There's still only 24 hours in a day...

This has a been a long week. Reading the devotional "Jesus Calling", even the Lord tells me it has been a rough up hill journey this week. As I sit thinking back over it, my mind is naturally going to all the things that I have not finished. I am still closing charts for work, making follow-up bereavement contacts for those with a recent loss, working on my dissertation, trying to get laundry finished for next week, working on financial paperwork needing to be done by the 30th of June, and so much more. Seriously, the list of all that is NOT finished is so long it is exhausting for me to even think about it as I am writing this reflection! I have no idea why I even think I have time to sit here and write this reflection!!!!!

What does this tell me about me?

                 Quite a bit really!

As I sit here writing this reflection, I look in the mirror and realize how driven I still am by what I can accomplish. When I sit back at the end of the week, I find myself thinking more about what I didn't finish last week and making plans for how to get it done this next week. The problem with this kind of orientation is that it means there have been a great many moments that have occurred in which I may have been more present than I was in the past, but still not fully present in the moment. How do I know this? Because I did not give these moments the opportunity to fully impact me. I can give you an example. Just today, we have had a sick grandbaby and I, myself, have been feeling under the weather; yet, I took time to go out with my husband and the grandbabies and ride downtown to go for a walk. I enjoyed myself and quietly sat beside my husband on the way home. While driving us home, he said, "I had a good time. Thank you for going with me." I heard him say this. I replied to it and even filed it in my memory; however, as I sit here writing about it my heart begins to swell. My eyes feel warm, though not wet. My breath is less shallow as it is going down deep into my diaphragm while I recall this moment. I feel safe, special, and like I am not alone, as I recall that moment, but in that moment, I did not give myself permission or time to feel any of those things. I remember that moment and remember feeling tired, irritable, and a little frustrated at the things I knew I had not finished at home, again this weekend.In this moment that I recall that memory, I realize how my week has been lavishly covered with support and love from those around me. I think about the phone call I shared today with a special friend. I recall the radio station this week, as I did the final segment, and radio host said what a special time it has been to have me there with them. I consider the debriefing after support group and the words my new friend and group facilitator shared as she told me how she experiences me and her working together. I thought of the phone messages a couple of my co-workers left for me as they checked on me to see how I was doing after my aunt's funeral. And in this moment, I laugh a little quiet laugh to myself as I hear my grandsons' voices echoing through my mind as they greeted me with "Nana!!!!!" this week, the occasions they climbed on my lap and cuddled me, or put their little hands in mine. I am so greatly loved by God and those He has placed around me!


My heart smiled BIG at this thought!

I was just sharing with someone today about our challenge at work around the phrase:
  
                                                                                         MOMENTS 
                                                             MATTER

Laughingly, I shared that God had been ministering to me that I did not have to "make" a moment that matters because every moment matters! He has been teaching me to appreciate the moments that make up my story and what they tell me about Him. In the moments of my life, I am truly beginning to see the fresh bouquet of tender mercies that are being delivered daily and realizing how lavishly they are displayed and given. My heart is overfull this week as I consider how greatly I am loved.

"See how very much our Father loves us for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don't recognize that we are God's children because they don't know him." 1 John 3:1 NLT

 

I am encouraged as I remember that though there may only be 24 hours in a day, when they are all filled with the lavish display that tells me how greatly God loves me I find myself agreeing with God, a thousand years is as the blink of an eye and that is okay with me! And now, may the kind and overwhelming love of my ABBA DADDY overtake you and hold you tight in an eternal embrace as His Spirit is set as the seal over you. In Jesus' name, amen.

After a Week Like Last Week...

It's been two weeks since my last reflection. I find myself still trying to avoid the practice of reflecting; yet, at the same time being thankful for its invitation. I feel as if it is God's ongoing pursuit of me and for that my heart trembles. This has been a particularly difficult week for me. As I reflect back on it, I see more tender mercies and goodness of God than anything else, but all of it is intertwined with the sufferings of this life and the holy invitation they bring us to know Him more.

This week an aunt of mine died. She died suddenly and it came out of nowhere, to the family. I didn't know my aunt well but was speechless and heartbroken at the news when my uncle told me. My heart came out of my chest as I heard the lostness of his voice as he said she had died. I've never had a chance to get to know any of my extended family well, but this aunt and uncle hold a special place in my heart because when I finally got to come to South Carolina, after being gone for over 30 years, they put my husband and I up and we spent a night there with them a couple of years back. To me, it felt a little out of my comfort zone and as if I was staying with strangers. To them, we were family. As the minister spoke at the funeral, he shared that this gift of hospitality and making people family was a special gift of my aunt and uncle's and she would be sorely missed for it. That day, I visited with my uncle and just listened as he talked about the first real vacation him and his wife had planned for next week. He talked about the first spontaneous thing they had really done in their marriage, just a few months back, as they took a trip to the mountains in North Carolina. I listened as he talked about retiring a few years from now and the things they had looked forward to. As I drove home, I wept for him and rejoiced also as I thought, there but for the grace of God go I.


People who know me know how hard I work and what a huge portion of my heart I give to my family and the world around me. I have a supervisor who reminds me a minimum of once a quarter that my tombstone will not read, "Lisa DeCandia great Bereavement Coordinator". My grandsons crawl up in my lap and snuggle up against me, reminding me to put my phone down and turn my computer off. The family's phone calls, texts, and the sound of their voices at the end of the work day invite me to leave my work at the office. Some days I do very good at this, but overall, as I consider the sudden death of my aunt this week and the story of my uncle as he talked about their plans, I see how much better I can do at this. There are only 24 hours in a day. In that day, so many hours must be filled with sleep, outside of that I determine how to use those hours. Unfortunately, I have found that in those hours there are never enough for me to get everything done, no matter how hard I work something always goes undone until the next day. Many days I lay down to sleep at night and begin to consider my agenda for the next day. Even now as I write this, I feel the weariness as it stretches it's fingers through my mind and wraps like a wet blanket around my body. I can't help but recall an eternal invitation that beckons me like the sweet smell of fragrance on a door knob, drifting up through the window on the soft summer breeze, "I will lead you beside still waters. I will restore your soul."

His voice continues, soft as the twilight as it gathers in the night sky, "Come unto Me all you who labor and are heavy laden. I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, for My yoke is easy and My burden is light." I lay my head back against the chair as I am writing. I close my eyes. The deep cleansing breaths go in deeply, moving beyond the rise and fall of my chest to push their way beyond the diaphragm and down to the tips of my toes. Holding it but for a moment, the cleansing breath feels me and I slowly begin to exhale as I imagine what it means to be wrapped in the arms of grace, to be caught in the ocean, drifting upon the waves of Your mercy. To begin a day with You...To know You have ordered my steps...not me doing it myself and asking You to bless the order of them...To be able to lay my head down to sleep at night, content in the knowledge that all left undone waiting to greet me upon the sunrise of tomorrow is nothing more than a shadow of that which You have packaged for another time. To catch the laughter of a grandbaby...feel the warmth of my husband's hand as we swing on the front porch in the cooling evening air...hear the sound of love when her voice fills the phone to say goodnight and "I love you mom"...or just to know the strength of my dog's love as she curls up against me in the night...I don't want to look back and tell the story of when I was going to do these things. I want to have the memory of these tender mercies I am granted, not the missed opportunities because of the things I pursued. I am but a work in progress and though I am saddened beyond belief at my aunt's passing, I am thankful for yet another beautiful lesson this woman of God gave me on the gift of life, love, and family.

Like Water Under a Bridge

Photo by R.Keith Clonz found on flickrcom

 

 

I'm not certain if I want to say another week has ended or another week is beginning. The two, last, and now the prospect of next week, seem to blend into one another without beginning or ending. Last week I wrote that weekly reflection experiences were like stopping at streetlights or stop signs, but honestly I feel like I stopped somewhere else this week and I'm not sure when it was. It feels as if I hit a pause button in the office and never hit play again. I suspect it was at the training I went to, Friday, on the topic of mindfulness and self-compassion. Since that seems to be where I paused, then that is where I shall begin to reflect.

Educational and academic learning this week has been a series of affirmations. I began a new quarter at Walden University and received feedback from my committee chair. There is very little I have to do to make the editing corrections to my first three chapters. I can actually have it done within this next week. Next, at work I have been doing continuing education in the area of mindfulness and self-compassion. Although I wanted to do it to reinforce the techniques and methods for usefulness in working with the clients I serve, there was a bigger part of me that wanted to hear more about it for me. I drove to Raleigh Friday, thinking I was going to learn some new mysterious thing that I have had little understanding of. Imagine my surprise when the speaker spent the entire day talking and demonstrating the Psalmist principle of meditation and the New Testament exhortation to be "transformed" by the renewing of the mind. All of it reminded me of the early discipleship I had, as a new believer, on prayer and what it means to pray without ceasing. The speaker, Friday, talked about the importance of releasing compassion to oneself and others, as well as the value and necessity of meditating daily. When asked how often it should be practiced or recommended for practice (because it must be practiced to be developed with any level of mastery), he replied, "Once a day for five minutes is good, several times a day for 20 minutes is better, but all day is ideal." He went on to emphasize we must all begin somewhere and that any effort to practice it is good. All day, as he spoke, I could hear the Holy Spirit whisper Scripture after Scripture in my ear about praying without ceasing, meditating on the law of the Lord (goodness), and many others. I continue to be both humbled and amazed at the places God meets me and the countless occasions He uses the things of this world to reinforce and affirm the principles and practices He longs for me to put to use in my life.

I took a break from writing and spent some time with my husband this afternoon, and then with my grandson and his father. It's been a nice weekend and as I have spent time with my family, work has been forgotten. This weekend I have been more present than I have been in a long time. The world inside of me has grown silent and the race track of my mind has been empty of thoughts running in circles through my  head. As a result, I have been at peace and enjoyed the time I have spent with the babies as they have laughed, cried, and just snuggled up next to me on occasion. I remember how I used to sit and hold them, sitting on the swing on the front porch and breathing deep. Lately they have not wanted to sit on me or with me and I think it is because of the frustration and discontentment they sense inside of me. I have sensed it myself as I have gone from one day to the next, one visit to the next, and one meeting to the next. It's a busy month this month and before it even began, I looked at it in a glance and felt weary. This weekend I rediscovered how the simple act of a my grandbaby taking my hand, the calm sound of my husband's voice as he speaks my name, the rushed voice of my daughter as she calls me on her break, the non-anxious presence of my other daughter as we ride in the car together through the neighborhood wasting time before dropping her off at work because she is still to early, rejuvenate me when I have found my satisfaction in Christ. When I am far from Him, when His word is dusty on the shelf, and life taunts me with insecurity and anxiety, my family feels overwhelming and I want nothing more than to be alone. However, when I am still in His presence and His word resounds through my mind talking of lavish grace, rich kindness, and immeasurable love, my family just affirms the great love of God as they minister the tender mercies He extends to me through their love and the gift of sharing their stories and making memories.

As I sit at this red light and wait for it to turn green again, I look across the room at my husband holding one of our grandsons, sitting on the other couch. I see him snuggled up on papaw's lap, playing with the phone while the three of us listen and watch "Where the Wild Things Are." I answer my phone and hear Thaddeus' dad's voice on the other end of the phone and my heart smiles as I remember him running through the sprinkler this afternoon. I hang up that call and answer another call to hear Thaddeus' mother's voice and my heart smiles even bigger as I remember her coming home from work Thursday night to tackle her son with a hug and smother him with kisses. I close my eyes. Drawing air in slowly and pushing it down to my toes, I feel it as it goes deeper and deeper. As I being to exhale, I see the photos of Gideon at the beach with his mama and I can hear their laughter though I was not present. My soul is quiet within me as I recall the many things God has done for me, listed in Ephesians 1-3: blessed me with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places, blessed me through adoption into His family, redeemed me, forgiven me, and given me knowledge of the mysteries of His will, given me an inheritance, sealed me with His Holy Spirit, seated me in Heavenly places, lavished His immeasurable riches of grace upon me, brought me near to Him, His covenant promise, and those around me, built me into His dwelling place, gave me realization of His eternal purpose, and given me confident boldness and access to Him!!!!! Enjoying my family, the memories of my life intertwined with theirs, and the wonderful glorious assurances of God's great love for me cause me to pause and pray, no longer impatient as I sit at this stoplight. In fact...I find myself wishing the light would stay red on a delayed timer for much longer.

It's on this thought that I will close. Even as I wrote this about pausing at the stoplight, I can't help but recall the title of the blog "Water Under the Bridge." No matter how I might wish to stay in this moment, it really is no different than the wish to go back and undo something that has already been done. It is like standing in the water, as it flows under the bridge, and trying to stop it from moving forward. This can never happen. I find myself remembering being a child and getting to go the pool or the beach or on a camping trip or something so super fine I would get angry when it ended. I would fight having to let it end naturally by stirring up something with someone else and ruining it before it ended. As I have grown in the Lord, even as I read Ephesians, I am so captivated by the love of God I find the freedom to let go of today and know that tomorrow too will unfold the same glorious and lavish display of His grace and immeasurable love as contained in today...it will just be new and different, as will I <3