This has become one of my favorite themes to join each week – and because of the holiday, the founding mothers for this meme have extended the linky deadline until Friday.  I join this group through Katie Lloyd Photography, but there are several other blogsites who also welcome contributors to this same bloghop.  Welcome to any and all who stop by from those fine places:

Yes, friends – you read that right.  Today, I am contributing to the online study of Philippians over at BibleDude.net. Those folks over there are really generous, inviting anyone who wishes to sign on for a part of their rotating lessons.  Working through scripture has been a long-time love of mine, so this was designed just for me (and a few thousand others, it appears!)

Wander on over there and check it out.  And while you’re there, look at some of the other fine stuff that shows up on that blog.

http://bibledude.net/2011/07/philippians-212-18-lights-in-the-world/#more-12302

It’s very late in California and I can’t sleep.  This doesn’t happen to me very often, and usually I stay in bed, toss and turn, count, pray, sigh…and wait.  But tonight, I’m truly restless.  Most likely the immediate cause of this bout is a handful of dates and nuts I gobbled too late – about 9:30.  They’re still sort of sittin’ there, reminding me that I really cannot eat much at all after about 7:00 p.m. 

But I think there’s more going on here somehow. 

This week, I’ve been resisting this writing, this writing I try to do here at this place.  Wondering why in heck I’m doing it at all, whether it’s worth the time, the angst, the crazy-making, semi-obsessive thinking/reading/planning/wondering.  

I think I have this ‘call,’ you see.  This belly-deep urge to write it all out.  To do what writers do – which is to tell the big story by telling small ones, to lay out the details of one off-the-beaten-path life in hopes that my singular story might connect somehow, somewhere with the broader swath of human existence. All of it offered up as frail, delicate gift – a gift of encouragement or hope or even rueful recognition.

I sat by the ocean for a while today, sorting through a pile of papers I’ve been collecting.  Printed copies of various blogsite’s suggestions for ‘building my platform,’ or ‘marketing ebooks,’ or the latest take on those 3-simple-steps-to-stardom.

And as I sifted and sorted, it hit me – hard – that I’ve gotten more than a little bit lost of late. Platform?? What do I care about a platform? Stardom?? I don’t think so. In fact, I don’t even hope so.

If the call is to write it all down, then that’s what I must do. I must write what I see, what I feel, what I’ve lived, what I’m living. I need to wonder out loud, to find my own voice and then have the courage to speak it. 

Because when the call first came it sounded like this: “Write for your granddaughter, Diana.”  No platform. No ebook. No stardom. Very simple, really. Write for that precious girl. And now we have two precious girls.

That was a little over five years ago.  I was still working, my older daughter’s husband was slowly dying, my middle daughter’s youngest had just come out of the NICU, my husband was recovering from prostate cancer, my mother was lost in grief over the death of my dad, my job was good, but demanding in ways I never fully understood until I quit doing it.

And there was no space. There was no time. There was no extra energy. Now, I have all three. (Well…maybe 2 out of 3!) 

So. Gracie. Lilly. Whatever comes out of these fingertips – it’s for you. It’s coming out of my aging brain and my tired heart and it’s coming because I believe God is nudging me, pushing me, calling me to it. And it’s coming because I love you more than life. 

I hope there is something in these meanderings that will help each of you to learn to listen to your own hearts, to discern the call of a good God in your lives. I promise to keep praying for you (and all your older guy cousins). I’ll be praying that as you grow into bigger girls, and then into strong women, that you will know how deeply you are loved – by your parents, by your crazy extended family, and by the God of the universe who has uniquely crafted each of you and who calls you ‘daughter,’ and ‘friend.’ 

And now, I really must go to bed!

Joining with Jen over at “Finding Heaven” and all the sweet sisters of the SoliDeoGratia group and Ann Voskamp for her WalkwithHimWednesday series: 

Joining in with Elizabeth Esther’s monthly invitation to submit a favorite blogpost from the last month.   (OOPS – forgot to put a link in back to my post selection.  It is not available below.)

These are the guidelines – have fun reading!

SATURDAY EVENING BLOG POST, vol. 3, issue 4

Welcome to THE SATURDAY EVENING BLOG POST!

This is where bloggers gather on the first Saturday of each month to share their favorite post from the previous month! Today we’re sharing our favorite post from JUNE 2011!

 This month I’ve selected “Morning Glories” because it was in the top 5 in terms of visits and because it’s short and I like the pictures a lot.  How’s that for choosing a post??

This particular post was written in response to another invitation, this one from Three from Here and There.


Check out both sites for some fun internet exploration!

Once again loggin on with Lisa-Jo over at The Gypsy Mama for her fun five minutes of intuitive, unedited writing.  This week’s topic is one I sorta wrote on already for Michelle DeRusha’s and Jen Ferguson’s blogs, but I’ll see what floats to the surface once the timer begins:

 On Welcome:

GO:

Sometimes welcome is a place: the houses we’ve lived in, our parents’ homes, our kids’ homes, our friends’ homes, our church, restaurants where they recognize us.

Sometimes welcome is an indescribable feeling, a certain something that I find, especially in reading very good writing.  I felt welcomed into Madeleine L’Engle’s world, even though I didn’t know her.  Fred Buechner, Eugene Peterson, Anne Lamott, lots of the bloggers I’m discovering lately.  It’s something in the word choice, the style, the je ne sais quoi – I’m invited to share something special, something almost sacred, something I can’t name or even define very well.  But I know it when I find it.  

But mostly welcome is people:  first of all, people who know me well and love me anyway.  But there are others, too.  Some of the people I’m coming to know through blogging, some of the people I meet in the daily comings and goings of my life.  A lot of the people in the church where we regularly worship.  And also some of the people at churches where we’ve been visiting this year – that’s wonderful to find, wonderful to experience.

What I am learning about this God we serve is that WELCOME is almost equivalent to a name, a definition for who God is.  As I read scripture and as I walk this life as a follower of Jesus, I am finding more and more doors opening, hearing more and more cries of long-lost recognition, feeling more and more like I’m home.  So I have to ask – do I offer that welcome well to others?  Oh, I hope so.

STOP 

Joining tonight with Bonnie at Faith Barista and Ann at A Holy Experience.  And because I FINALLY think I’ve gotten this done in time, with Emily for her wonderful meme “Imperfect Prose.” The topic? In what area of my life am I feeling I need more encouragement?  Not sure I’ll stay completely on theme, but I’ll give it a whirl:

Linking with Ann’s community over at “A Holy Experience” to list again those things for which I’ve been especially thankful these last two weeks.  Got a little behind last week – sometimes life is like that, you know?







This week included a number of sweet and poignant moments of grace, each of which served to remind me of how truly blessed my life is, how marvelously I have experienced the faithful presence and guidance of God over the course of these years.  Using my camera to help me catalog and remember these gifts has been a meaningful and moving way to learn more and more about rejoicing, even in the middle of painful times.  So, here is the next set of images and words on my way to 1000!
 

42.  For the opportunity to write words of tribute to my dad (which I’ve posted here) in a comment on one of Sarah’s posts over at SHE magazine.

43. Sharing in the celebration of my husband’s spectacular fathering and grandfathering gifts with these gorgeous covered strawberries.

44. Finding scarlet amidst the growing green in our veggie garden.

45. Sitting in the warm sunlight, staring out the window at these beautiful heart-shaped red leaves.

46 -49.  Laughter because of this small sparkplug’s amazingly plastic face – such a joy to us!

 

 

58. This lovely resting place at the end of the day, rhythmically saying thank-you for all of the gifts found therein.

59. These vibrant hydrangea, finally blooming richly 9 years after transplanting them following some construction work on our home.

 

I am missing my dad today. He’s been gone for six years and the hole in my spirit is still pretty dang big. He loved me from the moment I was born – and I always, always knew that. I have a letter in his handwriting that I treasure, written to his sister after I was born and it is exquisite in its tender wonder at this gift in his life. There is no substitute for knowing this reality as you grow up: that YOU are your dad’s best gift.

He was a quiet man, a brilliant man and a good man. He had huge hands, which he used to play the piano, to ‘fix’ things that were broken (including my heart more than once), to build killer campfires, to write a textbook (on statistics, of all things…I am most definitely NOT my father’s daughter in this respect) and to love my mom, me and my brothers with careful, gentle affectionate touch.

He loved ribald humor (especially British humor), butter on his bread (which was always white, not wheat), well-thought out biblical teaching (with absolutely NO tolerance for ‘fluff,’ simplistic sermons or over-spiritualizing of any kind), music of many different styles (I can still see him ‘conducting’ opera or symphony while listening to LPs checked out of the local library – and he learned to play Sondheim and Lloyd Webber in his old age, and to play it beautifully). And he loved my mother. He really, really loved my mother. And what a gift that was to a girl child growing up in the 50′s and 60′s.

When I entered seminary at mid-life, he was a bit puzzled but cheered me on. When he came to hear the first sermon I ever preached, he was overwhelmed with pride and joy, poking my mom in the ribs and exclaiming, “That’s the best Advent sermon I’ve ever heard in my life.” Just a bit of an overstatement – but exactly what his daughter’s heart needed to hear that nervous day.

I blogged this week about the sadness that came with illness and old age, the loss of this good man by pieces. But today, I just want to thank God and to thank you for helping me to remember the best parts of being his daughter. I used to think my testimony story was boring, even unimportant, because there was nothing startling or dramatic about it. I have lived long enough now to fully embrace the truth that my story is gift, pure and simple. A gift of grace and undying love, modeled in my home as I grew up.

So in the middle of missing him today, I am filled with gratitude for who he was and how he helped to form me, how he guided and encouraged my husband, and how beautifully he loved my kids and my older grandkids. Thank you for the invitation to reflect, Sarah. Thank you.

Posting these Sunday thoughts on Monday night for Michelle DeRusha over at “Graceful” for her weekly “Hear It, Use It” meme:

 

Joining with Jen at “Finding Heaven” and the women at Soli deo gloria:
And, at the end of the week, choosing this one for Amanda’s great linky party at “Serenity Now”:



This little journey to yesterday began on Wednesday night of this last week.  My husband’s first cousin was in town for a conference – he teaches physics at a famous university in northern CA and we seldom see him.  The two men are six weeks apart in age, and until late in high school, they did a lot of growing up together, never living more than a few miles apart. 

He sent Dick an email and asked if we could meet for a late meal after his workshop, so we made reservations at a favorite spot. The dinner was good, the conversation interesting and it was really fun to re-connect. 

But it was also a little disconcerting. Sometimes we get so used to our own faces in the mirror, that we can brush over the fact that we are getting older as the years go by. Then you see a face you haven’t seen in a while…and you remember.  Both he and his wife are doing well and look terrific – they just look a little bit older than the last time we saw them!  Funny thing about that – it happens to the best of us.

When we lived in it, it was about 1400 square feet of living space with an added on ‘lanai’ that was long and narrow across the back of the house.  It has been added onto a couple of times in these intervening thirty-six years (!!). 

The driveway was asphalt and very cracked and there were tree roses lining the walkway.  I also made the hideous mistake of painting the house ‘green.’  We had NO money for a paint job by a professional, so I went to the local hardware chain and bought what I thought would be a lovely, soft yet cheerful shade of green.  And I rolled that stuff on the front and driveway side of the house and proudly crossed the street to admire my handiwork. 

Where I was SHOCKED to discover that the house was now a vibrating shade of chartreuse. Many additions of white pigment later, it was toned down enough to look at without going blind.  Oh, the joys of youthful enthusiasm. 

After our third child arrived in 1972, we began to look for a larger place, one still in the same school district because our eldest was thriving there and her sister was just about to join her.  I looked at so many houses!  Finally, in 1975, we had an accepted offer on a larger home on the very same street, so we listed ours and it sold pretty quickly. 

Then the owners of the house we had bought backed out – and we were panic-stricken.  I was sure that we needed a 4-bedroom so that each of our kids could have their own room, and that we would never find another house so well-suited to us as the one we had just lost, and…, and…And then, the Sunday after escrow fell apart, we heard an excellent sermon about keeping our wants in line with our needs – and I prayerfully said, “Time to look smaller than I thought, right Lord?” 

The next weekend, a very small, for-sale-by-owner ad showed up in our local paper.  It immediately caught my eye. I went to see it the next day, and thought it might be TOO small, at least as much as I could see of it from the street.  But then the owner opened the door, and lo and behold – the hallway just stretched right on back! And we were SO blessed to find this wonderful place:

Our children were 7, 5 and 3 when we stretched ourselves to buy this home (it was a few thousand dollars more than the one we had originally tried to buy – but remember this was in 1975, long before the housing boom! And the subsequent crash of the last few years…)  We lived there for 13 years and loved, loved, loved it.   We had some great neighbors who became lifelong friends (she is in my BBC group) and my kids all remember this house as the one where they grew up.

 

When we lived here, there was an absolutely gorgeous bougainvillea climbing up the left side of the house, framing that balcony.  Hated the thorns, loved the vibrant magenta blooms, even when they fell and coated the walk with their color. 

In this house, our second daughter’s future husband and our son’s future wife came and lived in our guest room while they each explored the possibility that God might be bringing them together. That was a great experience, one for which I have always been grateful.  And I went to seminary from this house, using that downstairs room with the large front window as my study, pulling way too many all-nighters for any age, but especially for a woman in her forties! And our older daughter brought her first two babies to visit us in this house – what a joy that was!  I was 46 when Ben was born – and now he’s 20! 

We had so much fun driving this neighborhood, remembering our story.  It was lovely to see that each home still looks loved and cared for – a reminder that new families are learning and loving and growing and changing within their walls. 

And as we drove from house to house, we were each simply overwhelmed with the goodness of God, with the faithfulness of God’s leading, with the ways in which we learned how to be a family of faith in each one of these special places.

We finished this little remembering journey by eating Chinese food at a favorite restaurant, eating way too much Honey Walnut Shrimp, Beef and Broccoli and Mu Shu Pork.  When they brought out the Pan Fried Mixed Noodles, we knew we had overdone it and wrapped it all up to take out to my mom’s the next day. All three of us enjoyed the leftovers as we gave my mom a photo memory book of her special party (the one I talked about here ), the one celebrating her 90th birthday.

How many times in scripture are we called to remember?  Over and over again, God reminds the Israelites and God reminds us that it is in remembering our story, our journey with the Lord, that our faith is strengthened and we are reminded of grace.

When is the last time you’ve taken a trip down this particular lane, the one where the memories are?