Posted on March 15, 2020March 10, 2020 in Aging, Faith, Family, Humor, Marriage and Memories, Poetry

Tennessee and Decades Later

In 1975 we were expecting our first child. The photo below is from our first vacation to the Smoky Mountains. In 1982 we were learning about the Full Armor of God (Ephesians 6) and starting to teach Bible study together at our local church.

Oh I loved you in that creek bed
Full of gallantry and suave
My flashing debonair knight.

You didn’t even know
What holy armor was then.
And now my love for you
Far surpasses and encompasses
The emotions at that creek bed.

Father, show us how to flow together
To the glory of Your name.
You split the rocks with
A blade of grass and
A finger of ice.

Split our shells that we might
Merge in Your kingdom work.

Now in 2020, our children are adults with children of their own. We are still learning more about how to walk together in the Spirit. As we celebrate our 50th year of being married by knight continues to court me, woo and win me with his humor and grace.

I love you more than ever, Robert Dutina!

Posted on March 14, 2020March 9, 2020 in Book quotes, Faith, Poetry

Under or Atop?

One day when walking down the street,
On business bent, while thinking hard
About the “hundred cares” which seemed
Like thunder clouds about to break
In torrents, Self-pity said to me:
“You poor, poor thing, you have too much
To do. Your life is far too hard.
This heavy load will crush you soon.”
A swift response of sympathy
Welled up within. The burning sun
Seemed more intense. The dust and noise
Of puffing motors flying past
With rasping blast of blowing horn
Incensed still more the whining nerves,
The fabled last back-breaking straw
To weary, troubled, fretting mind.
“Ah, yes, ’twill break and crush my life;
I cannot bear this constant strain
Of endless, aggravating cares;
They are too great for such as I.”
So thus my heart condoled itself,
“Enjoying misery,” when lo!
A “still small voice” distinctly said,
“Twas sent to lift you—not to crush.”
I saw at once my great mistake.
My place was not beneath the load
But on the top! God meant it not
That I should carry it. He sent
It here to carry me. Full well
He knew my incapacity
Before the plan was made. He saw
A child of His in need of grace
And power to serve; a puny twig
Requiring sun and rain to grow;
An undeveloped chrysalis;
A weak soul lacking faith in God.
He could not help but see all this
And more. And then, with tender thought
He placed it where it had to grow—
Or die. To lie and cringe beneath
One’s load means death, but life and power
Await all those who dare to rise above.
Our burdens are our wings; on them
We soar to higher realms of grace;

Without them we must roam for aye
On planes of undeveloped faith,
For faith grows but by exercise in circumstance impossible.

Oh, paradox of Heaven. The load
We think will crush was sent to lift us
Up to God! Then, soul of mine,
Climb up! for naught can e’er be crushed
Save what is underneath the weight.
How may we climb! By what ascent
Shall we surmount the carping cares
Of life! Within His word is found
The key which opes His secret stairs;
Alone with Christ, secluded there,
We mount our loads, and rest in Him.
—Miss Mary Butterfield

Trying to figure out how to express the recent struggles within my brain and emotions I came across this poem in Streams in the Desert. Could not discover anything about the author, but I do like her ideas!

“Alone with Christ, secluded there, we mount our loads and rest in Him.” That is the answer repeatedly in my journey. Go to Him. Rest and regain perspective for the next phase of the journey. Recently I read a book by Charles Martin about football. His character was living near a junkyard. He made it is his practice to run to the top of a pile of tires and other automobile debris as part of his conditioning. Make this our journey. To run to the top of the debris in our life. Make it the conditioning track that we need for victory in our hearts, minds and souls. When I am reminded to love the Lord my God with all my heart, mind, soul and strength I often fail to realize that will take conditioning and practice. I must determine to do that – daily, hourly!

When Self-pity speaks to you I hope you will get up and get moving. Let those warped thoughts drop to the ground and travel on with His empowerment. You ARE able to do many things you never thought possible through Christ Who strengthens you.

Much of our suffering occurs between our ears. Was it Mark Twain who said “I’ve known many troubles in my life. And most of them never came to pass.” Stay on top!

Posted on June 6, 2019June 3, 2019 in Faith, Just do it, Memories, Poetry

Words and Blog and Death

I am planning to close one of my blog sites and thinking about getting the blog printed so I do not lose the hard work and thought I have put into that. Perhaps one day my grandchildren would want to read it to learn more about me? Discovering entire worlds of on-line services to pay for to get ready to publish and then to actually print. Yikes. Decisions, decisions.

Then I am face-to-face with the reminder that no one will get out of this world alive unless the Lord comes soon. From my journal:

“Judy has died from cancer. Homer dead of cancer. Betty dead of old age and cancer form. Sonia’s mom dead from cancer. Surrounded by death of folks older and younger than me. Disposing of trapped chipmunks, killed on purpose by us.

1 Corinthians Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”
1 Corinthians 15:51-55 (NRSV)

“Death and life, intertwined. There are just sometimes that the death is more clear than other times when we try to forget it, put it out of our minds, pretend it is not always near. No wonder the men in the NT Bible story did not want to help the man beaten, robbed and left for dead on the side of the road. It brought home the fact it could happen to any one of us and death is always near.

Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
Luke 10:30-32 (NRSV)

“I fertilized new shoots I should not have fertilized. I too kill things. And I will die someday, the day the Lord has appointed for me. “

So perhaps it is important to preserve the blog writings for the next generation to read after my death? Or is it all words? Would I have liked a record of where my parents went in Michigan when they went fishing there years before I was born? Heck yes! All I have is a postcard they sent my uncle which I did not see until his daughters sent it to me after his death.

Is this the best way to spend my saved money? Perhaps it will be valued by my offspring in the future? Maybe not saving it is like killing those new shoots in the garden. The killing was accidental, yet still they are dead. Do I let those words and thoughts that have come out of me go – just perish in the dust of on-line words? Perhaps that is not a good use of my funds or talent.

Oh my, conundrum after conundrum. Would Judy’s boys cherish a memoir from their mother now that she is gone? Perhaps my adult children might cherish one?

I wrote this several years after my mother died suddenly.

Oh the ache
The wrenching tear at your heart
When you want to share joy
With one who has passed over.

Oh the void
When those too familiar arms
Are no longer there
To embrace you.

Tonight I shared an experience
With my daughter
That I once shared
With my mother
“Ice Capades,” with this wondrous four year old!

If my granddaughter ever delights
In the swirling spangles
And enchanted wonderland on ice,
I pray both she and my daughter be spared
The anguish I feel tonight.

Perhaps the future generations of our family might know the joys and challenges of my life by reading what a wrote about this past year. Guess I will pursue publishing. Scary.

Posted on March 31, 2019March 31, 2019 in Amazing Creations, Book quotes, Nature, Poetry

More Daffodils!

A friend sent me this link. She is trying to memorize this poem. I so admire her!

I had never heard this in all my years of admiring daffodils.

Posted on February 6, 2019February 4, 2019 in Aging, Faith, Just do it, Poetry, Spiritual growth

A Prompt in Plain Sight

Found this a year or so ago on the sidewalk. I have kept it ever since. It is a writing prompt and in some ways a prod. How so? you ask.

If you have a broken pencil you cannot write much unless you sharpen it and determine to use it. And that is the prod part. Was I willing to use it and sharpen it? This was before I started writing the blog. For years I had been putting off actually writing with regularity and purpose. Once again, I was being given the choice of just keeping a broken pencil, throwing it away, or putting it to work.

And the prompt? Even the stub of a pencil can be used to write. What is to stop the finder from using it? Yes, some kid is missing a green pencil from their colored pencil set, but what about the senior citizen who found and kept it. Will she make use of it, even in old age and gray hair? Will she step out in faith and just do it?

You can scroll through my posts and see if you agree. I think I am onto the discipline of using it and helping the last years of the pencil produce a harvest! Not to mention, the older woman holding said pencil.

Steve Green summed it up nicely with the song “You Want To, Now Will You”

You’ve heard the words
And know they’re true
And now they ring inside of you
They’re calling you to come away
Now will you come or stay.

You want to, now will you
You want to, now will you
The truth that burns within you
Like a bed of fiery coals
Contains that power to liberate
A thousand captive souls
But if the truth will ever set you free
Depends on you
You want to, now will you
You want to…now will you

Posted on January 15, 2019January 14, 2019 in Amazing Creations, Nature, Poetry, Spiritual growth

Transfigured Rock

What if I told you a story about myself?

Once I was frozen in my feelings. Our alcoholic family of origin lived by the Alcoholic unspoken, but strictly enforced, rules of “Don’t think,” “Don’t talk,” “Don’t feel.” When I began attending Adult Children of Alcoholics meetings and Al-Anon I started breaking all of those rules. It was as if I was “breaking out of an inner prison” as I first wrote in 1982.

Someone at a Christian group told me about this book. The first time I read “Codependent No More” I bought my sister a copy and told her, “She lived in our house. She got in our heads. She wrote it all down!” I was truly amazed that someone else on earth not only understood the life in our house on Skyview Lane, but published what she knew!

There is a hillside on the way to my house now that is studded with stones. When the temperatures get frigid, as they are right now, the water might drip from the stones, but it quickly freezes into bars. It often reminds me of the prison I once lived in.

The stone that was once my heart has thawed and been healed in so many profound ways. I would be hard pressed to list all of those ways! I have been learning to think and feel and talk in appropriate ways for many years now. I do not ever want to go back to the ways of my upbringing. I spent hours in sessions of therapy trying to untangle the mess that was made in me.

In case you do not see her, here she is enhanced.

I am certain my husband and I made some mistakes while raising our children. We used to joke that they might one day need counseling as I have needed it. But “we did the best we could with what we knew at the time.” And I, too, believe that my parents did the best they could with what they knew at the time. Hope my children can understand how not having alcohol as a constant influence in our home set them free from many weird things.