You Never Know

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Monday night I was tired so instead of packing up all my paints to go to my art class I took an old sketch pad, some pencils and tray of watercolors.

I opened the sketch pad and found some drawings of little characters that I had made, oh, probably about six years ago. I remember thinking that making greeting cards combines my two loves- writing and art. I liked the little characters, so I started reworking them a bit and then painting them.

Yesterday I scanned those pictures into a greeting card program and I made a few proto-type cards. It was fun and I am pleased with the results that are certainly not polished but instead loose and fun.

And I am amazed at how, sometimes, efforts we make come back to us. Those sketches were in that pad for years. Finally, I am using them to make something that perhaps I can share.

I think that we can’t even imagine how many times our everyday efforts come back to us. Most of the time we miss the connections of our past to our present, but the connections are there and that’s encouraging to me.

Home

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I’ve just returned from a visit to my homeplace, the little town where I grew up…  a place that’s done quite a bit of growing up itself. I had some adventures there. I spent a day on the beach with my terrific husband. I walked my pug down to the lake where she tried to eat a mussel and was teased by the little waves. And I got to spend two evenings with my zany cousins.

And I am struck with the fact that though we are born with our very own personalities, where we grow up and who we grow up with becomes a part of us forever. I grew up on the water and almost felt I couldn’t breathe until I finally got back to it. My favorite pals and best friends were my cousins. We had adventures every time we were together … and still do. I was given the gift of a terrific mom who loved me completely and made me feel like anything was possible.

All these things made indentions and smooth places on the heart that I was born with, like a sculpturer’s polish…like an artist’s brush. And though the things that come into my life now might affect the shape of who I am, those early impressions and experiences are the things that have given me the color of my soul.

Flashing Signs

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I was driving home last Monday feeling pretty rotten.
I had just been to the doctor, was given some antibiotics, and told to take it easy.
I passed by a church with a lighted sign. In big, red, flashing letters it said, “REST!”  
When I drove by the same church sign yesterday it was scrolling the verse, “Come ye all that are burdened and heavy laiden and I will give you REST!” Apparently the first time I drove by the sign was stuck on that one word, REST.
Who says that God doesn’t speak to us with flashing lights?

Life on Wheels-Part 2

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(read Feb.5 first) We had a couple other cars between. Some big yellow thing, I think it was a Buick Electra and then a Plymouth Valiant that we bought from a friend to use as a second car. The seat wouldn’t move up in the Valiant so I had to sit with a big pillow behind me to reach the peddles. Even though the visor (that didn’t stay up) banged me in the forehead I loved my Valiant. It meant that when my husband was at work I had wheels.

Next came the Blue Shark. A giant of station wagons. We kept that car so long we ended up putting a new engine in it. It was powder blue and capable of toting a passel of kids, their backpacks, a double stroller, a wheelchair and all my writing stuff. It was the car we really lived in. I think we ate more meals in the Blue Shark than in our kitchen! I remember manuevering around thousands of mini-vans to park at school, all the time wishing for a mini-van of my own.

and that wish finally came true when we sold the Shark to a family with six kids and got a candy apple red Ford Aeorostar-my shuttlecraft. It was the beginning of our mini-van era which included another red Aeorostar that was rear-ended and totaled and a white Caravan that I dreamed about the night before we found it.

Most recently came my favorite van, a silver Honda Odessy that I named the Silver Bullet. Bullet saw us through numerous trips to visit our daughter in Tennessee and packed full with all my son’s belongings it carried us to his new residence in Columbia.

Only about a week before this Christmas did we find the Batmobile. The vehicle that is ushering in my empty nest years-big enough to carry family when they visit, small enough to save on gas. The seats fold up so that my new Kayak will fit with just enough room for the gear that I will need for a new kind of adventuring.

Because, you see, every car we owned carried me through life’s adventures and “boldly took me to places no man had dared to go.”

Life on Wheels-Part 1

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I was toodling down the road in my black Honda Element listening to the theme from the old Batman show when it came to me. Batmobile! That will be the name of my “new to me” car.

More toodling and a few songs later I found myself thinking about about my other vehicles, their names and the stages of my life that they were a part of.

My first car was a green Rambler. I named it the Green Machine. The Green Machine wasn’t perfect. Sometimes the wipers didn’t work. Often I had to jump the battery to make it go. One time the muffler dropped right off of it on I-75. But I loved that car. It meant that after 16 years of depending on others to transport me I could finally get to places myself. Yep, the Green Machine was more than a car. It was freedom!

Then there was the little white Toyota Corolla. I named it Peanut. Peanut was a wedding present from my new in-laws. It was a brand new 5-speed and was the first car my husband and I owned together. I remember packing my first two babies (19 months apart), porta cribs, play pens and all other manner of baby paraphanalia into that tiny car and traveling to conferences for Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. At the time my husband was a campus minister. When I wasn’t driving you would find me riding facing backwards, bottom up, as I tended my two little ducklings.

Read more Life on Wheels tomorrow. 🙂

Icing with my Cake

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My yard looks like a giant carrot cake frosted with cream cheese. Last night the snow fairies dropped white sugar icing all over the limbs of the trees, the grass and the clay mud that is peeking out of a few places where the white is spread thin. Some of the tree branches are coated in clear ice and the sun makes them sparkle like chandeliers. I know the mud is still under there somewhere but it doesn’t matter. Today the world looks clean.

Bouys and Sinkers

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I want to be a buoy. I want to pop up and be a bright spot in the dark, roiling waters. Some people pull us up. Others pull us down…like fishing weights or sinkers. Even buoys can be pulled under if they have enough sinkers tied to them. When people are near me I hope I can find a way to lift them up, even if it is only a little.

The Glory of Geese

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I remember, not that long ago, looking up at the sky and sighing at the beauty of a flock of geese gracefully soaring across the blue, wondering where they were going and what they had seen, and in some small way feeling like, in that moment, I could soar too.

Then someone told me that geese are pests. They eat grass like goats and poop all over yards and golf courses. “Don’t feed geese,” they said, “You’ll never get rid of them.” And I have never looked at a gaggle of geese quite the same way.

How do we stop this from happening? How do we keep from losing the eyes of a child as we look at the amazing things in this world? How do we keep from becoming critical, bitter, old folks as we become more and more “educated” in “reality” with each passing year?

This morning I saw a flock of geese gliding above a silver lake and it took my breath away. Everything here that is beautiful has flaws but that doesn’t mean it isn’t beautiful.

By Request: More on Floating

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In my October 15, 2007 blog I talked about learning how to ride the waves of life challenges instead of kicking against them.

And I am learning that the first step in doing this is to accept where I am. I have to be willing to look at the water around me and to say, “Yep, I’m in the ocean. And I’m in the choppy part.”

I have no control over the waves. None. No control over how big they are or how fast they come at me and often no say in where they take me. The only thing I do have control over is how I respond to them. I can’t choose where I’ve been put in the ocean but I can decide how I’m going to swim.

For a very long time now I’ve worn myself out fighting the currents. I’ve kept swimming, kicking hard, looking for a calm spot. I’ve never found it because it isn’t in the water. The ocean is full of waves, some violent, others gentle and caressing. I will never be able to control the ocean, but I know the One who does, and He promises not to let me drown.

The Christmas Pig

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When our kids were little, each Christmas I would set up two nativity scenes, one was glass and for display, the other one was plastic. The kids and their friends weren’t allowed to touch the glass one but the plastic one was there just so they could play with it.

During play times Mary and Joseph had some unusual adventures, riding on dinosaurs, swimming in the sink; once they even helped us make cookies. And for such a small little thing Baby Jesus got around quite a lot too. I would find him in the laundry when I went through pockets, buckled into a car seat, or snuggled down into my daughter’s pillow.

One day when the kids were napping and I was cleaning up a little I found a plastic pig standing in the beautiful glass nativity scene with his snout resting on Baby Jesus. Pink, ugly plastic in my personal reenactment of the beautiful Christmas story.

I was reaching to move it when I realized…

The whole reason Jesus came to earth was to save all of us plastic, pink pigs. More than any beautiful decoration that little pig represented the true beauty of Christmas.

Home for the Holidays

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Around the corner…over the hill…over the bridge then I’m Home.

In just a few days my house will be filled for the holidays with family. It will be busy, noisy and full of love….a bit like Heaven, I think.

By the time everyone leaves I’m liable to be a little tired and grumpy. That happens to folks like me who need alone time to recharge their batteries. But I will savor every minute with these amazing people that I love. I will store every smile, laugh and hug in the safety deposit box of my heart so that I can pull them out and examine them when it is quiet again and I am alone.

A Bite of the Apple

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Tomorrow morning I will board another dark-thirty flight, this time to NYC. And there will be adventures all along the way. I will meet new people, see new places, sleep in a different bed, eat amazing food. I will get to hug my little brother and my mom! Miraculously, I will soar through the air on a big, metal bird, thankful for the facinating work I get to do, and I will keep my eyes peeled for those “tiny callings” (see Dec. 4)—those little things that can add up to making a difference in the world.

Tiny Callings

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“The Purpose Driven Life” has many folks wondering about why they were put on earth. Some days that question is just too big for me. So I have decided to ask myself instead why I was put on earth today. What one or two useful or beautiful things can I do today?

If I can be faithful to answer these “tiny callings” my days will add up to a life full of making a difference. A life of purpose.