A Joyful Thanksgiving

Our dentist, he asked if I was under stress, experiencing anxiety, did I want to try meditation, prayer. Me, on the other end of the phone with eyebrows furrowed and thoughts circling over the past few weeks while he continued with his diagnosis of my jaw pain. Have you watched the news? Do you know we put our dog to rest?Are you sure my recent dental work isn't the real culprit? As he continued in his explanation my back fired hot, I shifted in the chair, with a heart crunching on his words. How can one clench and not know it? Does clenching mean trust is buried beneath all that worry? I thanked my dentist for his help and hung up, lingering doubt shadowing my thoughts like a Star magazine at check-out.

Earlier that day I helped four-year-old grandson decorate a felt vest for Thanksgiving celebration. Like the Native Americans wore only this one gave me fright as the teacher handed my daughter and I sewing needles. Panic rifled through my chest. As if the elfin chairs and miniature tables weren't enough to test my brave, flared-up back pain and jaw discomfort took second place behind my fumbling fingers with a needle and thread. My mother was gifted true with a sewing machine, all those spools of thread and transparent patterns. I shivered at the sight of the apparatus in motion. Stealing quick glances at a young gentleman and son across the small table fueled my increasing anxiety. Over there, on their own brown vest I noticed beautifully arrayed pattern of multi-colored buttons, beads and on the back? A craftily drawn portrait of a figure which I didn't recognize, what with all that spinning going in in my head. My daughter figured out how to work her needle and thread, the room hummed with creativity, sparks of imagination illuminated the festive atmosphere. And as grandson concentrated hard, carefully coloring a forest green sun in between the stencil pattern, I sewed the end of a blazing orange feather onto the vest. After securing the thread, praying the feather would hold on until Thanksgiving, I scanned the room, fixing my gaze on Joy.

So when my dentist asked me those piercing questions later that day, I knew it to be true. Stress and pain holds it grip and this crazy terror causes fear to snake up the spine. But underneath all the uncertainties there lies a restful secret. Fear and faith can wrestle tough, long strands of slender thread and shiny silver needles might brand the eyebrow with glistening sweat. With eyes hunting for Joy right there, in the midst of the chaotic moment, enfolding yourself into the right true peace of bumbling seamstress, of dentists who might not see everything and behold the infinite Joy, now. Look for it, it's all around our earthly frames, this gift of His inexhaustible Joy, dancing circles beneath our grateful feet.

~Be Joyful, pray continually, give thanks in all things~

A Matter Of Time

I listen to her story, this friend of mine who grieves big. Such unthinkable hard she is walking through, trudging really. I listen intently, she has a gaping wound to share, a bleeding heart and I have nothing to give but myself in these moments. She mourns for a brother who was fatally shot at his home. Only eight minutes after he confirmed church and breakfast with his parents on the phone. Why? He had asked this neighbor to drive slower down their street. Disbelief passes across her features as she speaks the words, eight minutes she says, just eight minutes after he spoke to his parents he was gone.

What can we do with our lives in eight minutes?

I leave the gym, turn on the wipers, bow my head against the cool steering wheel. I think about loss, how only moments earlier I had swiped my own tears away while stretching on the gym floor. Our beloved dog put to rest this week and the missing him washes over us. Please God, please massage the sad in our hearts. And I sit in the car and think about my friend and how five months later she weeps, eyes glisten grief for the brother now gone.

Later I walk to the mail box and glance at the neighbors tree. And I remember to count again, yes in the midst of this sorrow the orange-tinged dancing leaves, they wink hope, and I see, I see. Thank you. I see the beauty right here in front of me. These are a few of my favorite things and I thank you. Opening a beige colored envelope I see the animals on the front of a card. The message inside is written in ink, a missive of sympathy from our vet. A kindness he says, it was a kindness to let him go. My eyes well once again as they have all week and I think of my friend and her brother shot so senselessly. Missing is hard life and time will heal but you have to catch up to the time. 

In eight minutes I can write a card to someone who needs a touch, a kind word to lift the the weary spirit. Drop it in the mailbox at the curb.

In eight minutes I can stop my busyness, cross the street, chat with an elderly neighbor.

I pray for my friend and her family, for the loss and the hurting that might never end.

And in eight minutes I can thank Him over and over again, for that wellspring of restoring hope that never ever truly ends.

A Requiem For A Ring

My husband and I married in 1973, us two, high school sweethearts who wed one year after graduation. Babes in the woods. The same year Elton John crooned "Daniel", and the price of a gallon of gas, 40 cents. Our nights cruising around the Speck Drive-In in the past, we had a life to build now in the city of our births. Much has changed since that year long ago; computers and iPhones, Facebook and Twitter, rush hour traffic at two in the afternoon, Amazon and eBay. How can this be? Where has the time gone? There are too many TV channels to choose from! How does this happen? When the past and present co-mingle in the same millisecond and you click the mouse on your computer while humming a refrain from "Hey Jude". And when you recall an old television show at work, the only co-workers who nod in nostalgic agreement are the ones who color over their gray and  read up on Medicare enrollment. Change is good. Change is slow. Change is inevitable.

A few years ago my wedding ring showed aging signs. And after it started to catch on clothing and the two bands threatened separation I took it for repairs. For the first time since our engagement, my ring finger was bare. But when the salesperson lifted the ring from the canary-gold envelope my toes tickled happy. I gazed in awe at this shiny golden adornment. Slipping it on my finger I wondered at the longevity of this wedding token and how a jeweler could transform the broken into the majestic. I studied the intricate lines etched into the linked bands, the now shimmery diamonds and glistening gold. After a moment I paused, inhaled slow, my thoughts hijacked by an image of LaRog jewelers, to that store commanding the street corner where we purchased our rings all those years ago. This isn't my ring! It's gorgeous but not the same. I want my ring from 1973! Slowly, ever so carefully, I slipped the ring from my finger and made my plea. "My ring had antiquing in the grooves. It must have rubbed off during the restoration." Politely I asked, "Would you please fix it?" The manager apologized, returned it to the jeweler who converted the ring back to its former glory.

Lately I've wondered if that is what God does for us. Maybe he sees the glistening gold deep down inside our wayward hearts and He brims over with everlasting joy at each baby step we take towards His light and truth. And perhaps every now and then our evolving selves need an illuminating brushstroke or two of his  magnificent, restoring grace. One step, one change, one revelation at a time.

To the degree you experience God loving you as His Beautiful

You will be changed into Beautiful