Sensible Decorating

The weather outside is nothing but dreary,cold,and damp.Inside, in an attempt to keep electricity and gas bills low I am sitting here freezing. It is set at 62* on my thermostat but using an old furnace and having drafty windows, my body feels colder than that. I added on a fleece and am warming up some, but soon I need to change from iced tea as my beverage to a cup of coffee.

Yesterday I was all set to blog about my happy day. The reason I wanted to write was so obvious that I had an impulse to share the good news. I reached contentment, a rare, yet coveted place for me, and wanted to share how it happened. You can see how far that impulse carried me.

Yesterday was my annual self-proclaimed and continuing tradition of Christmas set up the Saturday after Thanksgiving.This tradition used to contain the fun of gathering the 7 kids in the car, putting a pot of chili on the stove and heading out to cut down our Christmas Tree at a local farm or woods. That was then , this is now, as they say.

My Christmas boxes were stacked in the kitchen and Joshua kindly helped with that task, so he sort of participated, but basically I was on my own. Quite a difference from 9 people and a pot,[I am speaking here of the chili] yet I was not to be deterred, the music went on and the candles were lit. Having talked to my mom early in the day made me decide a pot of soup was a necessity so on went the soup. It was leftover 'everything but the kitchen sink' soup, my specialty. Mom and I often talk of food, well, admittedly we have never had a conversation that didn't include food, so the challenge was on. Would I prepare an edible, delectable soup or would it be a disaster?

Back to the five senses and my contentment factor. The house smelled of garlic and onion, sage and thyme, the candles adding a blend of pine scents to the mix. The flickering lights around my windows made me feel again that perhaps Christmas would be exciting this year. I had been doubting the possibility because of a sluggish emotional time typical of the holidays and my alone factor. My CD player continued pouring out the sounds of Christmas, carols mixed with ballads, classical pieces mixed with Amy Grant and her vocals. Occasionally I picked up an ornament reminiscent of days gone by, and the feel of the textures against my skin brought back memories - happy moments set in time. Soon it was time to taste my soup, that salty hot broth that at one time had been stuff in the refrigerator, somehow evolved and simmered into a deliciously flavorful Saturday Soup!

Had I happened onto something here? All of my senses involved in my Christmas tradition seemed to be causing an unexpected response from within my weary spirit! I was so content! I was so thankful that Jesus was indeed the reason for the season, no matter what the stores tried to steal away with their crazy tunes and ridiculous gimmicks.

Then I remembered another very small , seemingly insignificant event from many,many years ago. It was around Christmas and perhaps in 1990 or thereabouts. Daughter Becca was beginning her Hope Chest, an old tradition of gathering together a box filled with Hopes for a future life filled with a husband and babies someday. Grandma had one and spoke of it lovingly, so Becca wanted one too. She and I were shopping in Sears and horror of horrors their Winnie the Pooh blanket sleepers were being DISCONTINUED! "How can this be?" she cried! "I need one when I have babies!".
So, as any doting mother would do, I secretly purchased a bright yellow sleeper and gave it to her that Christmas for her Hope Chest. I remember asking God, my Heavenly Father, to please give this sweet baby of mine,her own babies someday, especially since her medical condition probably did not include such an event happening.

Imagine my complete and utter surprise, true astonishment, when last week Becca called and said she was sending me an email picture to see. "Hey Mom!" "Remember that sleeper you bought me for my Hope Chest?" Well no, frankly, I did not. "I'm sending a picture of someone in it".





Indeed, years ago, a plethora of Christmas decorations going up and coming down and stored away, a baby had been planned. Evelyn was unknown to her mother, father or even adoring grandparents, but already known by a Heavenly Father whose life we celebrated, very inadequately and quite purposefully at Christmas time each year. Jesus Christ, son of God, Father of all creation, You are the reason for my contentment and the senses you gave me to decorate with each year are thankfully accompanied by Common Sense to worship YOU.

Oh Give THANKS to the Lord!!

Call upon His Name;
Make known HIS deeds among the peoples!
Sing to Him, sing Psalms to Him;
Talk of all His wondrous works!
Glory in His Holy Name;
Let the hearts of those rejoice who seek the Lord!
Seek the Lord and His strength;
Seek His face evermore!
Remember His marvelous works which He has done....

Psalm 105 goes on to list by name many of the marvelous works of God in the world's continuing history.

What a great place to begin early this Thanksgiving Day 2008 in my own personal History with God, Who is leading and dispensing as He desires: lovingly, wisely,
judiciously.

This year I am thanking Him for my health and my job, my home and my family, my life falling into an orderliness that I could not have imagined a few short years ago. I am thanking Him for friends who come and even those who go, for family , which for the moment has stayed the same in number. I thank Him for the many things that did NOT happen, something I am more and more aware of as the days go by and others deal with tragedy and troubles. I am certain to experience more heartaches and uncertainties, for we live in a world full of both, but for this moment in time, I am content to be mid-trial.

Together with the Psalmist, I seek His face. How that plays out has become more and more mysterious as the years go by. I seek His counsel, jumping eagerly into His Words already provided. I hesitate more, head into a problem more slowly, am unsure of all the answers, when at one time I knew them all. How can that be?

My heart rejoices, even as there are things that stop me in my tracks. This last week alone there were 2 days out of 7 spent in the hospital tending to the business of grand mothering, praying for, and waiting as my sugar pea Jesse had one event after another enter his little 5 year old world. Rejoice? Yes! because I KNOW God has it all lovingly handled and I can rest in that , while circumstances around me swirl and churn about, seemingly without reason or end.

More and more I must talk of all HIS wondrous works!! There are so many, so detailed and plentiful I feel badly that some of them are not shared with even random strangers. Like the other day at the grocery store when I went in for a few things having a little money, and came out with no money but ALOT of things!! The sales and bargains fairly leaped into my cart! Thank you Lord!!

One of my sons lost his job last week, and I was delighted to hear, when I asked my daughter how they felt, her calm response. "Well, " said she, "it certainly was a surprise, but God has a plan and we know that, so everything will work out, I'm sure." This from a woman with 5 children under the age of 7 years, a woman who is not living in a Pollyanna world, but rather in one where she has seen, known and felt the loving protective arms of her Heavenly Father God surround her in prior times of trouble. Oh yes!I rejoice in that truth and the knowledge that my children also know that Truth.

The Psalmist also mentions singing to God. Now I will go and enjoy the quiet home , dog and cat asleep, two adult sons safe downstairs, sunshine peeking through the barren tree greeting the morning, and sing to the Lord. I love Him so, and sometimes in the rush of life I even forget to say those words to Him. I love You Lord. Thank you.

Seasons Come and Seasons Go

I love snow and winter and the chill in the air!!

It excites me that there is a predictability to the seasons, one coming neatly behind the next- fall, winter, spring, summer and around it goes on and on and on. Nobody can change the pattern, say if they are not in a good mood, "well, this year, winter is OFF." "We are having two summers and that's that!!" I like that about God. He set the seasons in motion and the Northeast USA shows the four distinct seasons very nicely.

I have heard that there are seasons in a woman's life. [Maybe a man too but how would I know about such things when the woman's world is my domain and occupies most of my free time?] The Springtime is during those youthful days , school, college,careers and families beginning. Life is simple and good.

Summer brings on the middle years when kids are in school and days are full and hectic, health is sound and rarely is a doctor seen. Life is Full.

Fall comes knocking at your door when you least expect it- the kids are finally grown and leaving the house(we hope) and the mind still in command, is noting that the body is not really responding as it used to. "Get out of bed legs and feet!" "Well hold on , we need to be careful , we don't seem to be working that well and oh,by the way, it hurts down here!" Life is Unpredictable.



Wintercozies up real friendly and fun, kind of like that first lovely snowfall we had this week. Wow! It's snowing! Yippee! Get out the shovels and mittens and hats! "Why do people complain about the cold,?" we wonder, in our mindless forgetful way. Has it been a mere 250 days or so and we should forget the ice storms that knock down the power lines? or possibly have we not had memories still chilling our bones at the recall of shoveling when the blizzard winds are whipping around our very cold faces? What is wrong with us?

I think old age kind of creeps up like that first snow , but believe me, I am having enough trouble with Fall, I can barely imagine Winter! The interesting thing is that since life is seasonal and predictable, I will have to imagine it when a few more years race by. I won't have a choice, unless I am called to an eternal destination sooner than the 'average' gal.

Fall is so dreary, pretty leaves changing to dried up brown ones, falling into piles and blowing all over the place. Gardens look ragged and run down no matter how much effort and mulching you did in the summer. My neighbor spends HOURS in her garden, pruning and tending and purchasing and raking , all to discover in the fall that both of our lawns look exactly the same!It must frustrate her since all Summer I sit reading on my front porch, cup of coffee in hand with a casual wave if I see her.I have spent no money and little effort to attain my 'natural' look. As an aside, are you hearing the parallels to age and the reasons stacking up on why I also am not seen at the gym every night like my young friend Leigh who goes and works out for THREE hours a night??



Remember now, I love winter, so for a person like myself, what is ahead is the exciting part, I hope. In the interim I am doing a little pruning in my garden.

The earlier years were spent gathering and collecting things. In the Spring and Summer seasons I gathered friends like prized possessions, not wanting any to slip away through my heartstrings of love. I wrote Christmas cards and letters, I remembered birthdays, I not only knew my friends special dates, but their children's as well, and pretty often their mother's made my lists! I collected books, making me a wannabe bibliophile. I collected piggy banks and Brasilian memorabilia, and saved all of my 7 children's report cards, with notes and paperwork and tests. For crying out loud I even had completed Baby Books for each one! Now really, who do you know that even knows there is such a beast in today's parenting world?

That was then. In my Autumn season I am no longer gathering. I had noticed a few months ago that the need to return phone calls to old buddies, the desire to jot monthly notes and send pictures and cards, had kind of slipped by the wayside.My friend of 30 years was not really even on my call back list. I took note of it and thought perhaps the reason was a result of acquiring my full time job and settling into my routine as a single woman again. That doesn't explain however, the packing up and giving away of books and piggies and all things Brasilian (no, I am NOT referring to my husband , although he is pretty packed up). I no longer care to socialize at gatherings when I used to use them as occasions to Be Friendly! and more often than not I do not even attend the things!

The more time goes by , the more I am realizing and absorbing the fact that Fall has become a time of sorting and eliminating. Eliminating unnecessary things and people who are fine but just not a priority. Eliminating trips to the stores 'to shop', outings to meet friends 'for a bite to eat', notes and cards to 'keep in touch' with people who barely have the time to sign a Christmas Card once a year. Until I processed these ideas it was causing me alot of concern. What kind of person was I that I could just change some of the very essence of who I had been?

The latest and most spiritually terrifying part of my walk through my Fall has been church attendance. The faith and courage to stop going to church , to rest in the Lord's grace and mercy and eliminate the going because I had to and turn it somehow into the going because I want to. Now there is a chilly winter ahead if I don't figure out how to melt together my love of the Church, my love of the Lord and my need for understanding.

Deep Thoughts for a late Fall evening, so I think I will go grab a cup of milk and eat a piece of very fattening , non-healthy cheesecake my son Andrew just brought me. I sure wish I could sit on my front porch and wave to my neighbor because I am pretty sure she is on her way to the gym.

The Perfect Present

Whatever happened to the days when you knew immediately what gift to buy someone for their birthday?

I am, by nature, a gift -giving girl. Some people insist that they don't want gifts or need anything and I am among those, but as far as Giving of gifts, my compulsion is to always find the Perfect Present.Trust me, if you are one of my friends, a neighbor of mine , a co-worker or family member, I have thought of how to present you with a present.

The occasions are many for this gift giving compulsion. You might be celebrating a new job or a new puppy has entered the family. There might have been a special time that just began , as in , grand parenting for the first time. Perhaps it is a new home that you have acquired that falls under my category of discovering the warmest housewarming treasure. A broken leg? No problem, I can scour the stores and bring you a nice pair of socks that goes over the cast. Do you see my nature? Sometimes it drives me crazy, since it isn't a turn off and on sort of quality. It just exists within me, and ignoring it results in much frustration and even sadness.

There are people who make gifts, like the crafty types, or the woodworking types. My son-in-law Steve is like that. He can just hammer a nail or saw a board and voila! a table is created. (OK, it might take him a few minutes but really it appears to be fairly magical in nature...)Daughter Rachel has made some pretty significant jewelry pieces in her day , so I have seen this type of craft person create gifts as well. My sister Janet made me a CD of favorite family songs last Christmas, and even as one of my all time favorite gifts to receive I have No clue how she compiled those melodies, taking them from computer to reality.

I am taking a long time to get to my point, in an effort to delay the inevitable.

Today is November 18, 2008. It is an ordinary day for most people around the globe. I assume there are some occasions needing to be celebrated by others, gifts to be purchased, crafted or hammered. Undoubtedly it is an ordinary day for a majority of folks, lives running along smoothly like well oiled machines.

However, my gift giving nature is being stretched to the maximum on this particular moment in history and my thoughts have buzzed around and circled in my brain like bees over a honey pot. What could possible cause this frenzy and abruptly halt the Queen of Gifts For Every Holiday?




David is 62. David Marcos my former husband, partner for life, father of my 7 children, the most significant male in my life after my dad, the man who chose to run early at age 55 back to his home country of Brazil instead of weathering the storms of mid-life and life in these United States with a family and wife chosen in his youth. That David, he is 62 years old today. The Perfect Present has elusively flitted and floated around my head for days while my logical brain has worked overtime in reminding me he is GONE. My emotional brain has been sad and stuck in a place most divorced people climb into from time to time.
The sentimental brain has listed all of the perfect presents I got him in the past(over 32 of them - double that for Christmas!)and wondered if he remembers any of them,with a fleeting sense of nostalgia, even today as he celebrates this milestone in his homeland?

Well, I did it! I figured out the Perfect Present and am so relieved!!It came in the nick of time since today is the big day!! The part of my brain that I needed to tap into was the my Spirit-filled brain, my God-focused, God-loving , God-trusting brain.
I will pray for David Marcos, a prayer that encompasses all of the possible gifts he could want or need, all that he cannot comprehend are his because of the grace of Jesus Christ. This prayer will come from a place far more costly than a fine department store or a shopping catalogue. The creative factor is given back to God Himself as He promises in the book of Romans.

"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself prays for us with groans that words cannot express. And He Who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will." [Romans chapter 8, verses 26,27]

Lessons from a Root Canal

Realizing that life is filled with lessons if only we have the heart to listen and learn from them, I was not totally surprised when this week's Root Canal, the evil dentist's masterpiece of pain, happened my way.

I have had a tooth ache for the better part of this summer as I was waiting to go to a dentist until my dental insurance plan kicked in. A painful wait, admittedly, but one I was so used to that when it stopped hurting yesterday I was beside myself with relief!

The tooth looked pretty good, had been filled years ago with the silver stuff of old, and had begun chipping away exposing what turned out to be a festering infection underneath the surface of the tooth. When I first went to the dentist two weeks ago she showed me the xrays revealing a nasty, dangerous infection that was even into my jawbone by then. "You've had this pain for awhile haven't you?" she rhetorically questioned. "Well, we need to clear up the infection before we can begin the Root Canal, and then hope it hasn't done too much harm."

Having heard that Root Canals are worse than childbirth and having nearly died after 5 of those, I was not in the least interested in that situation. I suggested an extraction instead(kind of like suggesting a C-section when I was giving birth naturally , I suppose)and her obvious condescension at my lack of understanding of all things dental became clear. "It is always better to keep your own teeth" was her response.

Well, as my story goes, antibiotics taken for 5 days did indeed clear up part of the infection making her able to proceed with her plan. The needle she used for numbing the pain went into my gum, surely a foot even though it was visually a mere 2" in length. It hurt a little, but after another waiting period , she re-entered the room with a 4" needle aimed at my jaw. OH MY GOODNESS! Terror struck until she calmly said it would be painless. "Trust me and Relax" I heard as I closed my eyes. Nothing happened. No pain, no screaming, no disastrous heart failure, nothing. Had she forgotten to use it? Was I dead? None of those options seemed likely as I heard from somewhere beyond my thumping heart, a dental drill.

I am now sporting a healthy tooth, the infection replaced by the skilled dentist's tools and expertise, the promise of a little more discomfort ahead but an end result of a healthy mouth. She explained that there had been deep infection but after xrays revealed she cleared it all out, she was confident of a trouble free tooth.

Seven years ago God allowed an apparently healthy, sound marriage, to undergo a Root Canal. It seems there was a bad infection under the surface and unknown to me, the little pains I was feeling were evidences of a very deep and dangerous infection. When the chipping away started , it proceeded very quickly and for an entire summer I was in pain. Oftentimes it was unbearable and advil didn't help at all. Neither did wise counsel nor sound advice, I needed the Master Dentist, GOD HIMSELF to fix my problems. My husband left our family, our marriage and our country. His choices and his dental work are far away and his own painful story.

I can only tell my story. God used a numbing agent on me in order to prepare me for the really big needle that would deal with the really big infection. Normally it would have been very painful , but because He surrounded me with His anesthesia I kept going. What was His anesthesia, one might wonder? I can only attest to my own discoveries. He used His Word and Truths, He used His people- my friends, He used Time with the gift of tears.He used lots of tears. Then the bigger needle of Divorce was inserted into my life. The work of clearing the infection had begun, and my life was becoming healthier as a result.

I have wanted there to be a reason for this story to have gone the way it did, I hoped for purpose behind the pain, maybe even a happy ending somehow to emerge. I will never have a new young tooth in my mouth , nor will I have a renewed marriage in my world. I do know I am living now without pain, I can chew tentatively on that side of my mouth when before I avoided all hard candies or tougher cuts of meat!

Likewise, I am discovering ideas I can chew on more vigorously,a healthy base in my life because it has been revealed that it is infection free now. Perhaps the best Truth of all is because God said "Relax and trust Me". With my eyes tightly closed, tears flowing, less each year,He is continuing to clear up the infection, and I am somehow healthier for having Him as my Dentist.

One more thing I might note. Annual check-ups are so critical!! I couldn't afford to have my teeth checked by a dentist, it cost too much. The painful discovery of the dentist applied is that it is costing more now to fix what was under the surface brewing.

Marriages might need check-ups too, even for pastors and their families, maybe expecially for pastors and their families. I am praying that God used my nasty and unhealthy infection to caution others, but especially my children, to have regular check-ups, be accountable to someone with more wisdom and authority and expertise, to Trust God and relax.