I am mesmerized by fall.
Its unintentional decadence
Capturing my attention,
Gently cradling my cheek lest
Inattention to splendor
make the spectacular mundane
Each falling leaf
a reminder of the blazing glory
of dying
Rebirth a certainty,
Only a season away.
Isn't the greater thing
to revel in this momentary beauty?
Each golden moment
made precious
as the awareness of ending
whispers its sure promise
light as crystalline sparkles
on the morning blades of grass.
10.30.2009
10.05.2009
It may be ambitious to start this tonight, but we'll give it a start and see how it goes. I did enjoy my summer 30, which never got updated in the mess, stress and blessings of the end of the summer, and I do love a plan..so without further ado: The Fall Fifteen!
1. Exercise: COME ON! You knew I was going to say it. 3x a week and strolling to the end of the road with the dog don't count! (Dare I attempt the C25K as I have planned so many times before?)
2. Organizational Plans: Shopping list (because I can't go to the store more than once or so a week), Menu planning (again because of the store thing), house cleaning plan (because there's too darn much house to finish in a day!), Home school plans done at least a week in advance, preferably a month over view ready one month in advance. Moving and homeschooling- it's an adventure. Christmas gift ideas list.
3. Re-start drawing again. I have so lapsed. I miss it. I do.
4. Find 5 fun places to go and DO things around Milledgeville (we've already found the "small", Grits and the arboretum )
5. DUDE, get control of these insane sleep patterns I have going on. It's like a curse. OY!
6. Learn to purl. I am the knitting queen, but the knit stitch only gets you so far. Also, I need to learn to read knit-ese because straight lines back and forth also only get you so far.
7. READ! creepy books for Oct.; Travel books for November; comfort reads/ brain candy for December - let's go for one a week.
8. Try 5 new recipes.
9. Stay on track with personal Disciple Readings and finish the New Testament Challenge
10. Organize the storage room, make sure everything that SHOULD be unpacked, gets unpacked and put away.
11. Pictures, pictures, pictures. Take them...and share them.
12. Get all the files, ebooks and bookmarks organized on laptop. Life would be smoother if I could find things faster!
13. Try some sewing with the girls.
14. Prayer journaling, regularly.
15. Blog/ write regularly (4X/ wk at least)
And there you have it. It isn't titillating. It doesn't tickle the fancy. It barely merits a weak "hurrah." But it's mine, and it will keep me on track through the holidays. If I can start the new year with a grasp (however tenuous) on sanity, then it's all worth it!
1. Exercise: COME ON! You knew I was going to say it. 3x a week and strolling to the end of the road with the dog don't count! (Dare I attempt the C25K as I have planned so many times before?)
2. Organizational Plans: Shopping list (because I can't go to the store more than once or so a week), Menu planning (again because of the store thing), house cleaning plan (because there's too darn much house to finish in a day!), Home school plans done at least a week in advance, preferably a month over view ready one month in advance. Moving and homeschooling- it's an adventure. Christmas gift ideas list.
3. Re-start drawing again. I have so lapsed. I miss it. I do.
4. Find 5 fun places to go and DO things around Milledgeville (we've already found the "small", Grits and the arboretum )
5. DUDE, get control of these insane sleep patterns I have going on. It's like a curse. OY!
6. Learn to purl. I am the knitting queen, but the knit stitch only gets you so far. Also, I need to learn to read knit-ese because straight lines back and forth also only get you so far.
7. READ! creepy books for Oct.; Travel books for November; comfort reads/ brain candy for December - let's go for one a week.
8. Try 5 new recipes.
9. Stay on track with personal Disciple Readings and finish the New Testament Challenge
10. Organize the storage room, make sure everything that SHOULD be unpacked, gets unpacked and put away.
11. Pictures, pictures, pictures. Take them...and share them.
12. Get all the files, ebooks and bookmarks organized on laptop. Life would be smoother if I could find things faster!
13. Try some sewing with the girls.
14. Prayer journaling, regularly.
15. Blog/ write regularly (4X/ wk at least)
And there you have it. It isn't titillating. It doesn't tickle the fancy. It barely merits a weak "hurrah." But it's mine, and it will keep me on track through the holidays. If I can start the new year with a grasp (however tenuous) on sanity, then it's all worth it!
10.04.2009
What'll I do?
Hunky used to sing a little song to me on occasion and it has stuck in my head ever since: What'll I do when you are far away and I am blue? What'll I do?
I think I've asked this question an infinite number of times in the last forty or so days. I'm at the point now where I either have to start drowning in bitterness or start moving on, so this is my one and only blog talking about the pain of the situation and then it's time to move on. To begin with, being fired sucks. There are no two ways about it, and it puts a kind of financial and emotional stress on an individual and family that are unparalleled. And yet, I would venture to say that being fired is only a portion of the pain of being fired, and then completely excommunicated and then erased from a place where you have spent almost half your life investing. All of our closest friendships, all of our deepest loves, all of everything we have built and created and supported and used as support...gone. Not a hint of warning, not a chance of reconciliation, not a moment of understanding...gone. In one afternoon.
What'll I do?
Anyone who has known me long has known that I have been through some messes in my life; cancer, death, catastrophe. I am familiar with them all. But nothing, not one thing in my life holds a candle to kind of pain, the depth of betrayal and need for vengeance that have at times utterly overwhelmed me of late. I'm not saying these are right responses, but when nothing about the situation is pretty, you can be certain that many of my initial responses aren't going to be very pretty either.
What'll I do?
Try explaining to your children: no, you can't go to co-op. No there are no friends you can call. No we can't visit them before we move 400 miles away. No, you didn't do anything wrong, but you will bear the brunt of some sort of punishment that isn't Godly or God honoring from people whom have always been lifted up to you as examples of Christian leaders. People who have greeted you with smiles and hugs and kind caring concern. But remember, you should trust your church family...how do you make a nine year old understand these things that even I can't begin to understand?
What'll I do?
How do I open up, become vulnerable, welcome friendships, embrace ministry, invest in lives and do all the things that are still part of my calling without always wondering just when the floor will drop out from under me again? Who do I trust and how far do I trust them? How will I know that the face they present to me is real, or will I always wonder how deep the dislike and deception are hiding just below the surface.
What'll I do?
How do I explain to my family of non-believers that this is who the church is and how they treat their own. How am I myself not a hypocrite when trying to explain away the hypocrisy of others. How is my life to be an example of how the Body of Christ makes the world better when it has beaten me down to this level? Ruined my name, maimed my character and then pretended I never existed as part of the church family.
What'll I do?
I know that this is a process, and that God is working it out in me and through me and around me. I DO know that. Some of these questions I have answers for and some I simply have to trust that God will provide them for me the moment I need it most and not a second earlier. Some of what I will do, I know already. Some of what God will do with me unfolds moment by moment. In the midst of all this pain there has been great excitement, burgeoning joy, a clean slate, and moments of pure heartfelt love. But while these things co-exist in my soul, the good does not erase the bad in this scenario, it simply plays a bittersweet counterpoint, one making the other sweeter, the other providing muting overtones that make it all bearable.
Time will make forgiveness possible, I hear, and already small tendrils of it are winding around the roots of bitterness and gently squeezing them out. I no longer know what next year, next week or even tomorrow may hold. I don't know what I'll do, but I know that God will make it possible each tiny step, or four hundred mile relocation leap at a time.
I think I've asked this question an infinite number of times in the last forty or so days. I'm at the point now where I either have to start drowning in bitterness or start moving on, so this is my one and only blog talking about the pain of the situation and then it's time to move on. To begin with, being fired sucks. There are no two ways about it, and it puts a kind of financial and emotional stress on an individual and family that are unparalleled. And yet, I would venture to say that being fired is only a portion of the pain of being fired, and then completely excommunicated and then erased from a place where you have spent almost half your life investing. All of our closest friendships, all of our deepest loves, all of everything we have built and created and supported and used as support...gone. Not a hint of warning, not a chance of reconciliation, not a moment of understanding...gone. In one afternoon.
What'll I do?
Anyone who has known me long has known that I have been through some messes in my life; cancer, death, catastrophe. I am familiar with them all. But nothing, not one thing in my life holds a candle to kind of pain, the depth of betrayal and need for vengeance that have at times utterly overwhelmed me of late. I'm not saying these are right responses, but when nothing about the situation is pretty, you can be certain that many of my initial responses aren't going to be very pretty either.
What'll I do?
Try explaining to your children: no, you can't go to co-op. No there are no friends you can call. No we can't visit them before we move 400 miles away. No, you didn't do anything wrong, but you will bear the brunt of some sort of punishment that isn't Godly or God honoring from people whom have always been lifted up to you as examples of Christian leaders. People who have greeted you with smiles and hugs and kind caring concern. But remember, you should trust your church family...how do you make a nine year old understand these things that even I can't begin to understand?
What'll I do?
How do I open up, become vulnerable, welcome friendships, embrace ministry, invest in lives and do all the things that are still part of my calling without always wondering just when the floor will drop out from under me again? Who do I trust and how far do I trust them? How will I know that the face they present to me is real, or will I always wonder how deep the dislike and deception are hiding just below the surface.
What'll I do?
How do I explain to my family of non-believers that this is who the church is and how they treat their own. How am I myself not a hypocrite when trying to explain away the hypocrisy of others. How is my life to be an example of how the Body of Christ makes the world better when it has beaten me down to this level? Ruined my name, maimed my character and then pretended I never existed as part of the church family.
What'll I do?
I know that this is a process, and that God is working it out in me and through me and around me. I DO know that. Some of these questions I have answers for and some I simply have to trust that God will provide them for me the moment I need it most and not a second earlier. Some of what I will do, I know already. Some of what God will do with me unfolds moment by moment. In the midst of all this pain there has been great excitement, burgeoning joy, a clean slate, and moments of pure heartfelt love. But while these things co-exist in my soul, the good does not erase the bad in this scenario, it simply plays a bittersweet counterpoint, one making the other sweeter, the other providing muting overtones that make it all bearable.
Time will make forgiveness possible, I hear, and already small tendrils of it are winding around the roots of bitterness and gently squeezing them out. I no longer know what next year, next week or even tomorrow may hold. I don't know what I'll do, but I know that God will make it possible each tiny step, or four hundred mile relocation leap at a time.
10.01.2009
Thursday Thirteen - Southern Style!
So many things are different for me now than they were a month ago. I can't believe how fast life changes sometimes. It only takes a few hours to overthrow every plan, every expectation and every relationship you thought you knew, but I believe that God indeed restores what the locusts have destroyed (that's His promise for me this week.) So to start this new blog of this new life in this new and unexpected place, it's Thirteen Things that I do love about Georgia living!!
1. The people. We have been loved, welcomed with open arms, anticipated, gifted, blessed and prayed over so fully and so heartily that it has done a great deal of healing to our wounded hearts. Our lives have been filled to overflowing with unearned love and esteem. What a gift!
2. Northridge Church. This ties in with the people because it is this family that has so warmly welcomed us. Not only that but we have already been blessed to see a group of leaders here that are so prayerful, so steeped in scripture and God's way of handling issues, so filled with Christ's love, that it has done yet more to ease our spirits and to allow us to trust again.
3. FOOOOOOOOD! First of all the people here brought us food, then they stocked our fridge and now they keep feeding us. Barbecue, fried catfish, cheese grits, green beans, greens, rolls and don't even get me started on the desserts--they eat and eat and eat. That's my love language right there!!
4. This house. I hate to point to something that seems rather materialistic to show God's blessing, but so much about this house speaks to the desires of our hearts in what we have wanted in a home, large, welcoming, lake front, GINORMOUS BACK DECK, private, functional. I know we are to be content in all things, but I feel like God held us close and said "Just watch this." I keep saying that I feel like He outdid Himself, except that I am oh-so-grateful to be the recipient of such generosity.
5. SEASONS! How I have missed them. This year I was feeling a particular yearning for fall and winter, and here we are in a place where I will get both, but not to the point that it makes a me a cold cranky harridan ( Hush, hunky)
6. Seeing God's hand so clearly. Some of the truly most difficult, and yet most rewarding times of my life are those where God makes His hand and His plan so abundantly apparent. In every detail we can see where God's design and plan have not been thwarted. How humbling and awesome it is to be so clearly and lovingly led by the hand each step of the way.
7. A clean slate. I know that I go on and on and on about new days, new weeks, new years..etc. But this has been such a time of renewal for us - the necessity of cleaning and purging to move, the financial changes (so much for the better) this has brought for us, the new opportunities, new scenery, new everything. It's good and exciting (and sometimes quite overwhelming as I remember that to whom much is given, much is required)
8. Cheese Grit. 'Nuff said.
9. More school freedoms. It is easier to HS here, less state involvement. I like that. It appeals to the rebel in me. Also we started back to school this week. It nearly killed me! We did however, get invited to join a very nice home school science class that my kids LOVED, and which I didn't have to prepare anything or even stick around for! I got to go out and have grown up time with a new friend!! WOOT!
10. The Library System. Now you know I couldn't go a list of happies without mentioning something bookish. I loved the library system in Vol. County. I truly did. But it's got nothing on the PINES library system in Ga. 250 library catalogs to choose from? It just doesn't get any better than that; I'm tellin' ya'll!
11. Restructuring. In Fl. we lived about 7 minutes or less from almost anywhere we wanted to go. Here we are almost 20 minutes from the nearest anything at all (unless you count the Jet gas station with it's wide array or jerkies and chips). Distance requires better planning, being more prepared, and doing more for ourselves instead of the convenient and more expensive take out and quick fix options. These are good and ultimately money saving things.
12. Sweatshirts and flannel jammies pants. Again, need I say more? I didn't think so.
13. The Hunky. No really, I am always and ever more deeply impressed with the person he is and the person he is becoming. When everything around us crumbled and when everything we believed of people proved to be false, he has acted with honor and integrity. I am so proud to call him husband and will follow him to the ends of the earth if that's what God requires of him (but I really am kind of hoping to stay here for a little while, at least).
1. The people. We have been loved, welcomed with open arms, anticipated, gifted, blessed and prayed over so fully and so heartily that it has done a great deal of healing to our wounded hearts. Our lives have been filled to overflowing with unearned love and esteem. What a gift!
2. Northridge Church. This ties in with the people because it is this family that has so warmly welcomed us. Not only that but we have already been blessed to see a group of leaders here that are so prayerful, so steeped in scripture and God's way of handling issues, so filled with Christ's love, that it has done yet more to ease our spirits and to allow us to trust again.
3. FOOOOOOOOD! First of all the people here brought us food, then they stocked our fridge and now they keep feeding us. Barbecue, fried catfish, cheese grits, green beans, greens, rolls and don't even get me started on the desserts--they eat and eat and eat. That's my love language right there!!
4. This house. I hate to point to something that seems rather materialistic to show God's blessing, but so much about this house speaks to the desires of our hearts in what we have wanted in a home, large, welcoming, lake front, GINORMOUS BACK DECK, private, functional. I know we are to be content in all things, but I feel like God held us close and said "Just watch this." I keep saying that I feel like He outdid Himself, except that I am oh-so-grateful to be the recipient of such generosity.
5. SEASONS! How I have missed them. This year I was feeling a particular yearning for fall and winter, and here we are in a place where I will get both, but not to the point that it makes a me a cold cranky harridan ( Hush, hunky)
6. Seeing God's hand so clearly. Some of the truly most difficult, and yet most rewarding times of my life are those where God makes His hand and His plan so abundantly apparent. In every detail we can see where God's design and plan have not been thwarted. How humbling and awesome it is to be so clearly and lovingly led by the hand each step of the way.
7. A clean slate. I know that I go on and on and on about new days, new weeks, new years..etc. But this has been such a time of renewal for us - the necessity of cleaning and purging to move, the financial changes (so much for the better) this has brought for us, the new opportunities, new scenery, new everything. It's good and exciting (and sometimes quite overwhelming as I remember that to whom much is given, much is required)
8. Cheese Grit. 'Nuff said.
9. More school freedoms. It is easier to HS here, less state involvement. I like that. It appeals to the rebel in me. Also we started back to school this week. It nearly killed me! We did however, get invited to join a very nice home school science class that my kids LOVED, and which I didn't have to prepare anything or even stick around for! I got to go out and have grown up time with a new friend!! WOOT!
10. The Library System. Now you know I couldn't go a list of happies without mentioning something bookish. I loved the library system in Vol. County. I truly did. But it's got nothing on the PINES library system in Ga. 250 library catalogs to choose from? It just doesn't get any better than that; I'm tellin' ya'll!
11. Restructuring. In Fl. we lived about 7 minutes or less from almost anywhere we wanted to go. Here we are almost 20 minutes from the nearest anything at all (unless you count the Jet gas station with it's wide array or jerkies and chips). Distance requires better planning, being more prepared, and doing more for ourselves instead of the convenient and more expensive take out and quick fix options. These are good and ultimately money saving things.
12. Sweatshirts and flannel jammies pants. Again, need I say more? I didn't think so.
13. The Hunky. No really, I am always and ever more deeply impressed with the person he is and the person he is becoming. When everything around us crumbled and when everything we believed of people proved to be false, he has acted with honor and integrity. I am so proud to call him husband and will follow him to the ends of the earth if that's what God requires of him (but I really am kind of hoping to stay here for a little while, at least).
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