Category Archives: Day to Day

When I get very frustrated and can’t handle any more I need to withdraw to a solitary place – to some place where I can reorder my thoughts.  Sometimes this lets me rethink my reactions to situations and react more appropriately.  Being in a quiet place surrounded by nature lets me reconnect with God as well and usually these times are when I need his wisdom the most.  I guess you could say that I go to a place of prayer even though I may not speak to God – in words anyways.  Sometimes just sitting in his presence is enough to revive my worn out spirit. 

Today was one of those days.  I didn’t expect it to be.  It started out great – planning for a worship and prayer event and then spending some time with friends at the church ladies craft fair and bake sale.  I was even  getting my grocery shopping done.

Then I got the phone call.  Over reaction and anger, frustration and flying off the handle.  Not being able to see that her misjudging of time needed has led to upsetting several people and then not being able to graciously handle the situation – because she cannot see her own fault in the matter – cannot appologize. 

And then I get caught in the middle!  And I end up feeling like crap just because I happen to be the mother of the “child” who is no longer a child. I might as well have been in on the fight the way I end up feeling. 

So I escaped to the riverbank.  I won’t be able to do that much longer.  Things are becoming very grey and tonight they are wet and who knows – but I expect soon they will be very cold and snowy.

So today was one of those one step forward, two steps backwards kind of days.  Sunday tomorrow.  Maybe I’ll regain some footage.  I need to.

There are times when I question things that I believe.  The whole question of free will that I struggle with at this time – well I do not so much question that this is the way it is and has to be but that I have to deal with the results of my own free will and that of my children – and everyone else around me.  I am not patient with myself.  Sometimes I am not patient with my kids, fellow workers, etc.  I want them to see the light and change now! 

As Philip Yancey says in his book, “I want God to take a more active role in my personal history too.  I want quick and spectacular answers to my prayers, healing for my diseases, protection and safety for my loved ones.  I want a God without ambiguity, One to whom I can point for the sake of my doubting friends.”

Would the people of Jesus’ day have understood a God that acted to save them from the Romans?  I guess that is what the parable of Lazarus and the rich man is all about  We’ve been given enough to believe.  God isn’t going to push himself on us because he wants our love not our rote actions; not the movements of puppets. 

Just the same, there are times when I wish…  I am human and I want the easy way for me.

But God waits, patiently, for me to trust in his ways.  He doesn’t force me to give the “right” response.  Instead he accepts my feeble attempts to follow him, my inadequate worship, my childish displays of love for him. 

So I return to that place of utter awe at how he works.

She did it!  She evicted her roommates!  Mind you now she has to live with the consequences of that and look for a new roommate.  But they lied to her, basically stole her car for a day and have not paid their share of the expenses.  So tomorrow she has to give up her phone and the internet.  And she has some other utility bills that were not paid that she has to pick up all on her own. 

Not only did her living arrangements fall apart, but she got turned down for her student loan.  Because of her learning disability she was only allowed to carry a reduced course load and all the necessary documentation was sent.  Somehow the case for a reduced course load did not get communicated to the loans officer, so now there is a lot more waiting and explaining.  This in itself is hard for a person who has an attention defficit.  There is so much frustration that it just about destroys their ability to cope and she wants to give up and begins to lose hope of ever making it in life.

This is my daughter that knows how to reach bottom and then dig a bit deeper till she hits bedrock.  I sometimes wonder when she will reach that point.  She is trying so hard to make it but has so many obstacles to contend with – learning disabilities and her own difficult to live with self.  I wish she would learn how precious she is in my sight and more importantly in God’s sight and learn to like herslf as well.  She gets pretty down when her life starts to disintigrate in front of her eyes. 

I can’t “fix” it all.  Really all I can do is try and listen.  And not reinforce the feelings that she is “too dumb” to try to do what she is doing.  And not get angry and tell her that she is responsible for most of her own problems.  And try to be patient and then try again when I’m not.  And pray and pray and pray.  Then help her pick up the pieces and glue them back together with what little love I can muster at the time and hope that life doesn’t deal her another blow too soon.

I wish I could go back to when she was little and try and do this whole life experience over!

My weekends are usually an oasis in my week – I don’t have the same old routine and the responsibilities change.  I am beginning to think that my week of work is my oasis, not the weekend.

This weekend went from crisis to — I don’t know what.  Last night was good.  We had a good time sharing together at our study.  We were looking at the temptation of Jesus in the fourth chapter of Yancy’s book The Jesus I Never Knew.  I do not like “free will”.  However, that said, if I didn’t have free will, I guess I wouldn’t even be able to rebel against it.  Anyway, the reason I hate free will so much right now is that my kids and I get ourselves into all of our troubles because we are so self willed and I wish I had someone right now who would make me do things right – ’cause I don’t seem to do a good job on my own.  So even after sharing my difficulties as a parent with some other parents who also shared that they make just as many mistakes as I do, I came home and ended up being unnecessarily harsh on another one of my kids. 

And I am supposed to be the adult with self control!  I am going to have to do some appologizing today because I care about her even when it doesn’t look like it or sound like it.  And I want her to learn that becoming an adult(growing up) is not about being(or becoming) perfect but has more to do with asking forgiveness and trying again.  I don’t want her to see me as a hypocrite thinking that I am perfect when it is so obvious to her that I am not.  I don’t know how obvious it is to her that I know I am not perfect but I hope it is obvious to her, or becomes obvious, that I love her – even when I blow it as a parent and have to appologize to her.  

So, off I go to my work oasis where I won’t have to deal with my kids till … 

This afternoon all but one of my kids were at home.  Eric and Michelle came up to help celebrate their nieces 5th birthday.  Since it is Eric’s birthday on Monday, Dave and Annette and Kieran as well as Rachelle were here too and we ordered in some Chinese food to celebrate.

There are some birthdays that are significant in that they make you feel really a lot older.  No! I don’t mean the person having the birthday who should rightfully feel a bit older.  But having a child who is suddenly out of his twenties and into the 30’s.  Now I feel my joints starting to ache just thinking about that!  It really doesn’t seem like 30 years since we took that little guy home from St Pauls Hospital.  At least he is still not too old to give his mom a hug.

This afternoon I went and shared in the celebration of a 50th wedding anniversary.  The couple have been friends for a long time. Their daughter is a very good friend so it was a great way to spend part of the afternoon.

I also got to watch some volleyball.  There was a tournament on and my daughter was in it playing for St Mary’s grade 9 team.  I had never seen her play volleyball before – usually just soccer – so it was fun to see her in a different sport.  I like the way she serves.  She looks very smooth and powerful – spins the ball a few times and then wham!

I had a big procedure to do this morning.  It went well and I was done in time to sneak home for a short lunch break.  On the way, and it is just a few minutes to my office, ( I can walk it in 20 minutes ) I was surprised to see an eagle soaring above the river.  I don’t think we have them this close to town that often.  Huge black wings with white tail feathers – magnificant to see.  On my way back I am taking the camera but I don’t know if it will still be around.

The sun is just coming up reflecting gold on the leaves and grass.  The moment will be short lived. Just long enough for the sun to rise over the horizon and the low clouds.  It’s too bad that my kids and maybe kids everywhere aren’t up to see the beauty right now.  Do they notice it?  Or are they too busy with the stuff in their lives to take time to see the beauty God has created around them?

As I write the golden few moments of the sunrise have changed into the light of day – less golden but making everything more clear in general.  I think I like the moment of sunrise best, fleeting as it is.  We need the brighter light of day to get stuff done, but the really glorious moments of sunrise and sunset showcase the beauty of the earth and sky.

We have those moments in our lives that we showcase too – the births and the deaths.  Yet they are just that – moments.  We celebrate them with great joy or great sorrow.  Yet in between there is the long stretch of plainness that makes up most of our lives.  We need to learn to live through these dull periods of life searching out the beauty that is there – there but not highlighted.  We need to take the in between moments and create beauty out of them too.

Maybe learning to see the beauty in life is one of the gifts we need to learn to pass on to our children.  We pass on the cynicism and complaining easily enough.  We take great pains to pass on the need to make a living but we don’t teach how to take what they are given and make the living happen.  Because real living involves seeing our world and our lives as things which God has created for his glory.

Today was a quiet and sort of lazy day for me and I enjoyed every minute of it.  It is nice to have an extra day to the weekend.

This morning I started out with meeting with some friends to discuss the third chapter in Phillip Yancy’s book The Jesus I Never Knew  over breakfast.  It was good – both the breakfast and the time together. 

When I got back home it was almost noon and only Sara was home.  Her “boyfriend”  came over and they didn’t seem to need my company.  So I spent some time cleaning up some garden stuff and then decided to go out to the Little Red River Park for a hike through the woods.

The wind over the past week has pretty much stripped most of the leaves off the trees.  They were crunchy underfoot.  The colours are quickly changing from bright oranges and yellows to dull and dusty greys but the sky is clear and bright blue today and the temperatures are still warm.  Beautiful day to be out walking. 

I have posted some of my pictures of autumn under photos on my side bar.  Hope you enjoy them! 

Wrote this a few days ago.  I find writing, especially poetry, to be a stress reliever, maybe because I can hope for what I wish to be.  So I share with you my

Scribbled Words

Lord,

Like an open book

Read my heart.

Remove the stains

Of lies spilled,

Of self will smudged

On the clean pages

Once given.

Take

The broken sentences,

Make them flow.

Correct the misspelled

Words.  Erase

The question marks

Where none should be.

Remove redundancies in me.

Create

From scribbled words

A poem, a song.

Let my living

Become a volume,

Bound in your grace,

Embossed with your name

As author.

Last night Grace was injured in her soccer game.  Nothing serious – just pulled her Quads.  But that still makes for a sore leg.  She needs a few days to recuperate, but she is off to Calgary for a dance workshop which she has been anticipating for a long time. (and which we have already paid for!) She is very upset.  The trip is planned, she meets her cousin down in Moose Jaw for the ride to Calgary, and Leo has taken a half day off work to drive her down and then go visit his brother who lives down that way.

So she is going.  She has ice on her leg, lots of ice packs with her and a big tensor bandage, and a bottle of ibuprofen. 

Now she starts looking for her dance sneakers – no where to be found.  To me this is the most frustrating because it will bother me until they are found.  And we think she may have left them at dance on Wednesday.  They are not at our house whereever they are.  So I can see my day being a hectic search for the shoes in between my work seeing kids at the school dental program.

These are times when a mother needs extra patience and the wisdom of God to track down the missing shoes!

Update:  I arrived at the school and was informed that my morning would be shorter than anticipated – some special event going on.  So I had extra time to go over to the dance studio which does not open till 2 pm normally.  I had phoned and left a message earlier with no returned call.  However, I was hoping someone would be there.  I got there and a meeting was in progress and the dance instructor opened up the studio for me.  There were the shoes! 

Thank you God for small prayers answered.  Now for the bigger concerns… A good reminder that he is with me.  If he cares enough about the little stuff I can be sure he has the bigger stuff under his control.  This knowledge helps me get through the really tough days.