Good Things in My Life

After yesterday's rant, I'm thinking I need to focus on some of my blessings.

1. I turned in my ordination paperwork last week - one day before the Dec. 1 deadline! Now it's sit and wait time until interviews in late February.

2. manBoy has thus far managed his time and energy during a school year that is very academically demanding and continued to work 9 hours each week at his pharmacy job. Job may have to be dropped when track season starts.

3. Gifted and Talented is employed. This is a mixed blessing. His job has become increasingly demanding and the culture increasingly toxic. Please keep him in your prayers.

4. Several initiatives in my work are bearing fruit. We started a network for Adult Christian Educators since children and youth were getting great support, but there was a gap for folks working in Adult Ministries. So far the network has been well received and benenficial for those participating. Another committee that has been somewhat dormant for a while, has gained momentum and is thinking big!!!!

5. manBoy can get himself where he needs to be now because he's driving my old car and I'm driving one of these:

Rambling Rant

It seems like most of my posts this year have been on the blue side and I don't mean the font color. It has been a blue year for so many of those I care about. While our immediate family has been spared from many things, others around us are struggling with unemployment, grief over death that came way too early (neighbor, young boy I've followed on Caringbridge, and husband of friend), anger, and hurt of all kinds. I find myself hurting for others daily.

Today, I went to the Y and hopped on the elliptical trainer. I found myself peddling away at more than 180 strides per minute. I've never gone that fast before. The faster I went, the more the tears came. I managed to not embarrass myself or those around me - you can make grief look like intensity of work out if needed. I was listening to Girls of Grace, but not really hearing the words.

Then just in time for cool down the words were In the calm of your presence, I am listening Lord. Only I wasn't listening. I was ranting. I was more than a little ticked at God, and I definitely was not in the mood to listen. Now, I in no way think God caused all this pain, but I need someone to be mad at and God is mighty handy. Also, it's not as hard on my marriage or other relationships when I take my anger out on God rather than those around me. God is tough. God can take it.

Several years ago, I was lamenting to a friend that manBoy then mostly just boy, could be so polite with everyone else and vent his anger on me. She pointed out that meant I was safe. manBoy trusted that I would still love him even when he was less than polite and needed a place to spill his frustrations. Well I'm counting on that being true with God. I'm trusting God to love me even when I vent.

Truth is, I don't want to be calm and listen right now. I just want to rant a little, and I wouldn't mind if someone would give me a hug now and then. While none of this pain is mine personally, it is in a way. I hurt for my friend who is trying to figure out how to live without her life partner, father of her children, and provider of a hefty chunk of their income while remaining faithful to her call. I hurt for another friend who is in pain I can't imagine and have no words to comfort her with. I hurt for a family that inspite of their emotional and spiritual health are finding the loss of Little D has left a great hole in their hearts and lives.

I have a message of hope mulling in my head that will be delivered at Blue Christmas Service. I'm sure I will be preaching to the preacher.

There are good things happening in our lives. I will post about them soon. We continue to be proud of manBoy and all he has grown to be. Yesterday marked 17 years since he came into our family and we have been blessed by every minute of it.

If you are still there, thanks for "listening." Letting this all spill out helps.

Lord, open my eyes and heart to your presence in all this pain. Let me see the blessings you bring in the midst of it all. Show me hope. Amen.

Friday Five: What's New?

Over at RevGalBlogPals, Songbird writes:
There's a new baby on my street, a double PK whose mom and dad are Methodist Pastors and church planters. I'm hoping to go over and meet her today. I love new babies, the way they smell and their sweet little fingers and toes. Little K has me thinking about all the new things that please us with their shiny freshness.

Please share with us five things you like *especially* when they are new.

First let me share that the cyber world and IRL world are getting increasingly connected. I've never met Little K's parents, but I spent Monday and Tuesday at a Leadership training with someone who is a part of that new church plant. She kept checking her email and facebook to see if the baby had been born yet. In addition I also met one of Little K's grandfathers a few weeks ago when his job and my job intersected. United Methodism is indeed a connectional system.

Now on to the Friday Five.
1. A new journal. I love the possibility of all those pages waiting to be filled. This is probably connected to my earlier fondness for a brand new big chief tablet and a big fat pencil with a fresh eraser. It should be noted that I write in my journals with a Parker pen that was a High School graduation present more than 30 years ago. It just feels right in my hand.

2. A new car. Maybe in the next year or so???? Or maybe a new used car.

3. A new, fresh off the presses J.D. Robb detective story - or Jan Karon book but those are few and far between.

4. A freshly cleaned house (does this count?)

5. Almost anything new - especially if the procuring of it was not too painful. I had Leadership Incubator assignment in a mall this week. I was reminded of why I don't go to malls often. They spark in me that desire to get something new, just for the sake of having something new. Our budget doesn't allow for this as it once did, so I just don't go any more.

Bonus: I am looking forward to having a new Wesley Study Bible which will be on sale for only$20 Nov. 19, 20, 21. I didn't put this in my five because, well used Bibles are just as much fun as new ones.

When I was in Brownies, I learned the following song. It is applicable to friends and things.
Make new friends, but keep the old.
One is silver, and the other's gold.

Friday Five - Special Days

Over at RevGalBlogPals, Sophia is "thinking of the special rites of passage in our lives which we participate for ourselves or in which we support and bless others: baptism, confirmation, marriage, ordination, graduation, funerals etc. Such important days, so exciting and joyous, but also sometimes anxiety provoking or deeply painful..."

So for this week's Friday Five she asks us to "share five memories of such sacred moments with God and her holy people from your life and the lives of those you love."

This is an interesting day for this particular topic. While my life has been filled with many holy moments, there are a few days that stand out.

This weekend, Gifted & Talented and I will be celebrating our 29th wedding anniversary. Remembering our wedding all those years ago - we were sooooo young and sooo full of hope and possibility for our future. Earth tones prevailed. Young men and women lined up beside us as we took vows we believed but couldn't begin to comprehend. We have been blessed over the years through both trials and triumphs.

Our struggle with infertility ended on the day we stood in a hospital chapel and Manboy's birthmother placed him in our arms. It was indeed a holy day with a ceremony presided by her pastor and ours. We honored the difficult but love filled choice his birthparents were making, promised to raise him in a home filled with love, and prayed for all of us. We still watch the video some years as we remember that day, just two days after his birthday. He'll be 17 in a few months. Surely God has been with us.

There are several memories connected with my ordination journey which really began when I went to my parents and asked to "join the church" a year before the standard age for confirmation. The first time I spoke of my call out loud to G&T and later to my pastor. Standing at the giant window of the retreat center looking out at the lake, listening to praise music as I prepared for my commissioning interviews. The comissioning service.

Today, I am working on writing the answers to the theology questions for ordination. My last entry is not yet a memory, but rather a hope that next June the Bishop will lay hands on me and say "Take thou authority..."

Sunshine

is the name she goes by. She has a brilliant smile and a servant's heart. She works at the breakfast room of the hotel I stayed in last week. Breakfast is a buffet. Her job is to refill as needed and clean up after guests. Her vocation (calling) is to greet those guests with a smile or in my case a hug and a warm welcome. She takes a job that could be drudgery and turns it into a ministry. She wears a name tag with her official name, but her real identifier is the yellow and orange sun pin she wears next to it. I was blessed by her presence and so are many travelers each year.

Thank you God for sunshine (after 10 days of rain) and for Sunshine who brightened my day even if it was rainy outside. Amen.

Imagination

can be a good thing or a not so good thing.

In April, I wrote about my missing neighbor, Kathy Garza. Friday, I attended a memorial service for her. Her body still has not been found, but the prosecution is proceeding with murder charges. In the weeks following her disappearance, I really struggled - especially with my imagination. I wondered if she had been afraid, if she felt pain, if she knew she was leaving her children (2 adult, 2 teenagers). Even as I type this, the tears still come. As time passed, these thoughts no longer dominated my thinking, but were still under the surface and bubbled up whenever there was a reminder.

At the memorial service, the first song was I Can Only Imagine by Mercy Me. This time my imagination was healing rather than painful. As I listened to the song, I could imagine Kathy looking ahead to heaven in delight, looking back at her family with grief, and looking back to the presence of God with delight. I could imagine her feeling God holding her hand as she went through her suffering. I still ache for her loss, for her family, for our neighborhood, but I also have more peace.

Still working on that forgiveness thing.

Please keep Kathy's family and all those who miss her in your prayers.

Giver of Life, thank you for the hope we know in you. Thank you for your presence in our grief. Hold us close please. Amen.

Good Day

Yesterday was a good day. It was my birthday and lots of good things happened . Many were totally unrelated to my birthday, but made it a great day.

First I got a hilarious e-card from my sister in law showing Moses parting the waters. In the waters on one side of the break are three fish with big mouths and teeth chomping. On the other side of the break is a little fish named Harvey who is sticking out his tongue (do fish have tongues?) and mocking the fish who would have eaten him. The caption is "Harvey catches a lucky break. Hope your day is filled with unexpected blessings." It was!

Next, I was bemoaning with an experience pastor that I didn't feel good about my sermon that was video taped on Sunday to send to the Board of Ordained Ministry. I felt is was too head based and not enough heartfelt. She happened to have heard the other sermon I will be sending and felt showing both sides of my preaching might be a good thing. It may simply be justification, but I felt better anyway.

I got a long voicemail message that ended with appreciation for aforementioned sermon, and especially some of the teaching I had done in it. (Smile)

I received a thank you note signed by a whole Sunday School class for the materials they had checked out of the Conference Resource Center and used over the summer. I've worked for the last 9 months to get the Resource Center better organized and more user friendly, with more current material. This was wonderful affirmation. (Smile)

I received The Porpoise Given Life in the mail from the author's wife whom I met at a leadership incubator last week. She didn't plan it as a birthday gift, but it was nice that it arrived that day. I'm looking forward to spending more time with her as we incubate in the coming months. (Smile)

I had several calls and cards with birthday wishes through out the day including cupcakes at work. (Smile)

I had dinner with my husband and son - something that will happen less often now that manBoy is taking a dual credit class at the local Community College one evening a week, and working part time. They gave me a new Terri Hendrix CD and a crockpot cookbook to go with the crockpot I got a couple of weeks ago when the 30 year old one bit the dust. (Smile)

I joined facebook. If you know my real name, feel free to friend me.

We ended the evening with birthday pie - Key Lime to be exact - much better than cake. (Big Smile)

Now, on the morning after, I'm beginning to think my "age-fighting moisturizer" might be loosing the battle. (Smile, oops then the lines show!)