Life is so unexpected. I don’t think we expect it coming in and everything afterward is just as much of a surprise. If we suppose to have any expectations, we are often surprised by our own folly at having such expectations. The only thing I have found to do is to serve the Lord as best as I am able and cling to his promises. If we don’t expect life coming into it, I know that we all can expect to eventually be going out of it. And that expectation guides me. Because I know where I want to go when I do go out. And, if I am grieved to leave my earthly father’s side, think how it would be for me to leave my heavenly Father’s side. This life of surprises would be unbearable. And I do so want to return home.

February 2, 1939 – January 29, 2007

I wanted to let everyone know that my mother passed from this world to be with her Father in heaven yesterday morning. I thank all of you who wrote to say you were praying for her and for those who didn’t write, but were praying anyway. Please pray for my family as we will be taking what looks to be a rather long drive in bad weather on Thursday. I am going to be taking a little break from blogging over the next week or two as the girls and I will be spending that time with my father. Please keep him in your prayers as he was my mother’s sole caretaker and his life completely revolved around tending to her needs. He is lost without her there to focus his attentions on. I will be back, dear friends. God bless you all.

A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father.
John 16:16

Lately, a typical cycle will be for me to spend several days in a row without any sleep except for a two to three hour nap I take in the mid-morning. I can’t seem to sleep at night at all during this part of the cycle and sometimes don’t even feel like taking the mid-morning nap! After several days of this, I feel exhausted and end up going to bed between seven and nine o’clock in the evening and sleeping until seven to ten o’clock the next morning. Most often I feel like I could continue sleeping all day.

So, it seems to be either feast of famine around here. I love those evenings when I am sleepy and I can curl up in bed with a good book and read for about thirty minutes before dropping off to sleep. I am really praying that, with God’s help, I will be able to go to bed around nine-thirty and read for about thirty minutes and go to sleep by ten. Then I would like to be able to wake up by seven.

In the meantime, I remain puzzled. And, to be honest, I don’t even sleep well when I do sleep. I toss and turn and feel overheated or achy all night. This is having a serious impact on my daily life. So, again, I ask for your prayers, advice and any Bible verses you think might be applicable.

Surveys, surveys, all over the internet. Who makes them, and why, and why can’t The Equuschick, she wanted to know. She could not discover why, and therefore she decided she would entertain herself with such an activity.

For the past year or so now, I have felt that three-year-old curled up inside of me crying inconsolably, “I want my mommy.” I do, too. I want my mommy. I want her so bad and I can’t find her anymore. And, this time, she’s not looking for me.

When I go to her house, I open her drawers and find things arranged just as she left them. Her neat, little address book tucked away in a drawer with her pens and pencils and envelopes. I read the entries in her address book written in the neatest handwriting you have ever seen. Some addresses or phone numbers carefully erased with new ones penciled in. I try to find the most recent changes. I realize what seems like yesterday was actually several years ago. My mother. Always so neat and organized. I feel like I am peering into a time capsule. Like I am being ricocheted back and forth in time. Just a few years in time, but seemingly a lifetime apart.

I run, crying out for my mother, but she is not there. She was just there a minute ago. I just looked away and she was gone. Somebody help me find my mother. I want my mother. I want her now. I run up and down the wide aisles and I can’t find her anywhere. She is not rearranging her pantry. She is not busy decorating a wedding cake. She is not sitting quietly on the couch tatting. She’s not sitting at the dining room table carefully writing a letter to an old friend. She’s not out in the yard talking across the fence to a neighbor. She’s not bringing the clothes in from out on the line or ironing shirts or watering her plants…

When I was five, I watched my mother leave me. I was the oldest of her four children and we all had pneumonia while my father was away on a business trip. When he came home, she told him that she couldn’t take it anymore and she was leaving. And she left. I watched her from the kitchen window as she walked down the side street and away from our house. Away from me. I don’t know where she went. I don’t remember when she returned.

I’m looking out that same window now. I know where my mother is going. I know she won’t be returning to me. I want to cry out and bang on the glass, but she is too far away now.

It is not an easy thing to lose your mother.

Of course, he did.
“But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground.”
Genisis 2:6
In the beginning, there wasn’t any inclement weather. God created a world were there was a mist that rose up out of the earth and watered everything there that needed watering. God carefully created a garden that would be a perfect place for us. He walked and talked with Adam and Eve in the garden in a relationship that is hard for me to even imagine. I long for that with all of my heart.
We messed that up. Not God. But God still loves us and for that I am thankful this day. I may be weary of this world at times, but he has given me hope. Hope that one day I, too, can walk and talk with him. That he will wipe away every tear and I can sit at his knee and ask him about it all. And he will tell me.
In the meantime, I will spend my time walking and talking with God the best way I know how.
T’is The Blessed Hour of Prayer
‘Tis the blessed hour of prayer, when our hearts lowly bend,
And we gather to Jesus, our Savior and Friend;
If we come to Him in faith, His protection to share,
What a balm for the weary, O how sweet to be there!
Refrain
Blessed hour of prayer, blessed hour of prayer,
What a balm for the weary, O how sweet to be there!
‘Tis the blessed hour of prayer, when the Savior draws near,
With a tender compassion His children to hear;
When He tells us we may cast at His feet every care,
What a balm for the weary, O how sweet to be there!
Refrain
‘Tis the blessed hour of prayer, when the tempted and tried
To the Savior Who loves them their sorrow confide;
With a sympathizing heart He removes every care;
What a balm for the weary, O how sweet to be there!
Refrain
At the blessed hour of prayer, trusting Him, we believe
That the blessing we’re needing we’ll surely receive;
In the fullness of the trust we shall lose every care;
What a balm for the weary, O how sweet to be there!
Refrain
Fanny Crosby (1820-1915)
If you need a little extra comfort, I highly recommend you read this post by Amanda of Wittingshire. Thank you Amanda for writing such an edifying post. It couldn’t have come at a better time for me.

Aw, Pete, don’t ruin it for me. The little bit of joy I got over the holidays came from my husband’s kind gift of a new iPod. After placing it into its “force field of protection”, uploading my CDs to it and slipping it into its own cute, little sock, I happily went about listening to my new Iron & Wine and Guster CDs. In my bed, I lie in the darkness and feel the music become one with the night. I have only want of the stars above me to complete my delirious, child-like happiness.

Then, one day recently, I read an article online entitled “Headphones deafen you, Who star tells iPod fans”. What? This can’t be true. Pete, tell me it ain’t so. Well, being the curious type, I went to the source and read the actual diary entry on Pete’s site. Obviously, the diary entry was more fluid than the news article and I felt like I could give Pete back a little credit for being an intelligent human being. I am still not convinced that I should throw my iPod and it’s little earphones to the wind.

I am a married woman homeschooling two rapidly growing children. The thirty-six hour breaks I take from my iPod are not self-imposed. They are called running a home and staying connected to my family. I was out in the kitchen the other day and thought maybe I would listen to my iPod while cleaning up a bit. Once I got the dishwasher and the washing machine going, though, I found I couldn’t really hear the music anymore. Being the sensible sort, I put my iPod away for quieter moments. This is why you may find me lying awake in my bed pretending there are stars above me and listening to old bluegrass hymns in the middle of the night. It is also why I have to pretend my husband isn’t snoring rather loudly beside me.

There are a lot of things that come to mind while reading Pete’s diary, but I think I would be stating the obvious. This one quote had me thinking, though.

I have unwittingly helped to invent and refine a type of music that makes its principal proponents deaf. It takes time, but it happens. This is, I suppose, no worse than being a sports person or dancer who knows they have a limited working span, and their body will suffer. The rewards are great – money, fame, adulation and a real sense of self-worth and achievement. But music is a calling for life. You can write it when you’re deaf, but you can’t hear it or perform it.

I could pick it apart, but I won’t. I have only one thing to say. If anything in your life becomes more important than the one thing that can truly complete you, you are always at risk of losing everything you have. If, however, you have God in your life, you can lose everything and still have exactly what you need.

And,  just out of curiosity, Pete, what is that dangling from your ear?

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, no matter how it turns out. ~ Disturbing the Peace, by Vaclav Havel

I like this quote. I will never be an optimist, but I do have hope. And loving God makes sense no matter how it all turns out.
I have been a bit depressed lately. It is not unusual for this time of year, but it came a little early. I have been told that I think over things too much. What people don’t understand is that I often find great pleasure in turning over all the little bits and pieces of life. Whether they are bitter or sweet. Some things are quite heavy, though. Turning them over takes much more effort than one would first expect. I sometimes grow weary from the effort.
That is often when you don’t hear much from me on this blog. It is not that I have nothing to say, it is that I am so very tired. Putting things into words that are fitting is no easy thing. I will try harder, though. Sometimes that is how something beautiful is born.
Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart, All you who hope in the LORD.
Psalm 31:24