Without Wheels

On Easter Sunday, in the quiet hours following the fun and frenzied egg hunt, my grandson and I move bicycles up the hill from the lower driveway near the garage. He is intending to ride. One training wheel on his younger sister's older bike is coming loose from the frame, its precarious angle not supporting an upright posture, the bike tipping easily and dangerously to one side. He abandons it, choosing another bicycle instead.

Thirty-six hours later, I am dropping off my car at the repair shop. A friend who lives in my neighborhood is waiting in her van to give me a ride home. I write my contact information and my car-complaint on an envelope, dropping my keys into the dropbox.

I am now without wheels.

Arriving home, I write “No car!” on a yellow sticky note and adhere it to the coffee pot.

I promised to be to work at the real estate office by 10am. The reminder will keep me from the mishap of walking out the door with no time to spare and discovering my car is not in the parking lot, giving in to panic, perhaps even reporting it stolen ... or at the very least frantically searching for it in the vastness of my apartment complex. But, let's not go there.

I wrote the note.

The distance, 2.7 miles, will take an hour to walk.

The friend who gave me a lift last night is willing to take me to work this morning. Others, too, are willing to help.

I walk.

When I arrive at the office, the broker offers to give me a ride back to the repair shop at the close of the day. At 5:25pm I hop out of her car, wallet in hand, wave good-bye and walk into the building. As the woman behind the counter hands me my keys, she smiles and says, No charge. I am astonished and grateful. I struggle to wrap my heart and my head around this unexpected and generous gift.

Since January 24 -- 89 days ago -- God has pulled me from the depths of despair.

On this day -- day 1047 of my widowhood -- a new path stretches out before me. Am I am ready to take off the training wheels and ride?

Hub Caps and Sparrows

I’d been ignoring the sound for weeks, while simultaneously monitoring it just enough to know it was metal scraping against something and it originated in the rear end the well-worn Mistsubishi that is my car. In this season of economic challenges, oil changes are the extent of the maintenance, and the scraping of metal doesn’t typically indicate a need for oil. I am convinced it is an exhaust clamp, or pipe, or muffler rusted and ready to go skidding down the freeway at the most inopportune moment and that the funds in my checking account will not be enough to cover repairs. 

On this particular morning, windows open because it was such a beautiful day, I drove across the parking lot and the sound grew loud enough that it could no longer be ignored. As I monitored the problem, I realized the sound occurred more frequently when I accelerated and slowed down when I put on the breaks. Tired of the low-voltage anxiety of ignoring the sound, I found a parking place in an empty row, got out of the car, and put my ear to the asphalt—fully expecting to see an epic failure somewhere in the exhaust system. Surprise and delight rushed to greet me when my mind confirmed my optical observation—all is well. 

I got up from the pavement and brushed some pebbles from my knees. Standing beside the car for a moment I am baffled, not quite knowing what to do next. Then I looked down and discovered that the plastic hub cab on the rear tire was hanging loose. I kicked it a couple of times, gently, to force it back into place before taking a closer look. The overwhelming majority of clips designed to attach the hub cap to the rim were broken. Only one intact clip remained. Breaking the final clip, I removed the hub cap and tossed it into the back seat. As I pulled out of the parking lot the noise of metal scraping no longer accompanied me. The 2003 Mitsubishi seems to run just fine without the hub cab.

All this to say that ignoring the noise didn’t ease my anxiety, it just camouflaged my worry. This misadventure clearly reveals my wavering ability to trust in God’s provision. In sharing this story with friends recently, I found myself saying—and hopefully more faithfully believing—that God cares for me and for you more deeply and fully than He cares for the sparrows, that our Creator is a generous God, and with faith we can rest in the assurance that the worrisome economic challenges we face are hub caps in God’s economy. 

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. – Matthew 10:29-31 NIV

three days to sleep

As I scan the recent months, the sparse entries in my blog, I am reminded how difficult this summer has been, an unexpected emotional, physical and spiritual marathon, a crescendo on a decade when life was not unfolding as my spouse and I had envisioned.

Like a ram stuck in a thicket, I fought to free myself. My body grew tired, fell still. I lay there, mind racing, heart beating a panicked rhythm. Week after week, then day after day, I climbed the stairs and threw myself onto the bed and yelled at the ceiling, "I can't f---- do this!"

And God answered. If He was offended by my vulgar language He did not show me His disappointment. Instead, He gently acknowledged the depth of my struggle, revealed my chronic refusal to rely on His strength, and brought to mind the words of my own Psalm:

 … Loving God
Break away the stone of my hardened heart
Crush it into gravel and pave a new path for this broken life
Grind the fired clay of my self-reliance into fine dust …

This past Thursday (Sept 17) I came home from work and for the first time in a really long time three days to sleep stretched out before me, days in which I threw myself on the bed and welcomed rest, days set aside to embrace the life-affirming rhythm of sleeping when tired, eating when hungry, enjoying the gentle companionship of the people walking closely beside me, and the favor of our Loving God.

The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. And when they measured it by the omer, the one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little. Everyone had gathered just as much as they needed. Exodus 16:17-18

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rise

As a child being raised in the Catholic church, i remember a gripping and claustrophobic fear of death, my imagination transporting me to the total darkness inside my girl-sized casket, being underground with worms and June bugs. i was in second or third grade.

i remember bits and pieces of conversations, the adults in the church discussing human death and buried bodies awaiting resurrection, my young mind catching phrases and images, never enough to fully form an accurate understanding, obscured by my tangible belief that everyone but me fully knew, that asking a question would surely reveal my shameful and glaring ignorance.

The child-me is nervous as i type, we've erased and rewritten, consulted the thesaurus and checked the spelling in an effort to delay.

"Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned." - John 5:28-29 NIV

As the recorded voice of Max McLean reads aloud the words in John 5, i feel as though we -- me, the child-me, and perhaps all breathing humanity -- are in many ways already dead, choosing to lay motionless within our caskets of addiction and pride and fear, turning our backs on the light of Jesus' calling on our lives, standing backward on His path, seeking to avoid the darkness by closing our eyes.

That is not what God intended. That is not what God intends.

God is wiping away shame and ignorance, offering restoration to everyone and anyone.

As i read and listen to the words, God is unfolding the shaded gray knots of shame and inviting me to explore with an open heart the stories within this library we call the Bible. God is inviting me and the child-me to see things differently, to turn from our fear, to hear his voice, to rise and live, to proclaim "This is the day the Lord has made!" - Psalm 118:24 NKJV

Rw

photo credit: Lovely Sun Rise ...

destiny jeans

i am a mess.

serving at a food pantry is difficult.

serving at a food pantry while looking in my own mirror and feeling the dark shadow of poverty creep up behind me is more than difficult.

the sadness is often so heavy on my heart that i feel as though my body will simply stop breathing.

yet 'not breathing' never happens.

i breathe because only God decides when breathing stops.

so i often feel stuck here in this place and this time ... and when i whine "Why?" the words of Dan Allender haunt me:

"What is God doing?" he asks.

and my focus shifts:

God is providing.

God is providing daily bread.
 
God is providing physical fitness in time spent unloading trucks filled with food.

and when weight loss diminishes the options in my closet:

God is providing sparkling hand-me-up jeans from my friend Destiny.










"Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
    I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters,
    I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
    they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
    you will not be burned;
    the flames will not set you ablaze.
For I am the Lord your God, ..."

Isaiah 43:1-3 excerpt NIV

Rjw

Vocation and Passion by Dan Allender inspires me

semi-precious stones

Standing in the beauty of creation on a crisp fall night I feel so alive. The rich dark sky embraces my senses, brings the stars almost within my grasp. God is close.

A few hours later, as I am tossing and turning in anxious sleep, satan hisses. The self-contempt that slithers into my consciousness are earthly things: temporary setbacks, imagined obstacles, past regrets, impending shame. Exhaustion has opened the gate. Like stones taken from a quarry, crushed and spread as base beneath a newly paved road, I am being smothered by layers of lies, oily asphalt.

I wake and God seems so very far away.

My heart beats loudly in the anxious silence.

God hears the voiceless prayers of my heart, invites me closer, shifts my focus away from obstacles, setbacks, shame and regret. God melts the layers of lies, opens my eyes to see that what I fear is temporary or imagined, not impending but tethered in the past.

I find comfort in the necklace I wore for the funeral of my niece, a time when hopelessness, grief, loss and fear gave way to a celebration of her life and her New Life.

In the darkest of moments, when we are feeling less than precious, when we fear death and darkness, God hears our hearts cry. God is already there.

... the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:26-28 NIV

Rw

Bedroom Windows

A few years ago, my husband and I moved our bedroom upstairs into space slowly vacated by our college students turned homeowners. Though the bathroom remains quite a ways down the hall, we now inhabit a spacious two-room 'suite' separated by pocket doors, the room with the best old house closet, with windows on three of four walls.

The empty nest has other advantages, like taking my afternoon nap bathed in the light of west facing windows. The nap habit began as respite and escape, in a season when anxiety and night terrors crept in relentlessly and darkness stole my evening slumber, leaving behind a physically and mentally exhausted shadow of me.

The nightly haunts of the moonlit hours eventually receded.

The comfort of napping remains.

This past night, after Super Bowl Sunday, I was restless, often awaking and checking the clock.

10:31pm

12:23am

2:37am ...



then a dream:

I am bathed in the beautiful light of west facing windows.

I can feel the warmth of the sun.

I often nap in this space with great afternoon light and without waking sense this light is different. It touches my face very gently, inviting my eyelids to open.

The century-old newer-vinyl-sided west wall has been altered, replaced with a brilliant expanse of new windows.

Light caresses my being ... pulsing Brightness.


Rw
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Photo Credit

Orange Slices

Nothing is random. Life is filled with choice.

My life moves forward in the tension, belief in the Creator who intelligently and divinely grants me the dignity of free will while laying out a plan for every breath of my life before I was a heartbeat in a living womb.

Orange Slices is devoted to celebrating the sweetness, pushing back the murky shadows in my peripheral vision and centering on a celebration of life. This year
I am committing one blog a month to a retrospective of goodness.



If you can’t change your fate, change your attitude. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Trust 30

Books, Poetry, Prayer:
Escort Me by Crystal Mahan
B by Sarah Kay
Glass Beach by Jill Marie Landis
Now You're 50! by Brandon Crose
Sea Glass Prayer by Anne Bender

Excellent Choices:
Lunch at Lucy's with my friend DeAna
A baby shower of pink in a most unlikely space
Dinner with Amy, Bryan, Kathryn and my husband Lw
24-hours cocooned with friends in Touched Twice United
Touring Mission Possible, a bricks-n-mortar place of healing
Couples 4 Cards with Vicki, Reggie, Jo Anne and Bill
Touring Altered Ego, a new place of beautiful care and prayer
Chili with friends

and the murky shadows ask what if you forgot someone, offended them?

"Quiet!" I reply for among the gifts is a troll named GRACE for my shoulder.

As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed. Mark 5:18-20 NIV


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Tapestry

We realize that life is not a bunch of loose ends we must tie, or problems we must solve, but it's a profound, eternal tapestry that we are called to be part of.
—Abbie Smith, Inspired By Tozer

The knotted fringe of the handwoven scarf invites my fingers to a gentle caress. I close my eyes, remember the vibrant images, the rich colors, the soft feel of the woven cloth.

What must it feel like to weave something so beautiful?

In a season when I am struggling, feeling pressured choices, short lists, limited options, A or B, is there time for quiet exploration? Opening my mind? My heart? Meditating?

The silence of choosing inaction? Unspoken possibilities in taking no action at all?

When I understand that everything happening to me is to make me more Christlike, it solves a great deal of anxiety.
—A.W. Tozer

Is there room in God's tapestry for quietly waiting?

Rw
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4am Cucumbers

Yesterday when I arrived at the Dewey Street house to mow the lawn it was late morning. As I opened the screen door my keys slipped from my right hand, fell downward and bounced once before disappearing into the crack between the house and the steps, coming to rest beneath 500 lbs of precast concrete.

I can't get into the house. I can't drive home. Anxiety crashes in.

I step off the landing, set down the canvas bag held in my left hand, and begin digging for my phone. Found. I dial my husband. He asks where in our home he would find the spare keys. The house was easy. He will find those in the dining room, just outside his home office door. The car, well, um, there is only the one, there were two once, but...

My husband has more patience than anyone I know. After we hang up, I slip my cell phone into the back pocket of my paint-splattered khakis. Remembering that I am here to work, I walk around back to find the lawnmower.

About 45 minutes later my husband arrives with a spare set of house keys and a telescoping rod -- much like a car antenna -- with a magnet on the end. Using the spare keys, I let myself into the house, use the bathroom and find a flashlight. We need to move the stairs just a bit. Instead of trying to lift the concrete, my husband patiently pries the stairs away from the house -- an approach I hadn't even considered. Soon my keys are in my hand. We slide the stairs back to their original position, or perhaps just a bit closer to the front of the house.

All is well, or at least would be, if my cell phone hadn't slipped out of my pocket and fallen into the toilet. It is drying in a bag of rice. The outcome is not promising. Worrying about my phone is what woke me up at 4am this morning. Anxious in the darkness, I turn on both lights in the bathroom, then decide it needs cleaning. Task accomplished. On my way to the basement laundry room with a full hamper of dirty clothes, I walk through our kitchen. The dishes from supper are clean and dry in the dishwasher. In the sink, an empty storage container and a fork await washing, the last of the cucumber salad from dinner apparently enjoyed by my husband before coming to bed.

I smile at the thought of my husband eating cucumber salad 'bachelor style' right out of the container, not bothering with a plate. The cucumbers were a gift from a friend, an unexpected blessing in a week when the vines in our garden had faded and fizzled into lumps of brown from too much rain. I open the frig. A huge bowl of cucumbers from my friend's garden remains. I reach in and grab the bowl, move it to the kitchen counter. Dozer, our black lab, hears me and comes to sit nearby, quietly begging with big brown eyes. As I peel and slice, occasionally sharing a piece of cucumber with Dozer, I realize that what seemed so important only hours ago, really doesn't matter at all. I think about how blessed we truly are in this life -- by big things like marriage and by little things like 4 am cucumbers -- and how much more our Creator has waiting for us in the next.

Today is going to be a good day.

Rw

Easily Crushed

The cost of inaction – the price of a decision unmade – is to hand over control to anxiety.

Anxiety is the whisper of failure that haunts the darkness, the black thing crawling down a white wall, slithering in to steal and kill and destroy.

I want to be a woman who prays and a woman who loves. I want to be a person who cherishes ideas, the fragile desires inside each of us, delicate hopes that are wispy and easily crushed. I want to be a woman who risks putting down her own masks before asking others to take risks, a woman who scorns appearances  – opting to display all facets of me – true me.

I will not let anxiety slither in and choose what is next for me.

If tomorrow if a terrible thing about me is exposed, it will launch a voyage of discovery, a journey revealing my true friends – eyes grieving with me, words encouraging me, arms embracing me.

I will emerge, a woman not easily crushed. 

Facing (and Fearing) by Dan Andrews

Greatness appeals to the future. If I can be firm enough to-day to do right, and scorn eyes, I must have done so much right before as to defend me now. Be it how it will, do right now. Always scorn appearances, and you always may. - Ralph Waldo Emerson  Trusting intuition and making decisions based on it is the most important activity of the creative artist and entrepreneur. If you are facing (and fearing) a difficult life decision, ask yourself these three questions: (1) “What are the costs of inaction?” I find it can be helpful to fight fear with fear. Fears of acting are easily and immediately articulated by our “lizard brains” (thanks Seth) e.g. what if I fail? what if I look stupid? If you systematically and clearly list the main costs of inaction, they will generally overshadow your immediate fears. (2) “What kind of person do I want to be?” I’ve found this question to be extremely useful. I admire people who act bravely and decisively. I know the only way to join their ranks is to face decisions that scare me. By seeing my actions as a path to becoming something I admire, I am more likely to act and make the tough calls. (3) “In the event of failure, could I generate an alternative positive outcome?” Imagine yourself failing to an extreme. What could you learn or do in that situation to make it a positive experience? We are generally so committed to the results we seek at the outset of a task or project that we forget about all the incredible value and experience that comes from engaging the world proactively, learning, and improving our circumstances as we go along.