Finding God in Strange Places

When I was 26 years old I found myself suddenly widowed two weeks after our first child was born.  Legal complications forced me to sell our home. From the minute the funeral ended I was busy packing and showing the property.  The sale came quickly and I moved back to Illinois to be near family.

Back home I walked around in a daze.  The people and places were familiar but I didn’t feel like I belonged there.  I struggled to get back on my feet while learning to be a parent.  Eventually the shock started to wear off and I began to experience a frightening loss of control over my emotions.  Thankfully my daughter’s pediatrician recognized that I was near the breaking point and recommended that I get some counseling.

 The counselor asked up front whether or not I held any particular religious beliefs because working in secular agency he could not talk about religion unless I wanted to.  I told him no because I had stopped going to church before I got married and hadn’t thought about God or the faith I was raised in for a long time.  For the next few months it seemed as though all I did was cry and all he did was listen.  Rivers of grief, fear and anger poured out and I began to find myself again with his help. 

He was always upbeat, understanding and kind.  His family stopped by the office now and then when I was waiting for an appointment.  They were all so happy and loving they didn’t seem real.  One day I asked him if he was an atheist because of all of the pain and suffering he dealt with every day.  Since I brought up religion he was free to tell me everything that he knew about God. He told me that he totally depended on Him not only to deal with the pain he encountered but for everything in his life.  He wasn’t preaching just telling me as a matter of fact that God was real and always there to help.

I went home that night and talked to a God that I wasn’t sure I even believed existed. I told Him that if He was real that I wanted what that counselor and his family had.  Knowing that I hadn’t always lived in a way that He would approve of, I asked Him if I could be included in the forgiveness that I was told He died to give me.  It wasn’t a very eloquent prayer and there wasn’t much faith to back it up, but there was hope.  The hope of a life that offered joy and peace in the middle of a world full of pain and turmoil and constant help for whatever lay ahead.  If that is what you hope for and you want to know if He is real, just ask Him.  His answer will change your life.

Girl Meets World

Thirty years ago today my daughter made her very 1^st decision in life.  She wanted out!  She had provided me with subtle hints all day but once she decided the whole process was wrapped up in a couple of hours.  It was a quick and efficient arrival just after midnight on a snowy Colorado night.

The doctors underestimated her determination. They sent her father home telling him that she would not arrive until the next day, only to have to call him back an hour later.  I will never forget his booming voice getting closer and louder as he ran through the quiet halls of the hospital trying to reach the delivery room on time.  She was already robed in pink and crowned with a knit cap by the time he reached us.  She held court for the 1^st time as her father’s little princess and ruled his heart from that moment on.

She is beautiful, unique, creative and intelligent.  She loves openly and without prejudice, demands justice and leads naturally when called upon.  You don’t have to believe me, I am her mother after all, but even if I wasn’t I would want to be her friend.

Peace and Quiet and Other Myths

                It was a terribly emotional morning.  In fact I was shifting emotions like a truck driver shifts gears. Going through pride, fear, joy, sadness, doubt, and finally settling on guilt. I felt guilty because I couldn’t wait for this day to come.  It was my daughters first day of school.  Not just Pre-school or kindergarten but gone all day, 5 days a week 1^st grade.   I know how that sounds but as a single parent it meant that I could now get a full time job and start to focus on myself again.  Then she walked down the sidewalk and into the school doors and I shifted back to sadness once again.

                When I got back home I wandered around the house for a while not knowing what to do first.  There was no-one to watch me and ask a thousand questions about what I was doing, I could watch something besides Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers and eat whatever I wanted for lunch.  I settled on finishing the book that I had been trying to read before I went to bed every night. It was amazing to complete a whole chapter without falling asleep or being interrupted.

                Half way through the second chapter the phone rang.  It was the school nurse.  I was so scared that I could hardly hear what she was saying.  We had only been apart for 1 hour.  My daughter’s fingers had been caught in the bathroom door and I could hear her crying in the background.  Suddenly all I wanted was to keep her home with me.  A few minutes of peace and quiet was not worth the risk of her being without me when she was hurt or afraid.  By the time I got to school she was on the playground running around with a big smile on her face.  My first day of peace and quiet left me exhausted and emotionally confused. A perfect example of what my life as a parent would be like for the next 12 years. 

Sky Lights

Silken shafts of light

Unhindered by the clouds

Reaching to the earth

Descend without a sound

Light within the light

Illuminates the ground

Moving without wind

Seeking without bounds

Suddenly dissolve

Only warmth remains

Like the fingertips of God

Touching earth again

A Rare Occasion or Oh Lucy III

 The head cook on the guest ranch I worked on was in her 70’s and planning to retire. As her apprentice I learned to cook family style for 110.  My final exam was cooking Sunday night dinner for the new guests.  The menu was always roast beef, baked potatoes, green beans, fresh baked rolls and homemade cherry pie.  It was the most important meal of the week and when I proved that I could serve it successfully I became the head cook.  

The baker and I spent almost all day in the kitchen on Sundays cooking breakfast and lunch for the staff and preparing for dinner.  When the pies were cooling, the rolls were rising and the roasts and potatoes were in the ovens, we finally got a much needed break.  I knew something had gone terribly wrong one Sunday evening when I went back to the kitchen.  The room felt cold and there was no delicious smell of roasting meat coming from the ovens. I forgot to turn them on when I put the roasts in.

Just then the ranch owner came in to check on dinner.  He stopped short then started flinging open the oven doors and pulling the raw roasts out.  He yelled for me to bring him the large knife and turn the ovens on as high as they could go. Slicing the roasts in half he threw them back in the ovens and told me to cut the time on the potatoes before he slammed out the door.  Everyone had a choice between well done and rare meat and the potatoes were a combination of crunchy and mushy. If it wasn’t for the fact that our baker made the best homemade rolls and cherry pies in the world the entire meal would have been a disaster.  The owner apologized to the new guests and explained that there had been a problem with the ovens allowing me to save face during the staff introductions after dinner. He never said anything to me about what happened and I never left the kitchen after the roasts went in again.

Open

We should open our ears when we pray
And listen to the crys of the lost and unsaved
And the sound of His Spirit leading the way
We should open our ears when we pray

If we opened our eyes when we prayed
Would someone turn away from a judgemental gaze
or see His love and be amazed
If we opened our eyes when we prayed

We should open our hands when we pray
Giving to God's not a bill to pay
if all that someone has is taken away
We have more to give them then just our prayers
We should open our hands when we pray

We should open our hearts when we pray
And in faith let Him in all the way
giving all to be free
as He wants us to be
We should open our hearts when we pray

Cold Hard Cash

As a babysitter I loved New Year’s Eve.  It was good money and not just because of the long hours. My regular families liked to combine all the kids at one house so they didn’t have to compete for my services. At my regular rate of $1.50 an hour, I could earn a whopping $20.00.  

One year, three of my regular families combined their six kids to attend a large event in the city.  It started to snow and they wanted to leave early so they asked if I could come before dinner and feed the kids. They came home at 2:30 a.m. after driving home in what turned out to be a big snowstorm.  They pooled their money and the homeowner then reached into his wallet and handed me a $50.00 bill.  It was the most I had ever earned in one night.  As one of the parents was driving me home I reached for the money and realized that it was gone.  I started frantically searching all my pockets and the he asked what was wrong.  I told him I couldn’t find the $50.00 bill.  He reassured me that it had probably fallen out of my pocket when I put my coat on and he would find it when he went back.  When he dropped me off he replaced the money from his own wallet and said not to worry about it. 

A few weeks later I babysat at that home again and asked if they had ever found the money.  I felt terrible and asked her if she wanted me to pay it back but she said no.  As we were walking out the door she warned me not to slip because it was icy.  I looked down and there, under the ice just beside the porch was my hard earned and very cold cash, perfectly preserved. 

The Scream

               When my daughter was about six we vacationed in a cabin in the woods of Northern Wisconsin.  I was a single parent at the time so I invited some friends to join me with their two little girls.  We spent the days hiking, fishing and canoeing and the nights in front of the fireplace.

                One day the girls were playing outside at the edge of the woods while we prepared lunch.  My friend’s girls flew through the door the minute we called but just as I turned to look for my daughter there was an ear piercing scream from outside.  All three parents were out the door in seconds.  My daughter was standing near the cabin crying and looking over her shoulder towards the woods.  I hugged her and asked what happened.  She said that there was a big black and white animal in the woods and it growled at her.  We described every animal we could think of that might have been in the area from raccoons to bears to beavers.  She knew what they all looked like and insisted that it wasn’t any of them.  After lunch I talked to my friends and everyone agreed that it must have been a large raccoon.  That night we tried to ease her fears by joking that the she probably scared the raccoon do death with that blood curdling scream.  She laughed with us but as I was putting her to bed she looked at me with desperation and told me firmly that it was not a raccoon.  I couldn’t help but believe her but I didn’t have a clue what she had seen.

When we stopped in a rest area on the way home there was a large map of Wisconsin on the wall with pictures of common trees, flowers and wildlife.  My daughter excitedly told me to look at one of the pictures.  At first I didn’t recognize what it was because I had never seen one in real life.  The picture was of a badger and she confirmed that it was the animal that had growled at her.  We were both relieved and wished our friends could be there to see it.  I was proud of her for standing her ground even when no one seemed to believe her and I never forgot that look in her eyes asking me to stand with her.

Not Again

I won’t do it

You can’t make me

Time won’t tell

And I will not see

I’m just fine thanks

Please don’t worry

Haste makes waste

So I don’t hurry

I won’t stop you

Do as you please

There’s no chance

You can’t convince me

Save your breath

It’s not a bad thing

I’ll hold the fort

Keep fires burning

It’s not for me

And never has been

Sneaks up behind

My plans just can’t win

The end result

Life rearranged

Can’t believe I ever longed

For fickle winds of

Change