Sara's Story

Dear Ones,

It's Shannon, stopping in to share an incredible gift with all of you.

One that requires a box of tissues at the ready. 


This past weekend, (in)courage the site Sara wrote for regularly hosted (in)RL, an incredible virtual conference attended by women all over the world. Over 1,700 of us spent time learning, growing, laughing, loving...in community with each other.


It was an event that would have been right up Gitz's alley. 

A few months ago, I was humbled and honored when (in)courage approached me about creating a segment for(in)RL about Sara and how she impacted people...it didn't take much to persuade me or anyone else to join in. Our girl? She could get me to do just about anything. Smile.


Sara's Story  is one that we all need to share from the rooftops. Her faith, love for others, trust in the unknown, heart joy...these parts of Sara? They leap through the screen and into your heart while viewing...all while breaking it a bit all over again too.

This morning, (in)courage released the video for public viewing. Jessica, a heart sister of Sara's, wrote a post about it here.

If you'd like to know more about the (in)RL conference or how to obtain access to the videos shown during it, please click here.

So...please find 30 minutes and a quiet nook. Grab some tissue. Press play.

See our girl.





Then? Go look in the mirror.  There's a piece of her woven into you, too. Will you consider sharing within the comments how she's impacted you? 


Let's celebrate her together.


Much Love,

Shannon

Words

Before Sara died, she asked me to speak at her wake. She didn't desire that I share with others memories of her. Rather, she asked that I speak about who she was in this world. She told me that she wanted people who came to see her as I spoke.  She also told me I wasn't allowed to cry. It would, she stated, "Make things less effective." Love her.  A friend who was present asked that I (Shannon) put it up for all of you, who were unable to join us at the service, to read.


.  .  .  .  .  .  .

Gail Caldwell wrote: "It's an old, old story. I had a friend and we shared everything, and then she died and so we shared that too."  

Words are powerful. Uniting. They shape our view of the world, ourselves, each other. Words, in the best cases, make us immortal. Words are how I found her. Faith is what brought us together.

A friend send me an email, asking me to pray for a mother who knew she was going to lose her baby girl and carried her to term anyway. I immediately prayed, and then got online to read something called a blog. First time I'd read one. In. My. Life. I took in the entries from first to last, with tears streaming. My heart ached. I prayed. I returned again and again to follow this mom's story. In the process? 

I found Sara.

Our friendship was wildly unexpected. I linked to gitzengirl.com and as I read I heard her voice. Honest. Full of Faith. Strong. True. Her words? They were her, and like a book waiting to be opened, I dove in. Heart first. Because that's how all of the great things in life are to be done. I sent an email explaining the similarities in our stories and assuring her that I'd never written to someone like this before, I wasn't creepy, and um, if she had some time, could we possibly correspond? She immediately replied with an, "Of course! I'd love to get to know you..." And, as it's said, the rest, for us, for was history. Day in, day out, doing "life" together. Only now, knowing what I do about her, does this response make me laugh. I'm quite sure that is how Sar answered every single person who contacted her. .

Sara did everything full throttle, both feet in, filled with intention and limitless enthusiasm, shown by the sparkle in her eyes for what most interested those she loved. She told me that the most important gift you could ever give someone was your full and undivided attention. Sara got it. She knew that to live well meant to treasure moments and seem them as gifts. She chose joy. Not happiness, which is as flimsy as a shirt blowing on a line in the breeze, but true heart joy which sustains through obstacles, disease, death. She make the hard choices. 

Every

Day

She chose community . Using her words to a build a life when her body failed her. She shared her faith boldly. She was real. Alive. Present in every moment. She made those around her and those who shared her world via her words desire to enjoy their days as she would have...

No going back

No regrets

...taking the time to feel the sun kiss their cheeks and cause freckles, which she so missed seeing on her own. Sara lived. 

Every 

Single

Day

She was a daughter, a sister, a friend. She loved to sing. She loved to dance. She made the world's best volcano cake. She adored cheese...and Oreos, frozen and dipped in peanut butter. Some have called her inspirational. She was, but not intentionally. Honestly though? To me? She's simply Sara, my best friend. The one with the snort-filled laugh who made up songs for everything. She had eyes that twinkled and hugs that filled you up way past overflowing. She was my heart.

And here she is, proclaiming that it's not about her, in full Sara-get-the-last-word fashion. But this time? I have to disagree. Because it is about her, what He's done through her.It's about her taking the time to teach us through her words and her beautiful life how to be genuine and honest. How to love the Lord and follow Him. How to make our lives more outward focused than in. Loving well. Living well. Choosing joy. That was our gitz. And because here, in this place, she deserves the final word, I'll leave you with hers...

"Make it about Him, not you. Enjoy every second. Choose joy."

Well said, good and faithful servant. Well said.

...

5 minutes: unknown

I can't tell you how great it was to read all of your answers yesterday... with the thought that went into some of them, I know you all are going to love the gist of this book and what it makes you ponder.

The winner of Holley Gerth's My Heart for You is:

Zoshadelonghi {side note: I would love to know if that is a last name or if it stands for something...}

Congrats! Email your mailing address to gitzengirl@gmail.com and we'll get your book sent off to you! :)

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

Today I'm linking up to Lisa-Jo, aka gypsy mama, who chooses a topic every Friday and writes for five minutes.

Only five minutes.

And the rule is that whatever she writes about in that five minutes is what she posts. No editing her thoughts.

*** Actually, when I checked Lisa-Jo's site, there was no prompt put up, so I'm going to improvise. Since the prompt is - literally - unknown, that's what I'll write about. :) ***

So I'm going to set the timer, write some thoughts, and then I'm going to stop.

Ready? Set. Go.

:::

Unknown.

The unknown can be our biggest enemy sometimes… the thing we put most of our focus on and what we spend most of our energy trying to control.

I sometimes wonder if it's actually more comforting for us to look ahead and live in the future and all of the unknown simply because we feel a desperate need to avoid the present we're in.

Because, let's face it, the present can be hard. We can be broke or we can be sick or we can be abandoned. We can be living in limbo in our marriages or in crisis with our jobs or aching for our children and their needs. The right now can hurt so badly that the only escape is to get lost into the unknown of those "what ifs" that give us the illusion of control.

What if I take this job, or what if we lose the house, or what if we make that move, or what if I get the raise, or what if I try this treatment.

We can live in fear and dread the unknown, assuring ourselves of the worst - or we can live in hope and see happiness ahead with Pollyanna eyes.

But neither of them are truly right.

Both are still guessing games of the unknown.

I'm learning how to fully live right in the middle of the hard, in the here and KNOWN, because if this is my life - if this is where I am at - then this is where God is at, too. And if I’m wasting all of my time and energy trying to control the unknown of the future rather than fulfilling what He may be needing from me right now, then I’m wasting God’s time as well.

It all boils down to this:
none of it is unknown to Him.

For Alex, Anna & Thomas

Dear Alex, Anna and Thomas:

I remember riding in the car with your Uncle Steve the summer before I was heading to college. He looked at me, his naïve little sister, and said something important.

"When you get to college, there are going to be people who do things in front of you that will shock you. There will be people who admit to doing things that are against everything you believe in. It doesn't make them bad people. It just makes them people who've done things."

He proceeded to list some of the things he'd seen, some of the things he'd done, some of the things that people had told him. And then he told me something else. He said that when he got done with his first year of college he went home and thanked Mom and Dad, telling them, "I may not have always chosen to do the right thing, but at least I always knew right from wrong. That's a lot more than some other kids at college had."

Those two things impacted me more than I can tell you. Because I got out of that car knowing that I did know right from wrong and I could choose right regardless of what everyone else chose, and I knew that I could love people even when they chose wrong.

That they were more than their mistakes.

Just like you will always be more than your mistakes. You will always be loved by me for exactly who you are at any given moment. And I will always be a safe place to turn if you need one.

I have been blessed in my life to have friends from so many different walks of life. I have friends who are so like me I can't believe we're not twins, and I have friends who are so different from me that people don't understand how we can have any kind of relationship. And I love them all the same because every one of them has brought a richness to my life.

So I wanted to write this down as you three start college classes this week. I wanted a place where you could come and read the wise words your Uncle Hoody said to me, because it served me well in college and in all the years of relationships afterward.

Because that's what life is, guys... a series of relationships that shape us and others in profound ways.

Know that while you will learn a lot in college classes and you will shape your future and get your degree, some of the greatest lessons you'll learn in college boil down to this: Be who you are and don't compromise yourself for anyone. But don't shut anyone out just because they are different. Love them. Listen to them. Meet them where they are at and be who God meant you to be ... an extension of Him in the lives of those around you.

And have a lot fun while you do it.

And don't forget your Aunt Sara is here if you need her. For anything. Any time.

I love you. All the way around the world and back.

Flashback Friday: Soul Desire

I have the privilege of "being" at my Uncle Barney's funeral today as he asked that some of my songs be played instead of having a choir sing. I can't tell you how much it means to me that he would want that, and that it's still possible I can give to him in that small way today despite not being able to travel home.

So today, in honor of him, I'm doing a Flashback Friday with a song that speaks to me about the way I want to live out my life.

The same way Barney lived his.

My Soul Desire
{originally posted April 17, 2009}

Tonight I had the girls over for our faith sharing night, and this paragraph from Max Lucado's Traveling Light struck me in a big way:

God hates arrogance. He hates arrogance because we haven't done anything to be arrogant about. Do art critics give awards to the canvas? Is there a Pulitzer for ink? Can you imagine a scalpel growing smug after a successful heart transplant? Of course not. They are only tools, so they get no credit for the accomplishments.

Now, at some point in the discussion I think Susie called me a tool, and didn't mean it in the nicest way, but that's not the point I'm trying to make here. :) In every part of the 23rd Psalm, which this book is based on, it talks about all God does for us:

"He makes me..."

"He leads me..."

"He restores my soul..."

And once again I am reminded that I need to be mindful of having a servant's heart. I have to be intentional in all the actions I take, knowing that all I do needs to point back to Him... the One who gets the praise for writing the story of our lives. The story for which I am blessed enough to be the ink.

And I just happen to have recorded a song back in the day that reminds me of just that.

01 My Soul Desire by gitzengirl

(in)courage: overwhelmed.

Hi, friends.

I'm doing my monthly post over at (in)courage today and I would love for you to go over there to read and join in the conversation, but I also have a favor to ask.

My Uncle Barney, who I mentioned in this post, passed away on Monday night and the funeral will be later this week.

My dad came from a big family, he was one of nine children, and until he died they had never experienced a loss in that immediate family. In the past thirteen months we have lost my Dad, my Grandpa Gerald and now my Uncle Barney. If you would say some extra prayers for my family, especially Grandma Rita, as well as Barney's wife Mickey and their kids Cory, Travis, Cristin and Libby, it would mean a lot to me.

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that all of this was written by God's hand and arranged with His loving embrace, but I know from the past year that it doesn't seem to make the missing them part any simpler. I so appreciate your prayers as all who loved Barney walk that road.

::

Click here to read my post over at (in)courage today: Overwhelmed.

Sweet Mariela.

I'm a girl who considers the idea of vacations to include things like hotels and room service, and I wouldn't mind a spa on premises, if we're getting technical.

Granted, I never went on vacation anywhere that actually had a spa on the premises, but in my mind it seemed like something I would enjoy.

A lot.

So I probably wouldn't be the first one to come to mind when people think missionary. And to be honest it was never on my radar growing up simply because it wasn't something I was exposed to. I remember Fr. Nash, whom my family loved, leaving to go to Africa and become a missionary when I was younger, but all I really knew about it was that he was leaving and we threw him a party and I would miss him not stopping by the house.

The limited sight of a child, you know.

It never affected my life until I was in college and my Aunt Janella, who worked at the college I attended and whom I treasured, decided to learn a new language and travel to Bolivia to serve the people.

It overwhelmed me to think of all she was leaving. It overwhelmed me to imagine the things she would see and the conditions in which she would learn to live. And it overwhelmed me with pride to know she was willing to do that – no, was excited to do that – simply because she felt called.

What overwhelmed me the most was that my eyes were finally opened up to a world beyond my doors. To a world of poverty and need and conditions about which my mind was oblivious. And because I got to hear the stories from Janella's perspective, I learned that these were not just faces and statistics on the evening news.

Bolivia was filled with mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters who love just like we love. Who hurt just like we hurt. And who hope for things that we take for granted in the simplest of moments.

After that, although time made it very clear my life would never allow it, I would wonder if that would ever be my calling. If I would ever have the chance to go and be the hands and feet of Christ in that way. If I would ever kneel down and face a child on a dirt road and gaze into eyes that were filled with a story far beyond their years. If I would ever be able to help.

So you can imagine what came over me when Matthew sent me the videos of him meeting my sweet Mariela, the girl he and Jessica allowed me to choose for them to sponsor in my name. I chose her picture, her story. I wrote her a letter and sent her photos and Jessica helped me shop for gifts for her in preparation for Matthew's mission trip.

My heart was already full of prayers for her and excitement over corresponding with her.

But then I saw her sweet smile.

Her shy nature.

The way she took in my story and felt the words in an understanding beyond her years.

The way she looked at the camera when she realized that's where I was, seeing her.

This child has already changed me more than I will ever affect her, I'm sure of it. Because now my world stretches beyond these walls all the way to Bolivia.

{Mariela's message to me}

{Matthew first meeting Mariela}

If you want to help a community better support each other, a family learn trades to earn income, a child to go to school and have the chance to educate themselves into a better future, consider looking into World Vision. They not only help communities, they set the goal of only having to be in a community for 15 years… at which time the community can run all the services for themselves. It's not just helping a child, it's providing a future for an entire village and the generations that will come.

Because not all of us can go be missionaries.

But that doesn't mean we aren't called to a mission.

5 minutes: beauty

Today I'm linking up to Lisa-Jo, aka gypsy mama, who chooses a topic every Friday and writes for five minutes.

Only five minutes.

And the rule is that whatever she writes about in that five minutes is what she posts. No editing her thoughts.

Today, her topic choice is "Beauty…"

So I'm going to set the timer, write some thoughts, and then I'm going to stop.

Ready? Set. Go.

:::

Beauty has always been a tough subject for me, mostly because for so many years I didn't see what others did when they looked at me.

It's taken me a lot of years to finally really believe that. That what I saw when I looked in the mirror was distorted. The girl who was once 83 pounds and saw fat and ugly in the mirror… that girl didn't see what was really there. But it took until now for me to really realize it.

It took Cushing's - ugly, mean and cruel Cushing's -for me to know that even when I do look in the mirror and see my worst nightmare that I won't break.

I had gained 70 pounds in a short four months. I stretched and pulled in deformed ways. I looked in the mirror every day and couldn't even see my own self in my eyes anymore and I realized that's what I had always done… looked in a mirror not recognizing who was there.

And just like I had no control over gaining it, I've had no control over losing it. I have spent the last year so sick that I lost all of that weight and then some. And now I look in the mirror and I see someone I recognize. But I see more than just me.

I see the real me.

Not the me I was afraid of at 15, and not the one I was searching for a year ago. I see the me with the off-color of illness in my skin and the sometimes red blotchiness of flash rashes and the Cushing's striations on my body that will never leave and still sometimes hurt to touch and I'm not afraid of any of it.

They are my marks of survival.

Friends come and I put on the foundation and I apply the mascara, but it's more so they aren't scared and they don't worry about how sick I am.

For me now, on normal days when I am bare faced and facing the day, I just look in the mirror and see someone who is still surviving and living through it. And there is beauty in that. In surviving.

I get that now.

Thought for the Day...

When I first walked through the doors to my new job, I didn't care about anything except that I got that job. The one that made me a writer.

I was at a magazine and I was going to write {eventually}. I started out as low man on the totem pole. I was an administrative assistant to the editor and in the first week I had that man's office reorganized, color coded, and his stack of articles edited and reformatted.

I'm pretty sure he gave me a writing assignment just to get me out of his hair.

So there I was, working for a trade publication about call centers - knowing nothing about the industry -about to do my first official interview for my first official article. And to be honest, I didn't care about the industry at all. Predictive dialers might as well have been calculus for how much I enjoyed reading about them.

But I called my first interviewee and learned something invaluable: It doesn't matter if I know about the subject matter, or if it interests me. I just need to care about the people.

Because that man I interviewed? He was mad about the industry. He was jazzed about predictive dialers. All I had to do was ask him a question and from there on out it was about the conversation. About learning from someone who was thrilled to teach. About adapting my own priorities into caring about his. 

Suddenly it wasn't about trudging through an interview about the most boring subject on earth to me, it was about investing in a man who had a story to tell. And I had the ability to tell it.

In a time when every self help book I read talked about finding groups of like-minded people to further your goals, and being true to who you are over who others may want you to be, I found the opposite to be true. I found that if I went into every situation caring more about what was important to the other person, then who I was grew ten fold.

I learned that it was all about the person, and in order to care about the person I needed to choose to care about what was important to them, and make it important to me.

I was thinking about this because you all saw this photo and said you weren't sure who was more the kid, me or Elias:

And the truth is that I couldn't have cared less about a car zooming off the bed. But I cared that Elias did. His interest became my interest and his excitement became my excitement, and before I knew it I was filled up with contagious joy.

We all do that for children. Imagine if we did that for other adults as well.

Imagine if we cared more about them feeling happy than us feeling right.

Imagine if we cared more about them feeling known than us feeling superior.

Imagine if we cared more about them feeling accepted than us feeling righteous.

Imagine if we cared more about them feeling joy than us feeling envy.

Imagine if we cared more about them feeling abundance than us feeling security.

Maybe sometimes it's not so much about being who we are at all costs. Maybe sometimes it's about letting go of who we are to see who we might become.

Just something to think about.

5 minutes: whole

Today I'm linking up to Lisa-Jo, aka gypsy mama, who chooses a topic every Friday and writes for five minutes.

Only five minutes.

And the rule is that whatever she writes about in that five minutes is what she posts. No editing her thoughts.

Today, her topic choice is "Whole…"

So I'm going to set the timer, write some thoughts, and then I'm going to stop.

Ready? Set. Go.

:::

Whole.

I have fought this word a lot in my life span of being sick. Because so many {truly well-meaning} people have used the word in order to tell me what I could be.

If I would just take another remedy.

If I would just pray a certain prayer.

If I would just… fill in the blank.

If I would just do any one of the magical things that they have just heard about from their aunt's cousin's mother, then I would be…

…wait for it…

WHOLE.

I couldn't figure out for the longest time that *that* was the part that was hurting me. That they were looking at my life and viewing it as something other than complete.

I was less than.

Less than perfect. Less than their idea of what I could be. Less than I was. Less than I should be.

It took a long time for me to sort through all of the noise and clutter of it all to realize that I am whole.

I am in pain, sick, frail, homebound, bedbound, without great possibility or potential in my future.

In all of that, I am whole. I am complete. I am exactly what God made me to be in the exact time He created me to be it.

My Uncle Barney is struggling with cancer, and it has changed and stripped his life. We talked a few weeks ago about his frustration of having talents his whole life that he can no longer use. And I told him that he used them when he was supposed to. And if those things were no longer in his abilities, then they were no longer what God wanted him to do.

Because he is perfect just as he is. He is whole. He is perfect in God's eyes and doing exactly what God needs from him in his life. Just by being himself.

I could speak those words to him because I had experienced those losses. And if all of my suffering was simply so that I could speak those words to an uncle I love when he needed to hear them, then this is worth it.

Because God made me as I am. To do exactly what I am doing.

And I am whole.

Family.

Some really amazing things happened on Monday - I got to meet family I have been dying to see.

I got to know Jessica and Matthew around the time their Elias was born, and these beautiful people came to me, opened their hearts and let me be a part of their family. We call, we Skype, we text. We share our good times and our rough times. They've seen me on camera without makeup and barely talking, and they love me like I'm peppy and easily heard.

They love the way I love. With everything they are. And when you're hit with that kind of acceptance you are never the same.

I'm not the same.

On Monday, Jessica walked right through my door and hugged me, and it felt to me like she just finally came home. I don't know how else to explain it.

And THESE TWO. Oh my soul, these two sweet babies that I've been loving through a screen on the computer. They pulled up in the parking lot and Elias' Nana pulled him out of the car seat… I waved from the window and he put his hand over his mouth as if to say, "She's real!" and I melted. I got hugs and kisses from the cutest boy and then snuggled sweet Adeline.

My own personal version of heaven.

I'm going to get more pictures from Jessica and promise I'll do a post to bombard you with every photo there is to show… but right now I want to introduce you to some other family I got to see on Monday.

This is my sweet Mariela. And I love her with all my heart, too.

While Jess was here showing off her babes to me, Matthew is in Bolivia for World Vision. And a few months ago, around my birthday, he and Jess called to tell me they wanted to do something special. They wanted to let me choose a child to sponsor in the village Matthew was going to visit.

And my heart chose Mariela. This beautiful 10-year-old girl, who comes from a big family with two brothers and six sisters, is now going to be helped because of Matthew and Jessica's choice to sponsor her with World Vision.

According to World Vision, the program will help provide Mariela and her community with school supplies and new classrooms, as well as clean water and ongoing medical care, improved nutrition and hygiene. Her mom will learn job skills that will help them increase their family income and raise the standard of living, and through Christian witness she will have a chance to know the love and grace of God.

And she's going to know she is loved and cared for, by God and by me, because I'm going to write to her and remind her all the time.

Mariela loves to draw and play with dolls, just like every other ten year old… but she faces hardships that no ten year olds I know could imagine. This is a gift to me as much as it is to Mariela, and if you have it in your heart – if you've felt that nudge to do more – follow Matthew's journey to Bolivia and consider sponsoring a child, too.

It's a choice I know you'll never regret.

You can't have too much family to love.

5 minutes: still

Today I'm linking up to Lisa-Jo, aka gypsy mama, who chooses a topic every Friday and writes for five minutes.

Only five minutes.

And the rule is that whatever she writes about in that five minutes is what she posts. No editing her thoughts.

Today, her topic choice is "Still…"

So I'm going to set the timer, write some thoughts, and then I'm going to stop.

Ready? Set. Go.

:::

Sometimes it amazes me the parallels these words Lisa Jo chooses can have on my life. And how much duality the words can have in their meaning for me.

Because for about an hour or so last night I was filled with stillness and antsy-ness all at the same time. I was on a conference call with most of my fellow (in)courage writers, and I was forced into stillness because I can't breathe and that makes my voice inaudible. And if you know me, not talking while on the phone is my own personal form of torture. :)

And while my breathing was still and my voice was gone, my body was anything but. So it silently screamed on the outside while the pain raged loudly in my ears. My limbs jerked and fingers ached, which only allowed me to type a sentence or two in our corresponding skype chat.

Which means I was only able to say hi and offer a tiny bit of encouragement in a room full of people I wanted to say so much to. I had to be still because my body was anything but.

This morning, however, as I opened up Lisa-Jo's page and saw "still" as the word of choice, the first thing that came to mind was this:

Be still and know that I am God.

And I wondered what He really meant by that for me. Because the "know that I am God" part totally changes the "be still" part for me.

I think in my world He's not telling me to slow down. I'm already at a standstill. I think He's telling me to let go. To let go of trying to be something I can't be. To let go of the idea that I can do anything about any of this.

I think He's telling me it's ok to be still in these situations because I'm not Him.

He's God and I'm not and so my job, while I hate the stillness and fight the stillness that is created because the pain in my body is anything but still, is simply to let it go.

To be still and let God be God and go with the flow.

Because he's God and I'm not.

What do you think He's saying to you?

Prayer...

I'm running a little below empty in the energy department these days, but it leaves me with so much time on my hands in the quiet. So I want to put that time to good use and do a little rewinding to an old post today and take the time once again to pray for each other.

Will you join in?

The Good and The Beautiful

Sometimes, when life gets crazy or redundant or just too much, I have to remind myself that I get to shift my perspective.

Even when circumstances can't be changed, how we look at them can be. Always.

Because I think we humans tend to look at life as black or white. Good or bad. Beautiful or ugly.

We all love to share the beautiful parts. We all love celebrating with each other and announcing our good news from the rooftops, but it's harder to look at the hard things, the seemingly ugly things, and shout those to everyone around us.

It's harder because we feel like we're burdening people with our burdens. We feel like our problems are probably small next to theirs, and it's not fun to look at the ugly things, and it's not easy to ask for prayer because we feel self-centered and selfish over the bad and the ugly.

I was online with some friends the other night when someone asked for prayer requests and within moments they were flooding in. Everyone felt safe with each other in that community, and I realized how blessed I was when everyone stated their needs without hesitation. And I wondered why we don't do that more often.

Why we don't just say what we need.

Because when we do, our burden is lightened. Our perspective can change. We know we're not going through this life alone.

Life is meant to be shared. The good, the bad and the ugly... which I think is really just the good and the beautiful to Him, you know. Things are hard for us, bad for us, ugly to us, but to Him it’s all just the pattern of life that brings us closer to Him. And there is beauty in that.

The good, the bad and the ugly... God can see ahead to the beauty that comes from the ugly. He's knows the beauty in the ugly pain that we can’t yet see. Our perspective shifts when we trust that He will bring beauty from our pain. That He will carry us as we carry our burdens.

And we can be Christ to each other as we help each other carry those burdens.

So I want to offer that to you today. A place where you can say what you need from us and we can pray for each other. Write your request in the comment, and pray for the person who commented before you.

Let's take the perspective of the good and the beautiful today in everything that's in front of us, let's make it beautiful by sharing it together.

How can we pray for you?

5 minutes: full

Today I'm linking up to Lisa-Jo, aka gypsy mama, who chooses a topic every Friday and writes for five minutes.

Only five minutes.

And the rule is that whatever she writes about in that five minutes is what she posts. No editing her thoughts.

Today, her topic choice is "Full…"

So I'm going to set the timer, write some thoughts, and then I'm going to stop.

Ready? Set. Go.

:::

I was watching television the other day when a commercial for the Iowa Lottery came on. They showed people receiving these boxes at their homes that glowed with a bright white light and said, "DREAM" across the side.

The actors would jump and scream and run in the house yelling, "Honey! I got my dream!" and it was fun and exciting and it got me thinking…

What would be my dream?

And I realized, I don't have one. I don't have a tangible, money-driven dream that the Iowa Lottery would be able to deliver for me.

And I realized it's because I'm full.

I sat here for the longest time and tried to think of something I really needed. Or even something I wanted really badly. And I'm not saying this to be all holier-than-thou, but I really have everything I need. Even before I was gifted this bed for my birthday, the one thing I needed to be comfortable every day, I'm not sure I would have thought of it as a wish.

Because I just feel full.

I woke up this morning and Riley was waiting for my eyes to open so he could lay his head on my stomach and I could pet him until I could move. It was a moment of being truly full because I was needed and wanted and not alone.

I have a safe home and a comfortable place to lay my bones all day. I have friends who call and email. I have a community of people here who really see me. I have family members who love me and check in on me and I am full.

I have everything I need.

I worried about it for a minute… because we live in a world of goals and dreams and five year plans. But as much as I would like for some things to be different in my life, I think I like the lesson I've learned in the way my life turned out.

That God has given me everything I needed as I've needed it. And I am full.

(in)courage: Intention.

I'm telling a story and talking about intention over at (in)courage today. Will you hop over so I can share it with you? I'll be in the comment section there all day…

Click here: Intention.

I'll be back with this week's Gitz Bits tomorrow. :)

::

Edited to add entire post:

It was a perfect July day at a lake in Minnesota. Out on a boat, smooth water and soft breeze was made better only by the company. A spouse, siblings, in-laws – best friends all of them – laughing and having deep conversations and just enough fun to not tell the kids about.

The only thing that marred the day in any way was a simple bee sting on his toe. And that random act is the thing that killed my Dad. A farmer, who was never allergic to any sting before, randomly died of anaphylactic shock.

That one word haunted me then and has been haunting me again.

Random.

I know why. It’s been a year now since that day. It’s been a year since the whisper went through our small town of devastated people. The quiet hush of, “Did you hear? It *was* the bee sting. It’s just so random.”

But what I’ve learned in this year is that random doesn’t exist in the vocabulary of God. Because once I stopped replaying the randomness of that day in my mind, and the fog of stunned grief began to lift, I realized random was only our description of his death.

Intention described his life.

No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. {Mt 24:36}

Dad‘s death was never random to God. He saw the day Dad was born and the day he would die. And the same is true for you and me. What we have in between is the opportunity to fulfill the wants of God as He lays out opportunities in front of us.

Opportunities that require intention.

That nudge in our spirit. That whisper in our ear. The urge to make a phone call or ask to visit. The passing thought of prayer or the ache that resides deep within for what we know we should do but haven’t.

They can be whispers and they can be sirens… but they are there. The opportunities. To be kind. To smile instead of ignoring, to acknowledge instead of dismiss. To let someone pass ahead instead of hurrying on your way, to speak the words that come into your heart instead of holding them in for your own security. Because the truth is, if you come in contact with someone you either leave them feeling better about themselves or worse, but you never leave them unaffected.

It was the simple things for Dad. The {I LOVE YOU} that flowed freely from his tongue and was felt deeply in his heart. The smile and joke to the cashier, the visit to the elderly neighbor, the voiced pride in his grandchildren and the hug to the widow alone in her pew on Sunday.

These are the small things every day that make us who we are supposed to be. How we are supposed to represent the One who wants us to spread His message of love in those days between our birth and death.

All of it matters. None of it is random. We aren’t supposed to have an urging in our spirit and say, “I’ll get to that tomorrow. I’ll visit them tomorrow. I’ll bless them next time.” No. We’re supposed to wake up today and say YES.

Yes to the attitude we must clothe ourselves in before our feet hit the floor. Yes to the kindness and the welcoming smile. Yes to graciousness and gratitude in our words and actions. Yes to the prompting in our spirits to be the essence of Him to every. single. person. we encounter.

Because while we look for reasons in what feels random, and great purpose in our lives through grand deeds and gestures, what we are missing is the day-to-day opportunities He sets out for us.

The truth is that if you are still breathing, He still has plans for you. And one of those small moments you see when you are living intentionally may just be the moment He needed you most.

Live it for Him.

5 minutes: loss

Today I'm linking up to Lisa-Jo, aka gypsy mama, who chooses a topic every Friday and writes for five minutes.

Only five minutes.

And the rule is that whatever she writes about in that five minutes is what she posts. No editing her thoughts.

Today, her topic choice is "Loss…"

So I'm going to set the timer, write some thoughts, and then I'm going to stop.

Ready? Set. Go.

::

Loss.

Sigh.

I didn't expect this a year later.

I knew it would be hard. I knew the anticipation was weighing on me. But I didn't expect for it to be visceral. I didn't expect for my body to feel in shock again, for the nausea to creep in. I expected sorrow, not grief.

But I felt grief again.

I have felt all week like I needed to reach my hands into my chest and hold up my heart for the weight of it. I missed my family and I missed the community and I missed my dad.

Oh, how I miss my dad.

And tonight as I'm writing this, tonight is one year exactly since his funeral. And I remember the moment my friend Kelly walked into my condo on that day, one year ago, to watch them bury my dad on a large screen that carried the skyped image of his casket in the church.

I remember saying to her that I hadn't forgotten. And she said, "No. Today is about your dad."

And I said, "No. We have enough love for both of them."

Because eight years ago today we had sat in a hospice room and said goodbye to her eleven-year-old daughter, Kaitlyn. I had sang to her, we had prayed over her, we had cried with her and then she was gone.

So tonight, as Lisa-Jo picked "loss" as our five minute prompt, I said "Yes."

Yes, today of all days, loss is heavy in my heart and fresh on my lips and quick on my fingers to type to you. And I grieve for us but I rejoice for them.

Because our loss is their joy as they bask in the bliss of His love.

But that doesn't stop us from the ache. From the loss. I wonder if it ever will.

Blog Peep Questions: Round 19

What does your daily faith walk look like? How do you connect with God?

Honestly, this is one way I feel fortunate for the life I have. {I know… this is going to sound crazy that there are benefits to being bed bound, but it's true.} Because the truth is that my life is set up in a way that I don't have a lot of distractions between me and God.

I don't have a hurried existence. I don't have a job and husband and children and errands or just plain old life to distract me. And in a lot of ways, that really stinks. I would like to have those things filling my world. But in this way, in this I-have-no-one-around-me-but-Jesus way, it has allowed me to have a connection with God I don't know that I could otherwise have.

I open my eyes in the middle of the night, and my first thought is to talk to Him. About my thoughts, about people, about situations. I do nothing all day but lay in bed, often times in the quiet depending on how I'm feeling, alone with my thoughts. And those thoughts are a direct conversation between me and God. It has become as natural to me to connect with Him as it is for me to blink my eyes.

And I would never want that to change.

A friend of mine and I were recently talking about someone we know who not only has stopped believing in God, but preaches pretty vehemently against Him. And as angry as some of the things he says makes me, I told her that I am mostly sad for how lonely he must be without God. How empty the quiet space must be.

Because my life, my moment to moment existence, would be incredibly lonely without my constant companion. So, that's what my prayer life looks like. I read books about faith, I'm currently reading through Acts in the bible, I pray the rosary and I pray written prayers and I do all sorts of things to broaden my faith and knowledge.

But mostly, I just talk to Him, thank Him, acknowledge Him and rest in Him. Every moment.

How does Jesus talk to you?

I'm not one who will say, "Jesus told me…" simply because I would hate to presume I heard right and then turn out to be wrong. :)

I don't hear an audible voice of God. I have thoughts that pop into my head and I immediately speak back to Him in my heart and I know that somehow He sparked that conversation. I have moments where I am wrestling with decisions and I will settle on something and have a complete peace about it, and I take that as His way of helping me know it's the right choice.

Sometimes I don't feel anything at all and that is frustrating as all get out, and I let Him know that I'll be patient because I fully acknowledge that maybe it's not the right time for me to hear, to feel peace, to make the decision. In the end, even not hearing from Him is a way for me to let Him know I trust Him more than I want an answer.

The way I hear from Him most often comes through conversation with others, however. And not necessarily what they say to me. This happened just recently when I was emailing with a friend about a decision I was making medically and wanting to be sure I was making the right choices. She started asking me hard and direct questions and I answered them so easily. Words flew onto the page before I even thought them through and I remember thinking, "Oh, that is true. That is right. Ok. Decision made."

Sometimes it's in that process of working through topics with other people that He puts words into our own mouths to answer the questions. At least that's how it works for me.

How did you come to know the Lord? Where have your spiritual influences come from?

I am one of those really lucky people that doesn't have a grand coming-to-know-the-Lord story. I'm one who doesn't remember the first time I heard about Jesus. I just always knew Him as the friend and the savior and the Father that He is. He was always a part of my family's life.

We always talked about our faith growing up. We always went to Mass and said the rosary and prayed before meals and bed and upon waking. Mom would walk into our rooms in the morning singing, "Rise and shine and give God your glory glory." We sang our ABC's and Jesus Loves Me as though both were important to learn. I went to Catholic school and found it completely natural for a teacher to say, "Well, have you prayed about that?"

I was in college before I met another human being that didn't believe in God. I spent a week every fall vacationing at a convent with a few hundred nuns, my godmother was a Presentation Sister, I had priests and nuns babysit me and we often had Mass said at our house.

I am one of the fortunate ones who had a great religious experience growing up. I am one of the fortunate ones who was surrounded by faith and people who had real relationships with Jesus. I can't really think of any part of my upbringing that didn't have a spiritual influence on me, and for that I am so very grateful.

If you have any questions for me… deep or silly… just leave them in the comment section and I'll answer them in another post. :)

5 minutes: grateful

Today I'm linking up to Lisa-Jo, aka gypsy mama, who chooses a topic every Friday and writes for five minutes.

Only five minutes.

And the rule is that whatever she writes about in that five minutes is what she posts. No editing her thoughts.

Today, her topic choice is "Grateful…"

So I'm going to set the timer, write some thoughts, and then I'm going to stop.

Ready? Set. Go.

::

It's what I've been thinking about tonight as I lay here with my thoughts. As I've rested here and thought about family gathering together at my parents' house to remember all that happened a year ago. As I think about losing my dad, as I think about not being with my family, as I think about my own life and what's ahead. As I try to peer into the unknown future trying to catch a glimpse of what I'm supposed to do and who I'm supposed to be.

In all of that, through all of that, every time I open my lips to speak to Him I can only speak of how grateful I am.

I am so grateful I have the dad I do. I'm so grateful that I was a young girl who grew up to know she was loved by her dad and never had to search for that love in anyone who didn't value her.

I am so grateful I have a dad who brought laughter into every single day and brought tenderness into every single hurt.

I am so grateful I have a dad who taught me faith by his example and taught me trust by the steps he took.

I am so grateful that my family is together to honor him and am so grateful that he will be remembered in their laughter and their tears and their memories.

I am so grateful that I know God well enough that I can trust His design for me even in a future that is beyond my sight, and I am so grateful that the same God knows me well enough to always provide exactly what I need exactly when I need it.

I am grateful for the blessings that always come out of pain. I am grateful for the people and the friendships and the soul-embracing moments that can only come from shared experience.

I have been given so much and I have treasured so much and I have lost so much.

And I am so grateful.

Homesick.

It was a year ago this past Monday that I last saw him. That I last laid my head on his shoulder as he sat next to me in bed.

It was a year ago this past Monday that he held my hand and I heard his laugh and I felt the love that a dad gives his daughter just by giving her a look and a grin.

And a sweet pat on the cheek.

It was a year ago this past Monday that he proudly showed me pictures of his garden and told me the plans he had for the yard. He had things yet to do. It was a year ago that he talked of friends who had been close to death and were spared, and commented about how fleeting life can be.

Words that would ring in my ears mere days later.

It will be a year on Saturday since he sat on that boat on a gorgeous day and winked at his wife and laughed with his friends and lived fully until his very last moment.

A year. It feels like 20 years since I talked to him, and it seems like yesterday when I sat in the back room of this condo and got that phone call.

I am so homesick for my dad.

After a whole year, that hasn't changed. I miss him now like I missed him the day they dropped me off at my dorm room in college, when I thought about running down to the parking lot after them for one last hug.

Just one more.

I'd run after him again if I could. If I could escape these walls I would run to the church that held his casket and run to the grave where his marker now stands.

I long for those things now like I longed for them a year ago, but I know he wouldn't be any more there than he is here. No one place could contain the spirit of a man who was never contained even in his own self. He was dispersed into the hearts of every person he encountered. Every life he touched. Every smile he displayed. Every kindness he extended. He constantly gave himself away.

And that's how I find him now. In the eyes of my brother and the heart of my sister and the hands of my mom. I see him in the grandson who has his tender nature and the granddaughter who has his spunk. I look for him everywhere, see him everywhere and miss him every moment.

People have said to us that the second year is harder than the first. I don't know yet if that is true, but I do know this. Having been loved by him is worth every moment of missing him. I think I'll be homesick for him until we're back together, hand in hand, and all is put back right again. Until then, I will keep doing my best to live up to his example.

I have very big shoes to fill.

20 Years.

Next weekend is my 20th high school reunion. Yes, God help me, I am that old. :)

My friend Goi {Sheri} and I were emailing back and forth this week about the reunion, and life in general, when she told me about a girls' team she is coaching. She said she was frustrated because they were coming out playing like they had already lost, and she wasn't sure what to say to them.

This is what I wrote back to her:

I would use the quote by Carlos Castenada if I were you. He said “We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.”

These kids can learn right now that they put as much effort into failing as they do into winning simply by the words they constantly tell themselves. It takes effort to tell yourself that you can’t do something. That you can’t win or you can’t do your best. It takes effort to decide to fail. And it takes the same effort to decide that they can try and they can do their best and enjoy the game and live the moment.

It’s all about which attitude they decide to put their effort into.

In the end, that’s all that matters. Because failing isn’t about falling down. Everyone falls down. Failing only happens to the people who decide not to get back up. So these kids can put their effort into falling down, staying down and being miserable - or they can put their effort into getting back up and being strong. The choice is theirs.

The ironic thing is that I could write this to her in a quick email conversation, but I was never able to write the blurb they asked me to submit detailing my life.

The blurb where I sum up the last twenty years and tell everyone about the life I now live.

But looking at this email tonight, I realized that I could have submitted this, out of context, and it would have summed my life up perfectly.

Because even though I now spend 24 hours a day laying in my bed, what I've spent the last 20 years doing is getting back up each time life knocked me down.

And it's what I plan to keep doing. Every day.