Dealing

God slowly changed the direction of my job. I went from Single Adult Ministry to Pastoral Care.

In the ministry of Pastoral Care we deal with hurts.
I find my heart in my throat most the time.
I talked with a single mom whose son had a massive heart attack right in front of her in March. She kept him on life support for nearly three months because she couldn't bear the pain of losing her son. He died Friday.
A man who I am acquainted with, but really didn't know that well complained about a pain like a tooth ache in his neck and then it traveled up to his head like a migraine. Within 24 hours, he died. Totally healthy, 44 years old with two sons. I think the whole church staff held their breath because of the brevity of the situation.
Then a co-worker's father died on Friday. She loved her daddy like I loved mine.

Dealing with all of this makes "blink of an eye" become way too real.

Healthy or not, I cannot stress the need for a Will. Sam McLamb, Pastoral Care Ministry has dealt with so many families who are faced with literally life and death decisions and there is no will made...and children are involved. If there's no will, sometimes the children are put in foster care until family arrangements are made...is that where you want your children to be?

I watch death every day. Each day I feel a little piece of me breaks when I hear about death, dying, sickness and pain.

It certainly gives me a reason to be on my knees...thanking God for His wonderful favor.

If you don't have a will, you can go to www.legalzoom.com and make your own. If you do have a will, please be sure it's updated. God calls us in His timing...not when WE have it all together!

Customer Service

I just need to brag a little. I seem to focus on the negative...but today...I'm focusing on the positive.

My Ti-Vo DVR quit. So I thought it was an add-on USB thingy that I had to put on it because my TV is nearly 20 years old. So I took the thingy to Best Buy. They told me it was 6 months old...but let them try to see if Best Buy would 'honor' the purchase and let me return it. I didn't even ask them, they offered. So I said sure, knowing the results. And true...they couldn't honor a purchase made last November. So I asked for a copy of the original purchase receipt, which they supplied to me with no problems, and thought I would send it and the receipt back to the manufacturer.

In the meantime, I bought another one ($69.99 Oh MY Goodness!). gulp. I got home, and it didn't work either. So I deducted that it must be my Ti-Vo.

I called Ti-Vo and he had me do this, unplug this, stand on my head and yell words, ect...you get the picture. Each time, all I got was a blank screen. So he told me it was my box. BUT...for only $129.99 I could get a BRAND NEW ONE.

Well, I don't have $129.99 and so I told him, no thank you, just give me back the 6 months prepaid service costs I had paid and we'll just cancel the contract.

Sorry, he said, can't do that. Let me transfer you to someone who may be able to help you. So he transferred me to someone else who gave me the special offer of the week...orginally $249.99, I could purchase same Ti-Vo (in previous paragraph) for only $199.99...then he put me on hold...and I waited...and I waited...and finally after 17 minutes I hung up.

The next morning, I charged out of the starting gate with my dukes up ready to tell them what I thought about them not refunding what I cannot use and giving me two different prices for the same machine...not that I was going to purchase either.

I called and got this lady named Elisha who had a very bad cold. I explained my predicament along with being put on hold. She never once put me on hold...she talked, sniffled, sneezed and coughed, but she told me she would not put me on hold.

Then she said, "Ms. Ray, we would like to offer you a free replacement for your DVR that is not working. Just follow all the directions I'm sending to your email, and when we receive your old unit, we'll mail this unit to you." "Not only that", she continued, "this new DVR can record two different shows at the same time."

I said, what? Free? She said she was so sorry for the inconvenience and that they would ship it out asap when they received mine.

I took the USB thingy back to Best Buy and they thanked me profusely and gave me a credit on my card.

I walked in my house stunned. Stunned that customer service still exists.
I'm still in shock.

dedicated to Chris, Geoff & Melissa

Before I was a Mom,

I never tripped over toys or forgot words to a lullaby.
I didn't worry whether or not my plants were poisonous.
I never thought about immunizations.

Before I was a Mom,
I had never been puked on.
Pooped on.
Chewed on.
Peed on.
I had complete control of my mind and my thoughts.
I slept all night.

Before I was a Mom,
I never held down a screaming child so doctors could do tests.
Or give shots.
I never looked into teary eyes and cried.
I never got gloriously happy over a simple grin.
I never sat up late hours at night watching a baby sleep.

Before I was a Mom,
I never held a sleeping baby just because I didn't want to put them down.
I never felt my heart break into a million pieces when I couldn't stop the hurt.
I never knew that something so small could affect my life so much.
I never knew that I could love someone so much.
I never knew I would love being a Mom.

Before I was a Mom,
I didn't know the feeling of having my heart outside my body.
I didn't know how special it could feel to feed a hungry baby.
I didn't know that bond between a mother and her child.
I didn't know that something so small could make me feel so important and happy.

Before I was a Mom,
I had never gotten up in the middle of the night every 10 minutes to make sure all was okay.
I had never known the warmth, the joy, the love, the heartache, the wonderment or the satisfaction of being a Mom.
I didn't know I was capable of feeling so much

before I was a Mom.

Happy Mother's Day to me...because of you, Chris, Geoff and Melissa.

--copied from the internet.

Naturally

She was right in my neighbor's backyard. In real life, I watched a female turtle dig a hole, lay her eggs and then she just went away.

As she slowly walked away it made me sad. Sad, because there's no chance those little turtles are going to make it to Lake Julian...there's a fence ...along with a road, a couple trailers and a pack of dogs between them and the lake. It was just a very natural thing for her. She walked away.

And yet....in today's world, fathers do that to their children. They make children, and they walk away. They don't look back. It's a very unnatural thing to do.

God formed the family to be a man and a woman. It's a very natural thing..created by God to multiply...families.

I remember when my husband left. I don't remember the month...but I remember the moment. I had just had major surgery. In fact, he had to carry me into the house. As we walked in the door, I saw my three babies covered in chicken pox, and I saw suitcases at the door.

He put me on the couch, with a phone, a box of diapers, a glass of water and said "I can't do this anymore." And he walked out of my life. My three children didn't know what was going on, they were just happy to have mommy home. At ages two, four and six, they had no idea their lives were going to change so dramatically.

I do remember the emptiness. I was left with broken dreams, no place to live, and three children whose father walked out on them. For years I've always said he left me, not them. But who am I kidding. He left all of us. Just like those baby turtles, left alone to try to make it, unnaturally.

I have watched what the effects of a broken home does to innocent children. I've watched with great pain. The effects are still real and sometimes multiply. I watched with pain etched in my heart the many times my children couldn't participate in an activity, because I couldn't be four places at one time.

I went to three different PTA meetings...I talked with so many teachers it made my head spin. I tried to make our life normal...and there was absolutely nothing normal or natural about our lives.

Through many hours of counseling, a total break-down panic attack in 1991, more counseling, I learned to accept the things I could not change.
I couldn't change the fact my husband, my children's father walked away.
I couldn't change the fact I lived right above poverty level for nearly our whole lives. I couldn't change our circumstances.

Honestly, I really don't remember the pain anymore. I really don't live in regret, because I know in my immaturity and ignorance, I did the very best I could do.

And there's no way I could have made it without my dysfunctionally challenged family, who did the best they could do. I was the only child my parent's had that divorced. When my husband left, my mom and dad and my brothers, picked me and my children up, dusted us off and for years, became the "father" to my children.

They provided meals when I had nothing. My brothers would babysit when I had to be somewhere else for another child. Dad provided me with a job when I had no experience.

There were years of pain, tears, a broken arm, children hanging on to me 24/7... and there was Ms. Peggy.

Ms. Peggy watched my children for me as I worked a full time job. She always invited me to church, and I would allow her to take my children, because that was when I'd fill the bathtub with the hottest water I could stand...I'd lie in the tub and I'd cry. Sunday after Sunday.

Every Sunday, Ms. Peggy would bring my children home from church and tell me that she'd take me too next week if I wanted to go. I'd always decline. Afterall, what had God done for me lately?

I've said since I accepted Christ in 1984, that precious woman has jewels in her crown...she never gave up, she never gave in...she took my children to church and I always knew her car door was open for me. I only went to church one Sunday with her. It was the Sunday they talked about the need for a $60,000 stained glass window over the baptistry. Satan had a heyday with me. I left that church so angry. I made just enough to pay Ms. Peggy to watch my children...and this church that she loved so much wanted people to give over and above for some stupid window. Ms. Peggy even went so far as to have the pastor of the church come to visit me the next day. Boy did I give him a piece of my mind. When he left, I was still unsaved...and very angry...

Now, as I look back at the people who made my situation a winning combination...I praise God. I praise God for my parents who didn't know what to do with a daughter and three grandchildren...they just did. I praise God for Ms. Peggy. I am positive that she lifted my name and my children's names up to God for many years.

These people were stepping stones on the pathway to God. As I recall their actions and see the memory stones, I pick them up...and I put these memories on the altar and just praise God for godly, understanding people.

Even though I didn't understand it then, I truly understand it now... we were an unnatural 'family' and we all did the best we could to survive. No one can tell me that divorce doesn't ruin lives.

But God...takes ruined lives and puts us in the society of His beloved ones if we accept His gift of eternal life...and we just fit so perfectly.

If I had my life to live over would I change things...you better believe it. But we all know, there are no do-overs in life.

Nevertheless...even now we will never be left alone like those turtle eggs. We will always have a FATHER to show us the way.

2 Corinthians 3:18 NAS
But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

I don't wanna be

Sometimes boredom has me hitting "next blog" at the top of the page, just to see other's blog. Most the time it's in spanish, french or some other foreign language. Sometimes, happily, it's in English.

I came upon a blog that reminded me of my own daughter-in-law's page (www.creolecrew.blogspot.com) so I read the first entry and laughed. Ah, to be young again.

The mother was writing about her eldest daughter who just kept hitting her little sister. Finally mom sat down with the daughter and gently tried to "persuade" the oldest sister to treat her baby sister with love.

The little girl's eyes brimmed with tears and the mother secretly was happy that words finally got into the little one's heart. The mother asked, "Why are you crying?"

The daughter answered, "I don't wanna be a sister."

Pain, agony and heartbreak went through the mother's thoughts.

The little darling continues, "I wanna be a dog."

Well, I laughed out loud, because I could just hear my own grandsons saying something like this...but I laughed because at least she was honest...
I think all of us wanna be something/someone else at any given time.

Sometimes....I just wanna be a kept woman. But there's no one to cry to...so I'm just keeping on.

Alone Again

So once again, I'm alone.

Never lonely.

In the silence I hear the creaks of the building.

I hear the AC churning the air.

I hear silence.

and it's loud.

I smile as I live in the best area...part city/part country.

The mule is braying in the pasture outside.

I hear the man once again calling his dogs to come back home.

My neighbor slams her door AGAIN

And the world awakes one more time.

I read about David's trials as he runs in fear of death by Saul.

And I read where Saul is temporarily stunned and humbled by David's honor of "God's anoited one."

And I ponder...on this morning at 7:30 a.m., I had to scrape the ice off my car's windshield.

I marvel at life...as I am alone.

Prompted by the Holy Spirit

Each time I get a nudge in "my gut" about something I've said or done, I first get totally angry at my reckless words or deeds and then I immediately Praise God.
Weird, huh? Praising God for feeling 'guilty'.
It's in that millisecond of realizing I've sinned that I know God isn't finished with me yet...and I haven't 'vexed' the Holy Spirit to the point of silence.

This happened last week. I got that nudge and went to one of my friends after I had mumbled something about an activity that ticked me off. I went to her and apologized that those words even came out of my mouth. And then tears....because that was my heart speaking. The anger and unfairness I felt just fell out of my mouth like spit. YUCK...I hated that that was my heartfelt feelings.

I also confessed it to a dear friend. We cried together and I told her that I hated my attitude and needed an adjustment. I've asked God to forgive me...AGAIN... and all praise and glory to Jesus Christ...because of Him, my heart was renewed one more time and that reoccuring sin was once AGAIN forgiven.

But those feelings still come up like reflux...and I know I need to clean the rooms in my heart. There's no place for those thoughts and Jesus too.

Thankfully...He isn't finished with me yet.

"If you could see What I once was

If you could go with me--Back to where I started from
Then, I know you would see
A miracle of Love that put me in its sweet embrace
and made me what I am today
just an old sinner
Saved by grace."