Setting my focus, Finding peace

-

 I have been going longer stretches this year without blogging, not sure why but I find it difficult to write more often than I have in years past.  I'm sad to admit my Mom's declining health, the slow grief of losing her more and more to alzheimers and trying to help my Dad manage through it all is a heavy burden. 

So to lighten that burden, I have found comfort in long drives of silence, taking time to listen more than I speak, the sound of the birds chirping and singing after a cool rain, the secadas humming away in the humidity of a summer day, the smell and taste of homemade salsa in my kitchen, the soft comfort of my favorite blanket as I nap on a Sunday afternoon.  Sometimes the little things in life are just what is needed to find peace.

We brought an amazing song in our worship set this weekend at our church, and I am still lingering on 2 lines in particular that resonated with me and this current season of life:

......Sickness is not my story, You are!

Heartbreak's not my home, You are!.....

(Fear is Not My Future, Maverick City Music)

We've done the song several times now as it is part of our current song rotation, but for some reason today those 2 lines stood out more than before.   I don't want my Mom's condition and my inability to fully cope with it to cloud my faith, my hope.  I don't think it has, but I will confess there are moments over these past couple of years that I have lost my focus to consuming feelings of grief, helplessness, and near despair.  I approach the edge of what I think is absolute despair and something pulls me from that edge just as I am peering over it.  It's my good Father, never far, always near and ready to comfort me in the absolute depth of it.  He brings me back to the realization of what I have to be thankful for in both the best and the worst of times.  I can't be shaken from the foundation I have in Him, it is always there when the fog of this difficult season clears briefly.   Hope, Peace, Strength, Love is mine in Christ, and He provides it to me without fail.  

Thanks be to God, who knows me and loves me and has me in His loving hands through every season of this life!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Joy and Light

-
 Early Tuesday morning January 2, 2024, I got a call that my Mom was slipping away and the family should come.  We knew she was not doing well these past couple of weeks as she had developed pneumonia and covid, and she was struggling just to manage breathing.   When I arrived, the nurse brought me in to Mom's bedside, and quietly stepped out to give me some time alone with her before my Dad and my brother arrived.   I cried like I have never cried before in my life, and went to my knees beside her, resting my hand on her arm.  I have no words to describe what it felt like in that moment, the finality and the reality of it.  My brain understood she was gone, no longer there.  But my heart, regardless of how far gone Mom had been for years now..... my heart was suddenly flooded with the feelings, the sounds, the memories of her across my entire life, rushing through my head in that moment all at once.  It felt like time kind of stopped, s...
Read more

Mission trip

-
Mission trip. The words don't do justice to the purpose, do they? What it is is so much deeper, fuller, richer than the two words actually sound like. Those two words make it sound so simple, but in reality it is an incredible journey that will impact a human life on so many levels. I have had the wonderful opportunity at several times in my life to serve in missions, both here in the United States and abroad. My parents were huge supporters of home and foreign missions all their lives, and we were raised to have a great appreciation for missions as a result. I have incredible memories of our trip to Hong Kong when I was 14 years old. I served in the summer missions program in my hometown, Springfield, Missouri, for several years working in day camps with local kids of all ages. I served in Hawaii for one summer working with some challenging kids in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in a small town on the island of Oahu. I served in Salt Lake City, Utah during the Wi...
Read more

Light in the darkness

-
Image
  'In this time of fear When prayer so often proves in vain Hope seems like the summer bird Too swiftly flown away Yet now I'm standing here My hearts so full, I can't explain Seeking faith and speaking words I never thought I'd say... There can be miracles When you believe Though hope is frail, it's hard to kill  Who knows what miracles you can achieve? When you believe, somehow you will You will when you believe' (When You Believe, songwriters: Kenneth Babyface Edmonds, Stephen Lawrence Schwartz/performed by Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston "The Prince of Egypt" soundtrack 1998) I've been reminiscent recently as we are preparing for Christmas, of things that are especially meaningful to me.  The sights, the sounds, the aromas, the feelings, my mind is full of so many. One of my favorite sights as a child, still a picture in my mind even now:  The Christmas tree aglow, and one of my favorite gifts was an antique baby carriage with a beautiful antique...
Read more