OVER & OVER... AGAIN & AGAIN

It has been quite a while since I sat at the computer to share my thoughts... seems times get busy, attentions are drawn elsewhere, and life happens and moves on.

I've been doing some "clutter clean-out"!  Going through closets, drawers, and most difficult of all... boxes full of memories, you know... those filled with old letters, trinkets, cards, pictures, wedding and graduation announcements, mine & Steve's childhood memory items, our kids childhood memory items, and obituaries of friends and loved ones, etc.  Things that one moment can bring a smile of remembrance and then the next bring sobs of loss.  

One of my favorite quotes is from T. S. Elliot:  "We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."  

 It seems as if life keeps bringing me back to things that I thought I had dealt with in the past and yet there they are one more time, over & over, again & again.  I "put off" doing these kind of "clean-outs" because of the emotion that often accompanies the chore.  I have turned the art of "procrastination" into a "spiritual gift"!  However, I am still surprised when these feelings rear up like the Loch-ness monster from the depths of a lake and stare me in the face.  

Each time I am confronted with these ghosts of the past, I see that even though I am staring at the same monster, my response is different now than it was a year or years ago.  Tucked into my pocket is the gift of understanding and a continual process of "letting go".  Understanding that when things happen in life that wound me to the core, learning to trust God, letting go, and giving them over to Him, they don't wield the power they once had.  

So in all of my exploring over the last couple of weeks, and arriving back in my memory to places I have been, it has been as if it were a first visit.  Because of God's continued healing and strength the wounds no longer hold the magnitude of pain they once possessed. 

SHE CALLS ME "HER ANGEL"

Almost every Monday and Friday Morning for the past 7 1/2 months... I have gone to an extended living facility to care for a precious lady that we all know as "Sister".  On November 16th she will turn 90 years young.  I had gone to church with her for almost 19 years and admired her "prayer warrior spirit" just as many years.  She sat in the same pew (unless a visitor had beat her to it), was always dressed so neatly, many of her outfits bought by a younger sister, her weekly styled soft white hair, and jewelry that matched almost every outfit.  

I started going to lift her spirits and to pamper this dear friend.  Fragrant soaps, sweet smelling lotions, body sprays, perfume, make-up, hairspray, and all the necessities, along with necklace, earrings, and bracelet to match her outfit... are all a part of our routine.  But the most special part of this bi-weekly event, is that of "washing her feet".  I know a lot of churches do this as a form of worship - but all of the Baptist Churches that I've ever attended, do not practice this example set forth by our Lord.  Fresh hot water is always gotten and I proceed to my floor position in front of her seat.  First, the soaking (and usually lots of laughter), then the washing, followed by towel drying and lotion before shimmying on her skid proof socks.  I can't tell you what an HONOR this ritual is for me!

It doesn't matter who walks into the room, or who calls on the phone - she always refers to me as "her Angel" (and I can't help but smile every time I hear it)!  All of us are made with a desire deep within to be needed, and since my children are grown and have homes of their own... that feeling has to come from somewhere else.  For me it comes from a room, on a back hall, with a pink and green fluffy wreath on the door, at a place called Smithfield Manor.  

I go to encourage "Sister"... yet I leave more encouraged than you can imagine.  As I'm walking out the door - she never fails to tell me she loves me and to "keep looking up"!  The other day she was not feeling well and I bathed her in the bed... when I readied to leave - I kissed her on the cheek, told her I loved her, and she touched my hand, squeezed it and said... "You're my best friend."  I joked with her on my way out of the room, told her I'd see her at our next appointed time, and closed the door on what I call her... 
"MY BLESSING!"   

The Window through which I Look

A young couple moved into a new neighborhood. The next morning while they were eating breakfast, the young woman watched her neighbor hanging wash outside.

“That laundry is not very clean,” she said. ”She doesn’t know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap.”

Her husband looked on, but remained silent.

Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, the young woman would make the same comments.

About one month later, the woman was surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband,

“Look, she has learned how to wash correctly.I wonder who taught her this.”

The husband said, “I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows.”

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And so it is with life. What we see when watching others may depend on the purity of the window through which we look. 

Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: (Psalm 139:23)