God's Grace is Among Us

The confusion over the identity of who you are by some people is not something that can be understood by simple explanations. Some people don’t want to hear them because they have foregone conclusions. Who people are often more felt, intuition, or experienced by interactions. The test of time can be revealing also, more so than by simply taking an experience and placing judgement without knowing all the facts. Live your life going off your gut, guided by the light of God when and if you decide to evaluate people and try not to be judgmental.

Many times in life we are faced with crossroads with people, those near and dear to us and those we pass in work and interpersonal relationships. Associations bring conflict; it is a fact of life. Stronger is the person that can face these head on and resolves them. The ones that can merely classify them quickly and walk away without forethought is the person that thinks life is simple that no one deserves a second thought and takes people for granted, the gifts of others is not to be taken lightly. Living a life with regret is a hard thing to overcome down the line. Looking back, some you left in the dust you may find would have been your best adversaries.  

Each person you will meet in life has value and was brought into your life for a purpose, part of God’s master plan. Be certain you uncover the reason. There are those who are truly meant to float in and then fade into the woodwork of your past. They are stepping stones for your future period. But there are also some that are the fabric of your being, those that built you up and helped you become the person you are and could have built up more, if you had stayed involved, engaged. The test of time is the ones that stuck through it all with you, helped you preserve when times were tough.  Who was and would have been there when you head was low, when you didn’t win, and still had your back?

If you find those people walk away from you without a second thought, the sadness can be painful but the reality is you gave what you had to give without conditions. And we are called to love and give without conditions. Expect nothing in return and then you are altruistic. In a perfect world, we are returned love unconditionally and friends reciprocate. We are trusted, not judged and given lead way to grow. In reality, not everyone has the ability to love or be a true friend, partner or family member for life. Growing pains may be, to some, learning the difference.

Working with someone who is quick to judgement and doesn’t appreciate your efforts is equally disheartening but par for the course of employment in today’s times. Know that the compassion comes in handy and you are the bigger person for having the strength of character to accept fate, a rejection f sorts and move beyond. Everyone doesn’t have to accept you as you are, but then again, many others will, free of their own prejudices and constraints.  Being hateful for the person that degrades you or pushes you away nets nothing but internal hatred for others or makes you no better than the person who pushes your goodness away. Rise up, take notice and move on.  

To live in peace requires an ability to let bygones be simply that, part of the fabric of your past. One must learn to let others let you go, let you be part of the fabric of their past. Even when the pain of letting go seems hard, hurtful or disloyal to you. Life is not about always winning but knowing when the ship has sailed and you are not meant to be onboard. Learn when the energy to hop on board is a sacrifice to your own inner peace.

Fighting for the right to be a part of someone’s life should not be a constant battle. We need to recognize God is who we must prove our loyalty to in the end, not to men or women on earth, not to those who betray our confidence or goodness and our faith. In the end, He will see that we receive our bountiful and the right people love us the way we were meant to be loved and received in his grace.

You are goodness,

Full of a heart of gold,

Don’t let anyone,

Turn your spirit cold.

You have a mission,

To make your life a shining light,

Others may try to cut you down,

But just hold your candle to a higher height.

Smile for Today is Yours!

The passing of the year should not bring tears. Instead it should bring joy, that you have experienced more photo images of life. Yes, you have been given more chances to see God’s creation, meet more people and see different faces of our Creator. You are indeed blessed.

With each day that passes, we are indeed a bit wiser. We are given choices, choices to be happy, sad, reflective, educated, argumentative, open-minded, and the whole array of emotions.  Pity the fool who wakes up and goes to the mirror and always sees the exact same reflection, no change whatsoever. Grateful is the person who sees change, another wrinkle, a smile looking back, a worrisome brow, a twinkle; for they know change is a sign of living. 

Right inside my bathroom, first thing you see when you walk in the door and right outside the shower is the line “Begin each day with a smile.” It is not in a small font, not a medium, but a huge typeface.  That is by design.   I need and want it to be emblazoned in my mind. It is imperative for those who battle depression to not take today for granted, not one minute of it. This moment, this hour, this day is blessed. I want to feel good every day when I get ready to face the world as we all should. 

Last year,  the past 365 days were graced with Kodak images, memories we get to hold on to forever.  And yet today, we are still here to experience all that God has in store for us. We have a debt to pay, in a sense, to God.  He sacrificed, his

only son for us. We owe it to Him to make the most of our time on earth. Jesus taught us the most pure way to live, the righteous way. He knew we would stumble and fall, we would certainly sin,  and fall from grace.  But we were taught we could ask for forgiveness and be granted it, that easily. We were instructed to ask those who trespassed against us to pray for those individuals. Jesus said to forgive others,  essentially let  bygones be bygones so as not to develop a hardness. Without forgivness, a wall is constructed that interferes with your relationship with God and others.  

Live your life with a free heart, free from the bondage of hate, free  from worrying about a tomorrow challenges that might never come. Know that today is part of God’s plan for you, and  are you are meant to savor it.   If you are down, know you are not alone. Many people suffer from illness, loss, depression, and other issues.  

Being prayerful and introspective may help you find one small blessing in your mountain of sadness, even if it is the ability to produce one small tear.  That tear shows you have life, emotion, feelings and the freedom to express it.  So many live in this world with an inability to identify their emotions or feel anything. You are not one of them, to feel is to be human and to be given the gift of life, praise that gift.

As I look back on 2015, I see a woman that has experienced many highs and many lows. I have lost some dear people along the way also that I miss. I know that I am called to change and make not New Year’s Resolutions but permanent changes that will better me. 

Part of my life’s mission has been to continually improve and be closer to what God’s image is for me as a Christian woman. Like many of my friends, I have struggled in determining and defining what that is, and after much contemplation or as my blog is called reflection, it has became much clearer, the picture. Some of those changes entail letting go, be it people, relationships, and ideals I once held, and even items that I once thought were so important.  Passage of the years necessitates I evolve too. 

Over years most of us grow wiser and  our ideology does and should change.  Our nakedness we entered the world in becomes closer to what we return too. We are faced with the reality we leave and return to heaven with what we came here with, God’s kingdom.  So, let your yesterdays be a beautiful memory.   Let the hardships fall off your shoulders and serve as  lessons upon which to grow from. Know that those that reject you may be, in part, be rejecting a part of themselves and know God loves you more. Right the wrongs and move forward. Help others grow just as surely as you do.  And hug yourself as you embrace each day of the New Year! May God help you see fit to begin each day with a smile! 

Forgiveness for a Mother

The past few weeks have been a blur for me in many ways. The days have seemed to fly by full of new drama and trauma playing out with each and every phone call. The plot seems to constantly

change as my emotions go through a roller coaster ride that is full of more lows than highs. I manage to take one day at a time and realize again, nothing lasts forever. Not even after spending a life time without someone and finally, at age 50 finding them.

My mom and I reconnected almost two years ago. We had not seen each other in over 35 years. I had the chance to hear some I love you’s from a mother I never really knew. I am grateful because two weeks ago, she had a stroke. Life has changed permanently, for her and consequently for me. Now my days have been filled with phone calls with doctors, nurses and family relatives. There are always more questions than answers too.

By the time my sister and I got up to see her in Michigan, she had fallen in to a deep sleep and could not be roused. We were told she might never wake up and they were going to put in a feeding tube through her nose. The doctor suggested we go in first and have a few quiet moments to visit with her prior to the insertion. We went in, my older sister and I, before calling our brothers and other family members with an update. As we chatted over her head, we noticed her begin to twitch and squirm in her sleep. My sister left the room to go down the hall way. Not sure what to do, I laid my face up against her cheek and whispered “I love you Mom.” She began to cough and opened up her eyes. I leaned over in shock and asked her what she wanted. She stared at me and said “Water.” I ran into the hallway screaming for the nurses, I knew it was a miracle, she was not supposed to wake up! My sister and I’s hearts were elated.

Just as quickly, it was replaced with a melancholy feeling. We realized that this was part of our mom before us but also a shadow of who she was. She, Margie, was only half there, half of the time. The other half of the time, she was delusional. Her mind saw things the rest of us did not see, she recalled things that were not real, she created lies that she believed and had the attention span of a small child. I looked at her and wondered where my mother went. She was volatile, self centered, had the worst listening skills imaginable and no one in the room had the floor but her. Her attention span was that of a small child. Reasoning with her was not possible, if you needed to negotiate because she seemed to lack anything that required higher level brain processing. She would try to pop up and out of chairs with a left leg that was completely numb from her stroke with no feeling or ability to sustain her weight.

As we visited with her for several days, we found long visits exhausting. My sister and I took turns breaking down in to tears where there were no words we could say to comfort each other. There were times we would enter the room and she would not recognize us immediately. There were days when she demanded to go home or for us to call an ambulance and take her to the hospital. Thus, we would have to remind her she was already there. If her doctor did not come to her room, she wanted to be taken to the emergency room immediately and be seen there. Her demands were constant and unreasonable. We saw the look on the nurses’ faces that were assigned our mother and detected no one had her on their assignment two days in a row. We were sure that was by design. Whoever was assigned our mom on their shift, we felt a little sorry for because we knew she was a handful. She pretended she was in pain to get pain medicine, she said she was sick when she wanted attention, she tried to stand on her feet so much on aided that frequently she was put on waist restraints. It was the like the worst child in the kindergarten class. Wow, this was not the mom I had seen the last two years! It is like the stroke took away my mother and all that was left is some of the worst traits and exaggerated them.

We tried to explain to our mom she had a stroke, her brain was playing tricks on her. To see that childlike look in her eyes when she asked “You mean it is not real?” was heart wrenching but needed. Many times, it didn’t matter what we said, she was not coming out of the make believe land she was in. She remained delusional. Her left side is numb and so she cannot walk unassisted either. She can only eat thickened liquids due to some aspirations. Her life is not what it was and will never be.

This is not what we expected for a woman so full of energy. She has led a life full of bad choices; there is no doubt about it. But I still hoped her life would end well. Never in a million years did I envision her being in a nursing home at half mast. She doesn’t even know that is where she is going because no one wants to deal with the fit she will throw. All she knows is she is going to rehab. It feels as if we are lying to her by keeping her in the dark but we have no other options. She is not capable any longer of dealing with reality. The amount of tears and heart ache I feel inside is really nothing that can be expressed in words. I am grateful for the endearments she has expressed the last few years we reconnected. And I try to hold fast to those on the down days when the sorrow fills my heart. I missed out on a mother most of my life, my biological mother, found her and now I sit here and lost her again.

I recall sitting bedside and seeing my mom staring at my sister and me during one of her lucid moments. She then began to cry. As we watched her, she said, as she has stated so many times before to us, “I am so sorry that I let you down as a mother and was not there for you to a part of your lives.” I wonder why, even though we have told her countless times before, she does not realize we forgave her a long time ago. Perhaps it is because, even when she is in her sane state, she still has not been able to forgive herself. Forgiveness begins in the soul and comes from the love of God and of His will.

My mom believes in God. My mom, even in this state, must succumb to His will, that of forgiveness, forgiveness of her own sins. Until she does that, she will always feel tormented inside. That is a painful thing to see, as a daughter. Her time is going to be limited. Her moments of sanity are as well. I pray God teaches my mother to learn to live His word in those lucid moments before she passes. If not, may she find that eternal peace she has been so desperately looking for on earth one day. If not on earth, my you find in heaven Mom. All of us are forgiven our sins. All we have to do is ask.

As I turned to say good bye,
All I could do is cry.
One of my biggest fears
Is that the next time I visit, you won’t be here.
Please stay a few more years,
I don’t mind shedding a few more tears,
I want to cradle you like you once cradled me,
I want you to know that I love the life you gave to me.
Mom, I will always love you.