Category Archives: Uncategorized

Becoming a Big Girl

02 Tuesday Oct 2012

Posted by in Communities, Uncategorized

≈ 36 Comments

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She was telling grandma stories as we sat waiting together in front of the lodge, a place where stories seem to flow in rhythm with the river below it. And she loves being a grandma or Lala, as she calls herself, more than almost anything else.

Laity Lodge Above the Frio River

She told me of a time when her five year-old grandson was terribly upset, nearly inconsolable. He stood sobbing before her as she sat in her chair. Gathering him into her arms she held him close and said, “You’re such a big boy.”

Her grandson replied, “But I’m not a big boy.”

His words sounded almost like prayer to me, and I imagined myself standing frightened, weary, and weak before my Father. I want to tell him, “I’m not a big girl. The things you’ve given me, the road you’ve called me to walk—they’re too hard. I can’t handle them. I’m not a big girl, not like you seem to think I am.”

And I know his heart breaks with mine. He tells me—he promises me that all will be well. I know he is at work, setting things right. But I can’t yet see what he sees, the end from the beginning of the thing.

All I can do is allow him to gather me close and hold me there.

Joining Jen and the sisterhood:

Front Porch Sitting

25 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 33 Comments

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“We call it the Pine Ridge wave,” said my new neighbor. I had asked her about the others who lived on the street onto which my family had just moved. She said the families on the street used to be close, especially during the years when they all were raising young children. Since then, however, she said some had divorced or moved away; others had moved in.

People were friendly; my neighbor told me, but their friendliness seemed reduced to polite waves as they passed one another while driving up and down the street and going about their business.

In the neighborhood of my childhood, we used to do a lot of front porch sitting. Everything and nothing happened in that space out in the open air. Neighborhood kids gathered to figure out what to do next, one day on my porch and the following day on that of another.

Folks wandered across the street to admire each other’s flowering annual beds. Neighbors exchanged news, gossip and advice.  Each evening the elderly woman from the next block–the one who spoke with a thick accent and wore a kerchief on her head–passed by on her way to and from mass.

My dad used to escape to the front porch on hot summer nights, his radio tuned to listen to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Sometimes I sat there with him rocking back and forth on the porch swing; not saying much, just sitting until the mosquitoes chased us inside.

My tall, strong father broke down into heaving sobs on that porch one day when a neighbor stopped to ask about my mother who was in the hospital. That neighbor wrapped his arms around my dad, holding on to keep him from falling.

In the Old Testament, the prophet Zechariah wrote to God’s people to encourage them as they returned from exile and rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem. He assured them of God’s promise to come and dwell among them.

Shout and celebrate, Daughter of Zion! I’m on my way. I’m moving into your neighborhood! God’s decree. Zechariah 2:10, The Message

I’m wondering what it would look like if I lived as though God were really that near, dwelling with me in my neighborhood. I wonder if I would sit with him in the open air, talking about everything and nothing; being mindful of those who passed by, and resting in the confidence that he will catch me when I fall.

Or, as is so often my habit, I would simply offer him a polite wave while driving up and down the street and going about my business.

Linking with emily: (Click the button below to read posts from others in her beautiful imperfect prose community)

The Mountains Are Still Here

23 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by in Ann Voskamp, blogging, family, imaginary friends, memoir, soli deo gloria sisterhood, Uncategorized

≈ 55 Comments

Welcome!

Do you remember The Poseidon Adventure, that cheesy 70s movie about the cruise ship that gets flipped upside down? At one point, a character played by Shelly Winters has to hold her breath and swim through a flooded hallway passage in order to reach safety. A large woman, she’s not sure she will fit through the passageway and she is terrified of being under water for any length of time. After clearing the tunnel she surfaces, gasping for air.

I sort of know how she must have felt.

But thanks to the patience and technical expertise of Peter Pollock of New Blog Hosting, here I am on the other side.

One of the first decisions I had to make about moving my site was what I wanted it to look like. I thought about things like message and brand, and whether or not to keep the mountains in my header.

Yet what I know about things like design and branding would not fill a thimble. (Do people even still know what a thimble is?)

I’m not sure these mountains communicate anything at all connected with whatever it is I’m trying to do here, but I’m kind of attached to them. When my children were young, our family enjoyed many trips together out west. This picture of the Tetons was taken during our last trip together as a family before my daughter graduated from high school and moved on to college. The Tetons bookend, for me, a very happy chapter in my life’s story.

I went through a couple of sad years as my kids started leaving home, and writing was one of the ways God met me in my sadness. He began to reveal himself to me in deeper ways, especially as, through my blog, I joined Ann Voskamp and others in the practice of gratitude.

Scripture is rich with mountain imagery, inviting the reader to consider ideas like permanence, grandeur, beauty, and refuge. I return often, especially during times of sadness or uncertainty, to passages like this:

Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. Psalm 90:1, ESV

Mountains remind me of the certainty of God’s love which surrounds me, love which is for me and which will never end, because it never began. God’s love for me began in eternity, before I was born and before anything else came to be. From everlasting to everlasting, He is God.

So the mountains remain. They are my virtual Ebenezer, reminding me that this far God has been faithful.

And, when I left a note at my old place saying my site was under construction, Jody Collins, who blogs at Three Way Light, said, “I DO hope you’ll keep the lovely picture of those mountains somewhere. It says, “Nancy’s place” to me every time I see it.”

So maybe I know a little more about branding than I think I do. In any case, thank you Jody, and thank you those who have followed me here and continue to read my ramblings. You are a gift to me.

Welcome to the other side, she says, gasping for air.

(I’ve got a lot to learn yet about Word Press, including how to insert a blog button into a Word Press post. Guess it’s time to invest in Word Press for Dummies. In the meantime, I’m linking with Jen and the sisterhood @ Finding Heaven)

Sunday

10 Saturday Dec 2011

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Photo credit: Justin Wirtalla
I will sing for joy in God,
   explode in praise from deep in my soul!
He dressed me up in a suit of salvation,
   he outfitted me in a robe of righteousness,
As a bridegroom who puts on a tuxedo
   and a bride a jeweled tiara.
For as the earth bursts with spring wildflowers,
   and as a garden cascades with blossoms,
So the Master, God, brings righteousness into full bloom
   and puts praise on display before the nations.
Isaiah 61:10, 11; The Message

Quietly waiting in joy, this third Sunday in Advent, and linking for the first time with Deidra and her Sunday community at Jumping Tandem:

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