If I Died Tomorrow

Monday would be a good day for gardening. The weather man convinced me of that. I bought plants at Costco Sunday evening and surprisingly it was a breeze shopping despite the COVID stock-up frenzy the past two weeks.  Driving  by earlier in the morning, a line went around the building with no end in sight. No one would believe what COVID has done.

Wild Walls

Walls are a part of our lives in one way or another. There are the walls of your home and then there are the invisible walls people put up to close off the world. Both have the same distinction to protect a person from intruders.
When I was 14 years old, there was an enclosed tunnel made out of cement that I had to walk through everyday to get to school. The typical teenage writing was on it’s walls with some girl writing her undying love for some guy. It was a mystery to me that someone would want to be writing about love on a cold, damp wild wall. Yet here I was captured each day by its graffiti. There was no way to walk around it. It was the only way to school.
Reminded by my conscience that writing on a wall is destroying someone’s property, I never engaged in this activity. I did not want to wrangle with words that someone else would read anyway. It seemed pointless and leads to someone reading useless crap. Yet I wanted to write something, but not empty chatter as was the case with 90% of what was written on those stone walls.
One particular day I stopped as I was exiting the tunnel and said to the walls, “Give me 14 more years and I will show you something!” I then turned away from that tunnel to never walk through it again. It was my last day of junior high school.
As I have aged my childhood now holds some sacred truths. I learned that writing is good even if it is graffiti. Here I was a lonely girl holding on so long ago to those walls. They became a part of me without even understanding their impact. Every 14 years in fact I have taken stock of what I could show those walls.

Local newspaper clipping from my teenage years playing softball. Childhood memories are so important to who we become later in life.

Vulnerabilities

As the old saying goes, birds of a feather flock together. This proverb is as old as time practically and has a connotation of referring that we enjoy safety with others that are like minded.
What about friendship? Do we tend to migrate to those that are similar to us? My husband likes to say I make friends easily. I actually think what he is really saying is I have good communication skills. Part of me says that there is truth in that, but most healthy life long friendships take a very long time to cultivate. They are worth it, but they are risky at times. When you make yourself vulnerable to another, you are saying to that friend that they are worth the investment. Most of these kind of investments will reap you rewards. As a financial friend of mine would say a good friendship will be full of big dividends for a lifetime.
As I have studied the wonder of friendship this past week, I have seen my son lose his best friend. It made me realize how short of time we have on this earth and we better make each moment count. I have of late not been the best of friends and have come to a place that I needed to work on being more honest in my conversations and also reaching out and asking for help.
What I think I have been learning is to accept that the human spirit has flaws , defects, and blemishes. In all reality I was actually identifying these issues in my own person. Now that is heavy.
So today I am relearning a big lesson about myself. I need help and at times this comes straight from the Divine who is our best friend. It is easy to think all we need are good human friendships to share all our problems with. The truth is friendships will suffer if we place too much on our friends to bear. This is for God alone.
In reality healthy friendships will grow and not short circuit when we learn the gift of how friendship shouId really look like. If God forgives us, we should learn to forgive our friends. We should not take our friendships for granted. I love Proverbs 17:9 which reminds us love grows when we choose to forgive, but if we dwell on it the best of friends will become separated.

Restorations

Anne Graham Lotz (Billy Graham’s daughter) spoke at an event I attended this week.

We are broken. Yes. That’s right. Not one of us is free from emotional baggage either brought on by our own doings or afflicted upon us by others. How often are we rattled to our core? I must say I have had that kind of life yet I prayed for my release many times even if it was death.
A few nights ago I attended a special event where Ann Graham Lotz spoke to a large audience. Anne is the daughter of the legendary evangelist Billy Graham. She is considered for her generation one of the top 5 evangelists according to the New York Times. Funny thing is that at this event she said she is not an evangelist. Reverend Billy Graham called her the best preacher in the family. I thought that was pretty amazing coming from him.
Anne’s message was clear and masterful. She believes we are living in the end times and prefaced this with language I had heard many times before about the changing circumstances of humanity. She gave example after example of environmental and political reasons. It was interesting and her thoughts on life in our current culture seemed spot on to me.
As a fellow Christian I take heart in the simplicity of the evening. There was a lone man (http://www.fernandoortega.com/) at the piano singing songs that pierced your heart. With each word of one song I paused to allow the fullness of its meaning. The song would draw you in with its deep calling. It would remind me of being at a dear friend’s house that you may have not seen for many years, yet you can resume that friendship right where you left off.
It is in living our lives vulnerable, we rediscover ourselves. I think that is why I love music so much. A song has a way of replenishing me. I can let my guard down. So as I seized the moment in a song, I thought of where my life has come from one restoration to another. It is not a one stop healing track. It is a continuum. If we are to capture the wonder of life, it is a rediscovery process. It is also about allowing people an opening into our lives from not merely knowing someone from the inside out, but the outside in.
After coming home from this special night, I decided to find out more about Anne. I noted in one article on the internet that her husband had been very ill a month ago with a deadly MRSA infection. She thought they might lose him. As I read this, it took me back to my year of horror with the same infection in my skull. The difference is I became extremely angry and resentful to God about this and honestly still have not completely overcome my negative emotions with my experience. Yet here was Anne able to come cross-country after watching her partner fight for his life. Let me just say that her circumstances restored me a little that night.
So today I am a little bit closer to being the best I can be. I await again for another restoration and can not wait for God to answer in an unexpected way. By the way–bloggers thanks for reading as this post was very religious in nature. I am many things, but the most important part of who I am is an ordinary girl telling her story in extraordinary fashion. That is why I started this blog after all.

Childhood Recollections

1972 in Hawaii. My mother was cool with that fluffy thing on her head!

Driving my husband’s car to the Jeep dealership for an oil change while listening to the radio, I am taken away to oblivion ( my childhood) with the sounds of The Doobie Brothers’ 1972 smash hit, “Listen To The Music”. I feel a smile coming on my face naturally.
My girlfriend and I are sitting on the curb waiting for her brother to come pick us up after school. We are in the 4th grade. He arrives in a topless mustang. Her brother can not be much over 16 and he was cool. He knew it and I did too. We hop in and he turns on the radio while we drive off. I am 10 years old and my long hair is blowing in the wind to The Doobie Brothers’ 1972 smash hit, “Listen To The Music.” We live on Schofield Army Base in Hawaii with palm trees all around us. My friend’s brother is definitely trying to show off. He says, “I bet you never heard anything like that before. Have you?” The truth is I had not. My LP collection did not include The Doobie Brothers at the age of 10. I was loving the beat.
As I dropped the car off and headed into the Jeep dealership’s lounge to sit down, the radio in the building started playing you guessed it “Listen To The Music.” The band sings, “….What the people need is to listen to the music….it is a way to make them smile…” I feel a smile coming on my face naturally.
As the mustang eases up to the curb of my military housing where I lived, my girlfriend’s brother says, “See ya later and let me know if you need a ride again.” I stared at him and then said bye. I ran into the house and went upstairs and looked at my record collection and immediately came downstairs to my mom and declared, “Can I get a new record next time we go to the store?” I do not remember what she said, but I do remember my LP collection started having some diversity after that car ride and I was loving the beat.

I Did It My Way

Photo taken of the Cascade Mountains reveals the majesty of our world around us.

I am not into reblogging, but this one from a peer of mine who is speaking from her experiences with the dying just about choked me up beyond words. She interviewed the dying and asked what regrets they had in their lives. As a cancer survivor on more than one occasion, I truly get this list. Most with good health will not, but you do have a chance to. Review this now and see what you can do to change your ways:
http://www.alternet.org/5-top-regrets-people-have-end-their-lives

Blogging

You bloggers make me feel like Minnie Mouse as she is very special to me! Thank you for the awards!

I am somewhat under the weather today, but I wanted to send thanks to several of you that gave me nominations for awards in the last couple of weeks. Thank you again for the Inspiring, Versatile, Beautiful, and of course the most recent was the Sunshine award. I loved that because I felt as if my light is making a difference. I so appreciate the affirmations from you all. I do not think I can get to all the questions that are asked from these awards, but I thought I would share a few things I have not told you about myself or at least I don’t think I have:
1. I became a nurse after my dad thought it would be a good career choice. It was not my first choice. I thought I wanted to teach school.
2. I was robbed while in high school on campus. I still miss my suede coat, cap, and gloves that were taken from me. I guess the robber was cold.
3. I once heard angels sing in my car. I am not kidding!
4. I was given a police ticket for just parking in front of my apartment when I lived in Germany in 1990. I do not think my neighbors liked American GI’s
and that was what I was! When they met my family (who happened to be German), I never got another ticket..Thank God. I think the first ticket was illegal,but
I just paid it.
5. Both of my children were born by C-section. (that was too much information wasn’t it?). haha.
6. I had kidney cancer in 1997. The surgeons took that bad puppy out and now I pee with only one kidney!
7. I had a very large brain tumor discovered in 2010. The surgeons took that bad puppy out and now I still pee with only one kidney!
8. I shit like the rest of you.
9. I had fibroids. The surgeons took those bad puppies out and now I still pee with only one kidney!
10.God–that is way too much information….
Hope all is well in your worlds out there….IF you feel so inclined to share what kind of surgery you have had in your past leave a comment. I am sure I will still be peeing with only one kidney with your surgical story too….THANKS AGAIN TO ALL OF YOU FOR THE AWARDS! I will post some winners soon. Photo of Minnie taken by yours truly.