News from the Great Beyond

Not my words...

... but if I take the time to search for my own today, I'll pretty much be wrecked for the morning.

Our lives are given a certain dignity by their very evanescence.  If there were never to be an end to my quiet moments at the brook, if I could sit on the rock forever, I would not treasure these minutes so much.  If our associations with the people we love were to have no termination, we would not value them as much as we do.  Human love is an extraordinary gift, but like all flesh it is corruptible.  Death or distance separates all lovers.  My awareness of my husband is sharpened by impermanence.

Would we really value anything we could have forever and ever?

~ Madeleine L'Engle
from Glimpses of Grace: Daily Thoughts and Reflections

This is how I know God likes me. (UPDATED)

So yeah.  Since the last time I posted, I ran out of savings and found a job just in the nick of time (I had $200 that had to last me for 4 weeks before my mom and my grandparents pitched in to make sure I had enough to make it through to my first paycheck)....

After years of having two decent incomes, and then one more-than-sufficient income, and then a big chunk of life insurance to draw from (one year of Hubby-head's salary lasted me almost two years), I'm suddenly having to rearrange my budget around weekly paychecks.   I'd had all my bills scheduled or set to auto-pay from my online bill pay, and rarely needed to worry with changing the payment dates - a few bills I'd have to go in and schedule when to pay them, but most things happened like clockwork without me having to think about it.  It's been... an adjustment.

I'm not quite adjusted yet.  I managed to forget to reschedule my end of the month/first of the month bills to separate weeks, and when I went in yesterday to check on how I was going to arrange my payments with next week's short paycheck (*muttering about "holidays" as a temp*), I realized that I not only had overdrawn my account, I'd managed to have so many things hit at the wrong time that between the actual payments and the overdraft fees, my entire next paycheck is going to be sucked up by the negative balance.  Yay.

So yeah.  I had $4 and some change to live on for the next couple of weeks - thankfully one of those things that pushed my bank balance into the red was buying two weeks worth of groceries, but I did have a few necessities to pick up at the store and I wasn't looking forward to having to bum a ride from one of my coworkers if the gas tank ran too low... that kind of thing.

And then... I remembered the change jar.  Hubby-head's change jar, which was actually a 40 oz container he'd kept from a bulk package of Smart & Final roasted peanuts years ago.  Every night he'd empty his pockets on top of his armoire, or next to the computer, and in the morning he'd pick up the wallet, keys and dollar bills, and leave behind whatever change he'd picked up throughout the day.  We had piles of change all over the place, so I started collecting it on a regular basis and dumping it into the change jar.

Now and then when the budget was tight, I'd dig into the jar and pull out a few dollars worth of quarters to buy lunch or a couple of urgent grocery items.  Most of what was left in the jar looked like pennies and nickels, but I decided to take the jar with me to the grocery store and dump it into one of those Coinstar machines to see what I ended up with. 

Apparently I had over $110.00 in change sitting in my living room - who knew?  After the Coinstar counting fee and buying the stuff I went to the grocery store to get in the first place, I've got $85.00 left to cover me for the next two weeks.  More than enough... and man, do I feel blessed.

So yeah.  God likes me.

UPDATED 7/16!

I take that back... THIS is how I know God likes me! 

Sunday morning I received a text message from one of our outreach coordinators asking if I could stop on the way to church and pick up a case of bottled water to stock up for planned outreach activities... Of course, my phone is set to vibrate and I didn't even hear the text come in, so I picked it up at the tail end of service when I was checking the time on my phone.

After church, I mentioned to him that I just got the message, but I wouldn't have been able to afford to spend money on that for a couple of weeks anyway due to the aforementioned bank balance issues. 

As it turns out, his wife works for my bank.  And as it turns out, I got a text from him later that day asking me to message his wife with my account number, and she could reverse out the overdraft fees for me.

She ended up removing enough fees from my account that I'm back in the black - and yes, I did reschedule my payments appropriately to make sure that didn't happen again.

See?  God likes me.

Inside

You never know
how much faith you have
until all you are holding on to
is ripped from your grasp.

You never know
how brave you can be
until you are faced
with the end of your world.

You never know
how strong you really are
until everything collapses on you at once
and you must hold up
under the weight.

You never know
how much pain you can bear
until your heart is torn in two
and you must choose
to go on breathing or die.

You never know
what is truly inside of you
until you are crushed
and it pours out for all to see.

den 15 feb 2010

Musings... on Giving

Last year at this time, I was in the midst of my first holiday season without my beloved Hubby-head, learning firsthand all that I had been told about how the holidays are so difficult when you are grieving.

This year, it is my good friend Tom who is in this place, and he and his wife are endeavoring to do something productive and bless others in a tangible way this Christmas.

First - watch this:

Then, go here and see what Tom and Deb are thinking.

Then search your own heart.

What can you do?

What will you do?

An End, and a Beginning

Throughout this whole grieving process for me, in the back of my mind there has been a looming dread for one of my dearest friends.

You see, a couple of months before my life suddenly changed, I got an e-mail from my buddy Tom informing us that his seven year old son had been diagnosed with an inoperable brain stem tumor.  Hubby and I were aghast, but we followed the news on their CaringBridge site, and on Tom's personal blog, and we were so impressed with their strength, their maturity and faith. 

I never got to meet their Ian, and that I regret.  I prayed for them and waited with them as they tried an experimental treatment that bought them some time and some hope... and in recent months I've grieved for them as the news came that the tumor was growing again, aggressively, and Ian's time was growing short.

Last night I got a text from Tom that Ian has gone home to be with the Lord.

I don't know how many of my tears today are purely for them, and how many are mixed with my lingering personal grief.  I don't think it necessarily matters.   All in all, when it comes down to it, this sucks for both of us.

There's a song I don't much like, but still I've quoted here before (and I never thought I'd quote it once, ha!) - the relevant lyric today is "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."

Time will tell what new beginning comes from this. 

I'll leave this post with a song (a common theme of mine lately)... This one I shamelessly yoinked from my friend Christi's blog.  She posted it in reference to a story she was preparing to tell about a devastating breakup in her past, but it spoke to me in my grief then, and it offers me hope today for all of us. 

I'm Ready Now

Last summer, before... everything changed... Hubby and I were helping teach the middle school/junior high Sunday School class at our church.  We hadn't exactly volunteered for this duty, mind you - the children's ministry was short of volunteers already, and they were starting this new class to give those in between kids a place.  The ones who were too young for the high school youth group, the cool kids, but felt like the elementary school age curriculum was just too childish.  This group needed teachers, and the pastors decided that until more volunteers stepped forward, they would assign couples who were already in leadership or serving in other positions - worship leaders, deacons, ushers, etc. to cover the schedule.

We were somewhat put out that we'd been volunteered, but decided not to kick up a fuss and when we got our first lesson plan, we talked to the group's organizers to see what we were expected to do.  They told us to make it fun for the kids, toss out anything from the lesson plan that seemed too "childish", the lesson plan was to be a source of ideas if we didn't have anything else to work with.   Hubby and I put our heads together and decided that our niche, and the way we felt most comfortable teaching the kids, was acting.  So, we taught them improv comedy, and used improv games to help get the lessons across.  We loved it, and the kids loved it.

Fast forward to a month or two after... everything changed... and I was informed that the age group of the class I was still on the schedule for had been altered.  My junior high kids had been moved up to the Youth Ministry, and instead I'd be in with 4th, 5th and 6th graders. 

I should tell you that I'm not comfortable with most younger kids, especially in groups.  I don't have kids of my own, I was the youngest in our family until I was 21, and I'm not trained as a teacher.  Until my brother had kids - four of them, mind you - I wasn't ever around them - and even then, I was their aunt and occasional babysitter, I wasn't trying to teach them.  I tried to make sure they were fed, didn't kill each other, and went to bed at some point before their parents got home... and even then I was not always successful.  For me, attempting to communicate something to anyone under 12 years old, unless they're a very bright kid (like my nephew Noah), I'm pretty much at a loss.  My vocabulary isn't geared toward an under-8th-grade reading level.  I say things the way I say them, and if someone doesn't understand it the first time, 9 times out of 10 I can't think of another way to say it.  I'm just out of my element with elementary school kids.  Maintaining control and teaching a group of them is out of the question.

A couple of weeks ago our new youth directors - friends of mine from the worship team, who had just started coming to our church last summer when... everything changed... asked me if I'd be willing to help out with the youth.  My fun junior highers, the ones we bonded with, were there, and some of the older kids I'd spent some time with because either they or their parents were on the worship team.  I thought about it, and decided it would be good for me to get involved with these kids - to have someone to care about and maybe even mentor.  Hearing their heart for the youth of our church stirred up some things in me - it reminded me of what it was like to be their age, growing up in church with a handful of serious kids, but a lot of people who went only because their parents made them.  I wanted more than anything to help some of these kids get grounded enough to keep from turning away and leaving the church once they get out of their parents' house. 

Also, they'd asked me to consider heading up a drama team for them, and that sounded particularly fun, if a bit bittersweet.  Hubby would have loved to be part of this, and it breaks my heart that I'm doing it alone.

That said, last night I joined the group for the youth service and started the process of getting to know the rest of the kids.  During praise and worship, I joined in, but also kept my eyes open to see what we were dealing with.  Out of 17 kids, ranging in age from 12 to 18, I saw 5 or 6 who really worshipped, and a few more that knew the songs and sang along, but weren't really paying a lot of attention.

Your Daily Dose of YouTube Holiday Cheer

OK, so no matter how joyous the season, it still hurts missing my darling hubby-head.  This song is a classic, and fitting for the day.

Musings... on the Unfound Door

Some of you, especially those who are not writers or poets, may be surprised when I say that at times, I don't fully see the meaning in the poems I write. 

At times I barely feel like I've written them - the words seem to spring from a deep, subconscious well, with very little conscious shaping.  The process of writing, for me at least, is somehow almost mystical.

I took a poetry writing class in college, which later I regretted.  The teacher wrote poetry, but at least from what I could tell of the way he taught, he did not have the soul of a poet.  He approached poetry from a very methodical perspective, teaching rules of construction (for if you do not know the rules, it's less meaningful when you break them) and the process of editing and re-editing to perfect the finished product.

For me, editing is internal as the poem is written.  My goal in writing is not so much for others to enjoy, but for myself, to take an image, an idea, an abstraction that is pressing me from deep within, and as perfectly as possible translate it to the written word.  As I write, phrases spring to mind, and I weigh them each as I go - does it feel "right"?  Does it belong here, or elsewhere within the poem?  Sometimes I don't know until I reach the right phrase how it will end, or what it will be called. 

Sometimes a word or phrase will come to me, and I hold it in my mind until the poem is finished, and read back through it to see where I might have missed its proper place.  When I am satisfied that the fullness of the poem has been put into words, I will look over it again to see if there is anything that does not ring true.  At times a specific word stands out as overused, or understated... I'll see a line break that is more of an interruption than an emphasis, or a thought that is not as clear as I had intended and could use another word or two for clarification.

But often, even when I am sure that all is exactly as I would have it, I do not fully understand the meaning of what I have written.  I do not sit and plan out my imagery and symbolism, but they find their way into my words nonetheless.  In my poetry class, I submitted several samples of my writing and was amused and amazed at the meanings others divined from own words.

The poem I wrote this week is no exception.  The phrase "the unfound door" sprang to mind about halfway through the writing, and I knew it belonged in the title, and when it worked its way into the body of the poem I knew it had found its ending point as well.  I didn't think deeply about the meaning, but this morning it revealed itself to me.

Alone at the Unfound Door

It's so dark in here sometimes
Lonely and more than a little cold
I shiver with anticipation
of nothing
Either now or again

What hope is there for one
who has known this kind of love
and had it taken from her
to find anything further but a poor, pale substitute

And even then, it would be unfair
to hold another up to your memory
To the sweet, tender truth of you
Without time to tarnish your brightness
how could another hope to be anything to me
but the shadow of a love that yet may never die

Our flame burned bright and true
The warmth real and enduring
I never felt anything but cherished,
cared for and utterly accepted
I never felt that I needed to be anything
or anyone other that what I was

You were the one constant reminder in my life
that God was good to me
and all would be well as long as you were beside me
And now the hours stretch into endless dark nights
and unrelenting days and weeks
as time passes without you
and yet I remain, bewildered and bruised

While I cannot be so reckless as to be angry
with the God who gives and who takes away
Surely I am crushed beneath His hand
What was taken cannot be restored
And if this is mercy
I cannot hope to survive the judgment

Tried and found wanting
Wanting and found alone
Searching in vain for that unfound door

den 21 dec 08
for my one true love
who lingers in the shadows of the past

Your Daily Dose of YouTube Holiday Cheer

This song has some bittersweet memories for me... As I recall, several years ago when the song was fairly new and not overdone, Hubby-head learned it and sang it as a special at church.  It was so well received that they asked him to do it again the following week, at all three of their church's morning services.  And the evening service.

Yeah, he was pretty tired of it by the time that marathon was over, and figured if Mary didn't know by now, she was never going to figure it out.

Our worship director decided a few years ago she wanted to do it as a duet with him, which led to renewed joking.  And a couple of months ago, a former local newscaster-turned-traveling-preacher/singer visited our church and the first song he did was this one.  Susi and I just had to laugh, imagining Jason's reaction.

Still, it's a gorgeous song.  I think I like the Kenny Rogers/Wynonna Judd duet version the best, but I couldn't locate a decent video of it... this one is beautiful as well.