by jphilo | Oct 11, 2010 | Walking Down the Gravel Road
For the past two weeks, we’ve been wallowing in a glorious Indian summer, the longest and warmest in years. Not only a prolonged warm stretch, but a dry stretch as well, the first since early June. We’ve been making up time lost to the summer’s rain and floods – grilling every chance we get, turning off the furnace, opening the windows, working in the yard.
And I’ve been walking a new route in the mornings, going farther than usual on these mild October mornings, exploring paths inaccessible much of the year because of heat, wind, rain or snow. In this brief window of perfect weather, with the horizon a golden halo of trees, I push past the comfort of normal routine. I push the limits of my body and the limits of time available to spend. I store up time outdoors on these last warm days before cold weather hits.
Most mornings deer greet me, where their path to water crosses the walking path. They eye me nervously. So I freeze, pull out my camera, snap away, then inch forward one slow step after another, snapping pictures until the deer turn tail and run. Down the steep bank they fly, to the water at the bottom of a steep ravine. I marvel at their sure-footedness, their grace and beauty, the brilliantly colored trees surrounding them, the music of the rushing water where they drink. I shiver in the chill air as dawn walks beside me.
If I could choose one moment for time to stand still, this would be the one.
An Indian summer morning. A blessing from God.
by jphilo | Sep 1, 2010 | Daily Life
I didn’t think yesterday would be a wonderful, marvelous, way cool, very good day. Not when the day began with me nervously eyeing the check engine light and praying the car wouldn’t break down on the way to the car dealership.
I was sure it wouldn’t be a wonderful, marvelous, way cool, very good day when the spiffy service technician said it would cost $125 to hook the car up to the machine and detect the problem before they called to tell me how much more it would cost to fix it. But, I had decided ahead of time this was an opportunity to trust God’s provision, even though two weddings in three months pretty much drained our savings account. So I didn’t loose control and snip at the spiffy service technician. Instead, I smiled and said, “Call me on my cell phone.”
I ate breakfast at my favorite coffee shop, savoring the luxury of the perfectly brewed, hot and bitter java. Then, I drove the loaner car to a shady neighborhood where I parked and finished my morning walk. It was too warm and muggy to be a wonderful, marvelous, way cool, very good day so when the phone rang and the service technician started talking, I braced for the worst. “Good news,” he said. “We diagnosed the problem and it’s covered under your warranty. No charge.”
Suddenly it was a wonderful day.
I picked up the car and headed home where I read my email. One was from a mom who’d found my book. She loved it so much, she bought ten copies for friends of kids with special needs. She wants to purchase forty more for a conference in May and is considering me as a speaker. The second was final confirmation for an interview with an author whose expertise will enhance my new book.
Now it was a wonderful, marvelous day.
After lunch I walked to the mailbox and pulled out two substantial checks. Then I had a phone interview with a former NICU nurse who is now the mom of a child with special needs. Her perspective will be invaluable resource for the work in progress. After that, the head chaplain at the University of Minnesota Children’s Hospital returned my phone call from last week. We scheduled an interview and he referred me to an expert in palliative care for children.
My day became wonderful, marvelous and way cool.
After supper, Hiram and I watched the DVD of the premier movie that led to the TV show, Monk, whose protagonist was a brilliant, obsessive compulsive detective. I couldn’t stop laughing.
What a way to end my wonderful, marvelous, way cool, very good day.
Not many days are like yesterday. But once in awhile God grants showers of blessings, not because I deserve them, but because he loves me, because he wants us to remember he is with us always. So on my next terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days – or on the next boring day when all I do is spin my wheels – when I can’t feel God’s presence and want to give up, I will think of August 31, 2010.
That memory will be the evidence of things unseen, the knot at the end of my rope, the hand that holds me – the hand of my wonderful, marvelous, way cool, very good God.
by jphilo | Feb 12, 2010 | Family
I take so many things in life for granted: a warm home, a loving husband, more food than I need, education and job skills, freedom to travel, vacations, a functioning government, friends who stand by me, and the ability to pay our bills each month. These privileges are so commonplace I treat them as my due goes on and on.
But each time my children call, I’m reminded of a double privilege my husband and I never want to take for granted. We count it a blessing when they call, their voices full of confidence in our love for them, eager to talk about the events of the past week and dreams for the future. The blessing multiplies when they ask for our advice, consider our words seriously, and heed what we say.
I never dreamed of such a relationship with my adult children after growing up in the sixties watching the hippies and flower children denigrate and scoff the “establishment.” A bit young to participate in the rebellion, a bit of the ‘60s attitude managed to rub off on me. My parents’ advice was considered suspect until after our son was born, and we needed all the help we could get to survive his first five years.
So we never expected our children would value our advice before they became parents. And during Allen’s monastery years, we lost our easy relationship with him and believed it was gone forever. God has blessed our family with restoration. We deserve this blessing no more than any other family. I fight back tears when our children, overwhelmed by the sweetness of God’s grace, acutely aware of families broken by strife, crippled by rebellion. I restrain the tears until after the good-byes and I love yous.
Then I let them flow as I pray, “Please God, make me mindful of your blessings. Don’t let me ever take them for granted.”
by jphilo | Nov 16, 2009 | Family
After several weeks of travel and book promotion, I enjoyed a weekend at home. Not a lazy weekend, though. This one was jam-packed with so many simple sweet pleasures, I’m still on an emotional high. Here’s a brief rundown:
- A weekend visit with Anne and her boyfriend.
- A Saturday night supper with them, Hiram, and five of Anne’s college-aged cousins (part of the gang that was with us for Labor Day weekend), all hungry for home cooking.
- A game of Pictionary Telephone after supper that had us laughing until we cried and our abs were aching.
- A quick phone visit with our son. He’s been out of the monastery for almost a year, but I’m still filled with wonder and gratitude everytime we chat.
- Two walks, complete with sunny skies and the company of my husband.
But the most unexpected happiness came during Sunday morning worship, when I sat beside the most delightful five-year-old boy. He showed me the new hole in his sock. “I don’t know how it happened,” he confided.
I told him I have the same problem with my socks, and before long, we had bonded. Pretty soon he was sitting on my lap, and when we stood to sing, he hugged my leg. Then somehow, I was holding him, his skinny arms wrapped tight around my neck. I sang and he swayed to the music, both of us giving and receiving more than we expected.
In my younger days, I would have dismissed the moment, and all the delights of the weekend, as ordinary, hardly worthy to be remembered. But now I’m old enough to recognize how precious and rare are such sweet and simple expressions of love.
And I’m old enough to respond to a weekend overflowing with such lovely moments in as I should have all along: with a prayer of thanks, a grateful and humble heart, and an eye trained to watch for and recognize God’s grace in life’s sweet and simple pleasures.
by jphilo | Sep 28, 2009 | Daily Life
For the past month I’ve been in denial about the end of summer and the arrival of fall. But today I can deny it no longer. Over the weekend, the leaves went from green to gold. Overnight the air went from warm to chilly, the breeze from soft to harsh.
In years past, my lips nearly tripped over themselves as a litany of weather complaints tumbled from my lips. But on this fall day, they won’t. How can I complain about the weather in light of what God has done?
Last fall at this time, we were moving my mother from her home to my brother’s, worried about her health, watching her retirement savings take a hit, wondering if her house would sell in a recession economy. This fall, her health and happiness are greatly improved, her retirement income is secure, and her house is sold.
Last fall, when Hiram and I went to Minneapolis for the annual Desiring God Conference, our son was a monk, wrestling with unnamed, untreated PTSD, thinking he was going crazy. This past weekend, we went to the conference as usual. But we skipped an afternoon session so we could celebrate our nephew’s birthday with our whole, healthy and definitely not crazy son, his fiance, and several other family members at my sister’s house.
Last fall, much of A Different Dream for My Child was still in my head, and with all the responsibilities accompanying Mom’s situation, I wondered if it would be written before the publisher’s deadline came and went. This fall, it’s published and being used by God to minister to hurting parents.
Last fall, I would have been complaining about the weather on a day like this. But God has shown me how he takes what is hard, what is painful, what seems cruel, what seems wrong, and uses it for good.
So this fall, I watch with hope when the wind blows and the cold comes. I expect great things. Instead of complaining, I whisper a prayer. Bless hurting families on as you’ve blessed us. Show them how to trust you in bad weather and in good. Amen.
