Persistent

The Greater and more persistent your confidence in God,

the more abundantly you will receive all that you ask.

                                                                St. Albert the Great

Wow, what a quote!  I love it, but I am not sure where to begin.  In the last ten minutes, I have read it about ten times.  The first part is easy.  I believe in God completely.  My confidence in His running my life is huge.  I know that He loves me.  He delights in me.  We have a great relationship.  Yes, I am like a toddler at times.  I throw a fit or two.  But I am completely honest with Him.  I am confident in His love for me.

The second part gets a little tricky.  The quote at first leads me to believe that God gives me everything I want.  However, I rarely ask for anything outright.  I have always wanted to live in a place that is foreign to me.  Years ago, I told Jerry that I would love for him to do a tour in Washington D.C.  Hasn’t happened.  We had the chance to move to Indiana.  I was excited.  God showed us staying in Helena was better.  Now, I didn’t ask for the moves to happen.  I just told God that it would be really cool and let him take the reins.  We have stayed in Montana.  I believe that will be true until the day I die.  I am good with staying now that the kids are planning to stay in the Big Sky State.

I have asked for God to intervene in my children’s lives.  I prayed and prayed for Michel to come back home.  I prayed his wife away.  Yes, that doesn’t sound very Christian, but she abused him.  I sobbed to God to fix the situation my way.  I didn’t get what I asked for.  Michel never came back to Helena or the family.  Here is the thing, my ask was not Michel’s ask.  God had to weigh my wants and needs to Michel’s wants and needs.  During the entire six years of hell, I trusted God to take care of Michel.  

Where does that leave my asking of God to bring Michel home?  Michel’s wife would have made his life a living hell if he tried to divorce her.  She would have lied, manipulated, and drug Michel through every imaginable scenario to make him utterly miserable.  She did it to her prior husband.  I would love to say I know my son the best.  I don’t.  God does.  God didn’t pull the trigger that caused a bullet to take Michel’s life.  Only God knows who pulled the trigger.  What I know is that God loves my son.  Michel is safe from her now.  And frankly, me and the rest of the family are also safe from her.  Did I get what I asked for from God?  No, Michel is gone.  But yes, we are all safe.  I am thankful for God’s goodness.

Of course, the first time I read the quote, I thought “of course, God has given me everything I want and need.”  This is always my first thought.  I am so very blessed!  Sure, the last years have been a struggle in a few areas.  But every moment of the day, I feel God’s love.  I always have ten things to be thankful for when I close my eyes at night and say goodnight to my heavenly father.  Love and thankfulness are truly my asks.  He provides abundantly.

Blessings!

Friendship

God sends us friends to be our firm support in the whirlpool of struggle.  In the 

company of friends, we will find strength to attain our sublime ideal.

                                                                                         

St. Maximilian Kolbe

When I read this quote, I knew I had to write about my friends.  Over the years, I have struggled with friendship during different seasons of my life.  We probably all have.  But, during other times, I have been so very blessed.  I could list off many people who have been amazing friends.  Since, my younger days a lot of them have drifted away.  Some I am excited when I see friends from the past (well, in other parts of the world other than where I live; we are still friends) on Facebook.  In fact, that is the reason I keep Facebook.  I would miss them.  Others still reach out with a text, call, or even a visit.  In fact, on Michel’s birthday and/or death day, my college friend reached out to make sure I was doing well.  One of my dear friends from church also reached out.  Knowing they remembered meant so much to me.

Now, I could give a ton of examples of how my friends have helped during my struggles.  Just last week, one of them brought me and Madelle flowers when she heard we were sick.  A bunch of friends have been checking in since I lost hearing last Monday.  These people are amazing!

The second part of the quote really makes me stop and think.  “In the company of friends, we will find strength to attain our sublime ideal.”  I looked in the dictionary to try to understand sublime better.  “Of outstanding spiritual, intellectual, or moral worth.  Tending to inspire awe usually because of elevated quality (as of beauty, nobility, or grandeur) or transcendent excellence.”  What does St. Max mean by “sublime ideal?”  Simply put, it means becoming a saint, getting each other to heaven.

Wow, that is a tall order.  Even here, I have a bunch of friends who do just that!  I have to say though, helping a person get to heaven needs to be more than just smiling and saying hi when you see your friends at church.  It is more than doing fun activities like barbecues or kayaking.  Yes, you do need to do fun things; there is just more to do.  Even more then praying for each other.  We need to pray together.  We need to learn together.  We need to help each other with our spiritual life.  How?  Yep, I have examples.

When I retired from work in 2010, I was so blessed to finally have time for and find a women’s Bible Study group.  This group was a true gift from God.  We learned so much and prayed many prayers together.  As time does, we drifted away, but God gave me two other groups.  I am still with one of them.  Every Wednesday, we meet at one of our houses and discuss our current book of study and pray.  We challenge each other with different ways of seeing and understanding our faith.  I treasure these evenings.  Two years ago, I was blessed to be invited to a mother’s Rosary group.  These friends challenge and teach me.  I love it!!!  Since I joined, I go to daily Mass.  I am still not good at my consistency, but I go.  I have also been going to Eucharistic Adoration.  I am even on the schedule for every Thursday morning.  The first Saturday of the month, a huge group of families drive out to a friend’s ranch.  The evening begins with a prayer service.  Afterwards, we enjoy fellowship over a potluck dinner.  Amazing!!!  And I am sure there are tons of other examples of ways we can help our friends to heaven.

I am a firm believer in self analyzing, discerning my behavior.  How good of a friend am I?  If you were to ask my friends, because they are wonderful, they would probably say I am a good friend, maybe even great.  But they are a lot like my mom saying I am beautiful.  It counts, but I am sure there are areas to work on.  I know many of the areas I could work on.  

One is that I talk too much at times and end up thinking afterwards that, “Geez, Lisa, the world doesn’t revolve around you!!!”  Drives me nuts, but my mouth just won’t stop running away with me.  If I were to bring it up to some of my friends, I am sure they would agree.  Of course, a lot of times they are very gracious and forgiving.  I do work on trying to listen more often and ask questions.  Then I find myself telling my story.  Gurr.  Will I ever learn.  God, please help me.

The other main flaw I have is communication.  In fact, this is an area that I want to work on this year.  My main issue is that of reaching out.  I am not sure when it began.  Probably in the college years, but it happened over and over.  I find a friend who I want to spend time with.  I invite them to this and that.  The months go by and they don’t invite back or call back.  Whether it is because they don’t like me, they are introverts, or they are just busy, I have let this close myself off to reaching out.  Yes, I know all the ramifications for this behavior.  In the end, it is just wrong.

About eight years ago, God placed in my life the most obnoxious neighbor.  I say this with all love and sincerity.  She knows what I mean.  I had known her before this, but a beagle and a dachshund started our true friendship.  We started walking our dogs every day during the work week.  Now this lady calls, stops by, comes up with adventures, well, you name it, she epitomizes the St Max’s quote!!!  She has helped me to call more.  Well, call her, invite her….  I want to be like her when I grow up.

I have to also include two other friends.  They are also good at reaching out and inviting.  One of them I will be going to a concert with on Thursday.  I hope the meds get me hearing again before then, but I will still go if she is game.  It is the togetherness that is important.  The other friend…well, she is the one who I go to lunch with after Mass.  She also has me going to baseball games and well, the list is just too long.  Yep, I have some great friends to relearn from.

So, this year, one of my goals is to reach out more.  Even being sick most of this month, I have been able to go to coffee with an amazing lady.  Yep, we prayed at the coffee shop and had a great conversation.  I cheated once.  I went to Mass for the purpose to see another friend.  I know Jesus understands.  I didn’t have her number, and I just had to check in with her.  I now have her number because she took mine.  I am a work in progress.

With my hearing mostly gone, I won’t be getting together much.  However, I can check in with my friends via text or email.  In fact, I need to go do just that.  So, go out, be a St. Max kind of friend.

Wow, I talked a lot again.  (Shaking my head.)  Blessing!

Moodiness

 

My mood has been precarious.  First, I am excited and dreaming about the upcoming gardening season.  Then, I am determined to be a good housewife and run around getting chores done.  Finally, I turn so grumpy, and woe is me.  So, what is the issue?  Could it be menopause?  I just realized that I haven’t had a hot flash in a long time.  I also haven’t been taking Estroven for a long time.  I can’t say it is that.  I can say that not being able to hear is driving me nuts.  (I have a double ear infection.)  I should put that a different way.  I can hear ringing and a low hum that fills my head.  The droning on is driving me nuts.

I can’t talk to people unless they talk loudly.  My poor daughter is so annoyed with me.  Like I told my husband, she could never work with the old, hearing impaired.  Yesterday, I had my son sit with me while I called the doctor to see what else I could do besides the meds.  The first call went well when I told the receptionist that I couldn’t hear well.  She spoke up.  The return call would have been a nightmare without Clay.  This new woman didn’t speak up when I told her I couldn’t hear.  He listened to her go on and on until she had a question.  If he knew the answer, he gave it, but if he didn’t, he repeated it so I could answer.  Ugh.  Today, I stopped in the drugstore quickly to get Afrin since the grocery store didn’t have it.  I had Jerry stay in the truck.  It was an in and out thing.  No problem.  Wrong!  The cashier started chatting.  I told her I couldn’t hear very well and didn’t know what she said.  Took her by surprise.  She probably thought I was contagious.  Nope.  I haven’t been contagious for two days.  In fact, I feel really good.  I just can’t hear a bloody thing!

I didn’t leave the house for three days.  Granted, two of those days, I felt crummy.  I also felt so very sad.  I was supposed to do music for a four day retreat this weekend.  I do this retreat every year, but I have never been a part of the music.  I was sooooo excited.  Yesterday, I thought of ways I might be able to help.  How do you help when you can’t hear?  Sure, I could have maybe helped in a “quiet” way, but I am still coughing.  I really don’t want to make people uncomfortable with that.  So, I have prayed for everyone working and attending the retreat.  

I have to say, I am going a little batty not being able to hear music, people, and reading dialog on the television.  Gurr!!!  So, what is a good Christian to do when she is woe is me?  You see, the woe is me attitude leads down the rabbit hole of  why did God let me have all these health issues.  I have fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis.  Frankly, I think I handle these two problems quite well.  Just two things are simple.  I have been battling nasal issues for three years.  My smell is hit and miss, mainly miss.  I am constantly calling or seeing a doctor to get more antibiotics.  (This whole mess is due to me being stupid and staying with an incompetent doctor.)  In fact, I am facing a third surgery this spring, different doctor in a different town!  Now, He (God) had to add my ears?  If my mood continues on this line, I list off all the terrible things that have happened in the last…, well, let's just say a long time.

Yep, I do the obvious.  I pray.  I read about faith.  So many times, God chats with me through my study with a verse from the Bible that strikes a chord, or words of wisdom from a saint or contemporary writer.  I always feel blessed when God helps me in this way.  Sometimes, I grumble at God.  I know, not nice.  So, I will kick myself on the backside and get up to do some chores, thanking God that I can walk.  Doing chores also helps.  There is nothing like accomplishing a task when you feel terrible, both physically and mentally.  When I hadn’t found the right meds for the RA, I would be so joyful when I only made the bed during a bad day.

Many times, I listen to music to cheer me up.  Music can lift my spirits so quickly.  But that is out of the question at the moment.  For some reason, quilting isn’t helping.  I think I am rather burnt out from the last couple of years.  Gardening also does wonders for my mood.  Hum, the snow is kind of messing with this coping devise.  Ha, ha.  I am doing the next best thing.

Two of my neighbors have chickens.  I also have friends outside of the neighborhood who raise them for fresh eggs.  We have been playing around with the idea of adding that to our life.  Well, yesterday, I went out on my kindle and found a book about raising chickens.  As I pursued the selection, these books about homesteading kept popping up.  Hum, I will talk more about this topic later.  I have decided, after checking out chicken coops at our local farming store, that we are definitely getting baby chicks this spring.  I am so excited.  Definitely helping with my moodiness.  I wonder who the patron saint of chickens might be.  Probably Saint Francis of Assisi.

Have a blessed day.  And if you would like, I would take prays passed my way for my ears!!!

Trust in God

 “Nothing can happen to me that God doesn’t want.  And all that He wants, no matter how bad it may appear to us, is really for the best.”

-St. Thomas More

The days last week were filled with sorrow and prayer, interspersed with putty, spackling, and paint.  What a combination!  I sit here this morning pondering Thomas’ quote.  I think of his life, 2020, and last week.  Oh, how we need to trust in God!

Sir Thomas More was introduced to me in my twenties when I took British history in college.  He worked for Henry XIII as an adviser.  Thomas, a good Catholic, opposed the king’s desire for a divorce after the Pope said no.  Thomas also opposed the split from the Catholic Church.  King Henry ended up using Thomas as an example of why people shouldn’t oppose him.  Thomas was imprisoned and later his head was chopped off for his “treason,” speaking truth and not following the party line.  

Fifteen years or so later, I learned Sir Thomas More is also known as Saint Thomas More.  Because he died a Martyr for the faith, he is considered a saint in the Catholic Church.  When I went to Reconciliation with Father Stu (yes, the one from the movie), my penance was to learn about Thomas.  Years later, I visited where he is buried, very moving.  

I respect his courage of telling his king the truth with his life on the line.  Anytime in prison, he could have recanted, but he stood by his beliefs.  I can’t even ask a person to stop gossiping about my parish.  Hum, that sentence came out of nowhere.  I will have to ponder that for a later date.  So, did God want Thomas to lose his head?  Did Thomas want to lose his head?  No on both accounts.  Was it for the best that Thomas died prematurely?  Of course not.  God didn’t want Thomas to die.  But God rejoiced in Thomas remaining steadfast in his faith, in truth, and his father in heaven.

How do we apply this to our life?  My mom chose to end her life by starving.  My son chose to marry a broken woman that led to his being killed by her pistol.  God wants the best for me.  In my heart, I know this to be truth.  How can this be the best for me?  God didn’t take the food from my mom.  God didn’t pull the trigger.  People did that.  Broken people.  The reason it happened to me is because they chose their path.  I just happened to feel the aftershock.

So, how did I get the best in these bad situations?  I could write a book about all the best that happened.  In a simplified answer, the best was all the people who stood with me during the aftermath.  Family and friends helped my sister and I in every way imaginable with my mom’s death.  Mom’s house sold two days after going on the market, the biggest example of best.  What a huge gift!!!  The same happened with Michel’s death including a lawyer, detective, and mortician.  (Okay, that sounds like the start of a good joke.  Opps.)  I wanted justice, revenge.  God gave my heart what it truly needed.  Closure and distance from evil.  If that isn’t the best, I don’t know what is better.

Last week, our community was rocked by a death that should not have happened.  All my emotions from Michel bubbled up to the surface.  They’re still bubbling.  Will the sorrow ever end?  Why does God allow this to happen?  No, the sorrow won’t end.  God doesn’t allow bad things to happen.  He allows us to make our own decisions.  People make bad things happen.  So, I prayed.  While I filled holes, textured, and painted our messed-up wall, I prayed for Michel and another young man.  I prayed for the family and friends of both.  I prayed for a generation that is crying out for truth.  I prayed that God would give the best to the young man’s family as God did for us in our crisis.

In the end, I trust in God.  I pray.

Looking for My Match

 “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”

St. Catherine of Siena

I find this quote fitting for the beginning of a new year, especially this new year.  For the past couple of years, I have been wondering who I am.  For the last couple of weeks, I have been pondering my purpose in life.  The last couple of years have shaken my belief in the world, my world.  I have changed.  I want to change more.  Yet, I find I am still very much the person I was before life hit me upside the head to knock me on my backside.

Three years ago, I was a happy wife.  I was a mother of three living children though estranged from one of them.  I hoped for reconciliation.  I was a fantasy writer.  Though not perfect, life was good.  I had written about eight books at this point.  I was in the middle of number nine.  I was scheduled for surgery to replace my hip.  I could barely drive due to the pain.  My mom was doing terrible.  Mental illness had grabbed onto her and wasn’t letting go.  I worried, but God would get me through.

As 2020 progressed, Mom stopped eating and drinking.  My surgery went great, but I couldn’t get into physical therapy.  I finished books nine, ten, and eleven.  Yep, ten books published, and one was being edited.  I still couldn’t drive.  I was being pulled in Mom’s direction, but how do you help someone who doesn’t want help?  I was still raising an anxiety driven child.  My life was unraveling.

No one can help a person who doesn’t want help.  Mom died.  On her death certificate, they wrote suicide by starvation.  June and July were all about the funeral and settling the estate.  In July, I finally got into physical therapy.  August, I rested as we began to look towards my husband deploying to Cuba.  In September, my writing mentor turned against me because of a story I wrote.  He lambasted everything I turned in for the rest of the writing class.  With all the negativity and Jerry leaving, I just started quilting.  Jerry left.  I determined my mission was to get Madelle through her senior year, get through the deployment, and get through my mom’s huge stash of fabric.

My world exploded even more.

The baby with the biggest eyes who made me a mother was shot and killed at the end of November 2020.  My munch, my bear, my Michel left this earth.  The hope of reconciliation with him ended.  I couldn’t save him.  I lost him.  I had failed.  God let me down.  I blamed Jerry.  I blamed myself.  My world ended.  Jerry came home on emergency leave and left again.  We are military.  This is what we do.

I pulled on my combat boots to face 2021.  I wasn’t going to let this experience take me from the world permanently.  The stubbornness kept me going.  Madelle helped.  Clay moved home to help even more.  I bought kayaks.  Jerry made it back only to leave again for a second deployment due to a promotion we couldn’t turn down.  We are military.  Yep, it is what we do.  However, it took its toll.

At the beginning of 2022, I had no idea who God wanted me to be.  I thought He wanted me to be a writer, the mother of three living children, and a wife.  Instead, I faced the coming year not being able to write, the mother of one dead child and two living, and a husband on the other side of the world.  I sat at the sewing machine and lost myself in fabric.  I went through the motions of going to all the church functions.  I prayed.  I searched.  Summer came along and I ignored the kayaks.  I ignored most things besides quilting and church.  I occasionally went out into the garden.  I did what was necessary.  I was completely depressed.  I fought on.  I prayed more.

Jerry came home in November.  The depression lingered sporadically for the first couple of weeks.  He and I left for an adventure.  The depression melted away as the first flight took off leaving the Helena Valley behind us.  I was finally able to run away from my life, from the explosions, even if only for a couple of weeks.  We found ourselves on the vacation.  Yes, I am a wife again!!!  I am meant to be a wife.

Yet, I still am left with questions.  What is my purpose?  Who am I meant to be?  What is my dream?  I have never lived without a dream.  Due to many things, I don’t see myself going back to fantasy writing.  The dream died with everything that happened in 2020.  This year, I will explore nonfiction writing.  My words never have left.  They waited patiently because I just couldn’t face the words until Jerry returned.  He makes me stronger, and I have a feeling I will have to rely on his strength to get through the words that need written, if I find the courage.  I will journal and blog.  Maybe a different writing dream will take hold.  Maybe not.

I have explored and discerned other options of purpose for my life.  I have actually been dreaming some dreams from my childhood.  I have made lists and mission statements.  I know God means me to be his daughter.  I love my relationship with Him.  I am also meant to be a wife (my favorite purpose at the moment) and mom.  I am working out what that means for Michel.  I am learning to be a mom of grownups for Clay and Madelle.  I will continue to quilt and garden.  However, I just feel like God is calling me too more.  I feel there is a bigger purpose.  Maybe it is just a midlife crisis.  

All I know is I am willing to set the world on fire, I just need to find the match.