – but never really did.

A bruised reed he will not break,

a smoldering wick he will not quench….

— Matthew 12:20

The Word is full, so full, of promises. And for myself and so many people I love, I am holding on to this one right now. Whether we are writing or just trying to get on with living day by day, the terrain in my world seems new and tough. We are bruised and bent over, trampled and beaten down, hardly like flames alight. But when I fix my gaze on Him, when I ready myself through surrendering prayer, I am given all the strength I need.

Lord, help us. Thank you for the confidence you’ve given me – the knowledge that you alone are fully trustworthy, and that you are my only true help – my Savior. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Day 31 – A New Beginning

November 30, 2014

Well, I’ve finally hit my initial goal of 31 days of blogging! (And I will stop numbering my posts now.) I didn’t complete all 31 posts in 1 month, but I did manage to do it in 2. Given that I’ve never done this sort of writing before, I feel that’s not half bad. “Started a blog” could be checked off my bucket list, if I had one. “Make a bucket list” should be the next thing I do!

I’ve found that so far, blogging has definitely been a worthwhile journey. Thank you – each one of you – for reading. I know your time is valuable and I’m honored that you spare a bit of it to read my two cents.

Thank you, also, to everyone who has encouraged me with your compliments, ‘likes,’ and ‘shares.’ There’s simply no way I can fully convey just how much your appreciation means to me. I am very blessed to enjoy the writing process, but gifted so much more by friends cheering me on. Thank you. Thank you.

So – today’s post is about a new beginning. Why? Well, because it’s the first day of Advent.

My family and I had a great Thanksgiving. We are also looking forward to Christmas. We were talking about getting our tree today, but for some reason, and I couldn’t put my finger on why, planning to do this seemed a little rushed to me. And then, as we settled into the pew at Mass this morning, I realized I was feeling sluggish. It was not the tryptophan from turkey leftovers. No, I just felt caught in a sort of no-man’s land….I was mentally done with the Thanksgiving holiday but not yet ready to start preparing for Christmas.

Then I grabbed the Missal. In the Catholic Church, this book contains all of the scripture readings selected for the church worldwide for the entire year. Churches replace their Missals annually, and the church year begins with Advent. So basically, I thought, maybe today I start again.

I pondered this more as I heard the first reading, from the Book of Isaiah 63 and 64, and especially the last lines, “Yet, O LORD, you are our father; we are the clay and you the potter: we are all the work of your hands.”

I am a work in His hands. And He is patient with me. Since Advent is about waiting for His coming at Christmas, the Lord is not caught up in the hustle and bustle of the so-called “holiday season” that has become so commercialized in our predominantly secular society. No, He has no part in that. So, I participated in Communion with Him and gave Him myself as I was, and He came and made today about accepting the process of preparation for things to come. He made it about taking the necessary time to do that. Nice and easy. Peacefully and slowly. Not on the world’s time.

Instead of rushing to pull out the decorative embellishments that say to the world “we’re celebrating,” I removed clutter and cleaned to make room for what’s to come. I’ll do more tomorrow, but I feel better already.

Day 30 – Baby Love

November 29, 2014

On my husband’s side of the family, we had a new reason to be grateful this Thanksgiving – our newborn niece – who was exactly 7 weeks old on the holiday itself. She is a beautiful and tiny little cherub, with long fingers and long legs. It was fun to speculate about what she might do with her life, and to study her face, trying to discern whom she most closely resembles.

The immediate family ate dinner together, and my husband’s large extended family joined us for dessert. Many had not seen the new princess before. Something happens to a person when they “meet” a newborn, especially one in their family, for the first time. Their face noticeably softens, tension drains from their shoulders. They stop moving and often fall silent for several seconds. Scientists say women’s pupils dilate when they look at a baby’s face.

I think staring into the eyes of a newborn we are meeting for the first time is awe-inspiring on a deeply subconscious level. Newborns are people in their purest possible state. And it just might be the closest we can come to seeing the face of God.

I looked around the room at all of those people and for a few minutes saw babies everywhere. We all were, of course, just like my niece. And someone took care of us, however well or imperfectly. The people who brought us up did their best to love us, and they were babies once too, loved by imperfect people.

Some of us are blessed to be parents to babies now growing. I am humbled every day by the realization that I make tons of mistakes, and that while I start out with the best of intentions, and I love my kids so much it hurts sometimes, there is One far greater who loves them infinitely more than me, and He proved it by dying for me on a cross. He alone, of all babies who grew up throughout time, did not have the stuff inside that makes me do things that leave me knowing I’m guilty, or ashamed. Thank goodness for Him, because He forgives me for messing up, and can show me how to try again, and how to love myself and my babies better the next time.

And there’s another thing I’ve learned from Him, but also from watching parents here whose babies have gone to heaven heartbreakingly young. And that is, that a living parent NEVER stops loving their baby. In fact, love never ends. I am so thankful for the assurance I have in knowing that. Because I too am a baby. And my Father is the Living God.

“I’ll love you forever,
I’ll like you for always,
as long as I’m living
my baby you’ll be.”

― Robert Munsch, Love You Forever

My daughter (9) holds my niece’s hand. She was 7 weeks old on Thanksgiving day.

Day 29 – Write it on Your Heart

November 27, 2014

I got out the hearts today. The wooden hearts. We started writing on these at Thanksgiving a couple years ago, when I hoped it would become an annual tradition. Every person in our home for the holiday writes on one side of the heart what he or she is thankful for this year, and on the other, their name and the date. Over time, we’ll have a record of gratitude that can be arranged in a vase, or tossed in a bowl to be sifted through and remembered.

One of my very best friends gave me this ‘hearts’ idea, and I liked it because it’s similar to writing thank-notes or making gratitude lists. And I like to write thank-you notes. Seriously. Some people find them tedious but I don’t. In fact, I’ve found that the old adage “you can’t hold a positive and negative thought in your head at the same time” is true, because when I’m feeling a bit down or having an “off” day, the best remedy for me is to write a thank-you note to someone, for any good reason I can think of. And if I can’t think of anyone, I can always build on my gratitude list to God, starting right where I am.

I read (and re-read) an amazing book this year called One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. In it, she takes counting blessings to a whole new level. How? First, she unravels the word eucharisteo, the original Greek word used in the Gospel of Luke to describe Jesus giving thanks at the Last Supper. Eucharisteo means thanksgiving, and within it is the Greek word charis, meaning grace, and its derivative chara, meaning joy. So, there is a correlation between giving thanks to God for the gifts of His grace that we see all around us (even the tiniest things!), and experiencing joy. The miracle is that this works even when we think there is nothing to be thankful for.

This year has been a difficult one for my family. We’ve lost several family members, and we miss them this Thanksgiving. But when we had to say goodbye to each of them, I began my daily prayers with litanies of thanks for all the things I could think of about each person, and it pulled my focus off my sadness, and onto them, where they are now, in God’s light.

Day 28 – Blue Angels and Loops

November 25, 2014

“Do the Blue Angels have an airport?”

“Do the Blue Angels wear helmets?”

“Do the Blue Angels practice?”

Like top-of-the-hour-news reports, preschoolers can get on loops that change only slightly from day to day. Mine has been ‘looping’ about the Blue Angels for a week or so now. We live in Annapolis, home of the U.S. Naval Academy. The mega-impressive demo team flies here during Commissioning Week each May and it’s one of the highlights of our town’s year. We also live near the Navy stadium, so we drive past a retired Blue Angel plane parked outside of it – at a vicious angle, no less – every single day. It’s no small wonder my son would have an interest. Thankfully, we are prepared. We’ve collected several small Blue Angel planes over the years. (See Exhibit A: attached photo). The dents and missing paint belie hours of death-defying stunts. My husband and I can answer most questions. If not, there’s the internet.

Anyway, while my 4-year old son has been ‘looping’ lately on this fun topic, he’s also been circling back to a heavier one. I’m astonished, humbled, and proud to say that completely on his own, he has remembered to pray for his friends’ father every single night since I first heard him during bedtime prayers on October 30. (See Day 18) That’s nearly a month ago.

When my son first heard about this man’s need, he and all his classmates only knew that “Ava and Charlotte’s dad was in the hospital.”* Now, he doesn’t know much more except that it was an accident and the twins’ father was hurt by some tree branches. But we parents have been told details. Things children don’t need to hear. He is still in the hospital. He still needs prayers.

I think about this as I watch my son pray, and how his perseverance in prayer, is what faith is really about. It’s about not getting caught up in the details, but instead choosing to believe in a big, Big, BIG God. Yes, prayers might not get answered the way we’d like them to, but that’s not the point. The point is that in prayer, we acknowledge our need for God.

For a few days now, after bedtime prayer, my son has had a new ‘loop’ question. “How can God hear us?” I tell him again and again, “God knows, and sees and hears everything because he is the Master and Creator of everything. And he wants us to talk to Him, because he loves his children and wants them to tell Him what’s on their minds and hearts. To stay close to Him, we need to talk to Him.”

So we carry on with our questions – about things for which we can find answers, and the things we can’t. And the peace that I feel when I spend time in prayer is all the confirmation I need that He is near, and hears me.

And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he hears us.

— 1 John 5: 14-15

* Not their real names.

Day 27 – Beagle in My Lap

November 24, 2014

So, I’m approaching the end of my first 31 days of blogging, and I wasn’t sure what I’d write about today, but I really wanted to post something. I had a few ideas, but every time I started to write, I was sidetracked…by someone.

It was my youngest child, mostly. He was hungry. Then he needed a different show on TV. Then he’d seen too much TV so we cleaned bathrooms together. Then we ate lunch and went to the store. We came home and unpacked the groceries. We picked his siblings up from school. It was crazy warm for November today (71 degrees!) and the kids wanted to play outside. I sat out there with them and tried to write. The neighbor dropped by to say hello.

After the sun went down, I sent all the kids into the basement and plopped on the couch to try one more time. Our beagle climbed up next to me and laid her head on my chest. I kissed her and then she looked up at me with those big brown eyes of hers, and she crawled right on top of my iPad, into my lap. I let out a deep, deep sigh.

Yesterday, I wrote about the need to leave white space – margin – in the calendar. The main reason is because days like this happen to me all the time. I am blessed with a family who needs me, and while it is appropriate that I have time to myself to pursue my interests, the reality is that my life is not my own. It is a gift that has been entrusted to me, and I am just the steward, trying to do my best to take good care of the people, responsibilities, and things I’ve been blessed with. I ask for His wisdom and guidance to prioritize my days, and to see what I need to see. From that point on, it’s better if I’m not trying to steer.

Today, each cry of “Mom!!!” was a divine appointment. And that’s what I needed to remember.

Day 26 – When I Heard

November 23, 2014

It was at least 6 years ago, in the springtime, but I didn’t write the date down in a journal, so I don’t know exactly what year it was. We hadn’t redone our kitchen yet, so I remember the dark cabinets and sand-colored tumbled tile countertops that my husband and I had installed ourselves. I was standing in the corner, between our dishwasher and microwave, looking out the window at our neighbor’s trees.

That’s when I heard, or should I say felt, His voice tell me, “Be still. Know ‘I Am.'” It was the first time I’d heard Him speak directly to me, and I obeyed. Stock-still, mesmerized. My oldest son and daughter (my only children then) were playing just behind me in the family room, but they seemed much farther away, and I was unconcerned. Everything was safe – there was no fear in me – my need to be in control had vanished. When I think of it now, I consider it among the most holy moments of my life.

At the time that this happened, I was unaccustomed to moments of silence and stillness. But I took this experience as another step in His unfolding invitation to go on a journey – one He knew I was ready for.

As I prepare for Thanksgiving this week and the start of Advent next Sunday, I’m trying to build margin – by that I mean, white space – into my holiday schedule. Without it, there will be no room for silence. The shopping, parties, gift-wrapping, and kids’ holiday events will dominate my days if I don’t prioritize right now. Advent is a time of anticipation and waiting. For a child. For a King. Advent says, “‘I Am’ coming into the world. Will you hear me?”