LineaLanoie's Weblog

If you live in western Canada you have probably seen the “priceless” commercials for Mastercard.  Well, some things are just that – simply too priceless by any means of evaluation. 

Getting the news of Toni and Chris’s loss this morning on my way to church was so shocking.  Seemed sort of surreal.  And that is partly the distance and the inability to be there with them.  It takes longer for reality to hit at this distance.  There are times when the physical separation from people I talk to on the internet is too great.  A lot of those sorts of interactions die out over time because there is little to really sustain them.  But with Toni – well the contact held up; his kids near to mine in age, e-mails passed back and forth over difficult issues, prayers promised for each others concerns and this little glimpse into each other’s lives that is blogging.

So this afternoon, I spent some time alone in the prayer room, just bringing my friends to God’s attention. 

I took time to ponder the blessings of the people in my life as well, especially my own children. 

My daughter, Grace, heading out on the road to the lake got an extra hug.  I waited anxiously for Sara’s return since she too was on the road.  One son traveling to Calgary too.  Kids are exasperating about 80% of the time but fill my life with such richness and love.

On the other end of the age spectrum is my dad.  Although he can’t carry out the mental tasks he used to, he still remains my dad.  And his life is still a blessing from God that I can share.  So I visited him. The conversation gets a bit strange but love is exchanged and it is still good. 

And so many friends.  I don’t know what I would do without them.

is finally as old as I am.  I think the statements about being married to “a much older woman” have diminished in frequency a bit over the last few years.  Maybe he has realized that time simply marches on and in a short two months he also inevitably has to enter a bigger number too in the “age” box of forms. 

Happy Birthday to the guy I honestly have been in love with for the past 35 odd years.

I love you, Leo; you crazy old French Canadian would be golfer.

We are really so young in the big scheme of things.  Still, in terms of political organization and man made geographical boundaries, 100 years as a province is an accomplishment many places in turmoil likely envy us for.

The province I live in is a beautiful place.  I was reminded of this as I (up way too early) watched the sky turn various shades of pink as the sun rose over the river. 

I guess I come by my love of nature and photography through some genetic leanings.  My brother, in celebration of our province’s birthday has produced a video – Saskatchewan: The Four Seasons.  He combines his photographic and production skills along with his son’s musical ability (original soundtrack) in this video.  Check it out here. 

I knew there was a reason I didn’t turn on the sprinklers last night.  This morning I awoke to the sound of rain and to the freshness of the smell of rain on the earth.  It is such a clean smell.

This morning was spent working on sedated children – the few that came.  And they were pretty good for the most part.  Only one screamer and even he was not bad and did not lie on the floor of the waiting room crying afterwards.

With the rain falling and me with a cold coming on, this is just the kind of day I would like to stay at home for the afternoon curled up under a blanket with a good book.  It is the kind of day I enjoy if it happens during my vacation when I can indulge myself and feel no urgent deadlines tugging at my attention. 

But, even if I wish, I have to go back to work.  Sometimes a career is a veritable slave driver!  But come to think of it – a mother’s job is never done and that is what I would default to.  I guess work and obligations will always be a part of life. Just to keep the right balance!

This whole weekend has been rather busy.  Yesterday getting the prayer room ready took longer than I thought.  But it is the kind of doing that I find enjoyable.  And now the room is ready and will be a blessing to all of us.  I spent some time there this afternoon.  There are two windows with no window coverings.  Maybe we should fix some kind of Roman blinds if people wish to dim the room in the middle of the day.  Today, I was glad of the sunshine coming in and as I looked out over this part of the city, I watched the birds fly up to the ledge of the roof.  They may be building nests there somewhere – I don’t suppose the folks that look after the building would appreciate that – but I enjoyed watching them.

I like having that space set apart for prayer.  A few years ago, there is no way that I would have gotten excited about spending substantial periods of time talking to God.  The thought of round the clock vigils were, I thought, a wonderful idea for the otherworldly saints who didn’t have real jobs that gave them enough to do.  Now the time I spend in prayer goes too fast.  The hour in the morning is gone and work starts too soon.  I don’t know but it might have been the fact I met God when I was really desperate for his help and found him to be approachable and the most caring friend to talk to.  And a bonus – he could change things over which I had no control.  And he could change me and wanted to.

Tonight I got together with my friends again.  We are still working through Manning’s Ragamuffin Gospel .  And we will finish it someday, even if it is hard to get together over the summer.  We talked about fear tonight.  Perfect love drives fear away.  We shared some of the things which still make us afraid.  For myself, I am slowly learning to trust God with things.  Sometimes we learn best by being taken to the limits of our competence so that we are forced to trust.  And as we learn to trust we learn to relax a bit because we find out that our Father is real; he does love us and will not let us go through the hard stuff alone.  I guess if we had no struggles we would not be challenged to let our trust grow.

All of us women have children that we love and are concerned about.  So we care for each other and encourage one another to learn this hard stuff about trusting God.  These women have been a gift of God to me.  They have been my images of Jesus, have given human skin to his arms holding me, have walked and talked to me bringing his words of encouragement over the past few months.

Our group has fluctuated in size and tonight was enlarged by one.  That is also a very good thing – to welcome another to the party.

I am home for the weekend with few other demands on my time than:
– grocery shopping.  Have’t done a real shopping trip in too long.  I end up hurriedly shopping for milk and bread and stuff too many evenings if I don’t do a major shop once a week.
– finish setting up the prayer room.  This is fun but I have quite a few things left to do.  And it is spring clean up day at the church too.
– spend a bit of time working in my back yard.  It is still too cold at night to plant anything but I would like to be ready to plant when the weather gets warm.  Summer comes so quickly here that if the weather is rainy on the weekend when I am able to work in the yard I can miss planting season altogether.  This summer I want to get the yard looking sort of good.

That is probably enough for the day.  If I have extra time there is always laundry and housework.  Yuck!!

Getting up early lets me have some quiet time and gets my day off to a good start.  And getting up early lets me see some interesting things early in the morning – deer running by, flocks of geese lifting off the river.  The day can start out with a beautiful sunrise and an hour later, when everyone else is getting up, be clouded over and gloomy. 

But today?  If I had slept in for half an hour longer, I would have missed the sight of snow on the roof.

I know it is Saskatchewan and it can snow anytime.  Just the same it was 21 C yesterday.