Never say never

Holidays come and go, friends come and go, Blogs and bloggers come and go. That's just life, I guess. Always and forever moving forward. Always changing, always needing to change. With that being said..the same goes for me. I feel that my life will be better served if I try to write my thoughts into my journal pages instead of here on this blog page. I don't want to keep posting about Alanon and I haven't quite figured out what else I want to post about. Maybe it's time for me to move on; to find a different way to write about my life and how God is changing me. Never say never....I might be back. All depends on what I find to write about or whine about or whatev. You get my drift. Blessings to all. Thanks for stopping by. Thanks for reading these words.  Lolly

CT

My 3 children were in high school when the Columbine shooting happened. After that I worried about bad things happening to them until they were all out of high school. My husband was an active Fire Fighter when the Twin Towers fell in NYC. From then on I worried about him whenever he went to work, but in a different way than I had before. My daughter was a student at NIU when a shooting happened on that campus February 14th and for the next two years anxiety ruled her life as she continued her studies there. I learned after that to become more anxious myself. My son was a student at SIU when gun violence erupted at the Virginia Tech campus. He was 8 hours away from home and I worried about him every single day. Today, my daughter is a grade school teacher in Illinois. And I am worried again. We don't now nor have we ever lived in Colorado, New York, Dekalb IL, Virginia or Connecticut. But I gotta tell ya....it doesn't and didn't make me any less sad or grief stricken for other parents or any less afraid and anxious for my kids safety. This latest thing in Connecticut????  It proves to me that I am not a writer. I've read the posts of my favorite bloggers and have been rendered mute, awestruck, and moved to tears by the heartfelt emotion I've experienced coming from their souls. After I read this one, and this one, and then this one, I started crying and have yet to stop. I did not know any of those sweet little kids, but my heart feels broken just the same. Their words are exactly the words that are written on my heart and I didn't know how to put my own heart thoughts into written form. I am struggling to type out even this post. Maybe it's true what she says....maybe my silence is my way of grieving. Maybe I'm not supposed to put my thoughts to words. Maybe, for this, I am supposed to just feel the grief and process it a different way. My daughter? The one who was at the NIU campus?? She teaches 3rd grade. I can only imagine how she feels. I've talked with her of course, but still and all....it's gotta be difficult to  actually be in a classroom after something like this happens. She says that on Friday, when she heard the news of the shooting at lunch time, her kids were coming back in from lunch recess, and all she could do was stare at them. Their little 8 year old faces. And she told me that she just could not imagine anything like what happened in Connecticut happening in her own classroom.  She talked about their cute little innocent faces, all red cheeked with the cold as they came through the door of the classroom. She talked about the upcoming winter break and how the kids were already going stir crazy knowing that Christmas was only days away, how they were excited and loud, and  boisterous. She talked about her own fears of what she, herself would do in a situation like Sandy Hook. And both of us cried. For the loss of life of those little children. And then she kept crying because she's stressed and over scheduled. On Friday she and her husband are leaving for their honeymoon and she needs to pack and do laundry and she needs to lesson plan and grade report cards and clean her house and mail out Christmas cards. And I comforted this daughter of mine. Do what you can I tell her. Don't stress about cleaning the house or sending out those Christmas cards. Pack your bags and get ready to go on a much deserved vacation. On a much needed vacation. I don't think I helped her very much though. My daughter is a worrier. It's what she does. She learned from the best.

Wait....

Wait...I want to exchange my miracle...is it too late to exchange it for something else? Can I ask for something else instead of Christmas presents? I feel horrible, in more ways than one, thinking that I needed a miracle for gifts, when some other mother was praying for her own kind of miracle...
Sometimes, there are no words....

Miracles

So my sister and I do a Bible study every Thursday. In the last year we've done a whole series of Bible studies by the Women of Faith Study Guides. We noticed that each study guide, no matter the title or subject, ended by asking us to tell "our story" to the other Bible study members. "Our story" meaning how we, as individuals, found ourselves or our way back to Jesus. Well, since it's just her and I, it got a little repetitive to say the least. After we finished the final chapter, we'd just look at each other and then I'd say..."Do you really want to hear that part of my story again?" It became a joke between us. Kept us laughing and Bible study light hearted anyway. (I know, we sound like a couple of good times girls, don't we?? Laughing at ourselves and making jokes about our stories of how we found Jesus...Hot Damn! We're having some fun now!) So we decided to try a different type of Bible study. Something with a little more depth to it. Something that made us think a little bit more, something that really made us dig into the chapters of the Bible; to really find some meaning and insight. What we ended up choosing was Forgiven by Josh and Sean McDowell. Last week was chapter one. Two paragraphs in to chapter 1 we discovered that this was no easy peasy Bible study. "Oh, man" my sister says. "This is gonna be hard to do." Ya, no shit, I'm thinking to myself.  We struggled to get through chapter 1. It took us the better part of 2 hours. This is not feeling light hearted and fun anymore. But we kept pushing through the hard parts and yesterday we found ourselves at chapter two. Miracles. Chapter 2 is about miracles. The study guide has us read about the 3 separate miracles that Jesus performed. The first is His healing the sight of the blind man, the second is Him changing the jars of water into wine at the wedding and the third is Jesus bringing his best friend Lazarus back to life. In the middle of this study on miracles, the book suggests that we discuss with each other a problem we are experiencing in our lives right now and for us to ask for a miracle for ourselves. So, I tell my sister that we have more bills than money right now and that Christmas is gonna be real, real, lean this year. I need to grocery shop but I have no money until next week Friday. I also need to Christmas shop but if I can't buy food, I certainly can't buy presents! So together, her and I, we hold hands and pray for a miracle for me. Just a small one. I ask Jesus for a miracle regarding Christmas and buying presents and we ask Him if He can find a way to help me in this. And here is the answer I got to this my prayer of mine for a miracle.....
After Bible study, I headed to our local department store.  My daughter has asked for a tea pot for Christmas and I wanted to check out the prices on them. Tucked into my purse is a $5 gift card that we got for filling a prescription at this store. As I made my way down the aisle I saw an end cap that had 2 pair of children's mittens for $2 and a sign above it said 50% off. My grandson had no mittens the other day when he came over and his little hands were sooo cold. So I grab them (2 for the price of 1) and keep going. A few aisles over I find the tea pot. It is $9.99. I add up the purchases in my head, add a little tax, and figure that it's gonna cost roughly $11.00 and some change to buy these things.  Now also at this department store, they have what they call Reward Points. Every time we shop there, we get a percentage back as rewards for, well, shopping there. My Hubs gets his prescriptions at this store, so we usually have a few points to use towards future purchases. So with this in mind, I head to the checkout counter. The nice lady rings me up, asks me do I want to use my reward points and enters in the amount we have in our rewards account. Next I hand her my $5 gift card and she adds that to my transaction. When the cash register finally totals up everything, my cost is......are ya ready for this ???
39 cents. This is what I owe the department store. 39 cents.  39 cents for a tea pot and two pairs of mittens. And I can barely hold in my glee. I almost  pee'd myself. It felt like such an answer to my prayer. I practically ran out to my car so I could call my sister. "You'll never believe this", I shout to her on my phone! So I tell her my whole story and the both of us agree that, YES!, it is indeed an answer to our prayer. It is a tiny little Christmas miracle. Just enough of a miracle to help us both see Him and His answer in the middle of this prayer of ours. A tiny little miracle to remind us to keep the focus on Him this holiday season. I know it may seem like such a  little miracle, but for me, for her, it WAS a miracle none the less. We asked Him to give us one and He did. He does indeed answer prayer and sometimes, He throws in a tiny little miracle because two sisters needed Him to, because two sisters asked Him to. And I am grateful for it.

I've got a secret

I've got a secret board on Pinterest. A board no one else can see but me. I call it  My God moments. As in My God not OH MY God!. It's beautiful pictures and amazing quotes and Bible verses (that can stop me in my tracks); that "speak" to me about God and His grace and the Universe and my place in it. I don't want to share this board with anyone. I like keeping it secret. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy and a little bit holy when I look at what I have pinned to this board. So why then, if it's a secret, am I telling you about it?? I don't know. It's been a while since I blogged and I really don't have much to say. It was  the first thing that popped into my head and I just started typing.  Ellen over at Sweetwater blogged today about ordinary life. She says ....."Sometimes daily life stuff doesn’t seem like much to write about. But that is what I am doing over here. Just daily life."   
Same here. Ordinary life. Daily life. And really, that feels pretty darn good. Nothing new to blog about isn't necessarily a bad thing. It may make for a boring blog post, but I'll take boring over burned out. I'll take mundane over meltdown. Serenity over sadness. God's grace and forgiveness over shame and anger.  Secret Pinterest boards about holiness over secrets that hurt and damage your soul.
The house is decorated for Christmas and I've got half of the presents bought. Got a load of towels in the washer and I need to go to the store and get Kleenex and paper towels. Hasn't snowed yet this season and I am hoping to have a white Christmas. Hubs is at work, Chihuahuas are sleeping, beds are made.....plain, old, ordinary life. And I've never felt better about that in my whole life.
See??? That's Gods grace. And it feels amazing! Peace and serenity and a secret Pinterest board that reminds me of what's holy in this life, what's holy in MY life. My plain, old, ordinary life. I am so blessed!