I had a flash of insight today. Since I am quickly approaching sixty-ugh-those welcome flashes just don't come as often as I would like. My brain is so addled by the "must dos" that insight flies past me and never lands most days.

The truth is that I miss "normal." I long for "regular" and "boring." "Ho-hum" sounds wonderful, and "stuck in neutral" sounds like a long lost dream. No life is free from trials and challenges, but I feel overwhelmed most days, and I long for those past days when silly staff upsets at preschool seemed like a huge deal, and I lost sleep over enrollment numbers and making payroll.


It feels like dear husband and I have been struggling for such a long time. Our families have experienced death, divorce, illness, moving, a near fatal automobile accident, ...even addiction. There were days when it was honestly difficult to know who to be aiming our thoughts and prayers and energy toward-the prayers to God and God only, but beyond that there were just too many wheels that needed oiling. We made a conscious choice to keep our efforts as close to home as possible. Our parents have many children, but our child has only one set of parents.

The only insight I have is this one. It doesn't mater that I do not know what the new "normal" looks like. I know that God is already there ahead of us, and His plan for our lives is worth whatever pain and struggle we must face. God is the same..yesterday, today, and forever. That is enough...praise God, it is enough.

It has been over a year since I wrote my scribbled thoughts here, shared my heart-wrenching prayers, dreamed and hoped and worried here.

Life has moved in strange ways, with pain and joy wrapped round each other, with only the unfailing grace of Jesus Christ to make any of it bearable. Life leaves us scarred and broken, marriages end, earthly lives are burdened by aging and frailty, and yet His love is unfailing.

I am grateful for His mercy and grace, and only pray for strength to love those He has given me in ways that will keep them safe, strengthen their walk, and bring glory to His name.

In His pressence I am humbled and grateful. I want so much for those I love, and I take comfort in knowing that He loves them even more.

Our family has suffered a loss. That is such a telling phrase- we have suffered-and we have lost someone near and dear to us. My sister Cheri's husband, Dave, has lost his battle to live longer here on earth with his family, due to a rare and unnamed form of malignant bone marrow cancer. He was fifty-eight years old, far too young.

I live my life in confidence of Dave's eternal home, but we are sad and feeling his absence in the lives of his wife and grown children. Father send your mercies, please comfort us and hold us up as we walk through these difficult days.

Many of the spiritual women's blogs I read are working on recognizing and expressing soul-felt gratitude for the gifts from God we experience each and every day in our lives. I will begin my list of "1000" today with these:

1) I am grateful for a God who loves me and knows me and sent His Son to die for my sins,

2) for grace so amazing, so freely given,

3) for mercy that rains down from heaven,

4) for guidance from His Holy Word written in the language I speak and understand,

5) for the love of a gentle, God-seeking man,

6) for birthed children and heart-birthed children who have grown to be God's servants in His world,

7) for grandchildren who enjoy being with me and light my life with joy,

8) for a home and nest to feather and care for with joy and fulfillment,

9) for health and life and breath,

10) for work to do that brings glory to my Father in Heaven.

Each Monday I will continue to list ten things for which I am grateful to God.

It is difficult to sit and wait. I have never been good at waiting, which is unusual, because in most things I am patient, but not with waiting.
We sit now each day and wait. We wait for doctors to name the villain in the plot to steal Dave's life. It has no name yet, but still the battle rages, and he grows weaker and more things go wrong. We wait for tests, and test results. We wait for treatments and therapies, and needles, and bags of IV fluids, and nurses and techs, and therapists, and still no name to the monster that consumes and kills in inches and moments and pain. We wait to know where he will move this time (move number five) and they don't tell us and move him when we are at dinner, and then we wait while he finally breaks and rages at his thirst and pain and wants to leave but cannot walk or breath, or live without the tubes and the needles and the doctors and techs, and the waiting and the waiting and the waiting.

Lord, I am so tired, but my tiredness cannot compare to that of my sister and her family. Please hold us up God as we walk through this valley together. Give us peace and joy and fill us with your spirit and life-giving grace and mercy. Watch over Dave as he rests and help the doctors find answers. Hold him safe in your hands as he sleeps this night in the ICU. Hold up all of us who love him. We pray with praise for your Holy Name. Amen.

In I Kings 3, Solomon asks for wisdom from God. My Bible calls it "a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong." Now really, how could we ever ask for more? Discernment is not much celebrated or valued in our society. We have responded to our more base instincts and tend to follow the "eye for an eye" mantra.

Part of my devotional life includes reading on line journals of other Christian women, and I just ran across one who asked me to pray for an angry, inconsiderate couple who is ticked that her group of persons (who are 70+ years old) are using the heated pool, and therefore feel justified in making scenes and pushing the group into an ever smaller space in a pool the seniors have been using for over eight years for water exercises. This young couple could use an unheated pool, but many of the aging members of the group they object to cannot. There have been angry shouting scenes with the pool manager and an effort to crash into them by the young couple swimming laps.

Where does all this anger and sense of "entitlement" come from?

The blogger's response was to ask us to pray for the angry young couple. Ah...wisdom.

I ask for wisdom, dear Lord, and a heart that seeks your will in all areas of my life.

"The LORD bless thee, and keep thee:
The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:
The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. "
Numbers 6:24-26 KJV

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

The very best thing about a medical test is when it is over and everything is found to be okay, and the doc says not to come back for additional testing for ten years. Praise Him for all blessings large and small.

Hope by Emily Dickinson


Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune--without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

2 Samuel 23: 20 "Benaiah...went down into a pit on a snowy day and killed a lion." Wow.

Now I think I am going to try and find every reference to lions that I can in the scripture.

For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me.
-Jeremiah 29:11-13 (NRSV)

Beautiful Words and An Irish Tune

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my Wisdom, Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee, Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Be Thou my battle-shield, sword for my fight,
Be Thou my dignity, Thou my delight.
Thou my soul's shelter, Thou my high tower.
Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise,
Thou mine inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

High King of heaven, my victory won,
May I reach heaven's joys, O bright heav'ns Son!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O ruler of all.

Thank you for the world so sweet.

Thank you for the food we eat.

Thank you for the birds that sing.

Thank you, God, for everything. Amen.

"Who am I, that the Lord of all the earth would care to know my name, would care to heal my hurt?"

Memorial Day was called Decoration Day in Kentucky when I was growing up. Every family gathered at the family cemetery to "decorate" graves with flowers hurriedly cut from yards and gardens. Tradition demanded that we visit and eat picnic lunches under the shady trees. We laughed and hugged those aunts and uncles and cousins we saw too rarely and remembered those who were no longer sitting beneath the tress, but now lay close by under the soft green grass. It was the graves still covered only in the raw looking red clay dirt that brought the deepest sorrow. The passing of time had no healing work done in us yet.

I visited my family's cemetery last fall. It is at the top of a hill, nearly inaccessible to us "city" folk. The dirt and gravel road is steep, and I have often felt safer getting out to walk up or down. The tombstones and markers tell a family history that I wish I knew better. I have experienced such a brief part of this epic story. There are so many buried there I do not know. The ones who are so dear to me seem absent. I cannot feel them there. I know they have gone on home ahead of me, and I will see them there...in God's time, and on his schedule.

I wonder now about heaven, perhaps because years have accumulated and I am growing closer to making my home there. I trust in Jesus. Recently I was asked in a survey which famous person in the history of all time I would most like to meet...can you guess?

Happy birthday, child of mine...man after God's own heart. Warrior and protector, husband, father, brother, friend. We celebrate you today.

Despite a lifetime of belief and faith in God, at times my spirit is troubled.

I fall back on verses long ago memorized-

in times more simple with the unblemished faith of a child.

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures

He leadth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul

He leadeth me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil; for thou art with me

Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies,

Thou anointest my head with oil,

My cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever." Psalm 23

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Philippians 4:6 (NIV)