Prayers for Oklahoma

My thoughts and prayers are with Oklahoma...

with the children, and what they experienced.

with the mommies and daddies and grandparents mourning lost children.

with a region facing a tragedy, healing, and rebuilding

as they watch the skies above, awaiting even more terror. 

May God grant you all peace, and strength and hope for the future.

Anne Voskamp wrote a blog post the other day about

living through the hard storms of life...
and today she's sharing

how God feels about storms.

Her descriptive writing brings it all to life in a way that grabs my heart, 

and her wisdom seeps into my soul like a whisper of hope.

There's one thing about all of this that hits my heart like a hammer:
This devastation and loss was caused by wind. An unstoppable, uncontrollable force of nature.
As I watched the news coverage of the disaster and saw the video of the monster storm,

I thought to myself 

'It looks like the mouth of Hell, opening up and swallowing everything good.'

But what about the devastation caused by mankind?
What about wars and 'engagements' and other conflicts that are explained away by so many, 

to justify aggressive action against others around the globe?

What about the children buried in the rubble of their schools and homes across the sea?
What about the mommies holding babies and shielding them with their own bodies to save them
from bombings and missiles and gunfire?
The elderly who can't outrun the crumbling buildings?
Entire villages reduced to ash in seconds?

Those losses are no less horrific. No less heart-rending.
They are human lives, people just like us, created by God,

their lives and hopes and dreams and potential taken too soon - 

by the overarching choices made by others.

The mouth of Hell reaches further than the borders of Oklahoma...

May God help us all.

The Path of Pain

 

My friend Tara has just learned that she needs major back surgery.

That's quite a lot to handle, especially for a strong, independent woman

who runs her own business and is also a high-powered lawyer.

Actually it's quite a lot to handle for ANY woman.

Miss Tara wrote a very honest blog post,

owning up to her fears and terror over the upcoming surgery,

the long recuperation period after it,

and the limitations she'll have to face in life for a while.

 

 She's willingly going through it all to relieve the pain she's been in,

looking forward to the time AFTER the healing

when she'll be relatively pain-free and able to enjoy her life.

 

 You can read Tara's blog post here

You'll be as moved as I was by her transparency, I'm sure.

I'd like to ask you, my dear readers, to please pray for Tara.
I know that God will carry her through this ordeal - I know that without a doubt.

I know that because I've seen Him carry others through ordeals.

I've experienced Him carrying ME through the past 20 months.

 

When the darkness comes, we can always be sure that the sunrise will follow...

it's the cycle He set in motion, and it never fails.

 
Here's the thing about what sweet Tara is going through:
she's willing to endure MORE pain and suffering and stress and limitation

for a time

to relieve the enduring, limiting, debilitating pain that she's been living with.

...and oh how familiar that sounds to me.

It's a different KIND of pain.
But the biggest difference is that it's pain brought on by actions taken

to change the situation and remedy it. to address it head-on, 

not hiding, not hoping and wishing and hanging on by a thread

waiting for things to change and improve.
That never works.

 
Decisions must be made. Action must be taken. A change in habit must be enacted.
Passivity does not cause change. It causes apathy and degeneration and loss.
Courage is what's needed.
Courage to face the problem, to admit the reality of the situation,

to see it for what it is, what it has been, and what it will be if no change is made.
Courage is needed to stand, to speak, to CHOOSE to act.

Courage is needed to take that first step, second step.... 

and to keep walking even when your courage is being misunderstood and attacked and threatened.

Courage is needed to withstand the NEW pain that is experienced

as habits are addressed, others are affected, and the situation is changed.

When we act,

we experience fear and terror, limitations and losses,

a shift from independence to dependency for awhile,

a revision of our self-image and understanding,

and a time of great upheaval, pain, recuperation and healing.

We have to face all that before we ever get to the 'happily ever after' part.

And sometimes, the pain during the period of change
is worse than the pain we had before we did anything.
It can threaten to undo us completely.
It can take literally EVERYTHING from us. 

Yet we must live in that place of limitation and dependency for awhile...

letting God bring to us everything we need. Letting HIM be our strength.

We do that knowing that we will be whole and healed and strong again soon.
And that in every step of this journey,

HE IS THERE WITH US

and that His strength is enough for us in our weakness.
He can use our weakness to bring glory to Himself,

and set us on a path that we never saw coming.
He will be with us to minister with moments of grace for our souls...

Please join me as I pray for Tara and her surgery & recovery,

and for the women who are making the hard choices in life
to make a change and end their pain.

A Mother's Love

 I recently found this photo of my mom and I from 1979...

way back when I was a senior in high school.

I was 17 here, Mom was just 34.

Yeah, people asked us if we were sisters. A LOT!

I never liked that, but my mom LOVED it.
Fast-forward about 20 years, and people were saying it about ME and my daughters.

And I LOVED it! LOL

The thing is, both Mom and I were young mothers.

Not by plan, but circumstance.
And neither one of us would change it.

While other girls our age were heading to college, 

entering the job market on an upward climb to a stunning career,

or just laying on a beach in Southern California,
we were raising babies...

loving them,

teaching them,

guiding them,

and working as hard as we could to help them

grow into strong, capable, happy, well-adjusted people

who never questioned their mother's love for them.

That's a tall order for a young girl to fill.

But she did it, and I did it.
Not perfectly, of course.
Not without mis-steps, back-steps, side-steps,
and falls flat on our faces.

We did the best we could with what we had, and what we knew:
Love.

Our love wasn't always expressed in the perfect way at the perfect time,

and sometimes it was expressed in secret silence that was never seen or acknowledged
(like when money sent for an adult birthday gift was used

to buy a family day at the zoo instead, because those times were all too scarce)
Sometimes love was even expressed in the unhealthy situations we each endured for far too long,

so as to model persistence and faith and hope and strength to our kids.
By the setting aside of pride and personal needs for our children.
The wrong choices can be made for the right reasons.....
the motivation was always love.

I am eternally grateful for the love my mother has for me,

and for the love my grandma - my 'other mother' - showed me all of my life.
I am awed by what my mom went through back in 1962

to have me, to keep me, to raise me
when she was just 17 years old.

Motherhood can hand us more love, more pride, more joy 

than anything else on Earth can give.
(So can 'grandmotherhood'!)
It can also break our hearts into a million little pieces of pain like nothing else can.

My Mom and I have had rough times, and we've hurt one another unintentionally.
(and that 'unintentional' part is important)
But the love that we have for each other has always overcome that pain.

I heard a line in a film preview recently, 

and though it was spoken by the father character,

it embodies what I believe lives in every Mother's heart...
I've added to the original line here because this is what's in MY heart:

"I loved you from the moment I first thought about you.
I love you through thick and thin.
You can hate me, leave me, ignore me, and hurt me,

we can be really angry at one another,

we can not speak to one another...

but NOTHING will EVER change the fact that I love you with all my heart.
That's what my heart was created for: Loving YOU."

Over the past 19 months, my Mom has shown me the kind of love

that is unfathomable. She has saved my life, over and over again.
And having these days to spend with her, to love, and laugh, and live

and make up for the years we lost

is a gift from God that I treasure...

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

Happy May Day!

 If there is one flower that expresses the month of May to me, it's Lily of the Valley.
Delicate, pretty, pure, and sweetly scented, 

it arrives on the wings of true spring and leaves on the first breeze of summertime.

I had a few Lily of the Valley plants that grew in a flowerbed,

and I loved watching and photographing them...

Even after the blossoms dried in the white pitcher shown up above, 

they still held onto their soft sweet perfume.
I kept them on my nightstand all summer just to catch a whisper of that fragrance...

The month of May and Lilies of the Valley always make me think of my friend Fran.
They are her favorite flower, and she has quite a collection of Lily art and decor.

I met Fran when I started decorating her home one Christmas season,
and over the years we became good friends.
I wrote about her here.
Fran is 90, and I have learned so much from her...
she was so supportive when I was going through hell.

I can't decorate for her anymore since I live 1800 miles away,
and we can't meet at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel in Seattle for tea,
but I can call her up and share time and stories and laughter with her -
the whisper of the fragrance of our friendship. 

Something I will always treasure,

 and always think of when I see Lilies of the Valley each spring.

Stop and Smell the Roses...

 Sunday was spent sitting on the grassy bluff 

overlooking Corona del Mar and 'the Wedge' at Newport Beach,

where I snapped the photo above just as the bee flew into the rose!

Another few leisurely hours were spent walking through the beautiful displays 

at Roger's Gardens...

where I captured more roses in full bloom (and heavenly scent)

My camera hasn't been that busy in a long time...

 There's just something I love about capturing the ephemeral beauty of flowers in bloom.

moments of grace spent enjoying God's creations and a sunny day.
It truly was a 'Stop and Smell the Roses' kind of day!

All that inspiration led to a very creative day on Monday,
making and photographing projects for my HOMEWARDfound decor blog...
I've been feeling decidedly UN-creative lately,
so this change in attitude and aptitude is a welcome one.
It's another reminder to me that I have to give myself the gift of time
to refill the creative well regularly..

Ah, yes, life is good!