You Can't Go Home Again

Here are the Top 5 Reasons You Really Can't Go Home Again:



1) When you get there the fridge will be full of nothing (diet soda and expired cottage cheese Don't count)

2) Your 3 year-old, in the supposedly capable care of her grandparents and great-grandmother, has been fed a diet of pancakes 3 x a day for 4 days (no she does not get constipated at home ma!)

3) The same 3 year old who just started sleeping back in her room -- after residing in the hall for over a month -- has been allowed to sleep with great-grandma for 4 days (how loud will the screaming be when i get you home and park you back in your OWN ROOM?)

4) You're the one crying about sleeping in your own bed -- in your own house (nostalgia my foot...there's nothing nostalgic about sleeping in a childhood room with a toddler coughing in your face all night long)

5) Forty-something just doesn't feel like four (gosh darn it!)

life as a garden

My mother is visiting.
This morning she noticed my neighbor watering the potted flowers on her deck.
"You see how much water she is putting on them, that's what you have to do".

"You all don't put enough water".

I know this...half the time we (read that I) don't remember to water the flowers at all.
Hubby dear hasn't thought twice about them since he picked them out at the nursery...guess he figured that was the end of his husbandly horticultural duties.
Anyway, this reminder (guilt trip) motivated me to get up, go out, pick up the hose and stand there for as long as I could take it.
While I was giving our few flowers (including the living, the dead, and the nearly dead) their necessary liquid nourishment, I had a revelation.
It went something like this: hey, life, hope, and faith are a lot like gardening.
You plant a seed, a flower (a hope, a dream, a prayer) and then you wait for it to grow.
But, waiting doesn't mean just standing there until something happens.
What you plant in your heart -- in your life --- needs time, attention, nourishment...just like what you put in the ground.
Hopes and dreams have to be tended to... to be weeded, cut back, pruned...watered with prayer and patience and essential action.
What we give our attention to grows.
And just like my half-dead garden...what we don't attend to can wither and die.
Sometimes it seems our dreams(relationships, hopes, jobs, etc) are already dead, buried and back to dust, but maybe they just need to be dead-headed.
Lop off the buds that are lifeless (the negative and useless mindsets, habits, people) while reserving the roots in which life remains.
It is the root buried deep and unseen(like the Word buried deep in our hearts) that sustains what is visible above ground.
So get up, get out and get to watering.

Just Asking

This is a short one.
Namely, because I have no answers (and don't pretend to have any today).
Ok, here's the question: Do dreams die?
Do they ?
Do they drift away or transform into something new...
Does it depend on what you do with them...or don't
No, this isn't the part where I ask if they "'dry up like a raisin in the sun" (no disrespect to Lorraine Hansberry)
i'm just curious ...is there like a dream junk yard...where discarded or destroyed dreams go to languish just out of your reach...
and when (if) you get up after being knocked down (again)
can you go to the junkyard and reclaim your s***?
Just asking...

WAKE UP CALL

Why 3 am is a good time to write:

1. My frequency is clearer and stronger (tho a tad bit sleepier)

2. No child to entertain/monitor/feed/bathe/cuddle/listen to

3. No husband to entertain/monitor/feed/bathe/cuddle/listen to

4. No desire to eat anything other than potato chips and/or organic animal crackers

(neither will create enough noise to awaken aforementioned family members)

5. No desire to watch TV (I'm totally over my Magic Bullet jones)

(once again -- we don't want to awaken aforementioned needy people sleeping upstairs)

6. Last, but not least: Well, Heck! I'm up!

Opps into Aha!

It's amazing how -- if we allow it -- God can take our mistakes and turn them ino miracles -- even mini ones.
Perhaps you've taken a wrong turn and discovered your new favorite bakery or a shortcut you didn't know existed -- maybe that's how you found the neighborhood in which you now reside.
That's what I call turning an oops into an aha.
It's that moment when turning that unexpected corner that you realize that life just may have in store more than you expected.
How exciting is that?!
Sure it's great to make plans, to keep our various houses (financial, spiritual, relational,etc.) in order.
We are, after all, called to be good stewards over all that we have.
But sometimes life throws us a curveball, slips us a mickey -- sometimes we just mess up.
Whether our mistakes are born of inattention, ineptitude, or plain ol' miscalculation -- it can be an opportunity to see beyond what we thought was possible or planned for.
It is a time when God definitively demonstrates: "Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us."
How powerful is that -- to have something show up in our lives that we didn't expect and couldn't begin to imagine?
Some of my favorite and most inspirational blogs I've wondered onto 'by accident'.
I'm writing this post at 4:00 am -- awakened more by my bladder than inspiration.
Still, there are times when these moments are not so 'easy'.
When my 3 year old was only 4 months old we found out that I was pregnant -- oops.
Though we planned on having more children I was still lost in the initial postpartum haze and was quite unprepared to do it all again -- so soon.
For a good week I walked around with my bottom jaw dragging the ground.
But, once I came to my senses, so to speak, I realized what an unexpected blessing this was.
Wow -- our daughter would have a sibling quite close in age, her older sister, my stepdaughter, was 18 and away at college.
We would have the other child we wanted -- who was this person God was sending -- what a surprise!
Unfortunately, that pregnancy was not sustainable and was over early on.
As heartbreaking as that was -- I still regard those weeks between conception and loss as a brief shining moment when I was able to glimpse what could be beyond what I could see.
Don't get me wrong that loss stays with me -- but it has not dulled my vision.
For even in loss He can give you strength and vision that you didn't know you had or would even need.
It can simply be a bridge to the next place -- the higher place.
So keep making plans and putting things in order -- that is what you are supposed to do.
But, The next time you get tripped up, try to keep not just an open mind, but an open spirit.
Remember, your plans are good, but His are perfect.
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Do you have any oops turned to aha moments?
I welcome your stories/comments!