Saturday, January 21, 2017
An Awkward Moment Filled With God's Grace
God loves you just the way you are,
yet He refuses to leave you that
way. He wants you to be just like
Jesus.
-Max Lucado
The snow had piled up until it threatened to bury us. Everywhere we turned there were new and bigger piles of snow. To make matters even more challenging, just as it got warmer and the piles started to melt, we had freezing temperatures that turned the melted snow into unforgiving ice.
The evening news even showed one woman in ice skates skating down what had once been the street in front of her house. Now, it was an ice rink.
The weather teased us from time-to-time with a blue sky and temperatures that begged you to come outdoors and play.
It was on such a "teasing day" that another "life-lesson" crossed my path. Another moment where the Lord God Almighty stopped me in my tracks and gave me the opportunity to grow in Him.
As I looked outdoors and saw the sun sparkling off the ice crystals, I just couldn't help myself. I couldn't stand being indoors one.more.minute.
All of us Spokanites feel a bit claustrophobic since the really cold temps plus freezing rain have kept us indoors more than usual. We are a hardy group of souls. Yes, we are. Perhaps not as hardy as the souls in Minnesota, where my dear friend Vicky Westra lives, yet we are hardy never the less.
It may be ten degrees here, however in Minnesota it is probably 20 degrees below with a wind chill that makes it -40 degrees.
It has felt bit like -40 degrees in my heart. While I am a raving optimist by nature, the past few months have left me a bit weary. That's not entirely true. Really weary. Lots of situations that are absolutely out of my control. And just when I started to regain a bit of my footing, a car backed into my car leaving two doors badly dented.
While the car isn't a brand new one, it is quite new to me. When I took a look at the damage I realized that I felt a bit like those doors. Visible dents and damage.
Now please don't misunderstand. I'm not one who feels compelled to look perfect, yet from time to time it's unnerving to have "my dents" become visible to everyone. Yet I know in those moments of insecurity that God loves me, visible creases and all.
Yet I also know that He loves me too much to leave
me that way.
Now, after that side note about the car, let me get back to that light-shining, hope-filled moment.
On the day I wanted to get outside, I felt particularly "stung" by an interaction that had happened with someone close to me. It was an "ouch" that left me cringing and hurt. It was, as my beloved Bert said, an "updated postcard" on this person.
For several weeks Bert had listened and listened as I processed this hurt. My tears flowed until I wondered if they would ever stop. Finally, my beloved reminded me that the interaction that had left me quaking was more about them than it was about me.
I knew that intellectually, yet my hurt heart had a hard time catching up to that reality.
So on that sunny day where the outdoors called to me, I wanted to go out and work off physically some of the steam of this interaction that hurt my heart. It left me wondering if I could ever be at peace with this individual.
So angst in hand, and bundled up in all things warm except gloves, I grabbed the snow shovel and headed out to our front yard. More accurately, what used to look like our front yard.
In its current state it looks like giant mounds of meringue on top of a lemon meringue pie. You can barely see the ten foot trees for the mounds of snow.
I decided to make a dent in all that snow. I'd move it around a bit so you could see our old familiar bench where we loved to sit in the summer and watch our neighbors walk by. Perhaps if I saw the bench that brought so much comfort in a warmer season, my own hurt heart might warm up too.
And then, as I was digging and throwing snow everywhere, I saw a mail man inching his way carefully down the street. This wasn't our regular mail carrier, the one we loved to exchange "HOWDIES!" with. This must have been a temporary replacement. So I kept on shoveling.
Then I heard it as clear as day. I looked up, startled, hardly believing that he had said it out loud. It felt like he bellowed it, and the sounds reverberated off the slick snow.
"What are you doing shoveling with just one hand?"
he called. I looked up, shocked. I looked around, amazed. Had this complete stranger announced to the world that I only had one hand?
I looked down to gather myself together, said a quick
"Help me Lord!" prayer and looked back up. At this point I was eye ball to eye ball with him as he was standing in our driveway.
Would my reply be tinged with sarcasm or even worse would I give no reply at all? Would I try to ignore the comment and pretend I didn't hear him?
I wanted to respond the way Jesus would respond, and I knew Jesus would be kind in this moment.
I received an answer to my short prayer, and I felt God's love pulse through my heart.
I looked the mail man in the eye, walked over and shook his hand. I smiled and said, "Hi! I'm Linda. Yes, I'm shoveling with one hand. (insert twinkle in my eye here). If I had another, I'd love that but I am making due with the wonderful one hand I've got." Then I smiled and chuckled.
He looked at me and said, "Oh my God, I can't believe I just said that to you. I blurted it out. I'm so sorry. That was so rude of me."
Then, unexpectedly, I leaned toward him and gave his flustered self a quick hug. "No need to be embarrassed," I said. "I love how kids are when they are honest and see my small hand. They tell it like it is too."
And in that moment, that interaction of give and take, of embarrassment and apology, we connected.
Human heart to human heart.
It truly was an awkward moment filled with grace.
Grace for him and grace for me.
After he left, and I continued to shovel snow, I noticed that I felt a lot lighter. I started to hum some of my favorite gospel tunes. The hurt I had carried, that only moments before had felt like a boulder, now felt like a small pebble on the beach.
Thank you God! I felt loved and free.
God Bless!
Love, Linda
Saturday, January 14, 2017
I Will Miss Her Forever...
Love the people God
gave you,
because He will need
them back one day.
I knew it was coming. After all, she was 94 years old and had been in ill health for some time. Yet knowing her death was coming, and now having her gone, are two entirely different things.
Elaine Seppa was like a second Mom to me. I met her
years and years ago when I was friends with her son, Tim. I was in high school at the time, and had only recently given my heart to Jesus at Malibu, a Young Life camp in Canada. The minute I met Elaine, I could tell something was very different about her.
Elaine loved Jesus and that love radiated from her like the warm sun in the sky. Karl, her husband, was like that too.
I remember standing at the sink in her kitchen as she washed dishes after a meal. She wanted to know about my new faith in the Lord and shared just tid bits of how much her own faith meant to her.
Here was a woman, so many years older than I was,
who knew and loved the same Jesus that I knew and loved.
I was totally overwhelmed with gratitude to God that
He had placed Elaine in my life.
Years came and went and amazingly her son, who had been my friend, became my husband. Elaine was officially now my mother-in-law, but I never thought of her like that.
She was always "Mom."
Calling her this revered title meant no disrespect for my own beloved Mom. I adored my Mom, Dolores, and my Mom adored me. While my Mom had always been a Catholic, her relationship with God was more a matter of tradition than a matter of the heart. My Mom struggled a bit when I kept talking about my faith as being something real and alive.
Elaine's faith and relationship with God was very personal and it helped so much that she could share that faith with me. She was a child of God and Jesus was her Savior. He was at the center of her life. He was the root of her strength.
When I was around Elaine I could see God working and her faith in action. That was the kind of faith I wanted to have. Also, as an only child, I was hungry for having a family with sisters and brothers.
So besides marrying Tim, I married Steve, Dave,and Kathy (affectionately known as Bazz.) I was in love with all of the Seppas. They were such a great addition to what family meant to me. They were all people of faith and sharing faith was as natural as passing the bowl of mashed potatoes at dinner.
So it was a shock to absolutely everyone when Tim decided, about six months into our marriage and six months into medical school, that He no longer believed in God.
It broke Elaine's heart to hear her son say those words. How could this beloved son who had been choosing between being a doctor and being a minister no longer believe in the very God who had created him? She still loved Tim with all of her heart, and I'm sure she prayed a million prayers for Him to know the Lord again.
Not only was Elaine's heart broken, my heart was broken too. She and I talked about this, and prayed about her son finding God again. Her heart broke even more when she learned how my marriage to Tim was unraveling and that after years of struggle, Tim and I were getting a divorce.
It was a shattering time for everyone.
Yet like a true Mom, Elaine never stopped loving me
or thinking about me as her daughter. She never ever, not even for one moment, loved Tim less because he struggled with his faith. He was her "Timmy" and she adored him. And Tim was an amazing son to Mom, attentive and caring. She loved us both, even when it wasn't easy to do so. She prayed for us both without ceasing.
I have a picture of Elaine on a post I wrote on this blog on December 9, 2007. After Karl went home to God, after a courageous battle with cancer, from time-to-time Elaine would visit Spokane. The picture on that blog post shows Elaine at a soccer game that one of her great grand children was playing. In the photograph, she and I are talking and smiling.
We look completely at ease with each other.
Years later, as Elaine's health declined and she had a series of strokes, Mom was in nursing care at the Hearthstone in Seattle. When I came to Seattle, I visited her there.
While she sometimes wasn't as coherent as usual, at other times she was completely lucid. She'd say, "Oh honey, you have come to see me. I love you so." And then we would visit. Often, when I was ready to leave, we would sing and hum "Amazing Grace," one of her favorite hymns. It is one of my favorites, too.
On my last visit with Mom, a few months ago, I knew, just knew, deep in my heart that I was saying goodbye to her. My wonderful friend Sharon, a long time friend who lives in Seattle, dropped me off at the Hearthstone. Mom was lucid but it was getting harder and harder to hear her.
Yet when I leaned over, she said those same welcoming words...
"Oh honey, you have come to see me. I love you so."
We did what we always would do, talked and chatted and sang Amazing Grace and a few of her other favorite hymns like How Great Thou Art.
Just a few weeks ago, Elaine's health took a sudden turn for the worse. Family gathered, knowing that they wanted to be there with her and surround her with love. Jessi, my oldest daughter, went over with her Dad while Amy got all of the children together, including darling Annora Grace, and drove in awful, snowy weather to be with Grandma.
It was time to say goodbye. It was time to let her know, once again, how much she meant to everyone.
And it was Elaine's time to go home to God. On my last visit with her I whispered to her that when she was ready, and it was God's timing, she would go home to be with Jesus. She would see Dad again as well and she would be wrapped in God's loving arms. She looked at me with such a knowing smile when I said that to her.
And some months later, as she took her last breath, that's what happened. She went home to God and Dad.
I can't stop crying buckets of tears as I write this.
How blessed I was to have Elaine and Karl, my second Mom and Dad, as my "faith angels," as I liked to call them.
How blessed I was, and am, to be part of their special family.
One Sunday at our church, about a year ago, we were asked to bring a picture to church of those folks who had been our "faith angels," our guides in our Christian faith. Those folks whose own faith had helped to keep our faith alive. Those folks who lived for God and Jesus.
That next Sunday, when the pictures went on the church wall, my granddaughter Sihin and I walked up and placed my photograph of Elaine and Karl up there. Underneath the picture, I wrote the words...My Faith Angels...Karl and Elaine Seppa.
After church that Sunday, Sihin and I talked about how Elaine was my second Mom and I started to get chocked up. I explained to Sihin that what I had learned from my second Mom was all about loving God with your whole heart and mind and soul and accepting Jesus as your Savior. She taught me about faith and hope and love and that the greatest of these is love.
I will miss her forever.
God Bless!
Love, Linda
gave you,
because He will need
them back one day.
I knew it was coming. After all, she was 94 years old and had been in ill health for some time. Yet knowing her death was coming, and now having her gone, are two entirely different things.
Elaine Seppa was like a second Mom to me. I met her
years and years ago when I was friends with her son, Tim. I was in high school at the time, and had only recently given my heart to Jesus at Malibu, a Young Life camp in Canada. The minute I met Elaine, I could tell something was very different about her.
Elaine loved Jesus and that love radiated from her like the warm sun in the sky. Karl, her husband, was like that too.
I remember standing at the sink in her kitchen as she washed dishes after a meal. She wanted to know about my new faith in the Lord and shared just tid bits of how much her own faith meant to her.
Here was a woman, so many years older than I was,
who knew and loved the same Jesus that I knew and loved.
I was totally overwhelmed with gratitude to God that
He had placed Elaine in my life.
Years came and went and amazingly her son, who had been my friend, became my husband. Elaine was officially now my mother-in-law, but I never thought of her like that.
She was always "Mom."
Calling her this revered title meant no disrespect for my own beloved Mom. I adored my Mom, Dolores, and my Mom adored me. While my Mom had always been a Catholic, her relationship with God was more a matter of tradition than a matter of the heart. My Mom struggled a bit when I kept talking about my faith as being something real and alive.
Elaine's faith and relationship with God was very personal and it helped so much that she could share that faith with me. She was a child of God and Jesus was her Savior. He was at the center of her life. He was the root of her strength.
When I was around Elaine I could see God working and her faith in action. That was the kind of faith I wanted to have. Also, as an only child, I was hungry for having a family with sisters and brothers.
So besides marrying Tim, I married Steve, Dave,and Kathy (affectionately known as Bazz.) I was in love with all of the Seppas. They were such a great addition to what family meant to me. They were all people of faith and sharing faith was as natural as passing the bowl of mashed potatoes at dinner.
So it was a shock to absolutely everyone when Tim decided, about six months into our marriage and six months into medical school, that He no longer believed in God.
It broke Elaine's heart to hear her son say those words. How could this beloved son who had been choosing between being a doctor and being a minister no longer believe in the very God who had created him? She still loved Tim with all of her heart, and I'm sure she prayed a million prayers for Him to know the Lord again.
Not only was Elaine's heart broken, my heart was broken too. She and I talked about this, and prayed about her son finding God again. Her heart broke even more when she learned how my marriage to Tim was unraveling and that after years of struggle, Tim and I were getting a divorce.
It was a shattering time for everyone.
Yet like a true Mom, Elaine never stopped loving me
or thinking about me as her daughter. She never ever, not even for one moment, loved Tim less because he struggled with his faith. He was her "Timmy" and she adored him. And Tim was an amazing son to Mom, attentive and caring. She loved us both, even when it wasn't easy to do so. She prayed for us both without ceasing.
I have a picture of Elaine on a post I wrote on this blog on December 9, 2007. After Karl went home to God, after a courageous battle with cancer, from time-to-time Elaine would visit Spokane. The picture on that blog post shows Elaine at a soccer game that one of her great grand children was playing. In the photograph, she and I are talking and smiling.
We look completely at ease with each other.
Years later, as Elaine's health declined and she had a series of strokes, Mom was in nursing care at the Hearthstone in Seattle. When I came to Seattle, I visited her there.
While she sometimes wasn't as coherent as usual, at other times she was completely lucid. She'd say, "Oh honey, you have come to see me. I love you so." And then we would visit. Often, when I was ready to leave, we would sing and hum "Amazing Grace," one of her favorite hymns. It is one of my favorites, too.
On my last visit with Mom, a few months ago, I knew, just knew, deep in my heart that I was saying goodbye to her. My wonderful friend Sharon, a long time friend who lives in Seattle, dropped me off at the Hearthstone. Mom was lucid but it was getting harder and harder to hear her.
Yet when I leaned over, she said those same welcoming words...
"Oh honey, you have come to see me. I love you so."
We did what we always would do, talked and chatted and sang Amazing Grace and a few of her other favorite hymns like How Great Thou Art.
Just a few weeks ago, Elaine's health took a sudden turn for the worse. Family gathered, knowing that they wanted to be there with her and surround her with love. Jessi, my oldest daughter, went over with her Dad while Amy got all of the children together, including darling Annora Grace, and drove in awful, snowy weather to be with Grandma.
It was time to say goodbye. It was time to let her know, once again, how much she meant to everyone.
And it was Elaine's time to go home to God. On my last visit with her I whispered to her that when she was ready, and it was God's timing, she would go home to be with Jesus. She would see Dad again as well and she would be wrapped in God's loving arms. She looked at me with such a knowing smile when I said that to her.
And some months later, as she took her last breath, that's what happened. She went home to God and Dad.
I can't stop crying buckets of tears as I write this.
How blessed I was to have Elaine and Karl, my second Mom and Dad, as my "faith angels," as I liked to call them.
How blessed I was, and am, to be part of their special family.
One Sunday at our church, about a year ago, we were asked to bring a picture to church of those folks who had been our "faith angels," our guides in our Christian faith. Those folks whose own faith had helped to keep our faith alive. Those folks who lived for God and Jesus.
That next Sunday, when the pictures went on the church wall, my granddaughter Sihin and I walked up and placed my photograph of Elaine and Karl up there. Underneath the picture, I wrote the words...My Faith Angels...Karl and Elaine Seppa.
After church that Sunday, Sihin and I talked about how Elaine was my second Mom and I started to get chocked up. I explained to Sihin that what I had learned from my second Mom was all about loving God with your whole heart and mind and soul and accepting Jesus as your Savior. She taught me about faith and hope and love and that the greatest of these is love.
I will miss her forever.
God Bless!
Love, Linda
Saturday, January 07, 2017
Brrrr.....Baby It's Cold Outside!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmiWm9CsLBU
This song by Natalie Cole and James Taylor reminds us of living in Spokane right now :)
After being gone for almost three weeks, how grateful we are to be back in our "Home Sweet Home." Initially, we just wandered around appreciating every photograph of our dearies, our art work on the walls and our comfort chairs by the fireplace. We had to get reacquainted with our home, just as we would with a dear friend we hadn't seen for some time.
Bert and I have found ourselves gazing out our windows at the amazing winter wonderland that once was our front and back yard. We have made gallons of hot chocolate to sip by the fireplace and held hands as we made our way tentatively down icy sidewalks.
As Dorthy said in the Wizard of Oz...
"There's no place like home. There's no place like home."
We just spent almost three weeks in temperatures hovering around the low eighties, so as you can imagine the below zero and high of 7 degrees temperatures are a bit of a shock to our system. We have exchanged flip flops for snow boots and light sweaters for down parkas. Like us, all of our grands are dressed in multiple layers so they can stay warm in their short visits outdoors.
Even our youngest Grand, our beloved Annora Grace pictured at the start of this post, is a snow baby. I may be a bit biased, but she is the cutest little bundled up kiddo we know!:) :)
As always, Bert and I seek to be grateful in every situation we are in. So while the cold weather isn't easy, one of the blessings of this frosty season is the chance to have cozy fireplace conversations with our loved ones.
One of the topics of late has been about hope and kindness.
It seems that we cannot turn on the news without a report of violence and more violence. It hurts my heart to see all of this anger spilling out all over and the disregard for the value of human life.
What I know for sure is that hurt people hurt people, and
there are lots of hurt people acting out right now.
In my prayer time I have been asking God this question:
"Lord, what would You have me do right now to make
the world a kinder and more hopeful place?"
The answer is right out of a book by Bob Goff...
Love Does
While I can't change the whole world, I can show kindness, love and hope to those folks I intersect with every day.
While I can't undo all of the hurt that has been done, I can sit along side those who are hurt and pray. I can be present in their lives so they know they are not alone.
While I can't change everything, I can change some things
as I bring the joys and hurts of others to God in prayer.
Yes, it is cold outside because of the temperature and because of all
the hurt spilling out from so many people. Yet as 2017 begins, my
prayer is that I will do what God asks me to do and that is love one another as He has loved me.
That's a heart-warming love for sure.
God Bless and Happy New Year!
Love, Linda
Saturday, December 31, 2016
HOPE HEALS...my word for 2017...
Hope is being able to see
that there is light despite
all the darkness.
-Reverend Desmond Tutu
We were so ready for a break, my beloved Bert and I.
I guess we needed time away, time to unwind. Time to reenergize. Time to contemplate and time to pray.
We needed reflection time to regroup.
Bert has always been great about reflection. My beloved husband has spent years and years being a counselor, and he can always find the benefit of slowing down, looking back and reflecting on one question:
What am I supposed to learn from this, God?
Me, not so much.
Somehow the words slow down and reflect don't really describe my style of going after life.
Yet when just the two of us get away, really away,
I do slow down. I do reflect. I do listen to God in ways that get lost in the whirl of my life activity.
We just came back from a reflecting time. Eighteen
days in Hawaii. Eighteen days of warm weather, mostly in the low eighties. Eighteen days of eating every meal together. Eighteen days of walks on the beach holding hands. Eighteen days of prayer and restoration.
And for me, eighteen days of reading.
Not a little reading, mind you, all out reading as in...
You will never find me without a book in my hand. Taking notes.
Laughing or crying.
I may wake up really early, crawl out of bed, go make coffee, put a quilt around me and just read and read.
I pray about the books I will take with me. What would God have me learn? What direction would the good Lord point me toward? What life lessons does He have in store for me?
When I read and am quiet and pray... I can always,
always hear Him.
Loud and clear. Forceful and loving.
Heart-opening, if you will.
This year was no exception. Truthfully I came into this "away time" pretty tattered and torn. Oh, you might not have recognized it unless you knew me really, really well. After all, my outer exterior can easily project that "I'm just fine, thank you."
But on the inside? A bit of a different story.
So many good things have happened and keep happening. God loves me and blesses me and I don't take that for granted. I lean on Him and I trust Him.
Yet, while I only allude to very hard times and upheaval in this blog, and I only share the details of that with a very few people I trust completely to pray for our family, the truth is that the past few months have been as hard as I can remember in all of my 69 years of living. Hard for "my dearies" in ways that only God can really understand.
Being under siege is exhausting... physically, emotionally and spiritually. God is there holding us up, but it is hard. Really hard.
So it is not a surprise that the book that most touched my heart in this season of reflection is...
Hope Heals, by Jay and Katherine Wolfe.
On so, so many levels this book is a life-changer for me. I'll write more later about the life-lessons. Yet
it is not an exaggeration to say that I couldn't put this book down. The message of the book was a message I desperately needed to absorb and learn.
And then, as only God could do, I just happen to turn on the tv in Maui and there is Joyce Meyer talking about...why hope, of course.
I finally went out on the lanai, looked at the beautiful view, closed my eyes and said a short prayer...
"OK God, I get it! Thanks for the reminder!"
I always pick a word of the year, a focus point for me for learning and life-changes, and I always ask God for a word that He wants me to have. This year the choice was crystal clear.
My word and focus is on ... HOPE.
While I am by no means a Bible scholar, I always want to see what God has to say about my word for the year. Guess what? The Bible is packed with lessons about HOPE.
"May the God of your HOPE so fill you with all joy and peace in believing(through the experience of your faith) that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound and be overflowing with HOPE."
-Romans 15:13
Joyce Meyer in her sermon on hope puts it this way...
"Hope is a favorable and confident expectation,
an expectant attitude, that something good will
happen and things will work out."
Does being hopeful mean that tough and awful things will not happen? Not at all, they will.
Yet holding on to HOPE, because of my faith,
will help me to anchor myself in God, instead of me trying to "fix" awful situations.
Being filled with HOPE means that I am trusting that God will use every hardship and every tough situation for good.
There is so much more to say about my word for
2017 and what I learned through the book HOPE Heals. I'll share some of those lessons in upcoming blog posts.
Yet for now, what I know for sure is that I know that
the God who made heaven and earth loves me.
He is my HOPE and my strength, no matter what comes my way. I can cling to Him in those situations that are beyond what I know or can understand.
I can have a confident expectation that God is in the midst of it all and He will use the hardships for good.
Praise God! Hope can be the anchor for my soul.
There is an old Gospel hymn that I dearly love.
In the chorus it says..
"It is well...with my soul."
That hymn was written by a man crossing the Pacific
Ocean with his family. He wrote it after four of his daughters drowned. In the midst of the worst tragedy, he turned to God knowing that God was his HOPE and light in the worst darkness of his life.
So today I sing along and anticipate, with positive expectation, that it is also well with my soul.
God Bless and Happy New Year!
Love,
Linda
that there is light despite
all the darkness.
-Reverend Desmond Tutu
We were so ready for a break, my beloved Bert and I.
I guess we needed time away, time to unwind. Time to reenergize. Time to contemplate and time to pray.
We needed reflection time to regroup.
Bert has always been great about reflection. My beloved husband has spent years and years being a counselor, and he can always find the benefit of slowing down, looking back and reflecting on one question:
What am I supposed to learn from this, God?
Me, not so much.
Somehow the words slow down and reflect don't really describe my style of going after life.
Yet when just the two of us get away, really away,
I do slow down. I do reflect. I do listen to God in ways that get lost in the whirl of my life activity.
We just came back from a reflecting time. Eighteen
days in Hawaii. Eighteen days of warm weather, mostly in the low eighties. Eighteen days of eating every meal together. Eighteen days of walks on the beach holding hands. Eighteen days of prayer and restoration.
And for me, eighteen days of reading.
Not a little reading, mind you, all out reading as in...
You will never find me without a book in my hand. Taking notes.
Laughing or crying.
I may wake up really early, crawl out of bed, go make coffee, put a quilt around me and just read and read.
I pray about the books I will take with me. What would God have me learn? What direction would the good Lord point me toward? What life lessons does He have in store for me?
When I read and am quiet and pray... I can always,
always hear Him.
Loud and clear. Forceful and loving.
Heart-opening, if you will.
This year was no exception. Truthfully I came into this "away time" pretty tattered and torn. Oh, you might not have recognized it unless you knew me really, really well. After all, my outer exterior can easily project that "I'm just fine, thank you."
But on the inside? A bit of a different story.
So many good things have happened and keep happening. God loves me and blesses me and I don't take that for granted. I lean on Him and I trust Him.
Yet, while I only allude to very hard times and upheaval in this blog, and I only share the details of that with a very few people I trust completely to pray for our family, the truth is that the past few months have been as hard as I can remember in all of my 69 years of living. Hard for "my dearies" in ways that only God can really understand.
Being under siege is exhausting... physically, emotionally and spiritually. God is there holding us up, but it is hard. Really hard.
So it is not a surprise that the book that most touched my heart in this season of reflection is...
Hope Heals, by Jay and Katherine Wolfe.
On so, so many levels this book is a life-changer for me. I'll write more later about the life-lessons. Yet
it is not an exaggeration to say that I couldn't put this book down. The message of the book was a message I desperately needed to absorb and learn.
And then, as only God could do, I just happen to turn on the tv in Maui and there is Joyce Meyer talking about...why hope, of course.
I finally went out on the lanai, looked at the beautiful view, closed my eyes and said a short prayer...
"OK God, I get it! Thanks for the reminder!"
I always pick a word of the year, a focus point for me for learning and life-changes, and I always ask God for a word that He wants me to have. This year the choice was crystal clear.
My word and focus is on ... HOPE.
While I am by no means a Bible scholar, I always want to see what God has to say about my word for the year. Guess what? The Bible is packed with lessons about HOPE.
"May the God of your HOPE so fill you with all joy and peace in believing(through the experience of your faith) that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound and be overflowing with HOPE."
-Romans 15:13
Joyce Meyer in her sermon on hope puts it this way...
"Hope is a favorable and confident expectation,
an expectant attitude, that something good will
happen and things will work out."
Does being hopeful mean that tough and awful things will not happen? Not at all, they will.
Yet holding on to HOPE, because of my faith,
will help me to anchor myself in God, instead of me trying to "fix" awful situations.
Being filled with HOPE means that I am trusting that God will use every hardship and every tough situation for good.
There is so much more to say about my word for
2017 and what I learned through the book HOPE Heals. I'll share some of those lessons in upcoming blog posts.
Yet for now, what I know for sure is that I know that
the God who made heaven and earth loves me.
He is my HOPE and my strength, no matter what comes my way. I can cling to Him in those situations that are beyond what I know or can understand.
I can have a confident expectation that God is in the midst of it all and He will use the hardships for good.
Praise God! Hope can be the anchor for my soul.
There is an old Gospel hymn that I dearly love.
In the chorus it says..
"It is well...with my soul."
That hymn was written by a man crossing the Pacific
Ocean with his family. He wrote it after four of his daughters drowned. In the midst of the worst tragedy, he turned to God knowing that God was his HOPE and light in the worst darkness of his life.
So today I sing along and anticipate, with positive expectation, that it is also well with my soul.
God Bless and Happy New Year!
Love,
Linda
Tuesday, December 06, 2016
TED Talk: Finding The Courage To Do The Thing You Think You Cannot Do...
You must do the thing
you think you cannot do.
-Eleanor Roosevelt
Yesterday was at once glorious and excruciating.
It was full of joy and celebration and a deep sense of loss.
I knew it was coming.
I could feel it in my heart and soul.
It's like having a doctor's appointment that
you have to go through, you know it's what is
required, yet you wish it didn't have to happen.
You love your doctor, yet you feel sad and a bit
off balance as the time nears.
That's what the end of a quarter is like for me as I say goodbye to my amazing students.
It's a celebration...after all they have worked so hard all quarter. We have become a "family" of sorts.
Students always sit in the same places, and we have the same routines. We "clap" for each day. There are snacks to eat. We say good morning to each other. We support each other all quarter. We do the hard work together.
Then, in what feels like a heart beat, their final projects are in and tests are taken.
I grade myself into oblivion with marathon grading sessions, and I am awe struck by how smart my students are and how hard they work.
Finally, they get their tests and projects back, we have a delicious potluck, and then it is time to say goodbye.
I always cry all the way home.
No, that's not completely accurate.
I sob all the way home.
I can't imagine them not being in their seat.
I can't imagine not hearing what is going on in their lives.
I truly love them, care about them , and have invested in every single one of them.
Every time.
Every quarter.
All these 50 years of teaching.
I thank God every day that I get to do what I do.
It truly is the best job in the world, at least for me.
And while the leaving is hard, every day with
them has been amazing. Miracles happen. Students transform. They have a new look of confidence in their eyes. They are proud of themselves and what they have accomplished.
I am so proud of them that my heart could burst.
They are a gift to me, just as I hope I am a gift to them.
Recently I got a chance to talk about teaching and what it means to me. I did a TED talk for Spokane 2016.
It just came on the internet on YouTube.
While I give "talks" every day in a classroom, and often do speeches on communication at conferences and meetings, this was different.
I was talking about Passion in Motion and bringing love into the classroom.
This is a topic that is so personal and so close to my heart that I wasn't sure I could get the words out.
I prayed and prayed before I said, "Yes, I'll do this."
It's a vulnerable moment when you realize that something you care about so much will be out there, totally visible.
Yet I felt a strong pull that He wanted me to do this.
That somehow I might communicate that I was able to teach the way I teach because of His strength and His love.
I could never, ever, ever have done this, this 50 years of teaching, without God's strength and guidance every day.
Many days I knew that I couldn't do it, but He could.
The day we filmed the TED talk was one of those days.
I became ill about thirty minutes before I was to be filmed.
Not a little ill, really ill.
I prayed and asked for His guidance. I told the Lord God Almighty that if He wanted this to happen, He would need to give me the strength to do it.
He did, and I did. All for His glory, not mine.
I was able to go out and do the thing I thought I
could not do because I trusted Him to help me
do it.
I trusted that He loved me and would be there with me...
beside me, holding me up on that stage in front of that
huge audience.
So here it is...
And as this Christmas season rolls around, may you find the courage to do the thing you think you cannot do, and may you know, in your deepest heart of hearts, that with God all things are possible!
God bless and much love,
Linda
you think you cannot do.
-Eleanor Roosevelt
Yesterday was at once glorious and excruciating.
It was full of joy and celebration and a deep sense of loss.
I knew it was coming.
I could feel it in my heart and soul.
It's like having a doctor's appointment that
you have to go through, you know it's what is
required, yet you wish it didn't have to happen.
You love your doctor, yet you feel sad and a bit
off balance as the time nears.
That's what the end of a quarter is like for me as I say goodbye to my amazing students.
It's a celebration...after all they have worked so hard all quarter. We have become a "family" of sorts.
Students always sit in the same places, and we have the same routines. We "clap" for each day. There are snacks to eat. We say good morning to each other. We support each other all quarter. We do the hard work together.
Then, in what feels like a heart beat, their final projects are in and tests are taken.
I grade myself into oblivion with marathon grading sessions, and I am awe struck by how smart my students are and how hard they work.
Finally, they get their tests and projects back, we have a delicious potluck, and then it is time to say goodbye.
I always cry all the way home.
No, that's not completely accurate.
I sob all the way home.
I can't imagine them not being in their seat.
I can't imagine not hearing what is going on in their lives.
I truly love them, care about them , and have invested in every single one of them.
Every time.
Every quarter.
All these 50 years of teaching.
I thank God every day that I get to do what I do.
It truly is the best job in the world, at least for me.
And while the leaving is hard, every day with
them has been amazing. Miracles happen. Students transform. They have a new look of confidence in their eyes. They are proud of themselves and what they have accomplished.
I am so proud of them that my heart could burst.
They are a gift to me, just as I hope I am a gift to them.
Recently I got a chance to talk about teaching and what it means to me. I did a TED talk for Spokane 2016.
It just came on the internet on YouTube.
While I give "talks" every day in a classroom, and often do speeches on communication at conferences and meetings, this was different.
I was talking about Passion in Motion and bringing love into the classroom.
This is a topic that is so personal and so close to my heart that I wasn't sure I could get the words out.
I prayed and prayed before I said, "Yes, I'll do this."
It's a vulnerable moment when you realize that something you care about so much will be out there, totally visible.
Yet I felt a strong pull that He wanted me to do this.
That somehow I might communicate that I was able to teach the way I teach because of His strength and His love.
I could never, ever, ever have done this, this 50 years of teaching, without God's strength and guidance every day.
Many days I knew that I couldn't do it, but He could.
The day we filmed the TED talk was one of those days.
I became ill about thirty minutes before I was to be filmed.
Not a little ill, really ill.
I prayed and asked for His guidance. I told the Lord God Almighty that if He wanted this to happen, He would need to give me the strength to do it.
He did, and I did. All for His glory, not mine.
I was able to go out and do the thing I thought I
could not do because I trusted Him to help me
do it.
I trusted that He loved me and would be there with me...
beside me, holding me up on that stage in front of that
huge audience.
So here it is...
And as this Christmas season rolls around, may you find the courage to do the thing you think you cannot do, and may you know, in your deepest heart of hearts, that with God all things are possible!
God bless and much love,
Linda
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