“It won’t always be this way” This is a phrase that has held me up during a difficult season, and it is true. Now I’m at a life change that I didn’t expect, and I’m reminded once again, no matter the season, it won’t always be this way. The river of life keeps rolling and the scenery changes are continual. Maybe you’ve never heard this phrase, but I imagine that you know the truth of it as well.
A month ago I went back to work, outside the home. It is good and fine, but boy howdy, it’s taking me a minute to find a routine and get things done! That said, I am finding pockets of time to get CBQ orders out quickly and hopefully will get back to longarm work this week. I’ve missed that work for sure.
During all this CBQ’s biggest vendor event happened November 8th in Castle Rock. It was fantastic! My friend Susan has been encouraging me for a few years to get a booth at the event, and last year I did. But Colorado Front Range got a lovely deep snow and the Castle Rock Senior Center Craft Fair was cancelled. Along with nearly everything else that weekend. So we had fine weather this year and the event was on. It was fabulous and I plan to participate in years to come.
So this is a behind the scenes of life and also Colorado Beauty Quilts. Here’s to it won’t always be this way, and life can be beautifully different!
There is something I’d like to share with you today. You may know me as a quilter, or a writer, or not really know who I am anyway. But this story begins with quilting, and then continues on in hope.
Quilting is my job, my hobby and it has been the “place” I go to cope, to hide, to SURVIVE. And that is what one of my daughters said to me in this past year. The process of taking a collection of fabric and cutting it into pieces, then moving the pieces around and sewing them back together is methodical and creative. It is a process I can pour my focus into, and other things grow dim for a little while. I didn’t even realize how in this thing I love to do, I was hiding, numbing the pain.
BUT a change has been happening, healing is happening. And recently I was able to see it. A few weeks ago, as I was preparing to go on my first solo trip in over 2 years, my husband asked me a question. It’s a question that he has asked me many times, and sometimes I’ve been a little annoyed by it. The answer has always been “no.”
Builder asked me if I was excited about my upcoming trip and I realized in that moment, that YES! I was excited! I was feeling an emotion that was not numb, or fear or anxiety. I was excited. I WAS EXCITED!
For the past 18 months I’ve been in therapy. And for about 8 months I’ve been receiving EMDR treatment for chronic PTSD. I am beginning to understand myself so much better than ever before. It appears that I have lived in flight/fight/freeze or survival mode for most of my life. I now recognize how much of my life has been lived in that way. How much of my life has been lost to hiding, withdrawing, disassociating.
I’m learning though, while it is okay to allow myself to experience some grief over these things, I can now look forward. All the thoughts that come to my mind like “it’s too late”, “you are too old”; I can tell those NATs (negative automatic thoughts) to shut up, and be thankful for right now. All those things lie behind, and I have today to continue to learn how to heal, to walk in wholeness, and to encourage someone else to begin. I cannot really express how good it is to be in this place. I am so very thankful.
Life can be brutal. People can be brutal. AND healing and goodness can be experienced.
I share this today for you. The one who may feel like it’s too late. You may feel like it doesn’t matter.
You might be dealing with shame, thinking you should be over “that” by now.
If you have breath, it’s not too late. It’s right on time.
Some things, we need help to get over. It really is acceptable to need a little help.
It’s doesn’t have to be this way. It doesn’t have to stay this way.
Life can be wonderfully different.
SO
Make an appointment. Ask for help.
Gather all your courage and go to the appointment.
It will take time, but it will not take forever.
Healing can come, and life can be wonderfully different.
This is my hope for you, may the day be not far off, that you will experience the moment where you realize that you are living beyond the pain, and find hope, goodness and joy.
Below you will find the 3rd and final letter, Made in the Image of God, in my Perfectly Unique letter series. I hope these letters have been an inspiration to you as you seek to encourage and inspire the young people you correspond with, and even with young people in your own community. The first two letters can be found here and here.Continue reading →
September 12-17, 2015 my daughter, Janet, and I had the exciting opportunity to travel to El Salvador with 28 other women through Compassion International. We went to celebrate with a new child development center, visit other more established centers and, meet our OWN sponsored children.
Our first home visit was an easy country walk from the church in rural northern El Salvador. We crossed the highway onto a grassy lane and walked the distance of about two city blocks. To our right there were crop fields, and low mountains. To our left were just a few houses, some with a type of brick walls and corrugated metal roofs. Other homes were more rustic, constructed entirely of corrugated metal pieced together, held together with wire and tree branches. There were no water nor sanitation services in this community. Malnutrition, intestinal parasites, dengue fever and typhoid fevers are a risk for the people of this community.
September 12-17, 2015 my daughter, Janet, and I had the exciting opportunity to travel to El Salvador with 28 other women through Compassion International. We went to celebrate with a new child development center, visit other more established centers and, meet our OWN sponsored children.
Sunday, September 13 was our first full day in El Salvador. We were all up early, ready and quite excited about our first Child Development Center visit, to ES-952 Casa de Pan (House of Bread). Personally, while I was excited about seeing the children and meeting families, I was probably more excited that since it was Sunday, we would be worshiping together with the church, the children and their families. This type of fellowship inspires me deeply. To be gathered with believers of another culture, to hear the Scriptures read in their language, to enter into joyful worship as they sing their songs gives a peek into heavenly worship, when people from all tongue and nations will gather together. As we headed out I was full of anticipation!
As summer is winding down and the fullness of days that “back to school” will bring is on my mind. This weekend I can be found plotting out preparations for meal planning, house cleaning, fringe hours and exercise. In the last few weeks another concern has floated into my thoughts. I have began thinking about not forgetting to write to our sponsored children thanks to another blogger, Desert Violet, who recently wrote about pre writing letters.
Several letter writing ideas swirl in my mind often, but getting them down on paper isn’t always done before I forget the great ideas I have. Understanding that about myself, I began to be intentional about looking for an idea for a series of letters to pre-write.
Letter Writing Inspiration
Early in the summer I had made a commitment to myself to finish some of the books I started reading, but for one reason or another, haven’t finished. Perfectly Unique by Annie Downs is one of those books. As I read the book, I was looking for quotes and ideas to infuse into my conversations with my daughters. And I was also inspired to write a series of three letters to our sponsored children. This fall I will share them with you, here on By Quiet Waters. These letters are quite simple, but I hope the message is clear. Every child is planned for, loved, and has purpose. That is what I want each of my own children to know and believe, and each of our sponsored children well.Continue reading →
As the days continue darken in this country, of the free and brave, hold fast dear ones, to your confidence and hope in Christ. Let’s not fuss nor pick at one another, but instead encourage and strengthen one another. That is what protects from unbelief and the trickery of sin.
That is what will let the light shine in the darkest of days.
What could a day with my Heavenly Father look like? Of course, as I try to write this post, the song “I Can Only Imagine” has started running through my mind. But I am going to try and meld together the two different streams of thought that this blogging assignment has stimulated in my mind.
It is said that most people relate to God the Father as a reflection of their relationship with their earthly father. That is certainly true for me. It is only in recent years that I’ve been able to even think about Jehovah God as a kind, gentle and loving Father. And now, I even wake each morning with “good morning Father” on my mind! A habit of saying it out loud was intentionally cultivated and I’ve discovered great joy in starting the day like that! Such a gift.
The other stream of thought that started rolling around in my mind with this assignment was what I think a day with the Heavenly Father looks like. Goodness, I’m not sure what this says about me, but when I imagine Heaven and those first moments with God the Father… I hope to crawl up on His lap like a little child and just hear what He has to say in those first moments. I know that my kids have great memories of that kind of thing and so much more. They each have wonderful times of bike riding, hiking, reading, and gardening, cooking and laughing with my husband, their daddy. So I do believe that as I continue thinking about this, more ideas will come to mind.
If you are interested in speaking life and love into a child who may be growing up with out the love and nurture of a father, whether because of the absence or neglect, due to the realities of extreme poverty please consider sponsoring a child through Compassion International.
Now I leave you with the music of MercyMe.
I Can Only Imagine
by MercyMe
What it will be like
When I walk
By your side
I can only imagine
What my eyes will see
When your face
Is before me
I can only imagine
Chorus:
Surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart feel
Will I dance for you Jesus or in awe of you be still
Will I stand in your presence or to my knees will I fall
Will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all
I can only imagine
Sometime back this audio was shared with me, by some dear friends. I’ve been re-listening from time to time, as there are layers of applications in my life to consider.
Whether you are red, yellow, black, normal or blue, you struggle with some part of your identity. Right now I am in the throws of raising and walking along teen age daughters and all the questions that go with growing up from girl to woman.
There are racial tensions erupting all over our country. Suicides and murders. Exploitation of girls and of boys.
Because we fail to see the value of each and every human life.
I hope the following encourages you today, to remember where your identity, where each person’s identity, comes from.
“But this is not just a normal problem, many people, normal and abnormal alike fail to see the beauty in their own identities.
I’m happy how I am, not full of pride, but proud to know I’m made in the image of God, and God is far from normal.
So if every person is crafted after Him, there is no typical human, no normal ethnic group, no matter who you are, red, yellow, black, normal or blue, there’s something Divine about you.
But
I guess you can’t know this if you don’t know the God you reflect. You’ll go your whole life thinking you’re normal or worthless, never seeing which of God’s many attributes are present in you.”
Having been prompted to take inventory of my spiritual health recently, I have realized that an important item has slid off my mornings. Scripture memory work has disappeared from my morning quiet time and it’s absence has had ripple effects! For many years I have memorized Scripture with my children, but this school year changed our mornings drastically and we have not had any consistent devotions & Scripture study together.
What I realized during this time of spiritual inventory (which was prompted by noticing my prayer life is weakening) is that I am now “going it alone” when it comes to Scripture memory. When we were a homeschooling family our mornings were started everyday with time in the Word and Scripture memory work. Now the kids are busier in their youth group and AWANA programs each working on individual memorization work.
The most notable thing I am missing from Scripture memory work is a word bank for nightly blessings. Some years ago I began choosing specific passages, memorizing them and then prayerfully blessing each of my children at bedtime. After a period of time with one passage, I would work to memorize another, and so on. These nightly blessings have become somewhat rote and lacking variety and specifics for the application to the ins and out of daily life.
There are several places where I heard about Scriptural blessings, but one in particular stands out to me. Some years ago, I watched a video of a chapel service (Compassion or Focus on the Family probably). Michael W Smith was speaking and towards the end of his time, the topic of spoken blessings was covered. I sought out his book, A Simple Blessing from our local library. Here is a related video, possibly the same one I originally watched, but I’m not sure. I do know the part about “the blessing” begins at about minute 26.
A Reason for Giving A Simple Blessing
These words are one very good reason for speaking Scriptural blessings over people: “If people would change what they are pursuing, they wouldn’t find themselves staring through the shattered window of broken dreams and torn relationships.”
If I speak audible blessings over my children, infusing words of encouragement, truth, value and understanding, seeds of purpose are sown in their minds and hearts. There is a shaping that can take place that will aid in the choices each daughter must make along life’s way. I know the curses that were spoken over me had a negative impact in my life’s choices for too long. I desire to give my children something infinitely better, in the immediate and in the future. Actually, I want to have a life giving impact on others as well, the other people in my life, our sponsored children. There is a whole big world in need of a simple blessing.
All this leads me back to knowing that it is a necessity for me to get back to Scripture memory and blessing writing, blessing giving. It would be a joy to have you join me in this discipline. If you are interested in joining me in Scripture memory and blessings, let me know in the comments. Here’s a blessing to start with:
May the God of hope fill you with joy and peace as you trust in Him. So that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit, and one day share it with a world so in need of hope. (from Romans 15:13)
By Quiet Waters 