Musings From the Past Week
Sometimes I think it is good to just write without thinking too much about how it is all going to fit together. This post is going to be like a collage of thoughts, some ideas connected and some not—a sort of ramble I suppose, but hopefully a meaningful one.
Upon returning home from our ski holiday, I was surprised so much had changed in a week. I can now wear my Birkenstocks that bring me great joy. I don’t have to layer up to take my hound for a run. The buttercups are out—that made me want to sing like Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music . I even saw a butterfly. The leaves are beginning to bud on the Saskatoon trees and I am anticipating the white, fragrant flowers that remind me so much of Zach. Tulips are up in my garden. All of these changes in only one week. So refreshing and life giving.
I watched a movie last night called The Guys with Sigourney Weaver. It’s a drama based on the aftermath of 911. It really affected me. A New York City journalist is asked to help one of the fire chiefs write the eulogies for the men who died in the World Trade Center. He is so grief-stricken that he cannot articulate his pain. With her help, he is able to put his unspoken pain into words. I realized more intensely than before the power of helping people share the deep wells of their of sadness and pain. At the moment the show was over, I looked at the clock and it said 9:11, which I found strange, but significant. I felt like God was saying, “Yes, it is important to put a human face on grief. People are grieving everywhere and it matters to me more than you could ever know. They need to know people care and they need to be able to share their hearts authentically. Be a voice to people who don’t know how to access their pain and heal from it.” This was a profound and poignant moment for me.
I pondered this week what it would be like to reverse my life and live it backwards. There have been so many rich moments in my life—old friends from high school, treasured memories that I’d love to live over again, conversations I wished would never end, moments being strung together like beads on a necklace that make up my life. I imagined being able to give birth to my boys again, hold them close, and feel their wrinkled, soft fingers wrapped around mine, nurse them, look into their innocent eyes and sing to them long into the night. How special it would be to pause on these treasured moments and live them again with new eyes. I imagined that instead of watching Zach’s tumour grow bigger and bigger, I’d be able to watch it shrink smaller and smaller until he was healthy and vibrant once again. I remembered watching the movie, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, marveling at the part when Edmond, Lucy and Eustace enter the Narnian world by stepping into the picture hanging on the wall. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to step into pictures and be able to relive moments at will?
Like I said, this post is a bit of a ramble—musings from a week of not writing. I like starting my morning with a lot of coffee and reading from a book called Streams in the Desert. Here is a little nugget from my quiet time:
"Brightly coloured sunsets and starry heavens, majestic mountains and shining seas, and fragrant fields and fresh-cut flowers are not even half as beautiful as a soul who is serving Jesus out of love, through the wear and tear of an ordinary, unpoetic life."
Frederick William Faber
"The most saintly souls are often those who have never distinguished themselves [with degrees] or allowed any major accomplishment of theirs to become the topic of the world’s conversations. No, they are usually those who have led a quiet inner life of holiness, having carried their sweet bouquets unseen, like a fresh lily in a secluded valley on the edge of a crystal stream."
Kenelm Digby
#spring #griefcounselling #cherishedmemoires #pastmemories #motherhood #friendships #Jesusslove
