I know in my heart what is true. I know that it’s not what I see. I know circumstances last only a moment and I hear what is promised to me. Words of hope stir in my soul. Will they take root? Will they grow? Will my heart prove to be ground that produces, or will something steal hope away?

I sit here pondering the flashes of insight. I sit here pondering the echos of life that stir in my heart. I ponder the truth, juxtaposed to the way things are and wonder if I am strong enough to let go of what I see for what can be. I suppose some people might call my lack of enthusiasm for my circumstance evidence of my lack of faith in God. I do believe in God, I believe not only that He exists but that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. I believe I can please God, and I realize that without faith it is impossible to please Him.

We were singing a new song in church Sunday, and I really liked it, but it said my faith was faded.. or something such, and I thought no no no. Don’t proclaim that the good thing that God is growing in you is dead. Without faith it is impossible to please God. Don’t say even in an otherwise lovely song, that your faith is gone. Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, don’t lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and He will direct your path. How can  you say your faith is dead and then trust in the Lord with all your heart. Any way, you do have to be careful what you accept as right and good, even in a church service. If it’s not building up your faith and trust in God then it’s not something you should embrace whole heartedly.

So much for my mini sermon. Its late, and my eyes are rebelling for some reason. I think I will log off here and turn in. Press in to the One who can save, and in saving heal, restore, empower and fulfil your every hearts desire.

Grace and Peace.

I took down my mp3 player and put on my headphones so I could listen to some music. There are some really beautiful songs, and there is a part of me that wishes I was 18 again and able to dance for hours on end just because. My body pays me back if I am not careful when I dance now. Since it is so late, and I don’t want to be sore tomorrow, I let the music wash over me and enjoy it without twirling or keeping step. Part of me sighs though and imagines a gown and a dance floor, and mirrored walls, with the music touching not just my ears but my whole body as I sway and spin and move in its embrace. There is a song by Josh Groban that makes me smile every time I hear it, because I know the person he is singing about. “So She Dances” speaks of the girl who is oblivious to everyone else in the room, just dancing for the joy of it. There is something about letting the music lead you as you dance, without a care for what people see, moving as you are moved. I never learned to “dance” as in I never took lessons, and I never have performed. But there is a part of me that remembers what it was like to be 17 and having my only real outlet being dancing.  I would be home for a couple of hours before my parents came home, and I would take over the living room, spinning, swaying and leaping, letting my heart explore the music with my body a willing extension of my heart.

I am sitting here contemplating, listening, and shutting out the echo’s of why. It’s not always easy to do, the shutting out of why.  Why isn’t a productive question. But there is a part of me that wants to know the why to a lot of questions. I want to know why it is that what I really want to study is the one thing I can’t figure out how to study. I want to know why we are going to a secular school when my heart really wants to be useful to the church. It’s not a useful or needful thing to have or to focus on, but the why’s crop up from time to time, and I have to catch myself not falling into their contempt.

I want to see my son, calm and focused, studying, telling wry jokes, connecting with me. I can see glimpses of it in my spirit. I have to ignore what my eyes and ears tell me though to keep that image alive. I have to remember that while I don’t have the might or the power to change things for him, it’s not up to me to change him.

I turn my thoughts from what I can’t change to the music that is playing and fall into the patterns of the notes.

I hesitantly take the first steps of the dance of balancing what I need to do for school and home again as the semester begins. I work out how I will keep all the balls in the air, and how I will sort out the rhythm of being a mom, a student, a wife. I sway softly, watching the intricacies of the dance I will be fully engaged in soon and I take a deep breath. Closing my eyes, I reach out with my heart for the music that will lead me gracefully across the calendar, keeping up my responsibilities, keeping my family on track, and walking in grace. I am so glad I don’t have to rely on  my own strength, but I can press in to my help and my hope and know I will find grace.

Grace and Peace.

Tomorrow is a big day, and I should skip this entirely and send myself to bed. Instead I listen to the breathing of my son, rhythmic, soothing, and in the absence of other input part of me reaches inside and draws out of the river the notes of a cello. Low, soft, and tenderly sweet I know if I follow it, the rest of the orchestra will take its theme and expand it into an achingly sweet waltz. It’s too late to listen to the variations on a theme, no matter how sweet and moving they are. I have business to attend to, or at least sleep to catch. And yet…

So tomorrow we have gazillion.. or at least five distinct and new things to take care of. Classes start on Tuesday, and I have between tomorrow morning and Tuesday to make sure things are as prepared as possible for starting classes. Once I have to be in class, there won’t be much time for much else. I have some massive reading I will need to do, papers that will need to be written, and a household won’t run itself. But there is also knowledge deep down in me that keeps telling me to expect amazing things. I choose to embrace that hope and nurture it. It keeps my eyes looking forward, instead of consumed with tears. There is a hope and a future. It is what He has planned for me. Its going to be good.

Grace and Peace.

Softly, softly, my heart don’t weep. Hope comes to you with the morning light. Tears may find you in the darkness of night, but the joy of the light shows the truth from the lie. Softly, sweet, softly, my soul be still. Don’t give into the dark hour you see. Close now your eyes and see beauty more rich than you’ve ever seen, reaching back to you. Strain now your ears and hear soft melody, the gurgle of water from an earth breaking spring. Imagine the scent of the sweet forest air and the cool of the pure water dripping through your finger tips, after drinking in, light pure and sweet from the source from the spring giving life-giving sweetness a name. Hold onto what you see, when you eyes only see falling dark at night. Hold onto light.

Softly, my soul. Be still, be full of hope. Softly hold onto the light. Be still my soul, be still my soul, good night.

Grace and Peace.

I have a choice when those feelings try to drag me into a sea of self-pity and unhappiness. I can let the emotions I am feeling carry me away or I can trust in the Word and believe that no matter what I have been told, or what my own eyes tell me, I am not doomed to live this life for the rest of my days here. I believe in miracles. I believe in hoping against hope. I am persuaded that He is able to fulfil His promise to me.

I sit here listening to the dryer in the next room. My husband is alone in bed. It is late, and I should be sleeping. I choose to believe that what I see, what I have seen in my son for the past sixteen years is not what I will see. I choose to believe that the wild shrieking that floods my house every night will be replaced by banter from a well-adjusted intelligent young man who is chafing not against being unable to understand the world he is in, but against having to clean up his room  or do his homework instead of chatting with his school mates on-line. I choose to believe that my I have not been sentenced to carry this pain, but that I have been graced to see how big God’s love is. I choose to believe that all this nightmare will end, and the hope that is in my heart is not in vain.

Grace and Peace

Things are still a bit on the uncertain side.  We have been able to figure out a few things, or track down information that we didn’t have. Things may not be as bad as we were initially told, so our world may not be turned on its ear after all. We will see.

How do you recognise progress? How do you know when the changes you are walking through are leading you into a better situation?  How do you find the courage to embrace the change and see the glimmer of a bright future if what you are walking through is uncomfortable and even painful?

I have extra time on my hands, and it is the new year and a season for assessing the past and looking forward to the future. It is a time to let go of the pain of the past and stir up the hope for the future that could be. In the past few days I  have been able to envision my almost 17-year-old as a normal young man, studying, making up for lost time. The image stirs hope in me. It reminds me that nothing is impossible. We talked about travelling as a family for the first time in a long time. There is family that I have never met on my husband’s side, and it is clear that if we want to see them we need to do the travelling.  We know that when our course work is done we will need to change things, since to teach at the college level my husband will need at least a master’s degree. I try to see myself teaching. It’s not that I doubt that I can do it, but I think I will be writing. Just what I will be writing I don’t know. Maybe the idea of writing is wishful thinking on my  part, but I can see myself doing this, this sitting here with a keyboard on my lap pouring out the fabric of my imagination onto a page.

Maybe I will be learning to write music. Maybe I will write musicals. I am a song writer in my heart. I can sit down and make up a song about anything. I don’t have the skills to write a song down, but I do have the ability to hear the song and its many facets. I giggle sometimes at myself. I think it would be cool to write symphonic rap music. I don’t like rap at all, but I can hear the two forms meshing really well. I often hear symphonic music with drums and lead guitar. It’s not a new idea but it is a fun combination of sounds. Once I spent the afternoon with a Gospel Choir, a classical guitar, an electic guitar, and a small orchestra dancing around a song that I could only hum to, since my voice does not have the richness of the vocals needed to even carry the melody. It was an awesome song, and I can remember my thinking it was a cool combination of voices but when whatever I was doing that could afford me the luxury of letting the music just play inside me was over, so was anything but a wistful moment of an aching heart at the loss of the song. I knew it would do no good to write down the words so that I could come back and stare at them later with no recollection of the rest of the music.

I will keep working towards my degrees though. No matter if I can’t envision myself teaching English at the college level, I will have to bring home a paycheck to cover the classes I am taking now, and I am not adverse to teaching. I am just not sure it’s what I should be doing. Maybe the necessity of having to pay the bills will unlock a grace to teach that I haven’t yet seen.

Its odd, or maybe its peace, but I am not worried about the money. Do I have any inkling of why it is I am not concerned about the money?  Not really.  It’s not that I am not tempted to be concerned. It’s just that when I sit and contemplate what will be, it is not overshadowed with a burden of what will be needed, but it is instead filled with a peaceful contentment. It is not full of a sense of being strong because I have to be, but rather a sense of being fulfilled and full of life and full of hope.

Its strange, because right now there are only two or three people who ever read my posts intentionally, one of whom is related by blood. I am sitting here smiling at the rediculousness of the notion that I would be writing something that would be important enough for me to need to write because it was my occupation. Still, that is what I can see myself doing and saying, whether I ever write any music or not. I remember when I contemplated my history major before I switched to being a writing major, and the sureness of the sense that I was studying the wrong thing because I am a writer, not a historian. I can’t say that anyone has ever told me anything that would make me peg my hopes on being paid to write.  Yet I am taking writing classes because that is what I am,  and it makes sense to take classes that help me mature in my writing.

I can see myself on a cold winters afternoon with a steaming cup of coffee next to me, and a snowy field outside a bay window, glancing outside at the stillness of a world blanketed in white, and unwrapping the words of someone who will never exist except in the stories I tell about her. Maybe I won’t write fiction. Maybe I will write works of encouragement for others. I don’t think I will be writing poetry, unless it’s tucked into the story I tell. I have discovered I don’t see things as traditional poets are supposed to, and writing songs is not the same as writing poetry. I am at peace with that.

So, here I sit, writing about being a writer in the future, looking forward to classes starting in another week or so. I am neither dreading nor looking forward to the classes that lay ahead. They are what I am committed to doing. I ended up taking a class I had no intention of taking about something I am not at all interested in, but I do know the teacher a little bit, and I don’t hate the topic. I just would not have chosen it if there had been another option and I didn’t have to fill in extra credit hours in order to be ready to graduate in a year. I had hoped to take an online version of a class that I need, but the instructor held the slot for someone who is unable to get onto campus for the class. I understand the reasoning, but it is a tad bit frustrating because the time slot of the regular class is at a time I can  not get to the campus because of obligations with the kids. Oh well. Being a grown up sometimes means bucking up and doing what is needed not what is wanted.

Its funny, I got some news today that I should be nervous about, because it’s a decrease in our monthly available funds. I find I am not nervous though. I find that I know that the money thing won’t be an issue, which is weird because it was the whole issue last year, and I don’t have anything but a peace in me to base my belief on, but I do believe that somehow, money will not be an issue.

I suppose that I should wrap up this post and figure out what I need to do to get ready for bed. May the peace that passes understanding guard your heart and mind.

Grace and Peace.

Since school for the kids is back on, and I cancelled the 5 hour a day class I was planning to take during these two weeks before my Spring semester starts, I am busy sorting out life. Its the beginning of a new year, and its time to take a serious look at where we are and where we are going.  The church in Branson that I am an e-member of has Vision Sunday coming up. Preparing for it is a time of taking a look at where we  are and where we want to be, and what we believe God is wanting us to do and what we believe God is going to do in our lives. As the pastor says, “when we pray for nothing in particular, that is what we will get.”  Selah.

So I am doing some taking stock, examining the details of my life and looking into my heart. It’s a good thing. 

There’s more to say, and I will come back to this idea later, but my writing time is limited by the fact that there is a bus coming in half an hour to pick up my youngest and he needs me to get him ready. That will change, but today it’s where we are so I am off to find clothes and pack backpacks for school.

Grace and Peace.

I suppose I do it because there are so many things that I have prayed about in the past that are still such big issues. I need to go back and remember that I can trust God. I need to acknowledge that He loves me so much, and He wants good for me. It’s not that I think He won’t help me, it’s that I don’t believe in my heart that He will help me, and I don’t want to set myself up for yet another reason to ache. I know that God is faithful. I know that God is on my side, and yet, for all that knowing, I still sit here sighing and blinking tears because my heart is unsettled.

Instead of letting my heart rest in His goodness, I sit apart, burying the feelings, burying the hearts cry, ignoring it. I act like I am somehow strong and able to just deal with things, and yet, I am not supposed to try to carry this alone. But I do.

Any way, maybe if I sit here and stare at my soul I will be able to tell myself, be still my soul, and mean it. Maybe I will be able to close my eyes and open my heart and pour it out before my loving Father with trust and hope and rest secure in the knowledge that He is on my side. Maybe if I open up the wound to the great One, the oil  and wine of his goodness will wash out the wound and it will be healed.

Grace and Peace.

I have sat down to write several times in the past couple of days. At first I sought to consolidate my thinking here, but decided to let my thinking work itself out without the whole of the world watching how distracted my thoughts were. I almost ranted yesterday, but decided that ranting was unproductive, or even counter productive in helping me to sort out the unsettling news we got on Christmas Eve. It’s not an enormous set back or a crushing blow, but it does “upset the apple cart” so to speak, and things are going to change because of it. How much change remains to be seen.

One thing that has changed is I have decided to drop the short class that I was preparing to take, so I won’t be starting class again until the main semester starts. Instead of having less than a week to get  myself ready for an intense study time, I have another couple of weeks with the kids back in class before I have to be in class too. I am not sure how this will all work out, but its one thing I could do with confidence to help right the apple cart.

I have another year and a half to go before I can finish  my course work, and it seems to be a world away. I wish I had a vision of the end, some purpose for the work I am doing that makes sense. I do not feel compelled to work toward a teaching degree, which is the obvious use of a degree in English. I have no job in view, no vocation, no reason to chase the piece of paper at the end of the line except to fulfill my promise to my dad. I haven’t seen the purpose for the paper, and its frustrating to work for something that seems useless. I am a writer, but I really don’t see a commercial value to my writing. I write because I need to express myself, or I see that someone needs my words of encouragement. I write because it is something I can do. I suppose that if I saw the point I could pursue the writing to a masters or doctorate and teach at the college level, which I would be more comfortable with than secondary or primary education. I see what my kids teachers have to deal with and it’s not something I feel any urge to pursue. Truth be told, I don’t think I would seek to teach at the college level either, but if it will help to pay the bills and it seems like it’s the right thing to do, than I don’t mind pursuing it. I just wish I had a crystalline goal to reach toward.

Part of my lack of goals is that I have to follow, rather than branch out and lead in a new direction. I am part of a unit and responsible for the lives I brought into the world, along with my husband. It’s not that I don’t have a voice, but it’s that a single unit can’t work effectively if it’s trying to walk in two different directions at the same time. So, instead of sitting down and saying this is what I plan to do and then launching out to pursue the goal, my goals are part of a bigger picture which means they can be altered or delayed so that they can be worked into the mosaic of my life. Part of me has a full-time job keeping up with the kids. I wish I could just set that one on a lower shelf and work on other things, but as long as I have non verbal kids who don’t function on their own, I can’t decide to do things that  will work against their sense of order without dealing with big ramifications. I also have to make my choices work around whats going on with my husband. I can’t just decide hey, I want this and if you don’t like my choice, that’s tough. I suppose that technically I could do that, but then I would be working against my commitment to my family, and I don’t want to do that. So, I don’t sit around all day and dream about the perfect job so much. I do sit around and try to figure out how to make everyone’s schedule and lives flow as seamlessly together as possible, so that at the end of the day, the kids are well cared for and my husband is content, and I am at peace.

So, why exactly am I going to school? I am going to school because that is what I need to do to make things work. For one thing, I did promise my dad that I would finish school when I got married, and I put that promise on the back burner for twenty years or so. I guess its time to honor my word. Even if I don’t have a perfect job lined up, its good for me to expand my horizons beyond the walls of my  house, and learn some cool new tricks. I may not know what it is I am going to do when I get done with my classes, but the process ahead gives me plenty of time to find out what it is I am chasing. I do know that even though the door for learning the music was closed, there is a reason I am focused on the writing, instead of history. I may not know what that is exactly, but I do know that I am chasing the right piece of paper.

I refuse to worry about the upset apple cart. I can’t change anything by worrying, and I am not big enough or strong enough to right the cart all by myself. But I won’t sit and cry into my apron like a helpless child, alone and afraid. I am not alone, and I am not supposed to be afraid. I have a friend, a brother, a king, who is on my side, and who has promised to never leave me or forsake me. He has big strong arms, and shoulders, and he knows just where to push on the cart to set it right. He can even fix the apples, so that they aren’t bruised by their tumble, and make them right again. So I entrusts him with the apple cart problem, and all the other cares of the day. I am going to go to bed and sleep, and let him take care of the things that I entrust him with, since he’s gonna be up any way.

Be blessed. Grace and Peace.

I am sipping coffee, which probably isn’t the wisest choice in the history of the world, but it is warm and soothing and somehow fitting, in spite of the rashness of drinking caffeine so late. Closing my eyes to savor the moment, the peacefulness of the scene, the rightness of the world and I can’t help but smile. I am blessed.

Today we had the first “real” snow of the season, which means there was enough white stuff on the ground to have to be moved off the side walks with the shovel. Technically the weather service will probably report that it this was the third snowfall of the season, but they count flurries, while my measurement is more tangible. Of course if I admit there was snow earlier I might have to go into the embarrassing moment of the month too, the one where I sat suddenly on the ground outside the performing arts building. But, since I don’t count that as official snow fall.. there’s no need right?

My 10-year-old came out to help me move the snow this afternoon. He had the broom and I had the shovel. I never did get him to understand how I wanted him to use said broom while he was out there, and after a while he determined he would be doing a much better job helping me if I would relinquish the cool shovel and took over the task he couldn’t quite get right. Since we were almost done, I agreed to the switch and tried not to giggle or be critical of the lines he drew in the snow. He did try, but his idea of trying has much more to do with flourish than accomplishing anything. If there ever was a born actor I think it has got to be him. I hope that he gets into acting and finds his passion on the stage. He is so talented, even if most of his applied talent right now is applied in trying to get out of work.

Christmas is just a couple of days away now. I still don’t feel anything. I remember the first year I recognised that Christmas was rushing up on me and I wasn’t mentally prepared. I remember recognising that without having a Christmas concert to prepare for there was a part of the process of getting ready for Christmas that was missing.  That probably is still the case, though its been a lot longer since I have done any concert stuff. Being in a choir means being committed to being at the performances, and I couldn’t do that as a young married girl, and I probably still couldn’t do it. It is hard for someone who has never been through the process to understand why it is that if you don’t have a solo you should have to be there to perform the songs, and that was before I had kids who flipped out and wouldn’t go to bed if I wasn’t home at their bed time. I could join the choir at school, but I don’t have the time to commit during the week, or the time to commit to performing. That being said though, there is a part of me that wishes I could. The last time I sang in front of people was at my dad’s funeral. I had been set against it, but I know my dad liked me singing, so to honor him, I sang a song I wished I had been able to share with him. I threatened to figure out how to record songs to post to Facebook or YouTube, but I don’t have a program to work with, and truthfully, as much as I love to sing, I wouldn’t want to sit and record my singing with my laptop and post it. I would want to record the song and then put the music to a slide show or other video background. I just don’t envision me sitting here singing for the world for the camera, mic yes, camera..  no.

I wish I had learned to play an instrument when I was a child. Or learned to dance for real, or learned how to express the music in me in some meaningful way. The best I can do now is to write down in halting words either a description of the melody or words that fit to it, and hope that somehow what I write can convey the song, or even remind me in the future what it is I have heard. This semester we had to write an elegy as part of our assignments for a poetry class I took. Mine was an elegy to the music that I hear but do not capture. I tried to describe the magma fire that runs just below the surface of my conscious thought. I tried to capture with words the power of the music, the variety of the songs, the intensity of the feelings they evoke in me. But words are so hollow and my effort so long and rambling as I tried to capture it, that in the end, it fell so far short that I didn’t even try to modify it for the final project. There are nights though, like tonight, where I pour out words onto the page because I can not pour out music onto the page. There are moments when I wish that my fingers were as fluent with the keys on a piano keyboard as they are with the keys on this keyboard, so that I could pour out what flowed through me, expressing, even just for the one moment in time, the essence of the music that floods my soul and leaves me aching with its sweetness. I hear what I can not read or write, and my attempts at learning those skills have faltered, leaving me hearing and singing the song in my heart, but never sharing it.

The minutes tick by and the battery indicates that this peaceful respite from the ordinary world will either have to be transported to a place where the plug will reach or cut short. I think, that since my thoughts have brought me to this sober and almost melancholy moment that I will bring this to a close and bid the reader goodnight.

May the grace and mercy of our Father fill your heart and mind with peace and joy.

Grace and peace.