February in Albuquerque

The icy wind snaps at my face and bare hands. The high fluffy, white clouds seem to mock me from afar as if to say I would be better off if I had a few to wear on my hands to fool the biting wind. It is a clear, crisp day on our New Mexican ranch and the dark green, low shrubs and juniper trees stretch out as far as I can see. Across the road I see my favorite windmill whirling in the wind, the clean fresh winter filling my lungs and spirit. It is good to be in the place my heart already calls home.

It is snowing on the mountaintop and so we climb from the valley to meet it. The pale new sun is diminished within the opaque sky. The road has a dusting of snowflakes at the start of our ascent but this quickly becomes more and more pronounced as we climb. My new Acadia seems up to the task as we slip and slide a bit, thankful for my driver and the traction button, to put things right. At the end of the road, the sun is shining bright in the clean, crisp air. There is something about the altitude, I think, that creates a clarity of vision that is sharp and vivid. The white of the slopes separated from the same color sky only by the snow sprinkled pines within the silent wonder of the snow filled air. It is a brilliant day to play in the snow.

We have 3 skiers and a snowboarder with us today clad in makeshift warming layers. Two of the skiers are skilled, the others braving this mountain for the first time. They manage an initial couple runs in the bright sun before the clouds cover over, the wind picks up, and the snow flurries come down in earnest. The valley below becomes invisible as the fairyland mists cut us off from all but the awe of this pocket of winter.

I marvel at the tenacity and bravery of my young charges. They are not daunted by the challenges of learning this new skill; not the fear of the ski lift exit nor the falling at intervals nor the simple cold of sitting in the snow awaiting the inspiration to muster. Their willingness to brave the unknown makes me smile in fascination.

We are told the sun is again shining at the very top of the mountain, above the clouds, so off go a dad and son to conquer the last of the slopes. I am transported into my world of words as my spirit is overcome with the hardly containable joy of the ‘nature’ of this place and the spirit freeing magic of skiing.

Skiing is a place where you can be free of self judgement; free of the voice in your head; from the shackles of expectations, self recriminations, regrets, doubts, hopes and even dreams… to let go of all of life’s pressures and loss and fly free in the glorious gratitude of the moment. A small window of time to allow the crisp wind of your descent to clear away the accumulation and complications of life and empower the pressing of your own reset button. Such a gift it is to be wholly present in this present.

Inviting you to being wholly present in the precious present with me,

Anne

Since my motorcycle accident, I have had much to ponder and work through.  My  journey through pain will be coming but first, I’d like to share a sweet gift from God from last night. Please see below.

Anne

My Perplexities.  His Light.

“In Your light, we see light.” Psalms 36:9

I couldn’t sleep last night.  I began thinking about my friend’s seemingly fairytale life as her second daughter’s wedding approaches.  Such joy, anticipation, beauty and light exudes from all of them. As is my way, my thoughts turned to my own wedding and all my conflicting emotions surrounding it.  I had a few disappointments with my well laid plans and they have haunted me these 23 years. So, of course, I began dwelling on them, whirling up my dismay in the darkness… until my day’s devotional verse popped in to interrupt my cycle.   I began to mull over Psalms 36:9.

Earlier in the day, I learned that the verse could also be read:  “By Thy light, we see light.” It carries with it the idea of discovering as we seek His light and, then having discovered as we see light; in my mind, the questions brought to God on the front end are satisfied on the back end.   A commentary expanded on it by saying: “As Thou are the Source of light, and all light proceeds from Thee, so we shall be enabled to see light or to see what is true, only as we see it in Thee. (Only) by looking to Thee shall we see light on all those great questions which perplex us… It is not by looking at ourselves… that we can hope to have the questions which perplex us solved.” -A. Barnes

As I considered all these things laying on my back in the darkness, unbidden, my wedding popped back up. God proceeded to take me step by step through that day. His light redeeming my memory of it as my disappointments receded in the brightness. I may not have the keepsakes I thought I longed for from it, but I had an especially fine day filled with fairytale loveliness that I can be proud and blessed by. A 23 year old disappointment that it didn’t occur to me to give to God, graciously soothed away by the light of His presence.

“How great is the love, the Father has lavished on us…!”  I John 3:1. I so love it when God unexpectedly pops in and uses His Word to inform my real life ‘perplexities’. (Check that one off the list!) Truly, even in my dark bedroom, in His light, we see light!    

So Cool!

♥ Anne

January, 2018

Two Thousand Eighteen:

A Series of Unfortunate and, sometimes, Heart Rending Events

      #Life #Fighting for JOY

Let’s see, 2018…

A drunk driver sped down my controlled access cul de sac and crashed in my front yard, effectively taking out our two cars at once; no injuries.

Later, a deer took out our replacement car; no injuries.

June brought the unexpected death of my oldest cousin, stopping me in my tracks.

My dog, then, licked a poison frog and spent a week on death’s door.  Just as he was on the mend, our baseball team of close knit families fell disastrously apart, distressing many a heart in the process.

August brought a season of new beginnings as my youngest began both Middle School and a new baseball team. It has been a volatile transition of angst and fury.

In September, our car was totalled; no injuries, a bittersweet connection of difficulty with gratitude.

In October, Philp and I, on our Harley, were stopped at a crosswalk when a texting driver plowed into us sending me aloft and breaking my clavicle and 5 ribs…  

As I survey the state of my year from my perch here in November, I am amazed.  

When I was well enough to go back to church, I found that my Pastor had begun a new series:  Fighting for Joy, and it summed up my year nicely. It has been a year of an ever progressing volley of  breakage: material, physical, emotional and spiritual, if you will. And with each crisis, it has become ever more evident that Joy is not only worth fighting for, but it is essential.

Joy is, afterall, not a result of circumstances, but rather the result of being held during them by my faithful God. He welcomes me at the very point of my need and  tells me that fighting for Joy simply proves this truth and it propels me as effectively up off the pavement as the driver propelled me onto it. He tells me that it is time to take back our joy. It is time to rejoice in His coming and the hopeful message He brings with Him: We are stronger when we find our strength, not in our circumstances, but in our strengthening connection to God through joy.

May this New Year bring you victory after victory

as you fight for joy in your circumstances.

 DO NOT fear!  

He has overcome the world

so that we need not be overcomed by it.

Loving you,

Anne and boys

November, 2018

“I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”  

John 16:33

Chandler, AZ  

September 23, 2018

New Wine  *a song by Hillsong Worship*

In the crushing, in the pressing, You are making new wine.

In the soil, I now surrender. You are breaking new ground

So I yield to You and to Your careful hand.

I trust You.  I don’t need to understand

Make me Your vessel, make me an offering, make me whatever You want me to be

I came here with nothing but all You have given me.

Jesus, bring new wine out of me

’cause where there is new wine, there is new power, there is new freedom.

How funny.  As I wrote the title for this, I thought I could have named it “New Whine” but not this time…

This week for the second time in less than a year, we lost the Celestial Blue beast, our Cadillac. This time, however,  it won’t be coming back. The twisting and grinding around an industrial light pole has taken it from us. “Not again”, my heart has been muttering, whine-fully, quietly, beneath my gratitude. Muttering until I stood to sing in church the very next Sunday.

We opened with the above song as my thoughts sling shotted to my Cadi. “In the crushing, in the pressing”, we sang and I could see the blue metal, the paint three quarters around the light pole, the significant crushing and pressing.   I could feel the soil of my discontent just under my gratitude. I began to sense the breaking of new ground as I could see His careful hand allowing the crushing of only the car, the driver unscathed. I could hear His voice in the words, asking me to yield; to trust; to forego understanding and to wait.

Asking me to wait for the new wine that, as He did at the Cana wedding, will be the better wine than all the rest.  His words promising me that in the waiting there is hope because where there is new wine, there is new power and new freedom.

I came here with nothing and You are making me something! Make me a vessel to carry Your hope.  Make my life an offering of gratitude. Make me whatever, whomever, You want me to be even when, especially when, it requires the pressing for new wine; the promise power, freedom. But, above all, Lord, thank you, beyond words for Your careful hand.

*Anne*

Unexpected Healing

I received a text on Saturday.  My Sisterhood’s trip to Hawaii had begun, the one I was not going to join…until they sent me a ticket for Sunday…

Moana’s chicken, Heihei, was the first to greet me in Maui as he randomly, unpredictably jutted down the runway to my left. The fresh, ocean breeze washed the airplane sleep from my eyes as I took deep cleansing breaths. This was not where I expected to be this weekend.

This week/summer has been an emotional one with the recent anguish of Zegan’s brush with death; a shake up with our baseball family; the injustice of another; and the irretrievable loss of Marcia…

I was conflicted about dropping everything and joining my Sisterhood in Maui. I sound like a brat, I know, but I am not so pliable anymore.  The journey from impending loss to promise of sudden joy, left me tangled.

A visit with Oswald Chambers’ book, focusing me back on my Savior, began my unwinding.

And then, He gave me that silly erratic chicken. It was as if the chicken embodied the tangle of my summer, and as it ran away, it took my conflicted self with it, making room for the healing to come.

What better place to sort out life, surrounded by my Sisterhood, than this sudden gift of joy: a ticket and promise of paradise.

Hello, Maui.

July, 2018

AMRB

The Problem with Unexpected Loss

“Through the eyes of men, there is so much we have lost..”   L.Daigle

The problem with loss is that we see and judge it through our human eyes. We then seek and demand answers from God using those human eyes.

What if we judged God not by what our circumstances were but by His eternal attributes: Who we know Him to be?

What if we started with God’s character and worked back from there?

God is always good, ever loving, faithful, true, just… therefore, when difficult challenges come it isn’t a lack of God’s goodness,  love, faithfulness, truth or justice but rather a lack of our perspective or understanding of the immensity of God’s ways. What if we allowed the possibility that we might lack the depth of vision that God has? Surely it is better to believe a God Whose knowledge is far above our own instead of a god who is as impotent and acts according to our fears and lack of vision.

It is not so much a question of why God would do/allow this but rather a trusting that His goodness, love, faithfulness, truth and justice will be accomplished despite the horror of this challenge.

God did not ‘take’ Marcia but He did receive her. And though it may seem unjust and inconceivable to me, that is not Who my God is so there must be another answer that I cannot see.  

There’s a song by Amy Grant that carries me through my losses. She sings: “Somewhere down the road, there will be answers to my questions. Somewhere down the road though I cannot see it now. Somewhere down the road there will be mighty arms reaching for me and they will hold the answers at the end of the road.”

God does not let me down during my storms. He offers me Himself, the strength to trust, the freedom to grieve and the assurance there will be answers that I cannot see right now.

Isn’t far more likely a deficit in me and not in God? My inability to see/ understand rather than God’s inability to act appropriately according to what I would prefer?

It is too easy to blame God because the world is broken and far harder to trust He will make a way when we see no way with our human vision.

If God is Who He says He is, then He’s got this. My job is to trust that He does even when I cannot conceive of the how or why.

We truly do not know Who He is, the depth of His vision and grace, His powerful love and ……. Justice.  Though we cannot see it now… He is all of Who He says He is and more.

Through the eyes of man there is so much we have lost… But through the eyes of God… we can trust in the hope He promises.

June, 2018

AMRB

The Crying World

In Marcia-less Missouri

June, 2018

It is a drizzly, rainy day with distant rumblings of thunder. The greyness hangs heavy as if it is inexorably connected to the oppressing humidity. My lungs feel its presence and I remind myself to breathe deeply.

Arizonans typically revel in the washed, clean, freshness of rain but today I’d rather cry with the world. The oppressing loss of my cousin friend being worn by the world in the sometimes drenching, sometimes pitter patting with rumbles of deepness being expressed.

I sit still in the green lushness of the backyard forest and allow the drip-drip-pour to soothe my weary wanderings.  Grief is a process as the rains reminds me.

Later, It is a process, I find,  that does not spill from my eyes until I am sitting in the St. Louis airport on my way home.

I hadn’t actually cried, I realize. My tears ever present yet not unleashed; being always distracted from the shed.  It is an unexpected kindness by Erin, a Southwest employee, that unleashes the damn, (pun intended) connecting me to my gratitude and loss.

It is the one thing about grief that is freeing; the world gives you permission to weep and be exactly who you are in the moments that follow loss.

Marcia, you are my treasure and I miss you.

June, 13, 2018

AMRB

Redeeming the Moments

As I stand at work making another bed, I am cranky as I often am when I start at 0615.  My fatigue creeps into my attitude and my self talk deteriorates into complaining. I stop myself in my track, more of a rut really and declare that is not who I am, a tired complainer? No more!.  And so, I decide to redeem the moment with a line from a favorite e.e. Cummings poem: “Thank you, God, for this most amazing day!” As I shout it within, my fatigue and negativity are silenced. It becomes my bed making mantra.

I am given many more opportunities to redeem the moments that day but none more powerful than this:

Early in my shift, a patient shared her outrageous story with me. Her Primary Provider’s Medical Assistant had called and told her flat out that she had cancer and needed to come in.  This, of course, devastated her and she went right in. Her provider, then, without a preamble, bluntly told her the same thing. It was the patient who needed to point out that the test results clearly said that she MIGHT have cancer and that further testing was needed.  She had come to us for that testing and left us with a clean bill of health: NO cancer. She was crying when she told me; so much relief falling from her eyes.

It was shocking to me that a caregiver could be so disconnected, uncompassionately clinical and wrong!  I felt her outrage.

Later, with the last patient of my long day, a similar outrage overtook me.  Our doctor had found what most likely would be a malignant tumor. Further testing would be needed.  My doc wrote this in his discharge instructions but did not tell her. He left that to me. I couldn’t not tell her and send her home to read the words for herself in isolation; that would be as outrageous as my morning patient’s story.

So I used my experience with the first to inform my thinking with the last.  I came alongside her, softly holding her hand, listening to her every question, affirming her strength of character, trying to be clear.  And I prayed that I would be enough.

She called me the next day at work.  She repeatedly mentioned my words to her.  How they had helped her to stay calm and seek out her support systems.  How she didn’t want to die but would use my words to keep herself fighting…

I stood amazed, mouth open.  How incredible is my God that He should use an outrageous patient story in the morning to inform my thinking with another in the afternoon.  Redeeming life’s moments. Reconnecting with my God in the moments that threaten to undo me. This is truly our life’s work.

2 Corinthians 10:5  Take every thought captive to honor Jesus.

AMRB

May, 2018