Lead Me Where You Want Me To Go

Whew!!!  Wednesday was a big day for me. I have been praying about writing and sharing. I believe the Lord lead me to send out the blog information for A(musing).  I was more than apprehensive. Recording my thoughts for other to see allows transparency.  I will share triumphs and insecurities.  I will talk about the deep and wounding scars that seem to take forever to heal because I had problems letting  go. My shell will be peeled back and I will be exposed. No longer protected, but making room  for the Balm in Gilead that does heal wounds.  I know because I have experienced it.

I remember as a young child, friends and family talking to me about deep stuff. People confiding in me about things that I should not have known.  They had to talk to someone.  I now know that was a training period for me to begin what would eventually be an important piece of my life. I love the written word.  It empowers

my thoughts to reach inward and outward to convey what I feel and to whom.  Writing does wonderful things for my heart.  I know that people will feel me because I feel what they feel. Thank you Lord for your mercy, grace, loving kindness and covering over my life for such a time as this. Even if no one ever reads a word I write, I write and pray to an audience of one.

Another Kind of Friendship

Yesterday as I waited to fulfill my yearly tests, I met a woman who was at the hospital to support a friend with no one to come with her.  The lady was an artist who had cancer herself and knew her friend needed her.  I was struck once again by the beauty that abides in the friendship of women.  When it is good there is nothing that compares.  We will sometimes support friends in a way we can't with family members. I thanked the artist for her support of her friend and what a loving gesture it was for her to be there.  We talked briefly about her own experience with cancer and how it had devastated her life.  She did not want her friend to go it alone.  I thought about how she was modeling the love of God.  How we have been instructed to love one another as ourselves.  I listened as she told her friend not to worry about how long it would take for her to finish want needed to be done.  She was there and she would wait.  That's how God is with us.  Loving, patient, kind, understanding, covering us under his wing of protection.  Gracing us in ways we don't deserve.  Whatever her friend had or had not done her presence there at such a critical time meant so much to her and to me. I was reminded of my own great friends.  Thank you God for your undying sacrifice and your great love for us. Help us to be reminded daily to love each other the way you love us.

I GOT THRU TODAY OK

Today I had those tests that some of us regret but, we all have to go through in order to make sure our lady parts are working correctly. I can't stand the tests.  They hurt, are very uncomfortable, especially the pressing of the boards. There have been more than one occassion that I have celebrated womenhood but, not today.  Since I have had results that were not good at one time, that memory is formost in my thoughts when I have to be tested.  For a week after the biopsy, I waited to see if is was going to be sick, what the results were and I worried.  I was told not to worry, I did believe God had my back - I still did not want to be sick. I look at all the ladies who come and go while we are waitng for the radiologists to read their film.  Some already had a bad diagnosis and are back to see if all is well.  I thank God for not having unfavorable results. I 've prayed for women I don't know and for a few friends who have been through it. I have a friend right now who is going thru it.  I feel deeply for her.  We talk about what would happen if she dies.  She says she is okay with it.  She was the one who cared for her dying mother with the same disease and did not have time to care for herself.  Talk about self-sacrificing.  I don't want to be without her but, it is not my choice. So, I'll love her hard now and thank God she is still here.  I am also thankful for her friendship. I got through okay.

Need To Trust God

I parent a twenty-two year old man.  I know that in his formative years my husband and I poured into him.

We did not just tell him things we mirrored them so he could tell what the situation looked like.  Our collective walk with God started after our son was a teenager, however there were prayers and petitions that went up on his behalf as well as his cousins.  As a mother who parents not only her own child, but the children of others as well I see where the influence of a personal relationship with God doesn't exist or  is negligible.  I must remember however, that my own mother showed me what a personal walk with God looked like but, I still chose to go my own way.  Those choices allowed me to  have my own testimony about life experience. I know broke my mother's heart with decisions I made at times. Life lessons can be hard when you don't accept good counsel. To learn them will occassionally put you in harms way by your choice.  Experience is not always the best teacher. I need to stay in my place where my son is concerned and not allow his decisions or lack thereof to make my a candidate for crazy or to  try to resolve issues that I didn't create.  Prayer will keep me grounded.  Prayer will keep me from being so angry.  Prayer will allow him to experience his own choices and what they bring and I not try to rescue him. God will cover him because of his faithfulness to us.  Our children will not always be on our hand but, they will always be on our hearts. Teach us O Lord to depend on you and your word. We need to trust you for our well being and that of those whom we love.

The Monday Before Spring Break

The educators in the place that I work are wearing this year worse than I have ever seen  in all the time I have been in this school.  This has been a very difficult school year.  There is so much on the table regarding budget, school climate, issues of behavior, issues of mental health, so much on our plates.  One teacher said  that this was the worse year she has ever had.  This teacher has worked 26 years in  the public school
system. There are children we cannot reach.  I didn't think I would see that, ever.  Silly me, I thought all parents were on their games ready, and willing to help the teachers help their children.  I left out able on purpose.  I don't think some parents are able to help their children for lack of what they didn't get themselves. Others have issues that they don't face and the children pay for it.
You would have to be in the school to see what the days look like.  This is the elementary level.  It gets worse as the grades increase. I was told not to write about kids and school issues.  There is deep pain and much disappointment.  I hate to see our children in such a state, however they are definitely affected by their home environment. They bring  mess to school.  It's not that they want to, they can't help it. I will probably not be doing this job much longer for I no longer feel I make a difference.  I very much feel for the new teachers who come out of school starry eyed with the thoughts of how they will change the world thru education.  Many are have already walked away in frustration and utter dismay. My heart goes out to them for they really wanted to make a difference, but the real work starts at home.  Home used to be where the heart was for me and my generation, however I don't see that translated for some of these children.  I feel bad for them.

Remembering Mommy April 8, 1918 to November 13, 2005

Today is our mother's birthday.  She left us and went to heaven on Novemebr 15, 2005.  It was one of the saddest days of my life even though I knew she went to be with the Lord. Our mother was a prayer warrior.  When she talked to God she knew he listened. She believed in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. She did all she could to translate that into the lives of her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren.

Mom's life was not easy.  Her life circumstances would buckle the knees of the weak.  She was strong and loving.  She loved us all and knew there needed to be more than just talking to get her  points across.  So she prayed.  In the day light, in the midninght hour, when she couldn't sleep, she prayed.  Mom covered us in prayer.  Our protection was in her prayers.  God met her needs thru prayer. The righteous were not forskaen and her seed did not beg bread.

Our father and younger brother died in 1975 two weeks apart.  Her life partner and her only son.

People marveled at how she kept her head up.  Those of us close to her knew that she cried and was devasted by the loss.  Nonetheless she gave God the glory.  We experience our mother's commitment to prayer in our lives to this very day.  We are duty bound to pray for our future generations because of what she modeled.

Thank you mother for your prayers and covering when we needed it the most!

Sitting with Bonnie Today

God knew that It would be important for us to have relationships so he gave us several different kinds.  Sisters in my opinion is one of the best.  Bonnie who is the sister right above me in age (although she has managed on many occasions to deny her place in the line up to make others think I came first!) has not been well and had to take a hiatus from the daily grind much to her chargrin.  I, being the sister that she instructed me to be, have looked in on her several times this week to see to her needs.  Also, to let her know I care about her.  She is a joy to have in my life.  There has been so much laughter between us about things that would not matter to anyone else but us. The childhood stories and sometimes misguided adventures as adults has sealed the deal between years ago.  She trusted me with her children so I would be their caretaker starting with the first two at a young age. Her family was my initial foray into motherhood.  My son is loved  by me in a special way because of Jay, Darryl, Kevin and Kendra.  To this day they are my brood. I adore each one and have special relationships with them all. When I hear "Aunt Paul" I know they still need me.  My sister shared her children with me and was not afraid to leave them in my care.  Although I know I was cheap labor, there would have not been a better way for her and I to remain as close as we are then for her to lend me her children.  Bonnie, with a grateful heart , thanks for everything, especially the love of your children. All of you mean more to me than I will ever be able to convey.  God loved me so much he gave me the five of you.

56 years - A New Beginning

I didn't think I would see this age.  I didn't think I would see 40.  Certainly not, 50 and now 56.  How very good God has been to me!  April 4, 1955 was the day God elected to start me on my way towards my purpose in life.  I am grateful to him and my parents for allowing me to be here.  What I've done with the space between the lines in my life ( April 4, 1955 - not there yet) will be the most important things about me.  It leaves my son, friends, family and others a road map of who I became.  If they know how I started, they will know that because of grace and mercy I finished the race set before me.
We are all human becomings.  If we live, we develop.  We are changelings. We should not at any time stay the same.