Be Still and Know...Then and Now

Wow, one more week to go for the year! I think if I am honest it seems so incongruent to be gearing up for Christmas with so much suffering and turmoil in the world. I know I am not alone in feeling overwhelmed with how such an unimaginable tragedy could have happen in Newtown Connecticut. Over the past days I have thought a lot about how those family must be feeling and how time continues to move forward while their lives have stopped with grief and sorrow. Sunday, December 16 On Sunday my family had been scheduled to light the advent candle during the worship service. The odd thing is that in all the years we have attended (over 20 years) we have never done the Advent Candle. It really is a very simple, lighting a few candles and leading the morning liturgy. However as we all gathered for worship, as is often the case after such a terrible tragedy there was a definite somberness over the entire congregation. The alter was lined with Prayer Blankets that were destine for Newto...

I woke up thinking about Aubrey today.   One afternoon I went out in the back yard to check on the both of them and there they sat looking like this! Oh the mind of a child…”Let’s fill our t-shirts up with as much sand as they will hold…that will be so much fun.” The were both having so much fun and laughing, giggling and having the time of there lives. The damage had already been done so I just let them keep going. Afterwards I made them strip off their shirts and gave them a good rinse with the hose! Here they are nice and clean sitting side by side in the same folding chair! When we loose people we care deeply about it seems almost impossible to think that a year has gone by without them being in the world. Logan was born in 1995 and Aubrey was born in 1996 so I am sure that Logan does not have a childhood memory that does not include Aubrey in it. They grew up together and they played with each other almost every day. I remember working away in my kitchen and I ...

Mocha with Linda shared this "I've had our bloggy friend Lidna on my heart as she is grieving the loss of a dear friend. And while I don't want this to be a gloomy or painful Flashback Friday, I thought it would be interesting to reflect on how we experienced grief in our early years." I think we all share in Linda's grief over the loss of a dear friend. As we all reflect on how we approach the grieving process let us all take a moment to pray for Diane's family and friend as the remember the person that they loved who has gone on before them. I have to share with all of you that when I think of this week's prompt I look upon it with a different point of view. One of the things I learned from my Stephen Ministry training was that the majority of people shy away from talking about the grieving process or the topic of death. The other thing I learned is that those who are going through the process although they may not ask for it actually want to talk a...

PS 31:9 Be merciful to me, O LORD, for I am in distress;    my eyes grow weak with sorrow,    my soul and my body with grief. My DD and I went to a funeral yesterday. This one was a hard one y’all. I have been to a few funerals in my day and this one rates right up there at the top of my list of life's most painful and difficult moments. My heart hurts and my soul is in distress as the psalmist describes. My eyes are weak and feel like sandpaper, worn out from my tears. His name was Aubrey, but I always called him Aubrey Thomas. He just struck me as a person that needed to be called by both his first and middle name. My daughter and he were not quite two years apart in age. From the time they could walk they were inseparable companions. We lived side by side, next door neighbors until we moved away in 2006. If I could not find my girl child I first looked at Aubrey’s house and vice versa. My house was just as much his home as his own at times. Whe...

If you are a friend of mine on Facebook then you are aware that we have experienced a loss in our family. My father-in-law passed away on Monday. It has been a whirl of activity over the last two days and today will be no different. It takes an hour and 15 minutes to get there which means it takes an hour and 15 to get back. We have made this trip three times since this past Saturday, and we will do it again today. This gift in all of this is that we had just spent the entire afternoon with my in-laws on Saturday. My husband got to spend some vey good one on one time with his father all afternoon. God is so god y’all! Long car trips aside, being a bit tired, only pails in comparison to the unfathomable concept of loosing a husband. My in-laws would have been married for 58 years next month. The years of first begins. I ask your prayers for all my husbands family members in the loss of their father. For all the grandchildren, my two included as we grieve his loss. The fune...

She was 99 years old. A beautiful and bright smile met me most every Sunday. I entered the sanctuary with expectation of her presence. There she would sit second row back on the lectern side. She and I were pew buddies. I would enter the sanctuary and place my things in the floor beneath the pew and turn and there she would be sitting. Wise in her years, warm and loving with her smile. Her small and fragile hands bent with the years would lift to grasp mine in a greeting. I would lean down and embrace her, I can still smell the familiar scent that was Miss Pepper. She would at times reach up and place her hands upon my cheeks and look into my face. You knew that she loved you, I knew that she loved me. I will miss her more that words can express. As sometimes happens the flesh is weak, her body failed her and the years began to take there toll. I would enter the sanctuary and find her place empty. Her loved ones would report the changes and decline in heath and mobility that simply mad...