Rain Always Brings Growth

 Rain Always Brings Growth.....

11-28-2022 & 11-28-2016

 2022

 

As I opened up this place called Facebook.....a place of Memories and History.....of Joy and Grief....I see this staring back at me from 2016.

"There is no FEAR in letting tears come. Sadness is a GIFT to avoid the nothingness of numbness, and all hard places need water.

Grief is a GIFT, and after a rain of tears, there is always more of you than there was before the tears.…

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 2016

I woke to the wind howling... the rain pouring out of the sky like a hard sobbing cry this morning.....Today marks the 1-year anniversary of the beginning of a month-of-floods for this little family of ours....

 

"There is no fear in letting tears come. Sadness is a GIFT to avoid the nothingness of numbness, and all hard places need water. Grief is a GIFT, and after a rain of tears, there is always more of you than before. What seems to be undoing you can ultimately remake you." 

 

(Ann VosKamp, "The Broken Way")

 

Rain always brings growth.......

When 109 becomes 1 Again

I woke to the sound of rain and thunder this morning...first "real" rain since late Spring.  I prepared my coffee and stood on the back porch in the dark for a few minutes......enjoying the coolness of the air and the flashes of light screaming across the sky.

It was almost like the skies had something important to say about this day ahead.......

As I look at the new Christmas tree we put up today....a whole 144 hours before Thanksgiving....I see the red cardinals scattered throughout this new tree.....a tree that replaced the old Christmas tree which is now making its home at the bottom of Lake Cypress Springs so fresh crappy will have a place to live next year.  And I can't help but think about my cardinal-loving Mom and a Christmas this year without my Jewell.....my 109 year old Meals on Wheels friend.....family really......who, as of today.....this very day at around 10:45 am.... arrived Home.  She limped to the Finish Line after a very exhausting long run.  She was most assuredly met there by her handsome-Jimmy-Dean-Look-Alike husband Roger.....her Mom and her Dad who thought she hung the moon.....along with her grandpa- the-postman she loved dearly.....and hundreds...if not thousands....of family and friends who loved her from the deepest part of their souls.  What she didn't realize until 10:45 am this morning was that she made a difference.....a huge difference....on a lot of lives. 

She made a difference in my life.

In all the years I knew Jewell (June) Clay; in all the times she was asked how she was feeling or if she hurt anywhere.....her answer never changed: "I'm fine....I don't hurt at all.  I'm happy right where I am".  109 years old.....weeks away from being 110....and she was fine right where she was.

Three weeks ago, I was visiting her in her home and felt led to turn on my phone recorder...something I'd done many times before.  I asked her one question, "Would you want to be 16 again?"  She tilted her head as if to think about that for a moment and said, "I'm satisfied right where I am".

https://youtu.be/xDaCsmddFSc

I would venture to say Jewel knew she was close to the Finish Line....that she could see it ahead ...it was in-sight.  She might have even heard Roger encouraging her on....."Just a little further, Honey.....you're almost there....I'm waiting for you." 

Thank you Jewell....for slowing down and walking with me awhile on this earth.  

I am a better person from knowing you.  

Now go.....RUN to the party that is waiting for you.....your birthday number just started over......

Life's Shell Game.....

What you discover about life’s shell game 

is that it’s hardest to follow the pea when you’re the pea. 

~Robert Brault

A little over a week ago, my friend Pam and I jumped in the Jeep and headed to the southern most part of Dallas.....a 2-hour drive from our East Texas home......to stand in a line of Christian ladies just like us....so we could look eye-to-eye into the beautiful eyes of Ann VosKamp.

I met Ann three years ago....not literally...but in the pages of her book 1000 Gifts.  It changed my life.  I felt the axis of my world shift ever so slightly to the right and a strange sense of Peace took over where Fear used to live.  I love this woman.  Like...I LITERALLY love this woman.  And here I was....getting to meet her face to face.  It was better than meeting Elton John.

It was just the day before meeting Ann, Chuck and I had taken a little bit of East Texas with us when we made the same 2-hour trip into downtown Dallas to UTSW.  We were meeting with Dr. Hornberger....Chuck's urologist.  We didn't realize until we were well on our way that we had dressed alike that day.  We looked like two country bumpkins coming to the "big city" in our bright red flannel shirts.  We laughed (although he was asleep when I snapped this picture...LOL).....

There was more red going on that day than just on our flannel shirts, though......there was internal bleeding...there was soul-bleeding.....there was "I-hope-this-isn't-what-I-think-it-is" bleeding from our hearts.

But it was what we feared.  Cancer....with a capital C.  It's difficult even writing that 6-letter word to you.....

 It's Fall....and I remember something I read Ann say three years ago ....."Count the blessings of this life.....number them....write them down."  So I grab my journal I've been writing in....I open straight up to #423 in my Thanksgiving Journal...."Thank You, Lord, for the season of Fall.....the beauty just before the rest of Winter."

"You defeat your dark when Thanksgiving is your default. 
It is in the dark that God is passing by."

Ann VosKamp

And I must admit, it's hard sometimes to not look up into the heavens and ask "Why??  Haven't we been through enough this year, Lord?  Why?"

And then He gently reminds me of the scripture I just painted on the freshly sheetrocked living room wall as He meets me on the dock each morning and we sip our coffee together....waiting in anticipation for the gift of a sunrise He hands me when the sun clips the tops of the trees over the Carmichael's house.....

"When you go thru deep waters, Liz,

I will be with you."

Isaiah 43:2

 

And I trust Him....cause He sees tomorrow....I just see my feet.