Category Archives: Gratefulness journal

Happy Family Day!

28 Thursday Nov 2019

Posted by in Grandfostering, Grandparenting, Gratefulness journal

≈ Leave a comment

Two days ago marked the first anniversary of my granddaughter officially joining our family.

Of course, my oldest daughter had been caring for her since she was a newborn, but the wheels move the way they move and she was 20 months old when she became a member of the Haas clan in the last way necessary.

In the legal record.

So in celebration I don’t want to write a whole lot, I just want to let you in on the life of my granddaughter, from the beginning to the present.

Enjoy!

p.s. I am frustrated with never remembering how to find and move around pictures! So after 3 hours trying to get them in order, and not being able to find more early pics, I’ve decided to leave them random.

4 days old
With only a couple hours notice, Lexi took in Baby B as a foster.
22 months old with Aunt Martha
Brooklyn enjoys her sleepover with Martha almost every week.
Bee is about 4 months with Giggy (me)
Still one of her favorite things is to climb on my lap and cuddle.
Me with both the girls – Baby A at 21 months and Baby Bee at 18 months.
My heart was bursting with love that day! So blessed to be with them both at Baby A and Big Brother’s adoption party.
Harvest from our garden barrels. Bee is 2 y 6 m. Every week this past summer she enjoyed helping me weed and water our plants, and now she’ll be eating them!
Happy Birthday 2 year old! More toys to play with at Giggy and Papa’s.
Her hair has a lot of curl! Wild hair out of her ‘do at 22 months.
At family camp, 17 months, with Nevin, Martha and Eli.

I hope wherever you are on this day of Thanksgiving that you are able to feel thankful for the love and the people in your life, no matter what circumstances you are in. Over her life we had a lot of uncertain times, but we have been greatly blessed to go through them because they led to her adoption and being a forever part of our family.

God bless you all.

Becky

I got the music in me…

21 Thursday Nov 2019

Posted by in Childhood, Gratefulness journal

≈ Leave a comment

One thing I’m continually thankful for is being raised in a musical family.

Dad was a preacher who promoted Southern gospel groups. He also sang, but I couldn’t tell you what part. Mom was a piano player and sang alto.

One of my first memories is of being a baby wrapped in a blanket lying on a pew in our church, and my parents on the platform practicing with their quartet.

In my early life I spent countless evenings at similar practices and then it was my turn to step up to the microphone singing a chorus as a preschooler, joining in the choir, or being part of a youth singing group.

I wondered if my dad wanted to be a professional singer. He was so supportive of the groups he scheduled for “gospel sings” in our area. Some big name groups came through, but there were many more lesser known performers he promoted by getting people to hear them live.

Those events were always exciting for me. I was shy, but still thrilled at being allowed backstage with Dad. I soon got up the courage to talk to the bands, and became a roadie of sorts, taking on the job of dismantling and carrying out the microphone stands. It was the only equipment they would trust to a scrawny kid.

One of my fondest memories of those concerts was standing onstage during a break and singing with my family. We did it at various places, but my favorite was the high school auditorium in our home town.

I have an 8×10 of the whole gang, and looking at it takes me back to manning the ticket booth by the doors, hanging out in the practice room where the bands warmed up, the smell of the curtains as I’d stand behind them watching the bands and the audience both.

I didn’t listen closely to the music then because there were so many other things to experience. But somehow it still got down inside me, and I knew that music would always be an important part of my life.

I often wondered if Dad didn’t wish he could play an instrument. Then one day I discovered a guitar case in my parents’ closet. I pieced together that it probably belonged to my Papaw, who played guitar in the honky-tonks when he was drinking.

So I think Dad could play, but he chose not to.

And that’s a shame. Because if his dad had a talent for it, I bet he would have been a good player.

And I would have loved to hear my daddy play the guitar.

My mom was a good piano player. And I have had about eight long, full, endless, mostly boring years of piano lessons in my life.

I did not inherit her skill.

Mom learned to play shape notes. Some of you may have grandmothers who can explain that to you! Apparently each note had a shape. The lines and spaces weren’t enough of a clue. But maybe that was her secret.

Because I could never make much sense of the lines and spaces and the ovals drawn upon them. Yes, every good boy deserves fudge or whatever makes him say, “Ahh!”, but theory and I never connected.

Mom could play almost anything. And transpose in a couple minutes time to suit the voice of the singer. And sing harmony with anyone.

In our little family singing group my older sister sang lead and I got harmony. Which was fine with me, because I was fascinated with my mom’s voice and how she found the right notes.

In my piano lessons I heard words like chords and keys, and I even knew that usually the second note from the top was the alto. But without a pencil to write down the letters I could not tell you what I was supposed to sing.

There are Facebook laments about how churches should go back to hymn books so people can see what they are supposed to be singing. But I know that after eight years of studying it, and my whole life singing out of a hymn book, I was no closer to knowing what I was singing.

Mom taught me that while some people are gifted with understanding theory, others are gifted with understanding the feel of music.

Guess which one I am?

I’ve often heard it said, of piano players especially, that they play by ear. In my understanding that usually means that they can’t, or don’t want to learn, to read music.

What I have also found is that those who play by ear are driven by the music, not by the notes on the page and the written instructions of how to play it.

They play with passion and feeling, and that flows through the music.

While music played exactly as written can be quite beautiful, I’d rather hear music played from the heart, full of meaning that goes beyond notes on a page.

And so I sing by ear.

I used to labor to figure out what it meant to sing specific notes. I’ve had piano players go over and over parts, and in some settings it’s necessary to toe the line and sing exactly the way every other alto sings.

But what I love most is the way learning and singing music comes to me.

It starts with lots of listening – I always say I have to hear a song 50 times before I “get” it.

The important thing for me is to feel the music inside me, to know where it is going, to feel the excitement of where I hope it goes next, to be carried along by the story it tells me before I ever take in the words.

Once I truly have the music in me, then I can add the lyrics, trying to hear them clearly on the radio before ever seeing them on paper. And layering on the meaning, the story, the message. Whatever they need to tell me.

To find my voice, I have to let the song tell me where to go.

Singing lead is great, and I love it. But there is something so satisfying about trailing a little under, giving a base, an anchor for the melody to soar above.

Depth and power and feeling.

I’m told that what I do is hear the chords and pick one of the lower notes to sing. That could be the technical explanation, but mainly what I love is to feel the music and let it bring out a response from my heart.

The same kind of response I felt as a girl, standing in the folds of a heavy curtain, hearing the same song I bet 50 times, and knowing that it was speaking to me.

And opening my mouth, and letting the music back out.

Constricted

17 Thursday Oct 2019

Posted by in Asthma, Gratefulness journal, Recovery journey

≈ Leave a comment

So to give a little more information about my adventures with asthma (or what I did this summer!), let me take you back to July. I was finishing up my first clinical trial, and for some reason right at the tail end of it I had a pretty bad attack.

For me an attack usually starts with coughing, the coughing is productive and doesn’t let up, and it progresses to wheezing as my lungs get congested with mucus and at the same time the air passages swell, making the space for air to move smaller and smaller.

I lose the ability to talk.

So I have several hours of time spent focusing on my breathing.

I can’t read, play games, even concentrating on tv is too much to expect. I recline or lie down and try to slowly bring air in and out.

The place my mind goes during an attack is a new landscape for me. I’m aware of things immediately around me, but I can’t focus on any of them. Sometimes other people’s voices come through clearly, but I can’t respond.

I’m thinking about how I can’t think too deeply about anything, and I get distracted by my own wheezing, losing even that pitiful train of thought.

I know I’m getting better when the fuzziness of the world around me starts to clear, a sharpness returns like a camera lens that was a little out of adjustment. Only I thought it was clear.

I’ve had mild asthma for years, and never had to do more than use my rescue inhaler once every few months, usually after exercise or going out in very cold or humid air. My “normal” triggers.

But last November I got what I thought was a cold that I couldn’t shake. It settled in my sinuses and nothing I did seemed to help. Meanwhile I lost my sense of smell and taste, started each morning blowing my nose and using a dozen tissues, and lost my voice quite often.

In January I began my adventures with asthma attacks. It wasn’t until after the first one was over that it occurred to me what it was.

I have a really high pain tolerance, and so I was determined to just get back to normal breathing. Even though that took 2 1/2 hours with the first attack, I stubbornly didn’t consider it to be serious.

In February I had a second one. Then in March and April I got help at urgent care, finally getting two courses of antibiotics, which helped not only my sinuses to clear, but also started getting rid of junk in my lungs!

I felt so much better! I had high hopes of spending lots of time piddling in my garden areas this summer.

Then in May I had my third attack. It was on a hot day, humid air, and I had stopped at my daughter’s to plant some flowers I’d gotten her for Mother’s Day.

So much for spending time gardening.

I was very cautious in June, staying inside in air conditioning as much as possible, very aware of my activity and surroundings.

My first clinical trial began in June and it seemed to go well. I was using a better drug than my usual, and I was ready to switch when the trial ended.

But right before my last office visit in early July I had my fourth attack.

This was not part of my plans. I was set to finish the trial that Monday, and leave for five days in Nashville at CR’s Summit East on Tuesday. I had the good meds packed and ready to travel, and I was determined to not let myself get too stressed or tired, hoping to avoid more attacks.

Then a long car ride from Ohio to Tennessee, walking on hills, temps in the upper 90’s, and humidity of about 90%.

And lots of walking at Summit.

I found myself experiencing pain deep in my calves and had a toe swollen and discolored. And a strange feeling of constriction in the middle of my chest.

Despite my physical ailments, I was having a great time. I settled in that first night and started adding to my list I’m keeping of one thousand gifts from God that I can be thankful for. Over the next four days I wrote down 103 different blessings.

I was feeling such thankfulness to God for getting me to Summit, where I was immersed in an atmosphere of pure gratitude and awe of all God has done in all of our lives, me and the 3,000+ others attending, that I couldn’t do anything but give praise.

Yes, my friends were concerned. We discussed whether I should get checked out at a hospital. The words pulmonary embolism were thought and spoken, as were deep vein thrombosis and concern about the chest feeling being one of those odd woman signs of a heart attack.

I prayed about it and really felt I was going to be ok. My breathing was not bad. I carried all my meds with me and used them as needed. I let the rest of our group go off without me and stayed put close to my workshops.

It made for a lot of time with God and it was all good.

On the ride home I got a call from my husband. He and two of our kids had been in a car accident in a parking lot. They were a little banged up from being t-boned, and the van had probably received a death blow.

So no stress for the last four hours of the drive!

When I got home we headed out to get some dinner.

And even on the way there I was starting to cough.

By the time our food came I had progressed to wheezing. And nausea. My husband and I left then to head home, where the attack continued and was worse than any other, adding in vomiting and sweating and shaking.

And when my husband asked if I needed to go to the emergency room, I shook my head no. Because I couldn’t imagine being able to make the effort to walk out to the car to drive there. So I toughed it out. Again.

The next morning, Sunday, I made it until the last of three points in our pastor’s sermon before the constriction in my chest and my shallow breathing made me sure that I was headed to the hospital after service.

I got the lecture about how people actually die during asthma attacks. How the pain in my legs and chest could be the things I’d already thought of.

And I got my first nebulizer treatment.

Truly sweet relief.

Lots of really good things happened that day and into the next, as I was admitted to the hospital and they ran several different tests.

I found out I have great veins in my legs. My heart is perfect. My lungs had no nodes or nodules that would be symptomatic of lung cancer, and no embolism.

The only thing wrong was that asthma had filled my lungs with thick, sticky mucus that I needed to be able to get rid of.

Just like I’d been saying for years.

So a course of steroids and antibiotics, the nebulizer sent home with me, and otherwise a clean bill of health.

I will tell you another time how that knowledge has affected me.

Three attacks total in July, and three more in September brought the total to nine over nine months, the most serious one I wrote about a couple weeks ago.

And then a breakthrough. While brainstorming with my asthma doctor we figured out the culprit. Aleve. Which I’d taken for pain before most of my worst attacks.

So now I’m hoping to only talk about asthma attacks in retrospect.

Because I never want to feel that constricted ever again.

Developing a willingness…

25 Thursday Jul 2019

Posted by in faceliftbook journey, Gratefulness journal

≈ Leave a comment

This week I’ve had no idea what I wanted to write about. In fact, it’s past the time I usually post my blog, and I’m just now starting to type, so we’ll see where this goes.

It’s not that there aren’t things I want to tell you, it’s that it’s better to wait until I have a clue how I feel about them before inflicting them on you!

Maybe the place I’ll start is with patience.

I was talking to my mentor today, and as the conversation flew from one topic to another, we started to see a theme running through the many things I’ve been through over the past couple weeks and the many things I’m hoping will happen soon – like yesterday.

I need patience.

In my mind I have spent lots of time working out scenarios. Not just for stories, but for my life. If this thing happens my response would be… for all kinds of situations.

So when there is something I’d like to happen, it’s already accomplished in my mind. The real world just needs to catch up to me so I can let it play out the way I’ve imagined it.

In the last few years I’ve experienced a change in that way of thinking. I’ve learned that most of the situations I would work through in my head were things that never happen, that never will happen. And even if they did, they wouldn’t play out just the way I think they would.

Because I don’t control all the variables.

So I’ve spent most of my life working out solutions to problems that don’t exist.

You’d think that would have taught me something. Like that there is a better use of the wee hours of the night than thinking through endless tragedies. Sleeping for instance.

Gradually I’m finding that I don’t follow those trains of thought down the paths of disaster like I used to. As my mentor tells me, wouldn’t it be better if I lived in the now instead of in the what ifs?

So about a year ago I learned how to stop my wild thoughts in their tracks, and ask some simple questions: What is the truth of this situation? What are the facts I can know? What good does it do me to worry about this? Why don’t I try handing it over to God and letting it go?

Not that I do that all the time, never perfectly, sometimes I have to be hit over the head again, usually by my mentor when she hears me trying to take control of the whole world because things just aren’t going the way I know they could.

Have patience, she’ll say. There is value in the waiting.

So there are things I long to tell you about. Things I am eager to do, but that are not in my power to make happen right now. So I have to wait. So do you.

Because a really good story has many components. Beginning, middle, end. The resolution of some conflicts. Triumph of good over evil. And if I start rambling about what might happen, what I’d like to do, without any real sense of how it will go when it does happen, you would miss out on some great stories.

I am waiting for many things. Mostly for God’s timing, which can seem impossibly out of reach. I want to be the kid on vacation asking, “Are we there yet?” every five minutes.

Like that kid, when I stop being so impatient and start looking around at the surroundings God has placed me in at this moment, I start seeing what I was in too much of a hurry to see before.

That the purpose of my life was never to get all the things done I’d like to do. Frankly, God doesn’t need me to do anything for him in this world. Not that he doesn’t have work he wants me to do, just that he is all sufficient without my help. He is not any more God because I am able to do some small thing for him.

Yet at the same time, before he ever created me, God had a plan far beyond anything I could imagine, in which I would receive gifts and talents and dreams from him and in some way use them to bring glory to him and love and hope to those around me.

And as I am learning to pull back on my own mental reins and see where I am more often than where I think I will someday be, I find that in the day, the moment I am in, there are things I can be doing that I never noticed before.

Like gratitude. That was an area I knew I wanted to grow in, but I kept putting it off, thinking that if I could take a weekend to think about it I could figure out how to be grateful.

But it wasn’t anything I did that brought about a healing for me in this area. It was in a therapy session I recently began going to, in which someone who knows almost nothing about me prayed over me to have a spirit of gratitude towards God.

I don’t know how that worked, but it did. I still haven’t gotten the discipline to add to my list daily, but since last week I’m up another forty items on my list to one thousand gifts, and still many more to write down when I take the time.

Just that one improvement, counting blessings instead of potential tragedies, is making a real impact in my life. Because I’m seeing that in these times of waiting, there is also time to enjoy the lull.

My mentor also pointed out that patience isn’t something we need to seek from God, it’s a gift, part of the fruit of the Spirit. Something we should be able to tap into because that very Spirit of the Living God lives inside all who believe in Jesus.

In The Message that fruit of patience means “developing a willingness to stick with things.”

Not try to get beyond, not long for them to be over and done. Stick with.

So while I’m waiting for the things I hope God has for me, I will stick with him. No matter how long this takes.

…in everything.

18 Thursday Jul 2019

Posted by in Gratefulness journal, Recovery journey

≈ 2 Comments

Months ago I told about a book I read on expressing thankfulness to God, one thousand gifts by Ann Voskamp. In fact, most of my summer last year was spent poring over the pages, marveling at Ann’s ability to see wonder in the same kind of ordinary things that have always stood out in my mind.

When I restarted this blog on Thanksgiving Day 2018, one of my intentions was to keep updating as I listed my own one thousand gifts. My plan was to start taking more notice of the common things of life as I learned to see them as the gift from God that they each are.

Well. It just hasn’t happened that way.

I expected to write at least one thing a day, one blessing, one unexpected smile, one poignant thought that came as if floating down like a leaf into my mind.

I wrote down 7 entries in the first 2 months. And 15 more in the next 8 months.

I struggle with expressing gratitude. I feel it, I just have problems acknowledging it, naming it.

This isn’t because God hasn’t blessed me beyond my wildest dreams already in my life. It has nothing to do with his goodness, his love, his grace. Pouring himself out for me, and over me, bringing so many good gifts into my life.

There is that part of me that is so independent that I want to be responsible for all the good things that happen to me. I don’t want to have to admit that I am not in control, that I can’t take care of myself, keep myself safe, protect the ones I love.

One problem with feeling in control of the good things is that I should also take responsibility for the bad that happens in my world.

I’m not good at that at all.

Is it a problem I have with God? I know I feel differently about God the Father than I do about Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I have personal relationships with each of them, and I feel much more comfortable learning from Jesus’ example in the word or listening to the prompting of the Spirit in my heart.

I have perceived God as silent, as looming over me, waiting for me to make a mistake. I have feared him and not in a good way. I have avoided looking to him for help. I have somehow mixed up in my mind who God says he is with who I have seen earthly fathers be to their children and wives.

All earthly fathers have faults, will fail us. God tells us that he doesn’t. But do I still see him through the lens of my father’s impatience, my grandpa’s neglect?

This is a work in progress, the way I see God, and I’m not where I need to be. Yet. But I’m going in the right direction.

So an interesting combination of things has brought me to a place where I am finally feeling gratitude bubbling up in me, overflowing in a way I’ve longed for. I can’t say what the straw was that broke the camel’s back, but something has opened the floodgates.

Because in just 4 short days, I added 103 gifts to my list of things I’m thankful for! Bringing me to 125.

Celebrate Recovery, going to a Christian mentor, studying Boundaries by Cloud and Townsend, reading the Bible, sitting under the preaching of my pastor, being in a care group, seeing a therapist for the first time ever, and getting to go to my second CR Summit last week.

Something has freed me to express the wonder I see around me.

I’ll tell you more about the day the walls came down another time.

Just a few days after that I was in a place of hurt and fear, sickness and uncertainty, and I had to wait to get relief. I didn’t know how things were going to go.

I was in a hospital bed, being woken through the night for different purposes, but needing to sleep despite pain and apprehension.

So I decided to pray myself to sleep. And when I started with praise, it was no surprise after the week I had just had: that list that only stopped because I ran out of time to write more blessings.

I went to sleep that night thanking God for all the ways he had worked my illness, my recent experiences, to get me to this place where I could finally get the help I’d been asking medical professionals to give me for years.

As I was woken to check vitals, I’d continue my discussion with God, but no matter how many times this happened, I never got beyond praise and thanks.

Because no matter what was going to happen in the morning, no matter what the tests were going to show, God is still good and he still loves me.

I Thessalonians 5:18 tells us, “Give thanks in everything.”

So while I’m walking through this hard place, I’m staying focused on the things that are floating down on me from God’s hand, giving me a chance to lift my face to see God’s provision instead of wallowing in my circumstances and missing the chance to count.

126. being able to breathe

Ready for a Good Night’s Sleep

09 Thursday May 2019

Posted by in Gratefulness journal, Recovery journey

≈ Leave a comment

I had a really busy week.

Sometimes I actually write this blog a couple weeks in advance.  Sometimes I’ve had three or four stacked up, able to leisurely edit and schedule way ahead.

This week it’s 10:15pm on Wednesday and I’m just starting the post that will go out right after midnight my time.

Since I’m too tired to come up with something deep and thoughtful, you get the highlights of my week since last Thursday.

A year ago I had a life-changing experience that continues to truly bless my life.  I had gone a day early to an annual women’s retreat I like to attend, and since I was the only one from my church, I hoped I’d get put in a room by myself.  I was ready for some me time.

But after a long, hard volunteer work day pulling weeds and tidying up garden beds, barely able to walk because I had way overdone it, I was angry when I came back to my cabin and found other people’s belongings on two of the other beds.  I was working myself up into a really bad mood, when one of the other women walked into the room.

I recognized her as someone I had seen at family camp, whose family we’d been praying for, and I asked how things were going.  As part of her answer, she recited the entire long version of the Serenity Prayer, and I joined in it with her.  We ended up having our own little recovery meeting that night.

God had better plans for me than just time alone, dwelling on my own thoughts and plans.  He let me talk and listen to someone who instantly understood so much about me, and who had great wisdom to share.  And finding someone I was comfortable telling my deepest secrets was a gift I never expected.

I made a new friend.

So for the past year we’ve called and texted and prayed for and thought about each other, planning from that first retreat together to be roomies again.  This time on purpose.

This past Thursday involved getting packed and ready for my dear friend to pull into my driveway after the two hour drive from her home, and let me take over the next leg of the trip to camp.  We left plenty early to get settled, and then hit a local Celebrate Recovery meeting together, something we’d both looked forward to.  We did work projects the next day, and then enjoyed the women’s retreat, making a new friend together.

I was pleasantly surprised to reconnect with another friend who also came to the retreat, and it was one more example of God’s timing being perfect.  I was able to run some things by her that she was uniquely qualified to advise me on, and that will be valuable to me in a new venture I’m hoping to undertake soon.

The retreat went through Sunday, and after the drive home I had a couple hours to rest before my oldest son got home for a really quick visit.  Since he lives across the country, I love every minute I get to spend with him, but Monday morning and his leaving came way too quickly.

In the oddest three hours of my week, it took that long to find an Airbnb rental that was self-contained, near the college one of my sons will be attending in August, and available for move-in weekend.

I guess that was a much-needed space to breathe, as Tuesday morning I was up way early for me, and at my favorite radio station, YES-FM 89.3, to chat with the deejays during sharathon.  I cannot say enough good about this station and the music I’ve found there, and it was a privilege and a huge adrenaline rush to get to be live on the air!

After sneaking away for brunch with my hubby, the rest of that day was spent organizing my thoughts to present an idea to my church about a ministry I’d like to launch.  More about that if and when it becomes a reality.  But feel free to pray!  And not for my will, but for God’s will to be done. (The prayer that never fails!)

On Wednesday  I took a me afternoon, meeting with my mentor and then spending an hour or so journaling at a coffee shop to help me digest our conversation.  And then dinner and trivia with my husband, daughter and granddaughter, who is sleeping over tonight, and I finally have time to write.

And another hour of my week has flown by.

Each person has their own pace where they thrive, and I have no problem saying this past week has moved faster than I like.  I’m more comfortable with lots of white space, as my husband calls it, room to breathe and let thoughts roll around in my head until I’m ready to do something with them.  I’m in no hurry.  I like being open to whatever I hear God telling me to do with my time.

And I’m grateful that my life has ended up being one where I’m able to live it at a slower pace, that I haven’t had to have a full-time job my whole adult life.  Many women thrive working long hours and having a husband and kids and home to pour into as well.  I’m blessed I got the life I always hoped I’d have.

But once in a while, a busy week can add some much-needed spice to life.

The Generosity of God

02 Thursday May 2019

Posted by in Childhood, Gratefulness journal

≈ Leave a comment

I’ve been thinking about money lately.  Mostly in the big picture, ‘what will it matter in the long run if I die with lots of money or not’ perspective, and I find that the way I was raised to view money has made me into a person who doesn’t care about wealth.

But I want to die rich.

I was a preacher’s kid, when a pastor’s salary often needed to be supplemented with a part time job, or picking up extra income from performing weddings and funerals and preaching revival meetings.

As one of four kids, I not only did chores with no expectation of an allowance, I was expected to work in a fruit and vegetable stand where we sold produce from a farmer friend of the family.  Those years brought out parts of my personality that still serve me well.  I found I have an affinity for numbers and handling money, an attention to the details of division of labor, a desire to tithe off the top before paying ourselves, and enjoyment of the rewards of hard work.

My first job with a regular paycheck was as a salad girl and then a waitress at a local restaurant, one of a dozen jobs I held over the next few years.  They all blur together, none of them with much potential for a future career.  But they did teach me important lessons that still ring true.

Money is something you get in return for doing work worth paying for.  You then turn around and pay for things you think are worth having.  And for many of us, that means stretching the funds available to meet the needs.  For others, there is plenty for needs and generous amounts for wants as well.

So back to my original thoughts about whether it makes any real, lasting difference if a person has lots of money accumulated during their life, or if they leave this world holding in their fist the same amount they had in it when they were born.

In my life as a wife and mom, there have been many times when those old skills learned at the fruit and vegetable stand have helped me make sure every hand held out demanding payment gets satisfied.  Work would get done, money would come in, and stomachs would need feeding, bodies would need clothing and shelter.

Money has served a purpose.

One thing it hasn’t done for me is create wealth.  In fact, it has very little to do with whether I feel rich or poor, that balance in my bank account.

I’ve been listening to Sharathon on YES-FM that is going on these first two weeks of May, and some of the deejays were talking about scriptures that encourage us to be cheerful and generous givers.  I’ve heard these familiar passages many times, and I know the truth of them.

In my life I have felt called to give beyond what any practical person looking at the dollars in my pockets would think was reasonable.  And I’ll admit that when you read in the Bible about reaping what you sow it’s easy to think that could mean that if you are generous in giving money to good causes that spread God’s truth to others, God will be more generous in pouring out more money to you.

But giving back to God isn’t a get rich quick scheme.  Or it shouldn’t be.

What struck me as I was driving around praying for Sharathon to bring in the money YES-FM needs to run for the next six months, was that this ministry and the money I have felt called to give to it over the past nearly twenty-seven years have blessed me with so much more than just more money.

I have learned what it means to be a cheerful giver.  I often ask God to tell me a specific amount to give, and sometimes he does, but of course he isn’t required to grant my wish to know this for sure.  What he does give me is such a love for the music and the people involved with this radio station that I always want to give more.  And it’s always done cheerfully!

Wouldn’t it be great if every thing I did, every act of service, every moment spent listening to another’s problems, every detour from my agenda, could be an offering given back with happiness in my heart for the opportunity to pour out to others what God has given to me?

Because that’s what I think is happening.

I realize that in these many years of supporting YES-FM I have gotten far more out of it than I could ever repay.

Luke 6:38 Amplified Bible (AMP)

38 Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over [with no space left for more]. For with the standard of measurement you use [when you do good to others], it will be measured to you in return.”

It struck me today, after all these years, that so many times I use the wrong standard of measurement.  Even though God made everything, owns everything, is the only one who can claim ownership of anything in this world, he generously pours it out on me day after day.

And I forget to count it.

My bank account may not reflect it, but the often radical, hysterical giving God calls me to do has been outgiven many times over.  It is measured in ways I can’t detail as amounts in a ledger, as an exchange for work done.  It goes way beyond anything I have earned or deserve.

And it makes me want to turn around and give it all back to God, again and again.

It has made me rich in ways I never knew I could be.

 

Being More Undignified

07 Thursday Mar 2019

Posted by in Childhood, faceliftbook journey, Gratefulness journal

≈ Leave a comment

My teenage daughter can back me up on this.  I don’t know how to dance.  But that doesn’t stop me.

And three times in just over three months I’ve been to concerts with that daughter, finally, after way too many years.  I have found it much easier to be a dancing fool at this stage of life than I did as a younger woman with feet that could take all the bouncing around.

Growing up as the daughter of a Free Will Baptist preacher, it was drilled into me that dancing was bad.  Worse than playing cards, but not as bad as drinking.  So I danced with my girlfriends in their homes, but never in public.  The bump and the hustle were our favorites, ones where you stand next to each other and all do the same moves.  And moving to the music felt so good.

I  didn’t go to the same concerts as my peers.  Dad was big into southern gospel music, promoting “gospel sings” at local churches, high schools and other venues.  So I was around a lot of music and musicians my whole life, hanging out backstage with the bands, even performing on stage with my family during intermissions.  I regularly helped unscrew microphone stands and carry them out to the buses to pack up after concerts.

Music was important to my parents, who were often part of a gospel quartet, and Mom played piano at church.  Dad helped start a local Christian radio station that is still operating, where I spent a lot of time since Dad was the first general manager, and our church often held events there.  I knew the music and the people who made it.  I had an autograph book  filled with illegible scrawls from dozens of southern gospel performers.

I was probably twenty before I went to my first non-Christian concert, Speedway Jam, an all day mid-summer festival that drew in more alcohol and drugs than I’d ever seen, passed around freely.  I remember there was a lot of flat-out stupid behavior that went on, and I participated.

A girl near our island of blankets and coolers had drunk so much that she passed out.  I recall feeling helpless.  Her “friends” were oblivious to her condition.  Her skin was getting burnt in the hot sun so I rigged up a makeshift shade cover by moving their coolers near her head and draping a beach towel over it.  This was before cell phones, bottles of water, and I think even before 911 in our area.

I remember being struck with how stupid we were all acting, pursuing pleasure without regard for others, without really caring about ourselves, drinking in the hot sun, burnt and dehydrated and acting like complete fools.  The first part of Titus 3:3 could have been written about our gang:

For we too were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved by various                             passions and pleasures…

Shamefully undignified.

I made it to a few more concerts but I could never forget that girl, and I gave up my senseless partying behaviors after that.  I still enjoyed my 70’s and early 80’s rock music, but I had no desire to venture back into the culture of alcohol and drugs that went with that scene.

More than ten years after that, Dad, who was still hosting a Sunday morning radio show before church time, mentioned a new Christian station was starting in town. Southern gospel no longer appealed to me, so I wondered if contemporary Christian music was more like my rock music.

And in the fall of 1992  YES-FM went live on the air  with Steven Curtis Chapman’s “The Great Adventure”, and that’s what life has been every day ever since!

That moment, listening when YES-FM went live, stands out as one of those mile markers  where I think about life before and after that point.   I can honestly say that in these almost twenty-seven years, the music and artists I’ve discovered, the concerts I’ve attended, the DJ’s and employees of the station I’ve heard and met, the prayers that have been prayed for me, the privilege of praying for and supporting this ministry, have been THE MOST DIRECT way God shows himself to me.  I would not be as in love with Jesus as I am without YES-FM.

Just thinking about it makes me want to drop to my knees in thanksgiving.

In the early years of YES they had several $5 concerts every year, and we went to almost all of them.  But after we had more little ones, it was years between concerts, and once my two oldest kids moved out I didn’t have anyone willing to go with me.  Until I talked my youngest into using one of the tickets I’d won (on YES-FM!) to go to Big Church Night Out in November.  And then Winter Jam mid-February and Toby Mac Hits Deep Tour two weeks later.

When I have the opportunity to be totally immersed in something good, that has gotten me through the deaths of my loved ones, that has given me hope that whatever I face will somehow work to draw me closer to the one who created and loves me beyond measure, I don’t know how I can do anything less than dance with abandon.

King David got it.  In II Samuel 6 he had been trying to bring the ark of God home. This was a serious thing because in the days before Jesus came it was where God told them he lived.  After some mishaps David finally went after the ark himself and brought it to Jerusalem, where he celebrated its return.

For me God lives in music.  I love studying the Bible and a good, challenging sermon, but where I feel fully in the presence of God is while singing at the top of my lungs.  And for most of my life, up until that day in 1992, that place where God lives so transparently in me was out of my reach.  Music and songs  spoke to me, but not of God or of his desires for me, only of those old passions and pleasures.

In one pivotal moment the presence of God was brought into my life, through music on YES-FM, the every day miracle of a relationship that changes me continually.

So my response to getting to be in the loud, bright, pounding, screaming, reckless presence of God in a way that gets around all my defenses, that opens me up to pure praise and humbling worship, uninhibited and abandoned, drenched in love and gratitude, is much the same as David’s famous answer to the disapproval of his wife for his own celebrating: I will become even more undignified than this!

And look eagerly for the next chance to dance in the presence of God.

Another Chance to Improve

03 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in Christmas, Gratefulness journal

≈ Leave a comment

Six hours.

Yes, that’s how long we spent on Christmas Day opening our gifts.

Before anyone starts fuming at how materialistic we must be, I will share that there were a lot of socks exchanged.  And underwear.  And candy.  We have simple tastes.

So why does it take so long to open our gifts?

Well, we did take breaks for brunch,  a nap for the grandbaby,  to work on food for dinner, and to occasionally try on a piece of clothing or play with Bee and her new toys.  And I suppose it would drive some people crazy to sit around in piles of ripped paper and tape, going around and around the room opening one present at a time, and everyone watching everyone else’s reactions.

But we all love doing it this way.

I’ve never tried to figure out why, but now seems like a good time, it being the beginning of a new year,  when people try to make changes they feel will improve their lives.  And perhaps I should consider this:  is the way we do this good, or is there a better way?

Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with our traditions.  In fact, it was very freeing to write the last post sharing with y’all my true feelings.  So I don’t think there’s anything bad or wrong about great heaping piles of gifts that we give each other.

But I do think I could do a better job of appreciating them.

In our family, I am famous for the fake smile that accompanies, “Oh, this is a nice…(color, material, idea, or whatever other positive spin I can put on it)”, when the look on my face says I will be returning it.  Yes, I don’t automatically love every gift.  But I do appreciate the thought and effort.  And I try to make sure the giver feels valued even when the gift isn’t my cup of tea.

This whole subject circles back around in my head to something I touched on at Thanksgiving, and that is gratefulness.   One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp, challenged me on the way I experience God, and how much closer I can be to him if I take time to see the gifts he has blessed me with all around me every day.  It convinced me that I should make my own list of 1,000 things  I see in my daily life that God has used to bless me.  Good and bad.

The thing is, I haven’t been very consistent at making my list.  Yet.  I found the perfect little memo book, portable, 5″ x 3″, and it has my dad’s writing in the front cover.  He died over 25 years ago.  So, nostalgic value as well as practical and functional.

Even though I started writing in it on September 12, 2018, I am only up to number twenty in my list of a thousand gifts.

As I was reading Ann’s book, I was charmed by the simple yet profound items she listed in her gratitude journal,  a sister with a kindred imagination.  I figured  once I got started I would be off and flying, but at this rate it’s going to take me the rest of my life to get to 1,000.

And that would be a shame, as I am surrounded with unacknowledged gifts from God, the way my family was surrounded with piles of presents last week.

I enjoy the blessings God has given me.  But it elevates them, or maybe I should say deepens them, when I consciously take note by naming them.  Why does that seem an unnatural thing to do?

Since Christmas I have tried some tea one of my sons gave me, lounged in some new comfy pants that a daughter picked out,  drank new coffee,  watched movies fresh out of the case.   And gave credit to the givers.

Why do I have trouble giving credit to the true giver of all good things at the drop of a hat, in the moment, or after, as I reflect on my day?  As a recovering control freak, to accept and be grateful for help is hard for me.

So as I start into this new year of 2019, I don’t have lofty resolutions.  I just want to get better at appreciating the life I have, the people God has blessed me with.  I want to fill my gratefulness journal with a thousand and more gifts all around me, not just at Christmas, not just as a declaration of a desire to improve my health or circumstances, but  as a way to increase my awareness of God with me.

So back to my original question:  is there a better way to give and get and appreciate gifts?  I can give without tying any of the pleasure to whether I have given something they absolutely love, or picked a dud they will return.  I can receive things that don’t thrill me with thankfulness for the giver wanting to give a good gift.   Sometimes none of us are in control of whether a gift will be as useful as we hoped it would be.

And when I get those kinds of gifts from God, those circumstances that don’t seem to fit me,  I want to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the perfect giver only gives me what he knows  can work out his purposes in me.

Because I think that God would enjoy sitting around with me for hours, seeing me unwrap his great heaping piles of gifts, hearing me name them back as I exclaim with joy or even look at him with a puzzled expression, wanting him to help me see the reason for what he has laid before me.

And not forget to count it as good.

Over the Moon!

29 Thursday Nov 2018

Posted by in Grandparenting, Gratefulness journal

≈ 2 Comments

Three days ago I formally become a grandmother.

I’m not announcing a birth. Our sweet girl Brooklyn officially joined our family.

Our daughter didn’t get her that day.  In fact Bee, as we call her,  will not remember it as any different in her mind.  Family and friends, outings, and later this week a party to celebrate. All normal events in her life.  She will look at pictures, more than 20 months into her life, and probably not think of them as a big deal.

But we will.

When our daughter first entered this adventure of fostering, and possibly adopting, I had no idea what this would look like, but I was willing to jump in. I always loved having a baby to drink in, pour into, spend hours staring at and cuddling with.  To love.  And as you’ll read in later posts, loving foster babies has its own perils and triumphs.  I poured into our daughter’s first foster baby, and had the gut-wrenching, heart-breaking experience of watching her go to a different family on her journey. (More on that soon.)

With her second foster I was no less willing to love her unconditionally, but with the sobering knowledge of no guarantees for how long.  At four days old she was delivered from the hospital to my daughter’s home. I got there about an hour later to stay with her while my daughter worked, and from that first day I have not held back from this beautiful little person.

Now it’s official.  As of November 26, 2018, Miss Brooklyn Jayne Haas is my first forever granddaughter!  “Blessed be the Lord – day after day he carries us along.  He’s our Savior, our God, oh yes!” (Psalm 68:19 MSG)  Without God’s strength none of us could have stood under some of the pressures that have come over the past two years, but his mighty hand has held us firm as we pour out love to this child.  His child.  And now ours.

9.  Brooklyn Jayne

Of the things I’ve numbered so far for which I am grateful, this little girl is high up on the list.  In fact, we are over the moon with joy that everything is final and forever.

This relief is still new.  Monday in the courtroom I listened to the judge converse with our daughter, going over  legal proclamations,  details she would need to follow up on in order to seal up our granddaughter’s past identity and begin her new life. With her new  name and status as our daughter’s daughter.  Real.

I can now exhale.  I have always thought of her as our own, and now she is forever safe in our family.

Even though I knew her middle name was changing to mine (the way it should have been spelled, with a “y”), tears  sprang to my eyes when it was proclaimed out loud by the judge.  A part of me will always be a part of her.  And I get to tell her the story of the spelling difference, our family legacy, hers and mine.

The older she gets, the more Bee will realize she has her own genetic heritage,  while solidly part of our family.  I have a lot to learn  about how to recognize and celebrate the things that make her distinct from us.  I will fumble, be oblivious to what she is looking for at times, but I am trusting God to prompt me to help this child be who he knows she can be.

I’m not one to ask God for signs, but  when I think about a moody future teenager sassing me because my skin color is not like hers so how can I understand her, I wonder if I will have the resources to love and guide her through those trials.

Walking into the courthouse Monday, the sidewalks were generously splattered with puddles.  Close to the door  was a particularly big one, and I was contemplating a running leap when I saw something floating  on top of the water.  As I leaned down I recognized it as money.  I picked it up, looked to see if someone was close by who could have dropped it but there was no one.  So I stuck the barely wet bills in my pocket and jumped the puddle.

As I reflected on it later, I saw that God was giving me a reminder that no matter what the obstacles I think I have in front of me, he will provide.  In this case it was $6, and I don’t know that there’s any great significance to the amount.  Maybe it will be the start of a savings account for Brooklyn.  Maybe there’s another use for it.  It may seem like a small amount, but as Zechariah 4:10 says:

10 Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel’s hand.”

This was a day of small beginnings, and though the work has been going on for more than 20 months of her life, God rejoices with us to see this family have its official beginning day.  And the plumb line is the vertical version of a level, the line that makes sure a building stands straight and sturdy and strong.

And that’s what I get to help do for Brooklyn.

img_2108img_1917