Category Archives: clarity and direction

clarity and direction, family, happy place, living and growing

Happy Places

Last night I was listening to a meditation app designed to help you fall asleep. As it sought to guide me into a relaxed state it asked a question.

What is your happy place?

I thought for 1/2 a second and couldn’t think of one. I chastised myself and insisted that I think more on this.

And then I saw it. It was a large table with all my kids around it. Son-in-laws and grandbaby all fall under the umbrella of ‘my kids’. Ten of us…together.

We were laughing. Some of us so hard that we were crying. There was no undercurrent of discomfort for my empathetic heart to pick up on. Only enjoyment in each others company.

My heart was happy imagining this. I had discovered my happy place.

This was kind of big deal for me. And here’s why….last month my husband and I went out and purchased a dining room table. For me, it is the first brand new dining room table I have ever owned. We’ve been married a long time. And in that time, including our new one, we’ve now owned 5 dining room tables! Three of them were given to us. One we bought second hand for $250 dollars and used until it fell apart.

But table number 5 was different. We were buying it new. The sticker shock was substantial. After we bought it, I came home and had a bona fide panic attack. My husband and I have always been practical people. We never minded second hand things, if they worked we were fine with them.

But our family has grown. Our table no longer fits us. And that didn’t jive with my image of family times spent together. So we went out and bought a table, that fits all of us with room to grow. I also made sure that it was a beautiful table and one I would not need to replace again.

But beauty often comes with a price tag, literally and figuratively. This was not a table for finger paints or playdoh or hot wheel races. Did I mention we were a practical people, use to second-hand things? With a new grandbaby, this table fit us but we would need to treat it with care. Hmmm. That would be an adjustment.

But I made my peace with it. Because more than anything, I wanted us all to be able to sit around that table.

Then last night, that meditation app asked that question….what is your happy place?

And I realized in that moment, I hadn’t just bought a table. I had invested in my happy place.

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clarity and direction, Discovery, enlightenment, living and growing

Saying Yes to Me

It’s finally sinking in. When we say yes to one thing, we are saying no to something else. I use to think it was possible to say yes to everything. But the everything I was saying yes to, didn’t include myself.

For some, putting others first becomes so important that they lose sight of what they themselves need. This has certainly been true for me.

I use to think that by putting others first and saying no to my own needs I was living some kind of higher calling.

There are times when we do need to put others first. But when we do it so frequently that we start to lose sight of our own needs….that’s a problem.

What happens when the only person we say no to is ourselves?

I love to help. It gives me great satisfaction and makes my life feel meaningful. And helping others is good. It’s what we all should do.

I am a caregiver. It’s every inch of who I am. When I don’t have someone that needs care, I find myself seeking out ways to help others.

Here’s the thing though. Need is everywhere. It is easy to be distracted by the immense needs around us. But what about the needs within us? Even those who love to help sometimes need to help themselves.

Turning that helping hand inwards can seem foreign, self centered even. But just because something doesn’t feel familiar, doesn’t mean it’s not right. Healthy habits seem to be much harder to learn than unhealthy ones! Listening to ourselves and responding to what we need is not only healthy, it’s essential.

Sometimes we have to say yes to ourselves. I’m finally seeing that checking in with myself, seeing what I need and then helping myself to get those needs met – is something I must do.

I’ll never stop saying yes to helping others. But seeing my own needs as valuable and worthy…. that’s a step in the right direction. A step towards a healthier more balanced life, a more balanced me. It’s going to take practice though. All healthy habits do.

So these days, I’m practicing saying yes to me.

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appreciation, change, clarity and direction, grieving, healing, hope, living and growing, perspective, spiritual growth, struggles

2020 Hindsight

This past year caused a fundamental shift inside of me. A blanket of heaviness came to rest upon me and I could not get out from under it. Good things happened but I could only acknowledge them on a surface level.

For much of my adult life, I’ve been a hopeful person. So hopeful sometimes that I’ve been accused of being a Pollyanna. When I became a Christian, that hopeful, optimistic view fused with my faith. It became a gift from God. But somehow, over this past year, that hopefulness, the optimistic person in me who thinks it will all turn out ok in the end, left. I didn’t lose my faith. I could acknowledge that God was still in control and that he wanted only good for me. But the spark that drove my faith could not be accessed.

The pandemic and all the things it changed, all the things that had to be given up and the rules that were imposed, I accepted. Some of them broke my heart, but I accepted them. I knew logically, that good things were also happening. That life, even during a pandemic, even with restrictions, could not be contained. That both good and bad things would continue to happen. But when I would try to acknowledge the good, it was truncated, always seen and felt under that blanket of heaviness.

Even on New Year’s Eve, when those on Facebook were posting their hopes that 2021 would be better, I could not join them in that hope. Of course, I did want it to be better but the heaviness inside of me was in charge. There was no room for hope to work it’s magic. It didn’t dare.

I went to bed expecting to sleep through the change of the New Year. Something I would have never done in the past. Yet I couldn’t sleep. I watched the ball drop, while on my phone, in bed. And after it dropped, I cried. It was an odd kind of crying, almost without tears. The thought that there were no tears left, did not escape my thinking. My heart ached from a loss I couldn’t verbalize.

The harsh realist in me has been telling me all along that I have no right to be sad. No one I loved has died from the virus. Yes we’ve had to cancel things and yes we’ve been separated from loved ones, and yes life as we know it has drastically changed, but it’s all for the greater good.

In hindsight, it was really a critic, posing as a realist, that fed the heaviness. The enemy coming in with just enough truth to make me feel compelled to buy it. And the heaviness settled in on top of me and I could not get out from under it.

Of course, the critic was not alone. He had help. Fear, anxiety and the threat of greater loss….the threat of this 2020 life being the new normal, ripped me apart and put me back together again in a way that left me unable to recognize myself.

Over the last few weeks in December, I had reached a breaking point. I was so weary of this new person I had become. I was so tired of trying to be the old me while this blanket weighed on me. My prayer life, like everything else in this year, had been affected. Over the past few weeks, my prayers, when I could get them out were simple prayers, of “help me, Lord.”

This morning, January 2, 2021, I woke up and thought I would pray before I got out of bed. That is not unusual for me but the prayers that came out of my mouth were. “Thank you, Lord! Thank you for the million ways you love me! Thank you for the thousands of opportunities you give me to love you back!”

That prayer just filled my head. I wasn’t thanking the Lord as I had been – out of the knowledge that he deserved it. This was spontaneous as if it came from somewhere else. And there was a song to it, a lightness, that I have not felt since before the pandemic began.

And I began to wonder, had my hope been restored? And the funny thing is, even asking myself that question confirmed for me that it had. I know we are not out of the woods yet. But I am hopeful that I can now live better in the midst of this.

Hope is a powerful agent against fear and anxiety and loss, both real and imagined. Hope gives me words. It gives me vision that allows me to see beyond the darkness.

I’m not so hopeful that I think everything will be unicorns and rainbows from now on. But I am seeing and feeling things differently~ the weight of that heavy blanket is not noticeable. Perhaps it’s still there and will rear it’s ugly head again. I have no doubt it will try. But suddenly I can see the good that’s happened in the past year and enjoy it. I can honestly appreciate it without the heaviness sucking the life out of it.

My heart welcomes back hope and plans to do all it can to not only help it grow back to what it was, but to help it grow stronger, deeper and more resilient than it was before.

They say hindsight is 2020. I’m grateful that hope has come in and let me look back at the year through a lens that sees both the good and bad for what they truly were.

Hope and I will be going into 2021 together. 2020 took it away but 2021 restored it. A Happy New Year, indeed.

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appreciation, change, childhood, clarity and direction, comfort, death, Discovery, dying, families, grieving, home, letting go, living and growing, perspective

Today was a hard day…

Together, my sister and I have been regularly going through and cleaning out, my parent’s house and it’s 62 years of belongings. Doing it together has been a huge blessing. Together we have shared memories, laughed at long forgotten stories and helped each other to let go.

But today was a hard day. The letting go of furniture, glassware and other objects has been a bit easier than I anticipated. But the paper….the piles and piles of papers…that is where my heart has faltered.

Both of my parents kept scads of paper memories. And I can’t let them go without looking at each one. Twice. (I’m not kidding.) The process is grueling and painstaking. Each time I see their handwriting, I am reconnected to them. Each accolade they’ve received makes me proud of them. It hurts to let it go. I don’t want to forget and I fear that without the paper reminders it will all slip away.

Of course, I know this is not entirely true. I know I don’t need to remember every detail. But I want to. I want to wrap my arms around it all, assimilate it into my heart and mind and never let it go.

But I do let it go. At least most of it. However, I have found that letting go of something physically, does not mean you are released from it. At least not right away.

My mother has made it easier. She has entrusted her home and all of her belongings to my sister and I. She has told us to do what we want with it. Most of it no longer holds her heart. I’m grateful for the release she has gifted us with. Grateful that she knows our hearts will honor hers.

But it’s my Dad’s stuff that had me struggling today. He did not release me as my mother has. And knowing how important his papers were to him, makes them take on importance to me. Perhaps he didn’t even remember he still had some of them. Perhaps he never expected me to struggle over it like I do. No doubt, if he had thought of it before he died, he would have cleaned the whole place out himself. Yet he did not, so I must find a way to release myself.

Figuring out what matters, what must be saved, even if only for my heart’s sake, is a challenging task. Caring for my parents has been a privilege I have always welcomed, even in it’s most challenging moments. But caring for them has always included THEM. But without them in it, their home that was once alive and full of love, is slowly becoming an empty shell. A museum of memories. I’m learning that memories, even warm and happy ones, can be crippling. It feels strange to long for what was, while simultaneously discarding what is left of it.

Today was a hard day. But not a terrible one. The tears that welled up, helped to clear my vision. I am reminded that loving hard means letting go will also be hard. It’s the cost of loving. My Dad doesn’t care about the stuff he left behind. And I need very little of that stuff to remember him.

Today was a hard day. But it ends with me finding the release I was seeking. And that, makes a hard day, worthwhile.

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appreciation, change, clarity and direction, comfort, death, dying, enlightenment, eternal life, families, honesty, hope, letting go, living and growing, Love, mourning, new life, peace, perspective, spiritual growth, struggles

Living in the Valley

I moved to the valley, eleven years ago when my father first got sick.  Six years ago, he died.  I thought at some point after his death I would move out of the valley.  Instead, my mother, after years of caring for my Dad, got sick and my life in the valley continued.

You probably know this valley.  It’s the same one mentioned in Psalm 23….”Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”  Yeah, that valley.

I chose to move here years before I understood where I was moving to.  Back when I was young and had no idea of what it would cost me. I knew I wanted to stay in the same city as my parents.  My plan always was to care for them, when the time came.

The funny thing about moving to the valley is that you don’t necessarily realize you’ve moved until you’ve lived there for a while.  The move is both gradual and sudden.  Your loved one ages and you start to help in little ways.  A sudden illness or injury and you help out a bit as they recover.  What you don’t know at the time, is that sudden injury or illness is starting a chain of events that would have overwhelmed you had you ever realized your address had just changed and there was no moving back any time soon.

We all know what valleys look like.  They are low places, with shadows that hang over on all sides..  And these low places are filled with things most of us try to avoid.  Like fear and death. In the valley, fear takes on a life of it’s own…it has a form and a shape and it looks like death.  The threat of death, is always lurking in the shadows.  And then there’s the bone wearying tiredness and overwhelming and sometimes debilitating sense of loss, along with a need to always be on guard for the next problem.

In the valley you learn to fight.  Against ignorance…your own and others.  You fight against your nightmares, which threaten to become reality.  You fight to do what’s right. You fight against yourself when you want to quit and with others when they want you to quit.  The valley can be an exhausting place.

With all the lows of the valley, one might think it is a place to avoid.  Certainly anyone who chooses to live there can’t be right in the head!

But here’s the thing….there is beauty in the valley.  Beauty you can’t see anywhere else. There’s a beauty in the valley that transcends even what a mountain top view can offer. And the company in the valley is the reason for the view.  Psalm 23….The psalm that talks about walking through the valley of the shadow of death, also gives a promise.  And it’s the promise that provides the beauty.

“Yea,though I walk though the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for YOU are with me…..”.

Early on in the valley, I feared evil.  I was terrified by it.  Death was evil.  It was the enemy that you knew would win in the end, but that you would fight against with all your might.  The exhaustion that comes with fighting an enemy that is guaranteed to win is not only exhausting, it’s foolish.

I was controlled by my fears until I met Submission.   Submitting to the reality of our inability to control when someone dies moves you from a very dark valley, to a new valley where there is beauty and potential….right in front of you, that you are now freed up to see.  Submission is not giving up.  It’s not laying down the fight.  But it is recognizing what you can and can’t control.  Its choosing when and where to fight.  It allows you to see who the real enemy is.

Sometimes the enemy is ourselves…Fear is everywhere in the valley.   Left to our own devices, fear can overtake us.  But when I remember that the Psalm promises….”YOU are with me”...the fear is tamed and in the best moments, it is vanquished.

That YOU it mentions, is the Creator of Heaven and Earth.  I don’t just have a good friend or family member with me…..(though praise God when I do)……I have the God of the Universe with me!  He reminds me that even though I live in the valley, the valley isn’t all there is.  I’m choosing to live here for a time, so that the people I love don’t have to walk through this place alone.  Walking alongside someone who is in the valley, has eternal significance.

God knows how we look at death.  He knows how death and the fear of death motivates our choices.  He knows we need him beside us to walk though this valley.  When we freely and willingly go through the valley so someone else won’t be there alone, we are doing exactly what He has done for us.

And that is what love does.  It comes alongside.  It sits with us in the mess that the end of life can bring.  It is a place filled with loss and sadness.  They grieve and you grieve with them.  You grieve for the pain they feel.  For who they were and what has been lost. Their address has changed since coming to the valley and it makes them disoriented.  You remind them, no matter where they live, whether it’s in a place they’ve always known, or a dark valley or in heaven…they are loved.  You are the physical hands and feet of Jesus as they journey to what’s waiting for them, at the other side.  It’s an opportunity to bring light to the shadows and love to dark places.  And that love, makes it all worthwhile.

So these days, if you’re looking for me, you’ll find me in the valley.  I’m not sure how long I’ll be staying, but I won’t regret a moment spent here.  For although the walk is shadowed by death, the path is filled with life and love.

 

 

 

 

 

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appreciation, change, clarity and direction, Discovery, enlightenment, families, inertia, living and growing, perspective

How $25 Changed Me

It seemed so simple at first.  Give each of my (adult) kids and my husband and I, $25 at Christmas time.  $25 with a catch, that is.  We each had to spend it on someone else.  Someone who had a need.   We distributed the $25 on December 1st.  We had 25 days to find a worthy cause to give our money towards.   And we agreed that on Christmas day we would share with each other where we had given the money.

There were no rules, other than you had to see a need and give the $25 away.

Seemed simple enough.

But what I learned through this process was unexpected and transformative.

I thought I would have no trouble giving my $25 away.   I assumed that there is need all around me and that within the first week, the money would be gone.  Instead I discovered that I live a truly insulated life.  That someone with obvious need, is not constantly in front of me, just waiting to be handed money.   I live a comfortable life, surrounded by other people, who even when they struggle, do so, pretty comfortably.

The first couple of weeks went by and I was chill.  I was certain that some type of need would present itself to me.  So I waited.   But nothing appeared.  Sure there was the Salvation Army bell ringers…I ran into them every time I went to the grocery store.  But I already give to them.  I thought about dropping the $25 into the kettle and being done….it’s more than I usually give and I could be done!  But no, it seemed too easy.

By week three, I was really paying attention to the world around me.  I started to accept the idea that I would need to find a cause to donate to instead of a person to hand the money to.  An ad came on TV for the American Cancer Society.  I know too many who have lost the battle to cancer.   This could be a worthy recipient.  But online giving seemed too easy.  So I watched and waited.

During week 4, I saw a program on TV about Yemen.  The children.  The famine.  The heartbreak.  I did more research on Yemen and was reduced to tears.  This was worthy.  But $25 seemed so little.  Ineffective against all they face.  But here’s the irony.   Had I not committed that $25 to give away, I wouldn’t have given anything towards Yemen relief.  Not a penny.  In light of that, I recognized that $25 was pretty good.  It still took me till Christmas Eve day to make my decision.   Yemen would get the $25.

But getting to Yemen, if you will, was a challenging process.   This experience revealed to me how influenced I was by my early years of marriage.  With 5 kids and only my husband’s salary, we were broke.  When you are broke, giving money away isn’t an option.   When we gave, it was usually to a family member in greater need than ourselves.  We were, more often than not, the recipients of people’s generosity.  They saw our need and gave.  We were grateful.  And for that and other reasons, we gave back.  But with no money to give, we gave our time.  And a pattern emerged.   Giving my time became part of the fabric of who I was.  I was generous with my time and gave freely.  Sometimes I gave too much.  But I gave my time because it was what I could offer.

Fast forward 30 years and money isn’t so tight.  There is extra.  Or there could be.   But I still behave like there isn’t.   Extra money gets funneled towards nice things or helping my kids. Until that $25 showed up.   It opened my eyes to the fact that things have changed.   Just being able to hand 8 people $25 and say, “give it away’ is an indication that I am no longer broke.  So what to do with this new insight?

I recognized that giving to family isn’t bad, but perhaps I needed to expand my idea of family.   Those 2 year olds in Yemen, with arms and legs that were pencil thin….my tears were telling me, they are family too.  And I find myself heading into the new year with a broader perspective of need.  A deeper understanding that I could and should do more.  Not just with my time, but with my money too.

As my husband and I gathered with our kids and heard about how they spent their $25, I realized I wasn’t the only one who found the process difficult.  So with anything that is difficult, the only solution is to practice until it becomes easier.   We will be doing this again next year, though we decided Nov. 1st is a better date to start.

In only 25 days, that $25 gave me a fresh perspective.  And it enlarged my heart.  Now that’s time and money well spent!

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clarity and direction, living and growing, spiritual growth, Uncategorized

How to See in the Dark

Life can be blurry.   We can long for clarity and direction yet answers elude us.

I had a dream this past week.   I was trying to find something but fog was rolling in.   It covered everything in a mist that rose about a foot off the ground.   Not only could I not see well, everything felt disorienting.

I forgot about that dream until I went to bed last night.   I have a condition called ‘dry eye’.   Each night I need to use an ointment in my eyes.  It’s consistency is similar to Vaseline.  I put off doing this each night until I have shut off my light.   Once I’ve put the medicine in my eyes, I can’t stand having the light on because it highlights how blurry everything is.  I like to be able to see.

I’m in a season of ‘not knowing’ these days.  A season of not being able to see how things can or will work out.   Personally and with my kids and with my aging mother.   I just can’t see what to do or where to step next.  Just a couple of weeks ago, I came to grips with the unanswered questions regarding my own life.   When it comes to me, I am again content not being able to see ahead.

But as my kids grow into their adulthood and I watch them make decisions that I worry about, as I watch them struggle, I long for answers.   I long for assurance.  I want to ‘see’ a secure future for them.  But things are blurry.   Very blurry as a matter of fact.   The kind of blurry that (literally!!) makes my heart race.   I feel disorientated.   I can’t see!  And when I can’t see, I start to struggle.

But I’m old enough now, to realize how foolish that struggle is.   Life is blurry sometimes, actually it’s probably blurry most of the times.  Sometimes we are blessed with true moments of clarity.  An unobstructed path that clearly points in a specific direction.   And those times are so comforting, so desirable, that it’s easy to start to want it to always be smooth sailing.   Life is messy though, and fog often rolls in.

I know two responses to this.  My first response:  which is to feel disorientated, to struggle, to feel sad, guilty, frustrated…..overwhelmed….afraid.

But then there’s the second response.   The response that allowed me to fall asleep last night.   The same response that had brought me contentment with my own uncertainties.

That response is prayer.   And relinquishment.  To surrender to God the need for me to see the future, trusting that if He is there, I can relax – whether or not the path is blurry.  It’s an ongoing response though, not a one time thing.   The circumstances that cause me to worry haven’t disappeared.   My concern over them hasn’t vanished.   But there is an answer and it doesn’t need to involve stressing out because I can’t see the answer.

I’m reminded that the second type of response involves depending less on my eyes to see what path to take.  But then how do I see?  I reach up, take the hand of the Lord who loves me, and I let Him lead the way.

 

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