Slow Ride....Take it Easy

"Being in a hurry. Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me.

I cannot think of  a single advantage I've ever gained from being in a hurry.

 But a thousand broken missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all the rushing.....

Through all that haste I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away."

Ann Voskamp from her book One Thousand Gifts

Hurry. We all do it. Rush, rush, rush. Everything is an emergency. There will be times I will catch myself fussing at the boys as they get in the van to hurry up and go faster. Why? Why am I rushing through life. Impatient, I am an impatient person. I couldn't wait to get married, couldn't wait to have babies, can't wait to see who my boys turn out to be. SLOW DOWN! In reading this poetic and gentle book by Ann Voskamp about living life fully, right where you are, I am noticing things more. Looking around and taking joy in the moment.  All of my boys are growing, changing. It hurts, but I don't want it to. I want to slow down, take it in stride and ENJOY the ride. I am THANKFUL, for each moment I've had in my life. The painful times, the difficult times, the growing times, the joyful times, the beautiful times. "This is where God is. In the present. I AM.-His very name."~Ann Voskamp. In every moment of my life, God is there. I AM. I may notice him more in the marriages, the births, the joyful milestones. But He is in the broken places too, in the failure, the loss, the deaths. I AM, God with us. Never leaving, never forsaking.

"See! I Will Not Forget You. I Have Engraved You on the. Palm of My Hand." Isaiah 49:15

"When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices, life grows." ~Ann Voskamp

Say The Name

Say the name of Jesus, no other name I know
that can calm your fears, and dry your tears,
and wipe away your pain;
When you don't know what else to pray,
When you don't know what else to say,
Say the Name

I had a very heart warming moment at church this morning. We actually made it there early enough to hear a few worship songs and not just the last one. Turns out we need a full 2 hours to get ready on a Sunday morning, who knew? Anyway, I was standing there with my boys and I almost could see myself through the years, as a child, as a teenager, in worship services praising the Lord. I felt myself at Maranatha Tabernacle, in the old sanctuary, seeing my mom worship and clapping our hands. It brought tears to my eyes thinking of the heritage I grew up in. Then standing there with my own children, repeating the process, it really was an emotional moment for me. It was like, layers upon layers of Sundays, of worship songs, hands raised high, saying the name of Jesus.

Easter Sunday 1981, before church

I used to think that people who were dramatically "Saved" out of a life of sin had such powerful testimonies which caused them to live their new Christian life more passionately then those Christians who grew up "in the faith". And there is a lot of truth in that. But for someone like me, I have an amazing testimony too. I've been protected and sheltered, a lot of that was my upbringing, but a lot of it was my choices through the years. I chose, with my free will, to do my best to walk the straight and narrow road. Those choices have protected me and sheltered me. My life today is blessed. My heart is not lost and alone, my Jesus is my friend, my protector. I thank God for my mother bringing us to church, training us up in "the way". I am not interested in apologetics, defending my faith and debating religious issues. I know what I believe. I know the lives I've seen changed and TRANSFORMED, you can't argue with a testimony. Sometimes it can be so clear. If your eyes aren't darting from this person to that person, judging and condemning.

Easter Sunday 1984, before church

"And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

Micah 6:8 

Could it really be that simple? More and more I am thinking, YES. I remember Pastor Dave Boudwin saying that the Bible says the way of the transgressor (sinner) is hard. I had never heard that verse before. And it make sense. When I look back over my life, the hard times, in most cases, was when I was fighting to do my own thing.

"Good understanding gives favor: but the way of transgressors is hard."

Proverbs 13:1

For me and my family, we will continue to serve the Lord. We still have rough waters and everyday life issues. But when you know The Name, when you know where to run, when you know......

Easter Sunday 2010

Say the name of Jesus, no other name I know
that can calm your fears, and dry your tears,
and wipe away your pain, Say The Name

Easter Sunday 2011

Easter Sunday 2012

What Dreams May Come....

Dream A Little Dream of  Me

Sometimes I have such bizarre dreams I wake up thinking, "Thank God that wasn't real." I have a few re-accruing dreams that I have about once every week. I can only chalk it up to my life moved so fast that my sub-conscious is STILL trying to catch up.

The first re-accruing dream is about my Grandmom Fisher. This one I believe I dream b/c I feel things were ended much too quickly for her, almost accidentally, really. Her Dr. increased her coumadin medicine too much, which caused a brain hemorrhage. She called 911 and and then passed out. They had to axe down her front door to get to her. We all rushed to the hosp and my sister Sarah and I were able to talk to her for the one minute she woke up. They took her to surgery and she never woke up again. She lived in Phila and was going to come to live with my parents when she got out of the hospital, but that never happened. So I am constantly dreaming the exact same dream. We drive over the Tacony Palmyra bridge and we are in her house, in her kitchen, hugging her and asking ourselves why we waited so long to come visit her. And we make promises and plans for her to come live in NJ. It's a sweet but sad dream. A dream I don't really want to ever stop having.

I dream often of my Dad but they aren't always the same dream. It's always different scenarios and he is there with us, living and doing things. With dreams about him his presence is so real I wake up feeling like I've actually seen and touched him. I feel connected to him again. I don't want to ever stop dreaming of him either.

This one is another re-accruing dream I wish I would stop having. It's Chris and I not married and us desperately wanting to be married. At the end of the dream I always realize that we are married all along. It's like a cruel joke. I KNOW why I have this dream. Chris and I wanted to get married 6 months before we actually did. We wanted a fall wedding on Nov. 11th. I was the first of my sisters to get married and my mom, well she just wasn't quite ready for all that change. She asked us to wait. We told her we would wait 6 months until May,11th. We bring it up sometimes and kinda joke about it, but we still feel that desperation of wanting to be together and feeling like we can't be. Turns out years later my Grandpop Charlie DeGenova passed away on Nov. 11th, so it worked out for the better b/c our anniversary would be mixed with the sadness of losing him.

I think it's odd that we have no control over the dreams we have. I've woken up mad at someone I've had a fight with in my dream. I've woken up emotional or scared to death from certain dreams. Sometimes I have to wake Chris up and ask him to pray for me b/c I am so shaken by a dream. Those dreams were the worst when I was pregnant. If you have a re-accruing dream, share it with me on here. I am very interested in what others dream about over and over. Oh and Sweet Dreams.

Dream Catcher

"Dreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Dreams mainly occur in the rapid-eye movement (REM) stage of sleep—when brain activity is high and resembles that of being awake. At times, dreams may occur during other stages of sleep. However, these dreams tend to be much less vivid or memorable. Dreams can last for a few seconds, or as long as twenty minutes. People are more likely to remember the dream if they are awakened during the REM phase. The average person has about 3 to 5 dreams per night. During a full 8-hour night sleep, two hours of it is spent dreaming. Dreams have been seen as a connection to the unconscious. They range from normal and ordinary to overly surreal and bizarre. The events in dreams are generally outside the control of the dreamer.^{" _Wickepieda}


Little Red Wagon

I was home alone with the boys, we were getting ready for my niece Abbey's 13th birthday party. The boys were playing outside while I finished some chores then we were going to leave for the party. I hear them going up and down the driveway in their wagon, I hear laughter and a few yells of un-fairness. A few minutes later Ian comes in the house rather sheepishly. He tells me they ran the wagon so hard into my flower planter they knocked it over dumping my newly planted light purple impatiens out. At first they just kind of put the flowers back in hoping I wouldn't notice, and then Ian tried to push the roots under the dirt. But a lot of impatiens were lost in the accident. Usually with reports like this I just fuss at them, it was an accident, not an intentional offense. But that day I cried, looked out the window at my planter and now pathetic impatiens and I cried. It mattered a lot to me. I took time to pick the flowers I wanted, got soil for my planter and I planted them in the special rows that my husband taught me to do. I watered my flowers and I was proud of them. Ian didn't really know what to say, other than he was sorry. I went into the laundry room to finish rotating the loads. Ian met me there with a note that said:

"I'm very sorry please forgive me for everything I've done rong. I've tried to help I really have
but whenever I do it just turns out rong. So please, please forgive me. Please.
From: Ian To: Mom."

He also emptied his wallet and gave me his $14.00 he was saving. And..........I cried again. Felt a little foolish that I got so emotional about the flowers, but eventually my heart remembered this verse....

"Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains by itself alone: but if it dies, it bears much fruit."  John 12:24         

I've been talking to Chris in the past few week about how the boys don't respect my things, or what I do for them. We've been working on that with them and in this situation Ian showed me that he got it. It blessed my heart, he is teachable, he is compassionate. Chris took me to pick out new flowers and he re-planted my planter for me, better than it was. A simple, silly lesson to some, maybe, but not to this mother. To me it meant the world.

P.S. I gave him the money back.