Keep Writing!

Jan. 26, 2015

Quite often my journal entries end up being much longer than I thought they would be when I sat down to write. The thing about writing is that you have to think to do it. As I write about something for which I’m grateful, a certain thought process unfolds, wherein I realize the blessing is not one thing in isolation, rather it’s a component of a conversation God is trying to have with me, a revelation of His hand in my life. The blessings wouldn’t be visible if I didn’t sit down and take stock; the conversation would be inaudible if I didn’t notice one little blessing. Today’s blessing is one such example.

I talked on the phone this afternoon with a writing buddy who moved away a couple of years ago. We haven’t visited in several months, and our catching up always includes some musings about writing. She told me she’s writing her memoir, and I told her about my gratitude journal and gave her the link, with instructions to start at the first post in order to understand the reasons for my ramblings. She texted later in the day, “Dropped everything – so swept up in your blog. Keep writing!”

Our conversation came on the heels of a months-long string of Mama-said days. I got beat down during the stress of the holidays and didn’t write, in part because I didn’t have the time, and in part because when I’m using my limited energy to keep my head above churning waves, it’s hard to see things to be grateful for. After Friend’s comment today, I went back and read my first – and subsequent – posts to read through her eyes and see what might have swept her up. I’m not sure what that might have been, but for me, reading my own words threw cold water on my pity party.

My gratitude today is three-fold:

1. For the uplift of connecting with a friend
2. For the subsequent nudge to go back and read my own journal, the purpose of which I myself stated is a daily exercise of recognizing blessings and to help me remember during the times when the clouds obscure my vision that I am blessed.
3. For God’s roundabout way of giving me a hand up and out of the winter-blues-bad-mood-funk I’m in

Mistletoes

Jan. 3, 2015

The Happy Holidays are over ... at last. Too busy to write in December, but here's my list of Christmas things I'm grateful for:

• The reason the world shifts gears, hangs lights on trees and eaves, redecorates everything from homes to streets, and even tries a little harder to be kinder: the celebration of the lowly birth of Him who descended to mortality to live a perfect life so that He could offer Himself as a sacrifice for everyone else's sins.
• The music - Handel, carols, and even some secular Christmas like Mannheim Steamroller, Amy Grant and some of the Oldies. I'm grateful for those whose gift it is to make and perform it, grateful that my parents let me take piano lessons so I can play it.

2014 Christmas cards from friends near and far

• Christmas cards. All these friends - rushed and busy like me - took time to sit down, sign and address a card, some with a 2014 recap note, and spent 49 cents to send it to Husby and me. A few are friends we see often, and our cards are a tangible affirmation that our friendship is a treasure. Others are friends who have moved away, and although the holes left by each others' absence quickly fill up, the Christmas card is the thread that keeps us connected - like a web of little strings anchored to points on the map with pushpins. If either of us were to stop sending our Christmas card, we would lose contact. Well, there's Facebook, you say. Ah, but I'm not on Facebook because it's superficial and narcissistic, and it doesn't count. Seriously. There's just something about the act of making or selecting a card, writing a note, signing your name, writing a friend's name and address on the envelope, licking same envelope (that's love) and placing a stamp in the corner, that says, "You're my friend, and you mean so much to me that I'm sending this!"
• Visiting with friends. I take them treats, they bring me treats and we visit. One friend has a party every Christmas, so we get to visit with lots of friends all in one place and eat her husband's to-die-for authentic Italian meatballs.
• Going to The Polar Express at the Omni IMAX theater with Grandson #1 and Daughter. He had seen the movie dozens of times, but never at the theater, and certainly not on a 120-foot screen. And the Omni makes it a pajama party, with "Polar" activities and hot cocoa before the show.
  
  It was Christmas magic to see all those children in pajamas with their big gold train tickets, and sweet Grandson held his ticket all through the show. 
  
• Lights. Lights everywhere, making the night glow. I love our family tradition of driving around town to look at lights; Daughter brought Grandson #1 one afternoon, and we visited & played, mostly in the family room in the glow of the tree lights. After dinner Daughter wanted to go look at lights together. As we cleaned up dinner, Grandson made the seat assignments and gave me my smile for that day. Mommy would drive, Grampa would ride shotgun and Honey would sit in the back next to him. Grampa asked why Honey got to sit by him; he wrapped his arms around me and said, "Because she's my best friend!" I'm grateful that our family tradition now includes grandboys. And that brings me to my next and most important blessing:
• Family. All the music, greetings, decorations and food would feel a bit hollow if I didn't have family with me on Christmas day. Christmas is brand-new to Grandson #2 who gets opening gifts but not the occasion for gifts. After all the gifts were opened, we worked on our Christmas stockings; we called him over to see what was inside, and seeing a very large "sock," he lifted his little leg to try to put it in the stocking. Smile for that night. 
• On Christmas day, I told Grandson #1 I would have to get him under the mistletoe sometime that day. A bit later, standing under the mistletoe, he called me over and gave me a sweet kiss (which he doesn't do much any more). Later, when we were sitting around the table having a snack, he said, "Hey! We could have mistletoes all over the house, and then we could kiss all the time!" I love mistletoes and little boys.

I Have Been Purchased

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Sabbath in the mountains … we had no church to attend today, but if worship is communion with God, then at times, Nature is a fine chapel.

 He who created this chapel of trees, water and mountains (which received a snow-frosting last night) also walked the earth and felt all the pains I have or ever will feel. He himself surely experienced stomachaches, headaches, fevers, scrapes and bruises. We are told He knew sorrow and grief, for He too lost friends and loved ones to death and more tragically, to sin. He was reviled, tempted and betrayed. Whatever mortality has to offer in the way of trials and suffering He knew, either through His own experience or through mine, and everyone else whose soul He lived to redeem. 

He never faltered, He never lost sight of His purpose; even when He could have saved Himself from the agony that only He could endure, He continued. With His tears and His love, He purchased me. 

I often forget that and become frightened, disheartened, impatient and angry. I have become distracted by a job, a hobby or pursing a talent, all of which are gifts from God, but which have, ironically, at one time or another replaced proper worship of the Giver of those gifts.

But listening to a rebroadcast of last week’s LDS Church General Conference messages – here in this environment where my spirit feels most at home – I reflected and resolved to do better at utilizing His sacrifice for me.

I am supremely grateful for my Savior. I am grateful to be reminded today – and every Sabbath day as I take the sacrament of the Lord’s supper – of the love He has for me, for what He was willing to do for me, and that He alone knows how I really feel, and thus how to comfort me, because He felt it, too.

 Today’s smile (from yesterday): As Husby, Daughter & Family and I were saying a family prayer for safety in our travels before we embarked on our trip to the mountains together, I peeked at Grandson, who happened to be peeking at me. We both knew our eyes should be closed, and I’m afraid I wasn’t a very good example. But it made both of us giggle silently to see the other one peeking. Funny, too, he didn’t peek at anyone else, and neither did I. Kindred spirits.

Letting go doesn't equal burial!

Aug. 5, 2015

Today I’m grateful for the good friends who have crossed my path and especially for those who have come into my life and stayed here. Truly, “living” becomes “being” when your heart connects with another’s, and you give and share and grow because of it. Hard times are doable with a good friend to help bear the burden; ordinary days become bright when you feel loved; and I’m pretty sure heaven is made of those good times when more hearts than your own share an experience.

I do like change – as long as I initiate it! When I connect with someone who becomes a friend, I take it hard when they leave me standing there on the stage of life like a lone actor trying to ad lib lines. A few friends have betrayed me, and I carry around resentment and anger like a backpack full of rocks. Many more have simply read their lines at the appropriate time in my drama and then moved to the wings. For those, I carry around sadness and maybe a little anger, questioning why God would give me good friends who become part of my soul and leave a gaping hole when they fade away.

Well, here’s what a lighter Me thinks. God does give us people who fill a particular purpose at a particular time. Or maybe we fill a particular purpose for them at a specific time. He knows some few of those people we will need for the duration, and those soul mates stay with us no matter to what ends of the earth either of us move. No matter how long they are with us, they are our friends. No past tense. I thank God for sending them to help me and enrich my life, and I pray every day for them, that they are well and happy and that they always have happy thoughts of the times we shared. Instead of mourning previously perceived holes, I try to imagine a rich, lovely fabric with some patches where certain friends wove a small unique pattern into the continuous weft of my life.

Now, betrayals are a little harder. We learn lessons from every experience and every person we encounter. If someone hurts me – or if I allow them to hurt me – the only way I can empty that load of rocks and move toward forgiveness is to think of what that person taught me, and understand that in the traffic jam of life, sometimes we’re going to collide and get injured. If a person hurts me purposely, that’s their choice, and I can’t fully know all that influenced their actions. I have the choice to let go and move on. (Plot twist!)

There are some people on my stage who I didn’t invite to be there, and I wish they would move to someone else’s stage! It’s harder to let go of people who irritate or purposely hurt you over and over and who are always in your face. Here’s the imagery I’ve tried the last few days, and it helps a little; I think it will take lots of practice before it really sticks and becomes permanent:

I imagine myself in a hot-air balloon floating upward. The people who are weighing me down are clinging to the basket, but as I will myself upward, they lose their grip and float (no, I’m not mean enough to let them crash!) to the ground, and I continue upward, floating above them – and the angst they cause me.  

And then there are the people - a small, precious group - who have been on the stage for most of my life, who have proved over the long-term to be absolutely loyal, who love me in spite of my humanness, on whom I can count no matter what. Some are family, some are friends who pick up a conversation after months or years without skipping a beat. The thing is, they are always there, and today, my smile is because of them!