…this I know
For he sent me a friend named Joe…
who sent Beignets. 🙂 Look at this cool thing!
Now all I need is a deep fryer or electric skillet to cook them in.
Hey, Wendy! You should come over, you could make creepies (crepes for the rest of ya’ll) and I’ll make beignets — and there’s a can of coffee and chicory… and we’ll just go to town! Yummmmm.
I wasn’t feelin’ so hot today but now I’m a happy girl.
I received two cds full of pictures (one was just all the raw ones I took) Kat and I took at the Lake Oconee/Reynolds Plantation charity event a couple of weeks ago. It brought back precious memories of that day, and all the beautiful people we got to know that day.
I’ve uploaded some of my favorites to a photo album you will see on the right column. I plan to upload more later — it’s nearly 3am and I have to be up in two hours to do the sound in tbe Chapel service. Please take a look at the photos and let me know what you think.
Here are the three major players of the event:
Jenn, The Instigator
Kat, the Photographer (and part-time trouble maker)
…and me, the back-up-spiritual-wonder-girl
I found out this morning that my friend, Helen Harris, died yesterday morning of breast cancer. She’d been fighting a battle with it for over 5 years. She was a wonderful woman, with a bubbly warm personality and a loving heart. She was so young, still — and had so many years of life and love ahead of her!
She never knew it, but she was an inspiration to me. Her battle with cancer and refusal to give up hope, often believing in healing against impossible odds, inspired and challenged me to keep going. If she could do it, with all she had to face, I can most certainly do it.
Please pray for Helen’s family, my friends Wendy, Conna, Debbie, and so many others who were touched by Helen’s life and miss her dearly.
For a couple of pictures, see Wendy’s blog.
But I’m moving forward anyway.
I’ve been looking around for new places to live. And I haven’t been paying too close attention to my budget to know if I really "should" be looking at places that expensive. Heck, I have a couple of months before I need to move, I guess I could afford a little time to dream (Wendy, are you sure you don’t want to move out here???).
I long for a community, especially one with some of my peers in it. I know that probably sounds retarded, but, well, it’s just that it would be so nice to have some older women here in Nashville I could actually hang out with. I miss my girlfriends back in LA. Women like Wendy, Kat, Leticia, Kim, Kim South, Rachel, Holly, Kristin, Joyce, Deb — and Conna!!!! (who’s no longer in LA). I miss being able to be with women who really understand and get where I’m at in life. Women who get me. Women I can feel comfortable with and just let my hair down; who get my jokes and movie references because they actually saw those movies in the theatre. —- Wow. I never thought I’d say such things. I sound so old, don’t I.
I guess that’s the truth I’ve realized recently. I really am old. At least compared to all these young girls around me at Mosaic Nashville. Youn 20s, some still in college, or just recently out. To them life is fresh and ripe with possibilities. They’re too young to understand crushed dreams, major heartbreak and the crashing in of reality and time. Oh, they think they have. I remember those days. Every new lesson from God was an earthshattering event. Every break up or crush that didn’t reciprocate was cause for deep soul-searching as to what was wrong with me (or him) that it didn’t work out. I was focused on God and living out my dreams and thought I knew pretty much all I needed to know. And every single woman around 40 was a person to be pitied and avoided. Pitied for her sad situation in life and avoided so I wouldn’t have to think about the possibility that I might end up just like her.
But then I got older. My 30s arrived and I started truly appreciating all that older women have to offer. I miss women like Karin, Carol, Kristin, Norma, Laura and Kim who were older and wiser than me and poured into me, gave me such sound counsel and encouragement. Its been hard to be the oldest woman in the group. Heck, the oldest person in the group. And I’m not even 40 yet.
I want to find some community with real women, not young girls still dreaming of womanhood. —No offense to all you 20-somethings out there.
I have found one woman friend, and I think I found another this weekend. It was so good to talk to someone older than me that could understand and relate to all I’ve gone through!! Two is a good start, don’t you think?
So off I go. Into God knows what. Looking for God knows what.
I hope I find it.
Cathy’s dad died at 5:15pm ET. Memorial service will be Saturday morning at 11am.
I’ve been trying to book a flight or rent a car to get myself to Charlotte… my car’s been acting up a little so I’m not sure I want to drive it the 800+ miles. However, the cheapest flight I can find is nearly $600.
I’ll get there one way or another… Please be praying for Cathy and her brother, Irvy. They are crushed by this loss.
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
— Romans 15:13
I got a call this morning from Nina. Cathy, our unofficially adopted sister, will be losing her dad any time now. He’s been in the hospital most of the year, but has consistently gone downhill. Last weekend the hospital summoned her and her brother to say their dad was nearing the end of his life on earth and they should come to his side. All his organs have pretty much shut down. This morning he started bleeding internally. In order to not prolong his suffering, they will take him off the respirator today and allow his body to die.
His spirit, however, is alive and well, and will live forever in heaven. This thought wasn’t much comfort to me after my dad died, so I know it won’t be much to Cathy. At least not right now.
I’ve been reading about the Jewish tradition of sitting Shiva. I think it’s a tradition we followers of Christ would do well to adopt. Even though we know our loved ones are now dancing in heaven with God, we still deeply mourn their loss. Sitting Shiva allows the grieving process to begin and gives the mourners space to express their grief and pain however they desire. Shiva only lasts for 7 days, but the grieving process will go on for the rest of their lives. At least there are 7 full days to just grieve and do nothing else but.
So often we in the Body of Christ are far too impatient and grace-less with those who are mourning a loss. We need Shiva. We need to give them room to mourn. We need to come together as a community, which is what Shiva provides, and mourn the loss with our brothers and sisters. We need to come serve them; with meals and cleaning, with memories of the person now gone, and with our silence. Sometimes there just is nothing to say, and in those times our silence can be more healing and comforting that our awkward words of consolation.
To all those who mourn, to all who have lost a loved one, my heart cries out, "HaMakom yenachem et’chem b’toch she’ar avelei Tzion vi’Yerushlayim. – May the Lord comfort you among the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem."
I had dinner over at Manuel and Julie’s tonight. It was AWE-SOME.
They’re from LA too — moved out here two months ago — so it was so nice have someone to talk to who understands and is also experiencing all my little culture shock issues. This kept Adria entertained all evening, as Nashville isn’t that much different than Indiana, so our fascination with the things like weather and our shock at things like segregated schools amused and intrigued her.
Anyway, Manuel made an absolutely delicious meal of carne asada, rice and beans, tortillas (that’s tor-tilliyas to you Southerners) and very tasty, but quite spicy quac salsa. YUMMMMMMM. Not to mention the great Margaritas he made.
:::sigh:::
I was in culinary heaven.
Manuel and Jules are, in industry lingo, good people. Solid, humble, fun, engaging, authentic…. Good people. What a great treat it was to spend time with them. I couldn’t believe it was 1am when we left. It felt like we had just started the evening.
I hope I get to spend many more days and evenings with them. God’s given me a new gift in their friendship.
My friend — and unofficially adopted sister — Cathy is going through a daughter’s worst nightmare right now. Her dad, 82, has been in and out of the hospital many times in the last year or more. He was in the hospital last week, and on Friday she got the news that they had moved him back into C-ICU and put him back on a respirator.
Nina went to visit him today and lend support to Cathy at the hospital. She called me afterward and told me it was very much like the ordeal we went through with dad. All the nurses and doctors will say is that Mr. Scible "is very sick. It is still possible he may recover."
That’s hospital speak for, "he’s dying and their ain’t nothin’ we can do about it, but we don’t want you feel like we’ve given up on him."
Please. Just be honest. Give it to us straight up. Even if we can’t handle it at the moment, it’s better to know and be prepared than keep false hope alive.
I pushed "end" on my cell phone and cried a little before heading into Mosaic. I cried for Cathy and her impending loss. I cried for Mr. Scible and his suffering. I cried for Nina and her having to live through this thing all over again, albeit not our dad but someone else’s, but the same story nonetheless. And I cried for me. It once again brought back to my mind the still vivid images of mom and dad’s suffering and the fact that they aren’t here anymore.
Please pray for Cathy, her dad and her brother as they journey down this dark road together. Ask the Father to thwart the enemy’s every attempt to keep them from feeling God’s loving arms enveloping them and knowing and seeing how He pours out his grace like a heavy rainstorm and drenches them every day.
I just got off the phone with Nina, my sister — and one of my best friends — who adopted two kids out of the foster care system nearly 9 years ago. She called while I was at Mosaic, but didn’t leave a message. I called her as I was leaving and have been on the phone with her ever since — over two hours.
That’s not all that spectacular as conversation times go. We’ve been known to talk for over three hours on the phone before. Part of the deal for me on these calls is that I just don’t want to say goodbye. I don’t want to cut the connection — even when we’re not talking about earth-shattering deep things, at least I hear her voice. Hanging up cuts off that sound and leaves a huge void in its wake. It’s like those pangs of homesickness I’d get every time I left my parents’ home. My heart hurts.
Nina’s daughter, the second of two siblings she and Toby adopted, is not doing well. Nina is once again at the end of her rope. Frances has been through hell in her short 18 years on this earth. There are things buried so deep in her past — abuses of all sorts — that we only know they are there from her violent reactions to even the slightest touch. She was doing so well — she progressed through a program at a facility and was finally able to come home, for the first time in over three years. Not only that, but she actually wanted to come home, wanted to live with Nina and Toby, wanted to get her life straightened out, go to college, become more than she currently is.
She’s been home maybe two weeks and already has gone back to old behaviors, patterns of manipulation and out of control actions. It’s less than it was in the past, but severe enough to send Nina back into post traumatic stress overload. For you to fully comprehend and appreciate what Niina and Toby have been through and how traumatic this current turn of events is for them, would take longer than we have here. And besides, that’s Nina’s story to tell, whenever she’s ready.
The bottom line is that wounded people wound others, and the deeper the wounds on the former, the deeper they cut the latter. Frances’ wounds run too deep for us to fathom. She in-turn inflicts deep wounds that cut to the core and leave Nina and Toby decimated.
Nina’s heart is huge. I mean HUGE. She loves with a passion that I can only dream of. She loves the unlovable. As a teen I just thought she had poor judgment in friends. But as an adult I see that God has gifted her with a tremendous capacity to love beyond all reason, a longing to nurture others and a passion to invest her life in bringing healing to those who are incredibly broken and needy. Even as we spoke of a need for her to set boundaries of acceptable treatment from Frances, Nina’s main and overriding concern was for Frances’ current and future well-being.
I know where Nina got this from. Our mom loved with a passion like this. But Nina’s passion mixes with a stubborn resolve she got from both parents — and a healthy dose of self-respect (which, unfortunately our mom often lacked) to create a most formidable Lover Of The Unlovable.
So many would have given up on Frances long ago. The false accusations of abuse, the verbal and physical assaults they’ve endured, the endless nights worrying, crying, praying, the pain of no one understanding what they were going through…. Nina and Toby have never surrendered. They love Frances passionately even now. Even in the midst of more-of-the-same painfully deep woundings.
Nina leaves a mark on everyone she touches in life. Her mark on my life is deep. She’s my older sister, so of course I never appreciated her growing up.
But I do now. I see now how blessed I am to know her, and even more so to call her my sister and my friend.
Please pray for her and Toby as they walk through this latest dark night of the soul.