National Day of Prayer

In honor of the National Day of Prayer, this seemed fitting.

Please bless our nation, Lord, please guide and direct our leaders. 

Thanks to MountainRepublic for the picture.  🙂

Wednesday Wonderful

I much prefer sunlight and blessing.  :)  Just sayin’.

***

So, I’ve been keeping busy during the day while Darc’s gone.  Housework.  Yeah, I’ve been doing housework.  I really hate doing housework when my husband is around.  I don’t know why, I guess I’m lame but that’s why you love me.

At least he comes home to a clean place and I feel like I’ve accomplished something.  So, win-win.  🙂

I am in a mood today – a good one – so this won’t be a wordy post.  I just need to quietly bask in the sun for a while.  And think about what I’m thankful for this week.  🙂

 

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Thank you

To all those who’ve prayed for my friend this week, I wanted to let you all know that your prayers and good wishes were blessed.  My friend’s surgery went well and she is resting now – uncomfortably because it hurts – but resting nonetheless in her hospital room.  There is no cancer and the surgeon didn’t need to take unplanned parts out of her.  So that is a huge relief and a giant thank you to God for saying yes to all the prayers for her.

Thank you to all of you for praying those prayers on her behalf.  It means more to me than you can know, to see such an outpouring of support.

*hugs*

~~Ness~~

They say soda pop is good for that too

I’ve often equated my ability to sense people’s feelings with a satellite dish.  Almost like others send out vibes somehow and I’m able to detect them.  This has caused a lot of anxious moments in my life, because while I may have been able to pick up the signal, as it were, I was never able to figure out what the source was.  Eventually I realized that if I just sat back and let the feeling play out, the person involved would call me within a day or 2 and tell me what was going on.  No one ever knew I was sensing their emotions, until I could say, “Oh it was YOU!  I KNEW something was wrong somewhere!”

This is something I’ve always struggled with.  I learned that talking about such things was not a good idea, because people start saying things like, “You need to be committed.”  “You’re crazy.”  “You should be in a nut house.”  Keeping my mouth shut seemed the best course. 

Now, without going into too much detail, I came to a point in my life where I was compelled to consider my thinking on the Biblical description of the spiritual gifts.  I came to realize – and still believe – that such gifts are no longer in play for the church as a whole.  (For those who are interested in such things, we can email and I’ll explain my position, Biblically.  :)  )  So, for all intents and purposes, I “turned off my dish,” for lack of a better description. 

But, I missed something.  While I maintain that the spiritual gifts are no longer in play for the church, I have come to believe that some of them are in play for Christians individually, specifically to nurture and enhance our relationship with Christ.  So, the dish that I allowed to start rusting from disuse, has lately been getting that rust scraped off and some signals have started coming back in again.  But with a twist.  See, before I never knew who was going through something, only that someone was.  Now it seems I’m sensing the who as well.  A long-time friend has been on my mind the last few days, in a very strong way, and I knew I should get in touch with her but I had this to do and that to take care of … so I procrastinated. 

I spoke with her today.  She’s going in for surgery in a couple of days and asked me to pray for her.  Oh, I’ll be praying, you betcha.  I’ll be on my knees.  Without going into private detail, let me just say an oncologist suggested she get in ASAP to check things out.  So yeah, you could say I’m worried.  If you’re the praying kind, I’d appreciate them on her behalf.

God seems to have a way of thunking me on the head, and this is one of those times.  That stiff wire brush to scrape the rust can be a real bear sometimes.

 

It is well

Have you ever had one of those moments where someone says something offhand, that essentially accuses you of being a liar, that something you went through, suffered from, never really happened? 

I just had such a moment.  It wasn’t directed at me personally or to me in any way; it was just an off-the-cuff comment I saw on another blog directed to someone I know, but the way it read implied – initially – that what I went through, what I lost, the devastation and life-altering events I went through, didn’t happen like it did.  My knee-jerk response to that is visceral and … feral.  It’s the kind of feeling that makes me shoot first and probably not ask questions later.  Part of the reason for my vehemence, I suppose, is due in part to the accusations I and Darc suffered at the time of the events from people who were supposed to be supportive.  It’s like saying reality, my reality, isn’t real. 

Turns out the comment made was not intended as it came across, which was a huge relief.  The comment wasn’t a denial, it was sarcasm – but type of expression is hard to get through in text.  Still, I’m glad it was clarified.

Which brings me to what I was initially going to blog about, and believe me, the irony doesn’t escape me.

This should probably be posted over at my faith blog but, what the heck, I’ll just post it here.  I haven’t posted over there for a long time anyway.  For any who may read this who don’t like the Christian stuff, you should probably stop reading now.  You’ve been warned!  😉

For a long time now, almost a year, something strange has been happening to me.  As I mentioned above, there were some painful events in our life that were pretty devastating.  It left me with a huge hole in my faith.  I clung to it, but it was the kind of desperation that knew I had to cling to it or die.  My faith in Christ has always been a part of me, and I felt I had a very close and personal relationship with Him.  But then these things happened, and it felt like when I needed Him most, He wasn’t there.  I can only describe it as akin to losing your identity, or like Wil E. Coyote – you know, finding yourself suspended in mid-air and looking down.  Whatever had been holding me up, my ground, was gone.  Why would God allow these things to happen to me?  Isn’t that always the 1st thing we ask?  We’re so quick to blame, so slow to thank for the good things.  Anyway, I struggled for a long time, years actually, in this desert of what my faith had been.  So many moments of panic, fear and always silence on the other end.  I felt like God had abandoned me.  It was a pretty dark, and very long, time.

And then one day last fall – I remember it so clearly – walking around the grocery store and feeling almost drunk.  That undercurrent of fear that had defined every moment of every day for so long was gone.  Nothing was different, there were still cans of peaches on the shelves, but I was changed.  I remember Darc asked me if I was okay and all I could say was, “I’m fine!” and smile at him.  Which is no clue to him because I always say I’m fine, no matter what.  Just ask him!  We’d been talking about the election coming up and I said, “Oh, we’ll lose … but that’s okay, it’ll be fine, no worries.”  He looked at me like I was insane, as I recall.  I was right, we lost, but I’m still not worried.  And that’s the thing – I should be worried about so many things right now (as some of you are aware), I should be in a nail-biting frenzy of panic, but I can’t find it within me to worry or be afraid.  That feeling of peace and serenity that I have no explanation for, is still with me – even when I go through things that upset and frustrate me.  It’s like a super thick mattress pad, or like being wrapped in the coziest quilt.  My Comforter has returned to me in ways that I’ve never experienced before.  I can hear Him whisper words of encouragement and hope.  I can feel His presence.  I thought, at first, that it was a momentary thing, that it would fade and go away – but it’s been constant for nearly a year.  I can’t explain it and I don’t want to – there is no “why?” here, there is only gratefulness.  And amazement that despite all the loss and agony and sorrow, there are still tears of joy.

There’s a hymn that popped into my mind when I started feeling these things last year.  I went to YouTube to see if I could find it, and I discovered the circumstances of the man who wrote it.  It’s pretty astounding.  And the words, oh the words!  It is well, it is well, with my soul!

It Is Well With My Soul

Emotions in Motion

Sounds like a Billy Squier song!

Actually, it’s been a heck of a weekend, emotionally.  The baby-Falcon is getting potty trained and so far is really successful in her efforts.  *proud mama smile*  There is something so … heart-twisting about that.  On the one hand, you’re so full-to-bursting with pride, on the other, your baby’s not a baby anymore and that’s sad.  I have no idea why, but watching one of your children grow makes you want another one.  Those baby days are sweet and precious and I’d love to have another one.  But not.  So I’m up and down about that.

Then, late in the evening, I was looking for the leftover drumstick I’d been saving … and when I couldn’t find it I turned to Darc and asked him if he’d seen it.  The 10 second pause before he answered told me all I needed to know.  ;)  Then he popped off with, “Fluffer-nutter ate it … yeah, that’s what happened to it.” 

“Yeah?  Well if she was here I’d give it to her, I’d take the meat off the bone and give it to her so she wouldn’t choke, I’d be so happy to see her again that I wouldn’t mind sharing my chicken with her.”  And I started to cry because I realized that today is the anniversary of when she passed away and I just missed her so bad, you know?  She was Darc’s dog, and he had her long before I met him, but she took me in despite my being “the other woman.”  She came to love me in spite of that – and I her, even though I’m more of a cat person than a dog person.  But she was special, and I miss her. 

And on Saturday, something amazing happened.  I don’t want to go into a lot of detail about it here, but I probably will on my faith blog later in the week.  Darc and I have spent hours and hours talking about it and it’s one of those kinds of things where – if you’re a Christian – you know that God is moving in your life.  Spiritually I have been in a tunnel for a long time – several years, and this weekend, I saw a light at the end of it.  And yeah, I’m pretty emotional about that.  You have no idea.

Typically I’m not an emotional person, and I’m certainly not a demonstrative type at all.  Like, you’d never see me on the Price is Right jumping around and screaming to bring the roof down, unh-uh, no way, not a snowball’s chance in hell of me ever acting like that.  Internally I may be screaming like an idiot but outwardly I’m calm, cool, and in control and that’s just how I roll, baby.  Actually, I think that’s one of the things Darc likes about me.  I’m a quiet type.  But right now I’m pretty raw.  Not outwardly, but yeah, I’m raw.  I’ve been going through a lot of changes internally, seeing things happen, understanding things; and I guess the only way for me to describe it is my cup runneth over.  If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be telling you about it now, because I’m fair to bursting.  And strangely, Darc – from the other room – just commented on how I’m like that, non-demonstrative.  Weird.  I mean, like über-weird.  He has no idea what I’m writing. 

Time to catch up with stuff – I didn’t go online at all this weekend so there’s a huge list of things in my Reader and email. 

~~Ness~~ 

 

Endure!

For WIGSF, this one’s for you.  ;)  You hug-rejecter, you! 

more animals

 

Less than a week until the election.  Time is zipping by, it seems.  And taking me with it.  Have you ever had the feeling like someone’s put an evil curse on you and you just can’t break it?  Seems to be the story of our life.  All we can do is endure, right?  So endure I will.  I have no choice.  I have some Irish blood so it’s either endure, or drink myself to death, and since I’m not a huge fan of alcohol, I’m out of options.  Make no mistake though, drunk or sober, we of Irish descent will sing about our hardships at 2 AM.  And not necessarily in key!  We must lament the hand that guides our fate!  Loudly!  Thank goodness for blogging because nobody wants to hear me sing!  Yeah yeah, nobody wants to see me blogging either, I know!  Beat you to the punch on that one!  Ha! 

Anyway, endurance.  It’s pretty exhausting.  But we do what we have to, right?  We shoulder on, dust ourselves off, and keep going.  Sometimes we weep along the way but mostly we just put our faces to the wind and press forward.  And we never stop hoping, never stop striving, never stop yearning for home.  We persevere.  Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. 

Onward!