by jphilo | May 23, 2024 | Family
The sad and glad of Memorial Day is pressing on my heart this year as never before. The mix of emotions is due the passing of the people in the picture above.
Aunt Donna died in September of 2022.
Mom died in June of 2023.
Uncle Jim died in October of 2023.
This Memorial Day we will be honoring these strong, hard-working, exasperating people who loved their family above all else in this world. Our memories of them will not be enough to fill the holes riddling our hearts in the aftermath of their passing. Yet those memories and the emotions accompanying them are their legacy to their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. And so this Memorial Day…
We’re sad to be without them.
We’re glad they and my dad are together again.
We’re sad they can’t enjoy bouquets of irises and peonies this spring.
We’re glad they taught their children to love and grow them.
I’m sad they will never read the the 5th book in my mystery series, in which characters based on them are prominently featured.
I’m glad for the rich fodder of adventures they took us on that make writing their scenes glorious and funny and joyful.
I’m sad knowing we will never visit and reminisce and eat together again.
I’m glad to have talked with each of them in the months before they died.
We’re sad. I’m sad.
We’re glad. I’m glad.
Above all, we are blessed to have been loved by them and to love them in return.
by jphilo | Jul 22, 2021 | Different Dream, How-Tos
Discovering the Gift of Simple Moments: Ways to Create Special Family Memories
Discovering the gift of simple moments while raising kids with special needs requires a new set of eyes. Kristin Faith Evans is learning to capture those moments and share them with her family. She explains how she does it in this post.
“What dat?”
“Fireflies, Honey. It’s fireflies!”
My ten-year-old daughter, Bethany Grace, and I were swinging on the front porch. Lightning bugs began to dance around the yard. I marveled at her anticipation for the next one to flash. Then the next. Every time, her face lit up like the glow from the bug, and so did mine. We had never really stopped to just sit and watch fireflies before.
We created this special memory in the Summer of 2020, when the Covid pandemic taught our family even more about the gift of enjoying simple moments together. Both of my children live with rare genetic disorders and complex medical conditions. So, going into isolation was not even a question for our family.
We began to create a fun backyard adapted to Bethany Grace’s abilities. We repaired the playset, added a firepit and furniture, installed a small above-ground pool, and planted a garden. We even placed chairs and a swing on our front porch. We spent more time playing outside together in the following four months than we had in the past seven years combined.
Discovering the Gift of Simple Moments by Living in the Present
I often find myself worrying about Bethany Grace’s future and grieving the loss of a typical family life. She was born with a severe chromosomal disorder called Cri du Chat Syndrome which causes significant intellectual disabilities, developmental delays, and medical fragility. Due to frequent medical emergencies, we do not know how much longer we will have to spend with her. And I will never experience those big moments—planning her wedding or witnessing her baby’s birth. But I have realized that living in future worry and sadness pulls me away from enjoying my family today. I have discovered that the little present moments are what really create deep meaning and purpose in my life.
Discovering the Gift of Simple Moments by Creating Opportunities
Intentionally slowing down and living in the present can help us discover ways to enjoy simple moments together. Here are some ideas for creating special family memories (adapt according to your family’s needs):
- Plan fun theme meals
- Hold little celebrations
- Sit on the porch
- Have a picnic in the yard or living room
- Play a game at dinner
- Watch a movie on the floor with blankets and pillows
- Cook a meal at the table (fondue, pancakes on an electric griddle, etc.)
- Go for a walk
- Build a fire pit
- Plant a garden
- Gaze at the stars
- Watch fireflies
- Look for glimpses of God’s beauty
Those fireflies glowed for only a brief moment in time; but that memory we made together will last forever. Simply stopping to swing on the porch together created the opportunity for us to experience that magical moment.
What ideas do you have that could help other families create a space for discovering the gift of simple moments and special family memories?
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Kristin lives with her husband, Todd, and their two children in the Nashville, TN area. As an author and mental health therapist, her greatest passion is walking with others on their journey to deeper emotional, psychological, and spiritual wholeness. As both her children have rare genetic disorders, Kristin especially loves supporting other parents of children with special needs. She hopes that you may find encouragement and support through her two websites and blogs, www.KristinFaithEvans.com and www.SpecialNeedsMomsBlog.com.
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by jphilo | Dec 14, 2016 | Different Dream, Encouragement, Spiritual Support
Downsizing for Christmas
When my husband and I bought the old farmhouse we’ve lived in for 25 years, we were charmed by its ample storage space. But now that we’re downsizing and moving, the treasures and mementos accumulated in the attic, the closets, the built-in bookshelves, and the basement storage rooms seem much less charming. We are now on a first name basis with landfill crew and the staff at Good Will. Our dinner conversations consist of the following: Do we need to keep this broken guitar strap your mom gave it to you in 1987? Hmmm, I thought I threw away my college textbooks years ago. Now that the kids are 34 and 28, it’s time to toss their Awana Grand Prix cars, their vests and uniforms, badges, books, and trophies.
Letting go of some things was easy. But saying good-bye to my kids’ baby things was hard. You haven’t looked at these things in years, I reminded myself as I struggled to throw away the moth-eaten Santa hat my son wore on his first Christmas and the bundle of yellowed cards sent by friends and family after our daughter’s birth.
The morning after a particularly brutal day of downsizing, packing, and unsuccessful attempts to toss the Santa hat and baby cards, I read the Christmas story in Matthew. The account of the Magi throwing a baby shower for the Christ Child unleashed a floodgate of questions. How long did Mary hang on to the gold and frankincense and myrrh? Where did she keep them? Did she and Joseph haul everything to Egypt and back? Did the gold cover their travel expenses? Did Mary struggle when she had to downsize?
Scripture doesn’t answer those questions. The gifts of the Magi are never mentioned again though Luke 2:19 says that Mary treasured and pondered in her heart the events surrounding her first child’s birth. And we can assume that Mary passed along the story of Jesus’ birth to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John who recorded them in their gospels.
Mary’s memories are precious jewels to all who follow Christ. For over two thousand years, her story of the birth of the Son of God has been the centerpiece of Christmas. The gifts of the Magi are long gone. The earthly dwellings that once housed the Joseph, Mary, the shepherds, the Magi, and even Jesus are gone. But Mary’s story remains as clear as the stars and as fresh as the night air surrounding the angels who proclaimed about her Son’s birth. And His eternal Spirit dwells within all who call Him Savior.
I slipped my Bible into the place it has occupied on one of the built-in bookshelf for 25 years. Then I went to the attic and gently put the hat and the baby cards, broken toys and a stained Easter bonnet, and the moldering detritus of my children’s growing up years in a plastic bag. I tossed the bag on the pile where it waited for a ride to the landfill.
I prayed for my children and their children as I walked back to the house. May the memories we created and the love we’ve shared be clear and fresh in their hearts long after we are gone. May they ponder and embrace Mary’s stories of her Son this and every Christmas. May the living Spirit of Jesus fill their hearts with joy and truth and purpose forever more. Amen.
Do you like what you see at DifferentDream.com? You can receive more great content by subscribing to the quarterly Different Dream newsletter and signing up for the daily RSS feed delivered to your email inbox. You can sign up for the first in the pop up box and the second at the bottom of this page.
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by jphilo | Jun 6, 2016 | Church Newsletter Columns
But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.
Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God,
for he has prepared for them a city.
Hebrews 11:16
Last week I visited the town where I grew up and stopped by many of my childhood haunts. The street where our family lived. The empty lot where neighborhood kids played croquet. The elementary and high school. My aunt and uncle’s home. Our church. Each place in its place, yet changed in ways that created a yearning in my heart for what is no more.
The same yearning appears each time I work on my mystery novel set in a fictional South Dakota town much like the one where my husband and I lived in the late 70s and early 80s. My heart rejoices while recreating the place and the people. I revel in the sense of being with the old friends, some still living and some dead, made during the years we lived there. But eventually, the phone rings or the clock says it’s time to fix supper, and I must inhabit the present. Each returning is accompanied by a yearning for what is past.
Even in the town where we have lived for 30 years, the longing pulls at my heart. When I pass the block where the school I taught once stood. When I hear of friends, students, or teaching colleagues who have died. When fellow believers who are part of my life and support system move on or move away. When what I hoped would come to pass doesn’t and a lesser thing takes its place.
In The Weight of Glory, C. L. Lewis puts this yearning in its proper context. “In speaking of this desire for our own far off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency….These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”
This God-given longing, Lewis says, either points us to our eternal home or becomes an idol that eventually breaks our hearts when the idols betray them or lose their allure. Only God offers the eternity we desire because he is the one who placed the longing for it in our hearts. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
With each loss experienced and each idol discarded, the yearning grow inside us and our sense of displacement swells. We feel increasingly fractured. But we also feel increasingly hopeful. Because we begin to realize that our internal longing points to our eternal home. As the bonds to this world loosen and eternity beckons, we pray ever more fervently and ever more frequently. How long, O God, until you make me whole? How long until you call me home?
Once this prayer of the heart is uttered, in the power of the risen Christ, we return to the kingdom work he has for us on this earth until he answers our prayers and takes us home.
by jphilo | Mar 29, 2016 | Top Ten Tuesday
The Man of Steel and I cleaned the attic on Saturday. We found too many treasures to mention, but here are my top ten.
10. My 4-H record book, circa 1966–1973.
9. The Man of Steel’s marbles, which he thought he’d lost years ago.
8. Several high school play scripts and the dog dishes from when I played Snoopy in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.
7. The dance marathon trophy won by the Man of Steel in college. He also won a trip to Kansas City and Worlds of Fun. Guess where we went for our honeymoon?
6. A 39-year-old disintegrated wedding bouquet.
5. The journal I kept the first few months we lived in Camp Crook in 1978. Perfect timing as I work on the second novel in my mystery series.
4. 1 wooden block from a 1980s era Fischer Price block set (the kind that came in the little wheeled cart with the pull string) given to Allen when he was a baby. Where in the world is the rest of the set?
3. A little pillow bearing my son’s 4-year-old hand print. It made me cry.
2. A bin filled with my daughter’s old dance costumes. They made me cry.
1. Crumbling mementos in dusty cardboard boxes that are reminders of adventures shared with friends and family, who are priceless treasures that make life worth living.
What surprises did you find while spring cleaning? Leave a comment.
