Bees in My Bonnet

 It's that time of year for nostalgia. Or for bracing yourself to get through the holidays, if they seem to produce stress of every kind. It's that time of year when hallmark movies may just be tolerable and the time we allow for more cliche than usual. (Well, granted, maybe this is true for some, not all, of you...) It's that time of year when the pressures and busyness mount, and soul pressure builds as well. When we long for reflecting on spiritual depths, but simply can't find time for that. There's shopping to be done, baking to be done ('It's tradition!'), gifts to wrap, parties to attend. And the traditional viewing of movies practices.  For some it is Charlie Brown's Christmas special, which I watched for the first time in my life last year. For some, it's A Christmas Story, with the gaudy stocking lamp. For some, it's A Christmas Carol with Tiny Tim.  For some, it's The Grinch Who Stole Christmas (which I have yet to see in its e...

 Sometimes I wonder about things...random things...things that I then wonder if anyone else wonders about. Lately I've been with people in their pain, and with myself in my own, and finding my own pain somewhat inescapable, I began to wonder more about pain - what it does to me, to others, and where does God fit in all this? I haven't spent long on physical pain (" such a bother," I tell myself). Instead, I've allowed my (admittedly very small) encounter with physical pain to launch me into exploration of emotional pain.  Here's the thing: I have a wound on my forehead, covered by a bandaid, and a blog and facebook page where I talk about my wound, and people ask me about it, and it's kosher to talk openly about a physical pain because of the thing on my head. Now let's imagine it differently: what if my pain were in my soul, where I find immovable burdens press down on me and I spend every un-spoken-for-moment in a desperation I can't explain? Wha...

A month ago I was meeting with some friends and confessing how I struggle to do the normal medical updates of, like, going to the doctor for an annual physical ('What's with going to the doctor when you're not sick? It's like another chore!') Or, if I did make it to the checkup, to actually schedule all the follow-up things that they send you to.  I've written about having A.D.D. (I like to term it: Alternately Designed Diva), here before, but this is just one more peek into what it's like to live with chronic distraction, impulsivity, procrastination and bizarre rabbit trail hunting. A.D.D. never goes away. It is with me for life. It has affected every area of my life, and the medical realm is not left out of it's clutches. That's why A.D.D. sufferers (and, those who wear it proudly!) need many supports to keep us on track. Like friends. You know, friends who know   things - and will DO things, like, text you the name and number of a dermatologist y...

 I fell in love with the book of Psalms when I was a kid. You've probably already gathered that I was a bit of an odd kid. So it may not come as a surprise that I found delight in more unusual things than most kids my age. Like my plastic elephants. There was a phase where we somehow had a bunch of small, plastic, toy elephants. They entered my menagerie of inanimate-object-friends and were ceremoniously lined up with my other imaginary friend-beings. Now, most parents would be delighted to find a daughter in love with the Psalms. Thing is, I didn't want them to know. I didn't want them to think I was spiritual - or something (with emphasis on something). So, I read Psalms with a flashlight under the covers at night and hoped not to get caught. Maybe it was my rebellious streak or something (again, emphasis on something) , but I didn't want it to be known that I secretly found the poetic words so beautiful and gripping. Granted, I also read Charlotte's Web with a fl...

  Sometimes I'm just tired. Tired of trying to figure it out, and when I don't feel like figuring it out, tired of just knowing that the world is full of pain, loss, suffering, grief, heartache. I'm tired. It's Thanksgiving week and I want to be thankful. I want to reflect on all God gives, does, Who He is, the ways He blesses. But then I just cringe and think: an SUV plowed into a group of people. There's anger, there's rage. There's confusion. And it all just makes me tired. And it isn't even MY pain, MY story, MY suffering. And my son goes to a funeral for a guy who accidentally overdosed. 'Poor choices' some would say. 'It was bound to happen someday.' And true enough. That is so. If you mess with drugs, you take huge risks. But what of the pain, the waywardness, the lack, that brings about a yearning to self-medicate? What about that? It makes me tired just thinking of it. And I don't even carry this grief. Not much anyway. This ...

  Click here for the previous Jenny Story: (8) Jenny Sarah likes to take me on outings. She is careful to make sure my hair is neatly braided and the lint-balls are picked off. I am becoming worn-in. I was only new for about a year before I got to be smoother and squishier. Sometimes we go to the refugee camps, sometimes to the Home of Loving Faithfulness. And sometimes just to the market.  The Home of Loving Faithfulness is a big house and Sarah will go with her parents to visit the children who live there. In Hong Kong sometimes a baby is born broken and the parents don't want the baby. Then there is nowhere for the baby to go, and one day some missionary women from England thought, 'These poor children need love and care. We'll begin a home for them to be taken care of and to show them that God cares about them.' And that's what they did. Sarah will bring me to all her friends there and let me sit on their laps and say hello.  Sarah lives in her imagination somet...

 Yesterday I was tired...you know, the kind of tired where you have 20 minutes before picking up the kids and you wish you could just lie down and take a nap. Thankfully, I have a friend who lives just near school, so I went to see if I could just lie down for a quick rest. And we got to talking. She happens to be single (and available!!) and shares her longing for a husband."I do still have this deep longing - but when I pour my heart out to God and I realize He sees me, and His love is precious to me, I tell Him, 'I still want a husband, but I want this deep connection with You more.'" She shares her journey - her ups and downs, how she moves from anger over being single, with a 4 year-old, to grieving what isn't, what is missing: the husband, the father for her child. This grief moves her to union with the Heavenly Father Who sees her. Who knows what is missing. And Who can hear the anger, the hurt, the longing and hold it all - Whose Son holds it all in outstr...

  A friend let me know she was reading my blog and I was so touched, I instantly replied. As I read back on my reflections I thought I'd share it here - in case you, too, are observing nature speak. Thank you for responding to the things I've written. I have no idea who reads the things I write  and I know much of it is just random - whatever I was thinking that day.  Yes, I've become a peaceful parent for the most part. I have yet to write a blog post on my 7 years of yelling. But that sums up what it was. It was not good... I had much to learn.  And yes, grief...I'm well acquainted with it. I often wonder if every issue in our lives doesn't boil down to, on some level, grief. As I witness the leaves fall off the trees I am reminded of the cold, brutal, exposure of the trees' undressing - and how often we view winter as a metaphor for the end of life.  We are all today one day closer to that final revealing - nearer by one day, to the last day of our lives. The...