Beloved Always

Nobody can prepare you for how you’re going to feel when transitions occur. Plenty of us talk about them and may even make plans for handling such changes but there’s no guidebook for how to handle the feelings that arise.

I once had a very noisy house full of boys and all of their friends, with two or more dogs, and I loved it. There were scratches and water spots on tables, spills on carpets, dings and gashes on doors left from rowdy plastic sword fights and thrown toys, and it didn’t matter. At that time I knew one day there would be peace and quiet and I might miss the mayhem. But I had no idea how lonely and depressed I would feel.

Add some aging and dying parents to that and you have a full welcome to your fifties!

I had an epiphany today. My recurring frustration with God has been that They(God) don’t do as good of a job at protecting their kids (us) as I think they should. We’re called to be like little children but then life is positively brutal.

I would never treat my kids like this. Tell them to be open and vulnerable and then allow tornadoes, floods, and predators to randomly attack. I’ve cried so many tears, yelling at God, why? Why do you leave us like this?

So I parented differently.

I played and sang and told stories and encouraged. I baked cookies and kept the house clean with good smells and comforting music. I tried to wrap my kids up in love and safety and joy and family like a cuddly blanket.

But somehow pain entered their hearts anyway. Somehow life hurt them and I was incapable of protecting them from its harsh blows. Today I felt comforted by Mother God, who knew all along I had set myself up for failure. Like a defiant teenager I had declared I could do it better than my Parents.

And I couldn’t.

I did not and could not protect my kids from pain.

And the lesson for me is, pain is the best teacher. We learn more through suffering than we could ever learn through safety. The people I love most on this earth are Mike and my boys, and love wants loved ones to learn and grow.

I guess that means God is right.

Life has to be painful for us to learn and grow…and They weep with us in our pain, They cheer for us in our learning, They love us every second, through it all.

Beloved.

That is my name.

That is your name.

No matter your choices, your scars, your pain, your successes, your joys…

Beloved yesterday, today, tomorrow.

Beloved always.

Sanctuary

I’m on the back screened in porch of our Beaver Lake, Arkansas house listening to cicadas and frogs as the light fades.

Daddy built this house in 1986 when I was 18. While searching for property that year he drove and drove until he came to the end of a peninsula and decided it must be his land. Luckily he found a reputable builder this time and that’s why I’m here on the screened in porch in 2022 writing of my love for this place.

Life is such a mysterious grab bag. For reference, when I was a little girl I went to a special fair at church that had mystery grab bags. I remember being so excited to buy one for a dollar and place my nervous sweaty hand in the brown paper bag to discover it’s contents. Unfortunately it was a disappointing mix of trinket toys and candy. Is that all life has to offer?

I choose to live in the nervous excitement I had as an eight year old with the mystery grab bag. God is so much bigger than that…so I’m going to continue to hope in God’s greatness. I choose to believe I have limited understanding yet there is eternal hope and redemption for all.

Rejoice! Rejoice! God loves all! GOD LOVES ALL!

Thank you God for the cicadas, the lake, and the hummingbirds. You remind me all is sacred and all is beloved. Therefore all is eternal.❤️ Dad made this house as a sanctuary for all who visited. Just like Quasimodo yelled “Sanctuary!” for Esmeralda in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I am in a sanctuary of peace to reset my heart and mind on what is right and important. We all need such a sanctuary.

Planks and Splinters

I’ve had a lot of years, even decades, filled with joy and life.

The past twelve months have been more about difficulties and death, such as finally losing my dad in February after a long battle with Alzheimer’s, almost losing Mike’s mom in the spring of ‘21, having her move in with us and now her passing on June 24, 2022, just a couple of weeks after taking her on her dream cruise to Alaska.

It’s been quite a year.

As I’ve been reflecting on death, I’ve been examining my own heart. I have heard a lot of Christians through the years talk about how fearful they are of their loved ones not going to heaven because they haven’t gone to church or prayed the sinner’s prayer.

I used to have that same fear, until I started scratching the surface of learning just how big God’s love is.

Knowing how much I love my own kids and grandkids, and that I would do anything, absolutely anything to ensure their safety and salvation, and then coming to the understanding that my love is a drop in a bucket compared to God’s ocean of love.

This week I’ve been asking myself, “Who do I really want in heaven?” And the answer made me realize I have a long way to go before I love like God loves.

How much time do we spend deciding who is worthy of salvation? Hitler is usually where most of us draw the line…surely you can’t torture and kill millions and still be forgiven! Yet as I get older and think more about my own expiration date, I remember Jesus’s words more often.

““Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

Matthew 7:1-2

Do I want to be judged according to how I judge? I better quit judging then! In fact, if I am to be more like Jesus, shouldn’t I want everyone, every one, to experience salvation? If I am holding even an ounce of hate in my heart for another, I am not loving like Jesus does. He who hung on a cross and begged, “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Do I always know what I’m doing and why? Will I want to try to justify my actions when I stand before God or will I fall to my knees weeping, or just simply run into his arms?

Back to the previous question, who do I really WANT in heaven? If the answer is anything but “everything and everyone,” I am not loving enough.

I am not loving like God loves.

So maybe I need to read the next few verses of Matthew 7 and make them my focus instead of worrying about anyone else’s salvation.

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

Matthew 7:3-5

Remember, if we feel afraid for our loved ones, fear is never of God. We must pray, for them and for ourselves. We must focus on loving ourselves and others better each day.

There will never come a day in this lifetime when I love as perfectly as God does…so that means the plank in my eye will always be there as I live and breathe, which means I will never have time to worry about someone else’s splinter!

Further Up and Further In

Sometimes we really are our own worst enemies. We lie to ourselves. We lower our expectations and tell ourselves it’s all we can hope for.

We fear discomfort and failure so we convince ourselves to stay comfortable within the confines of our four walls, only picking low hanging fruit for sustenance.

We keep ourselves from venturing out into the untamed wilderness, convinced that we wouldn’t enjoy the constant learning, pivoting, moving through new territories.

We subconsciously surround ourselves with people that are just a bit less creative, even less stable, in order to feel like the healthier ones and stay safe in our small constructed boxes. We feed our egos with over sugared dreams and fantasies instead of trudging through the murk and mire of the tedious and meticulous work it takes to really do something significant.

Until we tire of it all.

Until we wake up and realize life is short and days are numbered. Talent and intelligence fade with aging bodies and minds.

As the Ghost of Christmas Present says in A Christmas Carol, “There is never enough time to do or say all the things that we would wish. The thing is to try to do as much as you can in the time that you have. Remember Scrooge, time is short, and suddenly, you’re not there any more.”

Life is difficult.

Anything worth doing is hard.

Dipping a toe in the water will never teach us to swim. All in! It’s time to jump in! ALL IN!

In CS Lewis’s The Last Battle, there’s a chapter titled Further Up and Further In. It is the unicorn that sums up this experience of being in the new more real Narnia.

“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been look- ing for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that is sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee- hee! Come further up, come further in!”

He then shook his mane and sprang forward into a great gal- lop — a Unicorn’s gallop, which, in our world, would have carried him out of sight in a few moments. But now a

most strange thing happened. Everyone else began to run, and they found, to their astonishment, that they could keep up with him: not only the Dogs and the humans but even fat little Puzzle and short-legged Poggin the Dwarf. The air flew in their faces as if they were driving fast in a car without a windscreen. The country flew past as if they were seeing it from the windows of an express train. Faster and faster they raced, but no one got hot or tired or out of breath.

The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more.

I love that last line, “every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more.”

I believe it all means more.

More than what we pretend it does. More than what we accept for ourselves. More than half-heartedness or toe-dippings.

All in.

I don’t know what you’ve been lying to yourself about. I’m only beginning to know my own delusions, constructed to protect me from presumed failure and rejection. Lies.

And who is the author of lies? How sad that my very heart has listened and believed such deception. Anytime we hear the voice of condemnation that says “You are just a fraud, you are not of value, you have nothing to offer, you should settle for whatever comes your way”we must push beyond and demand more of ourselves, through blood sweat and tears to the place of our longing, deep within our hearts…

we are meant for more than this….

further up and further in.

A Mother’s Heart

Becoming a mother is invasive. Boundaries are crossed…a human being grows inside of you, siphoning off your nutrients and energy.

As a mother you begin to feel split between two bodies, your own and your baby’s. The birth is painful, messy, exhausting, dangerous, mysterious.

Where did this person come from?

Yes, yes logically we know the science of conception, but emotionally it is overwhelming and inconceivable. What was once two separate people has now become a third, forever binding the two.

And then the child grows toward autonomy…independence from parents.

Typically dads get this and are better at encouraging it…they didn’t go through the bodily transformation and shock of being a human incubator.

Moms struggle…”this is a part of my own flesh…this is my heart living and breathing outside of my body…pushing me away.”

How do we ever fully recover?

I’m 54 with three adult sons and I haven’t. I still grieve that they aren’t always with me. I still weep that I am no longer needed. I still feel my heart is living and breathing outside of my own body, in three different places, and my comfort is that this must be how God feels about us.

God is genderless or better yet, genderfull. God is both feminine and masculine…both mother and father. God has a womb where all is created and birthed out of and God has a mother’s heart.

God feels the pain of our leaving and our demand for independence. God allows us to grow and learn…even as it takes us away from Them.

God the Creator, the Spirit, the Son…They watch us run away from them and They weep, yet they hope.

I hope.

I will never fully get over being a mother. My boys are men but I still love them with a mother’s heart and that heart hurts when they leave, when they hurt, and it always longs for them. This is the way of things…and I’m thankful I have a God who fully understands my mother’s heart.

Grateful

Grateful. It’s March, not November, but my word in my spirit right now is grateful.

I lost my dad February 25, 2022 but I’m grateful he was my dad. I’m thankful I had him in my life 53 years, and that he finally was released from an Alzheimer’s ridden brain.

I’m grateful for my husband Mike who truly is the kindest most honorable person I’ve ever known. He tries to do the right thing in every situation, even to a fault.

I’m thankful for restored relationships. Sometimes we go through seasons of discourse and distance with people we love and it only makes the restoration sweeter! What joy!

I’m grateful for my mom…she makes 82 look beautiful and timeless. I’m thankful we are friends….she truly is one of my most cherished friends and I am so thankful for her health and sharp mind!

I’m grateful for my friends…strong deep intelligent women who inspire and encourage me to be my best self.

I’m grateful for my boys who are now men. My three sons…so incredibly different from each other yet cut from the same cloth of love, loyalty, honesty, integrity, persistence, empathy, intelligence, rationality, and consistency. I have loved you since your conception, but now respect you as individuals who are teaching me as much if not more than I ever taught you.

I’m grateful for my grandCHILDREN!!!

I’m grateful for my job. I get to teach music….my love….to elementary children…my other love. How lucky am I to teach my favorite thing to my favorite people? Wow.

I’m grateful for the music that streams through me. I’m thankful I get to hear the universe’s strumming and occasionally write it down as my “original” composition. I’m thankful Jamey Ray and Excelcia Music Publishing saw the value of one of my songs.

I’m grateful for labradors. Especially mine.

I’m thankful for you reading this post. Who am I that you would take the time to read my musings? I’m am humbled by your attention.

I’m grateful for hope. That somehow through all the pain and despair of this mortal life we find meaning and purpose, and hope. Hope is enough.

It’s a day of gratitude for me. Oh may every day be one of such gratitude.

“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Shadow

I started this blog in April of 2017 in order to write down some of my favorite memories of my dad and to help me process losing him to Alzheimer’s.

On February 25th 2022 at 3:04 am, daddy finally left his earthly body. I’ve wanted him to be released from here for so many years that I didn’t really think about how much I would grieve when he finally was gone. The pain hits me right through my core and I can’t explain how deep it hurts. He was my hero.

I’m so glad he’s not hurting or confused any longer. I believe he still exists, that somehow he is with YHWH, though I can’t see or hear him.

I hope.

I hope in my God of love and redemption, my God of miracles and healing. I hope for a reunion of great joy when my faith is reality. I’m so thankful for CS Lewis’s creative ideas concerning heaven expressed in his book The Great Divorce. It’s hard to imagine heaven as anything but cloudy haze as my reality is living day to day in this physical world, yet Lewis entertains our bodies there will be more real, more solid. Even every blade of heavenly grass is so solid and so real, it hurts the feet of one who is from the earthly world, they can barely walk on it. Ah what an incredible concept! To think that what we know in the here and now is truly just a shadow of what is to come, that is a lovely thought! As the narrator is taken on a tour of both heaven and hell, he is told by his guide, Scottish author and Christian minister, George MacDonald,

“Son, ye cannot in your present state understand eternity…That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, “No future bliss can make up for it,” not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say “Let me have but this and I’ll take the consequences”: little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man’s past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man’s past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why…the Blessed will say “We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven, : and the Lost, “We were always in Hell.” And both will speak truly.

There is nothing normal about death. We try to make it so, because it has always been and it is our destiny, yet to experience it seem ludicrous. My dad who protected me, who loved me, who seemed invincible, the same dad whose lap I crawled up in when I was scared of the abominable snow monster in the stop motion Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, is now buried in the ground lifeless cold and decomposing.

That’s not normal. That’s not even ok. Yet we make casseroles and gather and tell stories and try to accept it for what it is. I don’t have any answers. I only have hope. And that has to be enough. But the grief that I feel over the past 15 years of Alzheimer’s and now the death of my dad, that grief can’t be consoled in this lifetime. We are told to become like little children (Matthew 18:3) yet who would ever treat a child like this? But I’ll trust God anyway because I’d rather do that than be an atheist. I hope God has things under control and that our lives now are just a shadow of what is to come.

“These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.”
‭‭Colossians‬ ‭2:17‬

Joy to the World

As I grow older, my comprehension of God grows bigger. As a child I thought God was very human like…easy to anger, someone I needed to please by treading lightly and carefully following instructions.

It saddens me how many denominations and religions hold by this teaching. I have a 2nd grade student who isn’t allowed to sing Happy Birthday to any of our students because it’s a sin to celebrate people. How sad to be taught that God doesn’t celebrate children! God loves us and celebrates over us! The Great I Am delights in us and wants us to have joy! “The Lord your God is with you; the mighty One will save you. He will rejoice over you. You will rest in his love; he will sing and be joyful about you.””
‭‭Zephaniah‬ ‭3:17‬ ‭NCV‬‬

To live with such legalism feels like the chains that were wrapped around Jacob Marley’s ghost in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. We forge our own chains…God doesn’t. In fact, God breaks us free of such bondage when we accept the grace freely given. The key is acceptance. We have a choice to continue to follow a God in our image, one of judgment, rage, condemnation, legalism, and joylessness, or accept the love, grace, freedom, and joy the Great I Am offers us. A God so great my finite mind cannot comprehend, a Love so all encompassing I cannot fathom, a Grace so real it hurts…piercing my very heart and soul and flooding my eyes with tears.

Yes the older I get, the bigger God’s love, the greater God’s mercy, this is the Universal Christ, who was for a moment contained in the form of a vulnerable newborn baby, born to declare God’s great love for all the world.

“Joy to the world, the Lord is come, let earth receive Her king! Let every heart prepare Him room! And heaven and nature sing!”

The Least of These

No matter who you are or how great your parents were, at some point you were somehow traumatized or compromised as a child and it still affects how you perceive yourself and the world around you.

From the moment of your birth, there is no escaping trauma in the human life. Birth itself is traumatic for both baby and mama, no matter how many Lamaze classes were attended.

Many of us who grew up in loving homes may even cringe at the word trauma. Just hearing the phrase childhood trauma can send us into nervous laughter, downplaying any negative experiences we had growing up. This comes again from our dualistic, either/or mentality. “If I had a good childhood there can’t be any bad memories” or “my parents loved me so what do I have to complain about.”

My friends, you and I had both good and bad experiences growing up in our families, and one doesn’t negate the other. We can acknowledge the failures and the brokenness as we also acknowledge the triumphs and joy.

This is more painful for me to admit as a mother than as a child. I can readily find the shortcomings of my own parents and still love and admire them, but knowing my own three adult sons are recognizing my parenting flops that actually hurt their inner spirits kills me inside. My heart aches. I wanted to be perfect for them. I remember holding each of them for the very first time and thinking they were clean slates…more perfect than they would ever be again. And I contributed to their lifelong pain…their trauma. It’s enough to send us to therapy…I hope!😊

There is no escaping the human condition. No matter how much we read, study, philosophize, pray, etc. we are making mistakes relationally, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, as well as physically. Our intentions can be as amazing as Mother Theresa’s and we will still fail those we love, including ourselves. Perfection is not an option. Trauma is inevitable.

So when we finally come to terms with our imperfections what do we do with this awareness? Consciousness, not perfection is the goal. The only way for our trauma to become useful is through recognition, acknowledgement, acceptance, and humility.

Cry cry cry! Cry over your brokenness…when you were five and your dad said to quit crying because tears were for babies, or when you were seven, got lost in the grocery store and thought your parents had forgotten you existed. We laugh about such things now without giving full reverence to the fear and abandonment our child-self experienced. That’s trauma. And these are just two very common examples. Some of you have had some incredibly uncommon ones but have been downplaying them and laughing over them to avoid the grief they deserve.

Authentic adulting is about seeking the truth and accepting it no matter how much it hurts and learning how to heal. Healing is a lifelong process, and I personally think, it’s the reason there is no such thing as perfection. Pain and discomfort force us to grow. Vulnerability teaches us empathy.

As much as I struggle with understanding how a loving God allows such trauma and tragedy to happen, I must reluctantly admit my own personal growth has always happened in the dark times, when I felt uncertain, when I was filled with questions, and faced my own fears. Pain has its purpose in our lives, and it’s a good thing it does because we can’t escape it. It is synonymous with living, and being, and loving, and learning. So the sooner we accept it’s presence from birth on, the sooner we will ask the questions needed for growing and feel the sorrow needed for healing.

As CS Lewis wrote in The Problem of Pain, “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

Our trauma is a part of our unique selves. Our experiences and how we’ve learned through them help us reach out to others who are suffering. But we must stop denying the existence of our pain. Your inner child needs your adult self to acknowledge the grief and brokenness within. My inner child needs me to hold her broken heart and cry with her. No matter how old we are, we are God’s beloved children, and our childlike hearts need hope, love, understanding, and grace from ourselves. Be the parent to yourself you wanted as a child. Treat yourself as the “least of these,” the youngest, weakest, most defenseless in our midst, and show yourself the compassion and forgiveness you have never dared to dream of.

Lesson from a Hummingbird

I’ve been writing songs since I was in elementary school, but I hadn’t actually notated any of them in composition form until my quarantine last January. For years I felt grateful to have even been channeled by the Spirit to create original pieces, but I thought my work was done with the creation and someone else who was skilled at notation would surely love to spend hours notating my music.

Ha!

I even tried to pay a few people but nothing ever came to fruition. When Mike was diagnosed with Covid last January, I of course had to be quarantined as well. What better time to teach myself Finale? I notated five of my children’s choir pieces in 10 days and began submitting them to publishers.

I received my first form letter rejection in February, with three others to follow in the next month. I revised my songs and sent them to other publishers and received my first personal rejection in June from a prominent publisher, which was refreshing after having received several form letters. He said they weren’t really accepting any new pieces because Covid had set them over a year behind schedule and that I should double check the legality of using the title “I Have A Dream” because of MLK’s famous speech(there are several songs with the same title so I’m good👍). I thanked him and nervously decided to boldly ask if there were any smaller publishers he would recommend. He actually responded and gave me a name. It definitely pays to ask questions.

I submitted my piece to the suggested publisher and received a personal email from the choral editor within a week, asking if I would be open to dropping the piece down a bit and making the range more suitable for elementary voices. I enthusiastically replied yes and immediately revised the song. We corresponded several times and I was elated! A frenzied excitement took over and I forgot to proofread my email before pressing send. I realized I had several grammatical errors and was mortified! This sent me on a shame spiral so I tried to control the outcome and emailed several more times in a week, even sending another recording of the revised version…trying desperately to overachieve and win back my imagined loss. I received a short email stating my recording was not necessary as the finale file was sufficient. I cried. I just knew my neurotic emails had ruined my chances. I waited two weeks and had a friend help me write a professional email inquiry. Still nothing…for over five weeks. I cried several times feeling so ashamed of my frantic and neurotic behavior. It’s prevented many good things in my life from happening…over-zealousness in job interviews, over-communicating my thoughts and feelings, over-dramatizing issues, over-the-top me!

I’m always too much or not enough. I almost always feel like my nose is pressed against the glass, looking in at successful amazing people enjoying their lives together while I’m in a blizzard outside watching the warmth they share by the blazing fire. Most of the time I withdraw and try to live my small little life without disturbing anyone too much, afraid of conflict and rejection, but give me an ounce of hope for a dream coming true and I can become obnoxiously persistent, yes even manic. And my maniacal approach to ringing the doorbell, jostling the handle and pounding loudly often makes people close the blinds and pretend they’re not home. Yes, too much or not enough…sigh.

For some reason I have felt God wants me to learn how to wait. Like there’s a huge lesson in being patient and still, and not reacting (or overreacting) too quickly. 😬 No wonder I love working with elementary students…I really identify with them on many issues, especially the torture of being still and waiting.

Hence we come to the hummingbird part of the story. I’m sure you’ve been wondering when I would get to it!

Mike and I are spending time at the fam house on the Lake for the Labor Day weekend and we got in late last night. I woke up at 5:45 and decided to get up to watch the sunrise and pray in a rocking chair on the screened in porch. I found the doors to the outside were unlatched and had been blowing open and shut, and two hummingbirds had been trapped inside. One had tragically died and the other was exhausted, sitting very still on the top of the porch swing, so still for so long that I thought it had died just sitting there, until suddenly it began frantically trying to escape again. It kept flying too high, hitting the windows and the screen, though I opened both doors wide and tried to shoo it out. I then decided to try to communicate by whistling like a bird as I attempted to coax it to land on a fly swatter, but for some reason, he just didn’t trust me. He continued to maniacally fly too high, hitting his beak on the glass of the windows.

This is the moment I realized I’m very much like this particular hummingbird, as the story above shows. I knew I had to help him in order to help myself. Luckily my grandsons had left two little butterfly nets in a corner so I used both of them to gently catch and release him through the open door. He just couldn’t find it by himself because he was trying too hard.

That’s what anxiety and fear do to us. We end up fluttering our wings, trying to make others love and accept us, when we don’t even love and accept ourselves. I sat down and cried, thanking God for the hummingbird and his lesson.

Just a few days ago, after I had given up trying to control the outcome of my submitted song though I kept praying daily for its success, I received an email from the editor that I needed to review it as it was going to the engraver in a few days. I didn’t scare him away! My song so appropriately titled I Have A Dream will be published in 2022.

Waiting is difficult, sometimes it feels impossible. That nagging thought of “maybe I can do something or jump through enough hoops, I’ll make it happen” eats me alive and pushes me to sometimes ridiculous behavior, like the hummingbird flying too high when the open door was just below him. Thank you God for the lesson from a hummingbird.