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Gumbopolis
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Name: Ma'am
Gender: Female
Interests: Besides understanding the incomprehensible, I love reading, writing, poetry, and deep contemplation. I love sunshine, the ocean, farm country and sheep. I love horses, flowers, blue skies and long walks. I love hymns, tradition, spontaneity, and children's laughter.
Expertise: being obtuse, asking unanswerable questions, listening, compassion.apparently crying at the drop of a hat.
Message: message me
Member Since:
1/26/2005
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| In my tiny, finite mind I cannot see the Plan. But You are GOD, and You are GOOD, Your wisdom: beyond man. Where I see only obstacles, You see stepping stones. And You see life and hope and peace where I would see dried bones. I see only lonliness and heartbreak most distressing. But YOU, O Lord, must turn this vale into a vale of Blessing:
For You indeed are "Great I AM" and will do what You Would in keeping with Your mercies, for You're God, and You are Good. And so we look to You Dear God to do what needs be done: to turn to 'hearts of flesh' those hearts that now are 'hearts of stone.' O, Father to the Fatherless, receive us when we come with prayers and supplications bold: Please, bring Your child home! But as Your plan unfolds in time, help us concentrate on Your Goodness, God Most Good, and worship while we wait.
mdh 10/26/09
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| 3 years ago today, May 19th ... a blur, a surrealistic suspension of time, an unreal reality: "this wasn't supposed to happen!"
A Rush of Angel Wings, preparations being made with profound care and attention to intimate detail. A Banquet Table: laden with roast beef (rare), and prime rib (thick), and "half a ham hoagie with extra sweet onions on the side, the roll lightly toasted, please," an order of onion rings (to share), a chocolate milkshake, a Diet Coke (no ice), a bag of Hershey's dark chocolate "eggs" (to melt under your tongue while trying to hold conversations with those you love).
The Master of the House, in the presence of that last enemy death, pulled out a chair from That Table in the wee hours of the morn and invited my mother, "Come and dine, your table is ready." He seated that lady Himself.
While she is even now rejoicing, praising, worshiping and feasting with all those she loves (her mother, her father, her husband, her daughter, and others) I'm left on this side of the "glass darkly" knowing there is a greater joy to come but still experiencing the untellable loss of something so valuable, so precious. It feels unquestionably like someone not only sucked the air out of my lungs, but sucked out my lungs as well... In the Mother's Day card I gave her just 5 days before she died, I'd written, "You are my very heartbeat."
It was 3 years ago today,
but in some bizarre time-space-contiuum thing,
it feels like -- it smells like -- it sounds like
today.
I'll press my way through, a mix of gratitude and despair, a blend of joy and sorrow, a mess of hope and grief,
her parting words: "No regrets" and "Keep on laughing" a befitting benediction on it all. | | |
| When experiencing something bitter, remember, very few of a cake's ingredients are desirable to eat alone. Yet without the raw eggs, without the salt, without the lard, without the flour, without the baking soda, without the vanilla extract all added to the sugar we would have no cake with which to celebrate. Each of those ingredients is a vivid demonstration of "working all things together for good." The baking soda alone was never meant to be the feast, so when God hands you baking soda, wait, He will continue to hand you more and more ingredients until it is all thoroughly, fantastically redeemed. Remember this! Believe this! "Nothing else matters!"
Having a "lard moment?" Remember: The best is yet to come~
"But, first, remember, remember, remember the signs. Say them to yourself when you wake in the morning and when you lie down at night, and when you wake in the middle of the night. And whatever strange things may happen to you, let nothing turn your mind from following the signs. And secondly, I give you a warning. Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly: I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain, the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop down into Narnia, the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind. And the signs which you have learned here will not look at all as you expect them to look, when you meet them there. That is why it is so important to know them by heart and pay no attention to appearances. Remember the signs and believe the signs. Nothing else matters."
— C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia)
or another way to say it: "It will all be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end!"
REMEMBER! | | |
| Few of you know I grew up being called "Mat," or "Mart."
"Martha" was nowhere on the radar.
I can't even recall when I first started being called Martha... maybe in High School or College when teachers went by official names on the class registry. Eventually "Mart" or "Mat" seemed like names only familiar friends or family used. Family grew up and moved away, died. Friends grew up and moved away, died. With them went "Mat" and "Mart," and then "Martha" took over.
I've been bothered a long time that I no longer am known as Mat or Mart (except by my siblings), and have been trying to figure out exactly why that bothers me. I realized today that it's because I grew up as Mat or Mart, and with no longer being Mart or Mat it's as if I've lost my entire history, am missing the roots of my identity. My brother William was always Bill, and still is. Sandra was Sandy to her dying day. Barbara was and is Barb. Deborah, Deb or Debbie. But somehow, Mart/Mat became "Martha." It seems strange though to contemplate introducing myself as "Mat" or "Mart." When I was Mart that's who I was. I never said, "My name is Martha, but you can call me Mat." It's simply who I was. But I cringe everytime I introduce myself as Martha knowing that's not the whole truth of the matter... It's been several decades since I've been called Mart or Mat by anyone except immediate family, but how very uncomfortable I am and have always been being called "Martha." My family was in from out of town... I hit 51 today, and having spent 2 days with those who call me "Mart," I'm thinking of roots, and history, and identity, and belonging, and returning to all that's dear and familiar... And basking in just how nice it was, at least for 2 days, to be recognized. | | |
| aka, to borrow a phrase from my husband: "No good thing ever came from vegetables...."
Background: we have a free-standing pantry which is located directly beside our stackable washer and drier. The washer and drier heavily vibrate when doing their respective things. It's not uncommon for items to go flying off the top of the pantry, especially when the washer and drier are gyrating madly in synchronization (once I was captured under a stack of empty laundry baskets that fell from atop the drier, descending on me suddenly like the inverted basket in the game "Mouse Trap").
Wednesday evening, some time after a load of laundry was done running its course, I went to open the pantry closet. [Now, here's another bit of background: none of us wear shoes in the house.]. When I opened the pantry, from the height of about 5 feet or more immediately out tumbled, hurled, propelled, rocketed, projected (pick your verb or mix them all together) 1 28oz can of crushed tomatoes, followed by a 15oz can of soup...
When I contacted my family via txt message from the ER to say "I think it's broken," my daughter Rachel called for details. She tried to help me solve the puzzle applying a bit of algebraic calculation: "if a 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes leaves the top shelf of the pantry at a height of about 5 feet some inches at 5:35pm and a 15 oz can of soup -- stacked on top of the 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes leaves at approximately the same time arriving simultaneously on top of one's left foot, what was the speed of descent, and how many pounds of pressure landed on the delicate bones of that foot and surrounding toes?"
I imagine if I was Catholic I'd still be holed up in the Confessional uttering a rather lengthy confession for the verbiage that spewed spontaneously from my mouth in the heartbeats that followed the connection of steel on victimized appendage. Sailors would have been proud, mothers everywhere mortified. At least the girls were outside playing at the time so I didn't blister their innocent ears.
Xrays showed no broken bones, though it seems like every bone in the top of my foot and several toes have been decimated. "Contusion" is the official diagnosis, though in my estimation, the words "shattered, crushed, and mortally wounded" come to mind.
So, the ER doc ordered me an injection of Delauded for the pain (and Phenergan for the nausea that Deluaded commonly induces-- and later, at home, did in spades), and then they built a "boot" that looks like something MacGuyver and Florence Nightingale collaborated on to build (using a roll of thick cotton batting, 2 large Ace Bandages, metal prongs, and a roll of tape-- the only thing missing was "a Rubberband and a Goldfish"). They brought me a set of crutches with the instructions to "stay off your foot, ice it 30 minutes 3 times a day, and see your family doctor in 2 - 3 days" then sent me out the door with a prescription for Percocet for the pain.
Today I'm "whacked" from the Delauded (or maybe it's the side-effects of having to pay the ER $100). Sadly the pain is still there: the ER dr said it may take 3 weeks to feel better. I asked him "If nothing is broken, what hurts so much!?" He said, "a 28 oz can of tomatoes fell on your foot from a great height. You are made of flesh and blood. You crushed nerves and muscle, and bruised bone. That hurts!" Well, that makes it sound like such a simple equation. Unfortunately knowing the answers doesn't take the pain away...
I suppose it was like that for Christ... His knowing the reason behind the pain He endured didn't make the pain any less, any more bearable, any more tolerable, any more pleasant, any more endurable, any more acceptable. Pain hurts those "made of flesh and blood." And Christ knew ahead of time what was coming! If I had known what was behind that pantry door, had I only heard the theme music from JAWS crescendoing as I approached the pantry, (even knowing my family was hungry and needed what was in there for sustenance) still, knowing I am made of flesh and blood, I can't imagine that I ever would have opened it... unless I knew that one of my children would be the recipients of this pain unless I took it for them. But, I likely would not open that pantry door for one of my enemies (say the guy that's going 30 in a 45mph speed zone, or the lady in front of me with 32 items in the "20 items or less" checkout line).
Christ knew exactly what was behind the Door, and yet He opened it to make a way for us -- while we were still His enemies -- to be saved from the wrath to come, and to be Eternally sustained. He opened the Door, for us. Unfathomable... | | |
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