Wistful thinking

I love it when I start my mornings with an insight, especially one of a divine nature.  Over and over I keep reading about how I need to trust God (in and for everything) and yet being a dunce, I don’t.  I read repeatedly about the need for that childlike faith, emphasis childlike and because I am an adult I can’t quite remember what that type of faith possesses.  Until this morning.

I had a remarkable afternoon with a friend who thinks I’m over the top.  Now don’t go thinking I’m bragging, I’m not that good, but there are people in your life who are able to be enjoyed that much that you are naturally joyous in their presence.  I’m fortunate to be able to say that I can recognize this.  And this morning it hit me.

That childlike faith is the same thing as the joy that wells up in me when I am with those certain people in my life.  Life is not without its trials, but when we pour ourselves into those tests trying to ace them, we find ourselves mired in the darkness of chaos unable to navigate.

To some, I may seem immature or a Pollyanna of sorts, and to them I’d like to say, it’s a choice.  Believe me, I know the seriousness of life and there is many a day when I feel the full responsibilities of those seriousness’s.

Each day dawns with a new horizon.  This morning one of my dogs licked me awake, for some that would be considered gross, but for me, a dog lover, it was being awakened by a kiss, saying c’mon Mom it’s that time when you get up and feed me.  Each day our goldens wake with that “faith” that I will take care of them, love them, feed them, play with them, walk them!  Dogs get it; kids get it…..it being faith, believing without reservation that their needs will be met.

So this morning, I understood as the clouds slowly started revealing the “Son” that it isn’t my lack of maturity that is constantly wanting to find the “play” in life, it is that essence of childlike faith that wants to be recaptured.  We adults have forgotten how to play and this is understandable with the carnage we face each day, but somewhere deep inside each of us is that inner child who longs to surface and engage. 

Final thought and this one is for young parents.  I am well aware of the number of adults who never learned to play as children, please, please, please, don’t take your kids childhoods away from them, they will grow up all too soon.  Love them, teach them to laugh, sometimes even at themselves.  Let them have fun and by fun, I mean running, skipping, jumping, exploring not just “gaming” on the TV.

The joys in my life are many and especially include those people with whom I find that when I’m in their presence I am able to feel God’s which then allows my inner child to recognize and desire to rejoice.  It is during that exuberance that I long to “play.”  Yes, I’m a nut, and maybe the part of me that went to college and majored in Physical Education was the part of me that secretly knew the joy of playing.  I guess I’ll have to admit that I don’t want that part of me to grow up then.

Second final thought, direct from a devotional “God sometimes lines your nest with thorns” I have to wonder if that is so we don’t get too comfortable in them!

Looking up!~Barb

I Care.....Still

Some 27 years ago my Mom wrote me a short letter - as follows:

"There  are stories about lovers and stories about others - but you don't often see a story about mothers.

Written by one.

There's a sign on a street in our neighborhood, that says "Deaf child at play".... and I thought "how kind: that somebody cared enough to do that.....and how sad for the mother of that child.  There are signs that say "Blind crossing" and there are wheelchair ramps for those who can't walk.  And how sorrowful it must be to the mothers of such children. 

There are other mothers whose children can see but won't look - who can hear but won't listen - and who stumble around trying to find themselves but won't accept your help.  There is sorrow and hurt for those mothers and tears in the night.  But no one puts up a sign for their children.

So I will   (and then she drew a sign in a clump of grass, that read)
 "I care"

As I was collecting various thoughts getting ready for my son's wedding next weekend, I thought back to this note.  I don't necessarily recall what it was I was going through, but somehow I survived it.  Isn't this the essence of what we Moms go through for our kids.  I wrote my own version of this letter to both my kids at some point in their lives.  I wonder if they, when preparing for their own kids weddings, will reflect back like I am right now.

Thanks Mom, if you could only know how much you mean to me.  If I could only reach back inside your mind and turn things around so that you could be with us next weekend.  I will miss having you there more than you can possibly know, because it was to you that I looked to as an example for all my parenting qualms.  Your strength, your wisdom, your love, your kindnesses all lead me to where I am today.

It is a bittersweet moment for me, but I know how you would handle it, with a smile on your face yet with a tear in your heart!  I hope  you know I consider you my first best friend!

Looking up! !~ Barb

The Narrator

This morning as I was watering my gardens, I turned on our outdoor speakers to listen to music as I went about my tasks.  The two announcers on the station were in conversation about the “Wonder Years” and how the sister of the one radio host feels she is now the narrator in life.  Do you remember the show?  It was set in the 60s and in the beginning of the show, the one child begins the show with a nostalgic look at the past and then they segue into the program.

That got me thinking, my children are now grown and even though they may occasionally ask me or my husband for advice, they more often than not ask their significant other or their peers and have relegated Mom and Dad to the bookshelves.  Don’t get me wrong, this is part of the maturation process, but the realization of no longer being the “star” of the show of life is a humbling position.  And in saying that about being the star, it is meant with those “stars” being minimized in relation to the “Son”.

The radio show then had a caller call in.  She related this story about when she, as a young newlywed of 7 months, was encountering difficulties with her new husband and she wanted to come home.  Her mother, I’m sure with lump in her throat, calmly listened to her and then said that her childhood home was no longer her home; her home was now with her new husband.  25 years have passed for that young woman, and to this day, she is still married to that man.  How wise for her Mom to counsel her daughter that way.

My son gets married in 9 days.  When he needs advice that only a parent can give, he calls his father and I, but in a recent call, I think what he wanted was to know that we agreed with him about a situation.  We didn’t.  Our advice was that he had to do what he thought best and move forward.  This is all part of the process of letting go and it is EXTREMELY difficult sometimes.  Letting go does NOT mean you don’t love them, if fact, it sometimes shows just how much you do love them because you are trusting them to make independent choices and allowing them to suffer any consequences so that they can learn.  Remember teaching them to ride the bicycle – did they fall?  Mine did.  What about driving?  Did they get tickets?  Mine did.

Now with all I’ve said, there are circumstances that just don’t allow for some marriages to work and I’m not the judge or jury in any of these instances.  I also am of the mindset that if a young child is part of the situation that the child is not to blame and everything should be done to give that child the best possible chance to grow and flourish in love.  I’m talking generalities and spats that encompass someone’s feelings being misunderstood or hurt, not major marital issues.  Marriage is between 2 people and both have to work at it and yes, sometimes it is work and not pretty!  I’ve been married for 29 years, most of them happy, but it has not been without disagreements that sometimes rock the boat to its core.

Life is so complicated these days.  As I come down to the final days before the wedding, I am feeling the bittersweet feelings of a love so strong and a joy so complete that tears are just a natural byproduct.  Our children have not lived home since college, they may have visited for a month or so, but they (by their own choice) enjoyed their independence and were willing to work to maintain that.  Should either of them (and their significant others) need to come stay for a short period of time, they will be welcomed with open arms, but the same arms that welcome them will push them out if they become lazy and complacent.  Some call it tough love, it is.

The bittersweetness has nothing to do with their choices in spouses, their growth or their independence.  It is more that I realize that I’ve reached a new season in my own life, that of the narrator and I am just stunned at how quickly it passed.

In 9 days I’ll be a mother-in-law and with all the silly jokes that accompany that, I don’t want to be “that” MIL.  My desire is to be the friend to a young couple.  This is their life, their choices, their consequences.  I love them but they are not, nor were they ever “mine.”  They belonged to God first and I’ve been blessed to have been gifted with them.  I will dance with my son to Mark Harris’ song “Find Your Wings”.  The opening line reads “You were only mine to hold for a little while, the plans that God has for you will all too soon unfold.”  Brent has said we can dance to that, if I promise not to cry.  I can’t make any promises!

Looking up! ~ Barb

In harmony

C.S. Lewis writes “If all experienced God in the same way and returned Him an identical worship, the song of the church triumphant would have no symphony, it would be like an orchestra in which all the instruments played the same note.”

Is it any wonder that God made us all differently?  So, who sets the bar on the protocol on the way we worship then?  It shouldn’t be anyone other than God, Himself.  “When jealousies, suspicions and competition infiltrate our lives, we are living by our standards, not God’s and we drone on.” ~ a loose interpretation of something read in “Come Away my Beloved.”  Think about it for a second – the voice of complaint is a never-ending sour note through our lives right to the ears of God.

As a child (4^th grade), I wanted to play the violin, so I tried out.  I don’t honestly remember what the tryout entailed, but I lost out to my best friend Carol.  She was more musically gifted – they at least had a piano in their house!  Somehow, my parents came up with the idea of a guitar; I don’t even think I knew what one was!  My first guitar wasn’t all that expensive – I use to say it must have been made out of balsa wood – it was really lightweight and it had steel knives for strings!  I practiced that thing constantly until my fingers bled and in frustration at not getting a particular “piece” right, I’d bite it.  Ok, remember I was in 4^th grade!  I can’t imagine what went through my guitar teacher’s mind when he’d get my guitar to tune it and see the bite marks around its edges!!  Ok, that was a tangent….

Initially I would practice scales, and then move on to one song.  Every day for a week it was the same thing, scales and the one song – only the notes.  It was boring until I mastered those notes.  Then I’d try to sing the song (Row your boat, Twinkle Little Star) again another tangent, but just so you know, I’m NOT a singer either!  Finally, after months on the notes, I was taught the chords and when put all together it was finally “music.”  By this time I was in 6^th grade and I was taking group lessons, so some of us played the notes and others played the chords and we thought we sounded pretty good!  (Linda – do you remember this?) J

Our lives mirror that lesson.  We all have notes that need to be learned first and then as we master those lessons, we get our instructions on the chords of life.  It might take some of us to age 55 and beyond to finally get to play the intended concert, but it isn’t about the age.   It is ALL about the practice.  God can’t use us until we can play His melody!

My guitar (a newer model #4 in fact) sits collecting dust with its steel strings waiting to devour my uncalloused fingertips once again.  I am woefully out of practice, because I’ve let other things come between the time I should be “playing” and in doing so, I will have to start over and refresh my memory.  Sometimes I wonder if I would still bite the guitar in frustration?!! L 

The lesson I learned this much later in life though is to enjoy the lessons as well as the practice and wait patiently.  God fine tunes each of His instruments.  What might be your place in his orchestra?  Are you a noisy gong, a clanging cymbal jarring His ear with complaints or have you been shaped into melodious instrument playing His Masterpiece?

Looking up! ~ Barb

PS…..On my bucket list -I now want to learn to play the piano – any teachers out there?

Regular, mid-grade or high test?

Do you remember the opening lines to “Mission Impossible”?  They went something like this “You have been chosen for (whatever) mission, should you choose to accept…..”  This was the thought I had this morning when I read Psalm 67:2 “that your ways may be known on earth”.

It is my belief that the only way God’s ways are known on earth is for those who have sensitivity for Him to actively walk as beacons of light.  Those that have a heart for God are those He has chosen, but before you get you knickers in a knot, He has chosen all of us, it is just that some of us, like in the Mission Impossible statement, haven’t accepted the assignment!

Maybe I need to be sleeping longer….because then my next thought segued into Exxon gas.  There is a sign at our local gas station that says cars or autos (can’t remember which) crave clean.  This sets all sorts of tangent possibilities up for me.  I’ll try to be succinct.

First one – the whole idea of craving, I’ve mentioned before.  We have this “hole” inside of us, created by God, which longs to be filled up.  We try to fill it up with many different things and everything is found lacking in either substance or quantity/quality and the hole then begins demanding to be refilled.  God created that space to be filled by Him and only Him.

Secondly, the clean aspect.  In another book, “Come away my beloved” it mentioned that Jesus’ body never knew a malady because His soul didn’t know sin.  Our bodies are seemingly always breaking down and revealing what our souls possess.  It went on to say that it is only when our minds are at rest that our bodies can build health.  Some people “abuse” their bodies with unhealthy choices, and those of us who don’t aspire to those types of choices roll our eyes in disdain at them. The thing is, our minds might be embroiled in negativity (anxiety etc) and that still wreaks havoc on our bodies, and even if we aren’t doing unhealthy activities we are still getting sick.  

 

This brings me to another aspect of clean and back to gas…..the ethanol kind!  At our local pump there are 3 types of gas – regular, mid-grade and high test.  The car I drive wants the high test, but I can only afford the regular!  So what’s the difference and I’m going to elaborate loosely here.

Regular – the “cheap?” stuff is just the stuff that allows the car to motor around.  It provides fuel/energy.  Mid-grade has had some of the impurities taken out and maybe a bit more fuel injectors added in.  The car runs a bit more efficiently and actually gets better mileage.  The high test – man that is like the super caffeinated variety, it’s got energy plus and the junk has been siphoned out.  Your car can run better, go farther, jump higher.  Ok, not jump but you get the idea.

So what does gas have to do with me?  No, no beans were included in my dinner last night…..Think of the gas pumps being God’s energy pumps for us.  Regular is what most people have in their life.  They are just motoring around, without any real regard to God.  They may know about Him, but aren’t really interested.  They get by and seem happy in their lives thinking they don’t need a better grade of energy and definitely not wanting to pay extra for it.

Mid-grade is probably where I was up to a few years ago.  I was allowing God to be part of my life, when it was convenient.  I tried to do good things and I occasionally read a chapter in my Bible, but when something else came up, I would run after it.  This cost a little more, but it also seemed to have a bit more benefit than the regular.  I could control the cost of it though by choosing when I might allow my tanks to be filled with this grade of gas.

High test is what I’m using now.  Interesting choice of the name of this grade of gas, because and I really do mean this, once you come up to this grade you are seemingly tested more, but and that is a big BUT (not like mine – sorry)…with the testing you are also given God’s grace freely and you are NEVER alone in the tests you face.  You run cleaner, you run farther and you run most proficiently.  Of course high test also costs more, but you get what you pay for in life!  This is where you agree to seemingly allow God to “choose” you for that mission He has planned for your life.  You agree to the assignment, completely buying into its premise.  You don’t look back, you look ahead seeing the possibilities and you become a beacon of light.  This is how I believe God’s ways become known on earth and if everyone took that same thought and we’d multiply it by the number of people in the world, then the last part of that verse “Your salvation among all nations” would be able to be accomplished.

I wish I could be a fly on the pump the next time you choose your grade of gas!

Looking up! ~ Barb

Extremes

We keep pushing ourselves to the extreme.  Why?  Whatever happened to normal?  These are the thoughts I’m having as I’m baking cookies on a Sunday morning to take to a rehab center.

As a kid, I use to love when my Mom would make chocolate chip cookies.  We kids, would saunter pass the kitchen table grabbing one or two and continue on our way out the door, satisfied with that amount.  In thinking back to this time, I wonder what went wrong!

Now we seem to not be able to limit ourselves to just the one or two, but instead gorge ourselves eating until we nearly feel sick.  This is the same way we treat other things in our lives as well!

My son is getting married in two weeks and this weekend he and his buddies are in Charleston at his bachelor party, while his fiancé is having hers up on a lake.  Now, don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with them having this time to share with their friends/wedding party and I truly DON’T want to know what goes on, but this led to a conversation with my husband.

He did not, nor did I have a “party” of this sort.  I’m sure they did these things back in our day….we’ve been married 29 years.  But this then also allowed the continued thoughts about what all our kids have done in their lives that we haven’t done yet. 

One of those areas for me was riding in a limo – both our kids had ridden in one for their proms, Bruce rode in one at some business function, some ride in them at weddings.  When I was training as a CNA, my instructor (who during the class became a friend – she and I are around the same age) also mentioned that she had not ridden in one.  We both shared the same thought….the first time we’d be in one might be at a funeral and that was not the “ride” we wanted.  Anyway, anyone who knows me, knows that when I get a thought in my head, it is going to get done!  During clinicals, the instructor suggested I pay her in French fries for the gas??? since we carpooled and she drove!!!  Yeah, I bought her 2 orders and then came up with the idea of renting a limo for after the last day of class.

You can imagine her surprise when we wound up riding around Charlotte for an hour and a half, sipping wine and eating cheese and nuts.  Initially we both were kind of in awe, but later, probably as the wine de-stressed us, the experience although a lot of fun, was one of absurdity….. I mean, really…..does anyone just go for a Sunday drive anymore like we use to with our parents growing up……I don’t know about you, but I use to hate those drives to no where!! And I was in a “stretch” car……a station wagon!  So what exactly was the difference?!  Maybe my Dad just needed to be wearing a tux or something!

Anyway, we go to extremes.  We eat too much, we drink too much, we party hard, we collect too much which in turns means we have to work too much to pay for it or to repair it.

I’m beginning to wonder if this extreme heat we are feeling in May is the result of God saying, you like extremes?  Well here’s one?

Anyone?

And just so you know, the limo ride was nice, because we could talk without our attention being diverted to the road!

Looking up!  Barb

You are invited......how do you RSVP?

You are cordially invited to attend the following:

A breakfast, a lunch, a dinner, a show, a movie, a ballgame, a wedding, a religious ceremony (bar/bat mitzvahs, communion, confirmation, baptism), a walk, a run, a swim, a bike ride, a photo shoot, a literary reading, a concert, a shower (bridal or baby), a picnic, a manned space flight, a cruise, a sight-seeing tour anywhere in the world, and the list goes on and on.

Your response to any of the above is yes and you look forward to attending (otherwise why did you respond yes?)  Obligation and duty were not part of the invitation!  The invitation though was for one, so you can’t bank your response on who else is going, you must decide for yourselves.  How do you RSVP?

Do you at this point start regretting your decision to go?  Do you the day of the event continue with the zeal of anticipation or do you start looking back at who or what you are leaving behind?

Think about this for a minute before proceeding, because your answer has an impact on your future and I only just understood this, this morning.

In the Bible, when the end of the world is apparent, and Jesus is coming, we are to look forward and go, stopping for nothing or no one, not looking back.  This equates to our invitation for one.  What is the harm in looking back you might wonder…..I did.  The harm as I understand it, is that our flesh is weak and in looking back we will see our spouse, our children, our families, our friends, our pets, our jobs, our homes etc and in our minds somehow this will translate to wait a minute, let me (get, do, take)……  That, is taking a position of telling God to wait, in essence we are more important than His calling.  That, is the answer He will not allow.

What does Fear God mean to you?  God is a loving being, so I’m not afraid of Him as much as I am in awe of Him and that is what the definition is supposed to mean, it is one of high respect.  But I am afraid of looking back.  I have placed such value in the things of this world because they are tangible and slowly my grasp is being pried away. We cannot take anything with us, nor can we accept the invitation for someone else.  It is a difficult decision to make, but only if you place more importance on the people or things of this life and it is extremely difficult to not regret leaving loved ones, but in our regret, we have ruined God’s spirit of joy.

How can a joyful situation become marred you might wonder?  Easy, when you throw in conditions that should never have been placed there in the first place!  Envision throwing a party, and you have invited everyone you’d like to come but someone says to you, I can’t come unless I can bring so and so.  Or, I can’t come if you are serving such and such.  These things deflate the sense of joy, because it is no longer you the party thrower “controlling” your own party.  That is the same thing we do when we tell God, wait a minute, I need to look back and face my regrets, instead of saying, ok God, I’m there, no ifs, ands or buts.  It isn’t like we haven’t been given ample warning to get ourselves to the limo line.  Now’s the time to be speaking to those we love, to come join us!  God in His infinite wisdom will send the exact number of limos needed and not one more.

So you are cordially invited to attend God’s gala.  The time and date is of His choosing.  The place is heaven.  You have a split second to choose (unless you start making your choice now).  The function will be like nothing you imagined.  How do you RSVP?

Looking up!

Barb