Chapel of Hope Stories

Dear Reader:

I followed John O’Donohue’s last stanza directions on how to spend my birthday yesterday…I did it in solitude.

On this echoing-day of your birth,
May you open the gift of solitude
In order to receive your soul;
Enter the generosity of silence
To hear your hidden heart,
Know the serenity of stillness
To be enfolded anew

By the miracle of your being.

My birthday started weeks ago with Jo and Colby’s stepping stone and continued with friends dropping by with Boo and Sammy the cardinal masks, flowers, meals, sweets, mountain tomatoes and apples, paintings in anticipated progress, and surcies of all kinds…including my brother’s generous “funny money! gift” 🙂 Thank you Ben! And lastly…ending, amazingly, with a stepping stone yesterday!

Yesterday was filled with texts, emails, funny birthday greetings, beautiful cards, and a  surprising unexpected call from a friend… returning from a darkness of lengthy treatments and surgery to the light of healing. It made my day!

I raised all the windows in the house…letting the cool breezes flow in while I listened to the happy birds thanking me for feeding them yesterday…the air was filled with chirping.

I re-read the last stanza of yesterday’s poem…and I was filled with gratitude for this precious gift on my natal day…being one of solitude that allowed me to thank my soul and Creator for another year of life, the generosity of silence that lifted my heart in gladness, and remaining still long enough to appreciate this day for simply “being.”

I will never be this age again on my birthday…it should be a time of reflection on the past and hopes for an unfolded future with adventures and opportunities galore.

Tonight the birthday celebration will begin…my adult children are taking me out to eat (in an outside dining area)…it is my favorite night of the year….when all of us can update the family on the highlights in our lives since last year and share the hopes for the future.

Then with Saturday comes the family birthday party for Jake…craziness, loudness, wildness, and total fun…the best way to end this beautiful fall month in which Jake and myself were so fortunate to be born in…and Mandy, Lassie, and John too. It is one of the most popular family birthday months.

I spent part of yesterday in the garden… anticipating all the new wonders that will appear this year…and opening Lassie’s gift that I saved to open on my “official” birthday.

Look at this stepping stone…I felt like it fit right in …in front of the singing, gurgling fountain. So pretty….Thank you Lassie! I love it!

Look at the butterfly wrapping paper…definitely symbolic of the number and variety of butterflies in the garden now…I feel like I am ducking to avoid a collision. 🙂

So until tomorrow….A Birthday Prayer

Thank you, God, for giving me another year of life.
Thank you for all the people who remembered me today
by sending cards, and letters, gifts and good wishes.

Thank you for all the experience of this past year;
for times of success which will always be happy memories,
for times of failure which reminded me of my own weakness and of my need for you,
for times of joy when the sun was shining,
for times of sadness which drove me to you.

Forgive me
for the hours I wasted,
for the chances I failed to take,
for the opportunities I missed this past year.
Help me in the days ahead to make this the best year yet,
and through it to bring good credit to myself,
happiness and pride to my loved ones,
and joy to you. Amen.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

While I was enjoying my sedentary birth day…Jake had waited all day for his big birthday present and when he got it….he was anything but sedentary! An electric scooter! He even let Eva Cate play too.

And I don’t think he will be forgetting what number birthday this one is….

Dear Reader:

The most beautiful moon flower blossom to date…one that secretly bloomed during the night, bloomed in an azalea bush instead of on the trellis…thus putting it in the path of the morning light that shone through the exquisite translucent petals to reveal the chartreuse-colored morning “star.”

Now, truly, can anybody get a better gift than this for their birthday…nothing short of a miracle. Several factors had to come together, perfectly timed, to create this magnificent, memorable gift from God. Thank you!

A poem kept nagging at my memory…beautiful lyrics to one’s natal day from long ago. I should have known it would come from the Irish theologian/poet JOhn O’ Donohue. Here are three of my favorite stanzas from the poem: A “Blessing for Your Birthday”!

Blessed be the mind that dreamed the day
The blueprint of your life
Would begin to glow on earth,
Illuminating all the faces and voices
That would arrive to invite
Your soul to growth.

Blessed be the gifts you never notice,
Your health, eyes to behold the world,
Thoughts to countenance the unknown,
Memory to harvest vanished days,
Your heart to feel the world’s waves,
Your breath to breathe the nourishment
Of distance made intimate by earth.

On this echoing-day of your birth,
May you open the gift of solitude
In order to receive your soul;
Enter the generosity of silence
To hear your hidden heart,
Know the serenity of stillness
To be enfolded anew
By the miracle of your being.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………..

I do want to pause and thank everyone who became and shared part of my life…helping me become the person God created me to be. Parents, family, friends, teachers, pastors, children, grandchildren, pets, and strangers who delivered guidance, unknowingly, to re-direct my path. Everyone played and continues to play the role of my compass through life.

Help me remember to live my life through a moral compass...not by a clock.

So until tomorrow…

“Today is my favorite day”   Winnie the Pooh

My neighbor Vickie stopped by yesterday with this big birthday basket of purple asters….my house, porch, deck and garden are getting more “fallish” by the day! Thank you so much Vickie!

A Big Shout-Out to Jake, my adorable grandson, who is turning six today while his Boo Boo is not…… turning six. 🙂

What a blessing it was six years ago when I discovered Jake had picked my birthday to arrive on…I knew then that I had received a birthday gift that would change September 24 forever and it has. Jake and I love sharing our birthdays…this year…a pirate theme…ARRGH! (along with a car theme, a surfer theme) it’s hard to pin down this young “rennaissance” man of the future! 🙂

Birthday Memories! Don’t know if you can see (1st photo to left)…but when I arrived at the hospital and saw Jake for the first time…he winked at me…he had planned to come on my birthday and he had pulled it off…so special!

Dear Reader:

Wouldn’t life be extremely dull if we knew everything that was going to happen ahead of time? If we lived in a world with no surprises?

The best thing is… surprises don’t have to be big…in fact, in my personal observations, the smaller the surprise…the bigger the reaction. My story…

I went out in the garden yesterday slowly walking up the path towards the fountain…relishing in all the flowers and garden decor…especially the ones given to me by friends and family.

Honey gave me several dragonfly ornamental stakes for the garden…I put them all around the path perimeter and love them so. Well…yesterday as I walked out to water a few plants that looked somewhat wilted…something caught my eye.

It was a real dragonfly perched perfectly on top of Honey’s ornamental dragonfly stake…on the right wing. (If only I had my iPhone to take a picture I thought sadly…but surely, by the time I go get it and return… the dragonfly will be gone.)

I finished my stroll and went back in the house. I had been charging my iPhone and thought I would look for some pretty photos for today’s post.

When I got back to the ornamental stake…I “gasped.” The dragonfly was still there. This could not be…I thought to myself…but I quickly turned on the photo imagery to prepare to take the picture. In my excitement I must have hit something else…because when I excitedly clicked the photo…it started with the 10, 9, 8 , 7 , 6 , 5 , 4, 3, 2, 1.

“No! I thought to myself…what did I do?” No way that dragonfly is going to stay put for 10 seconds more. But it did! It was so delicate and so beautiful…it had a green head with blue side and gorgeous” translucent” wings that caught the sun’s rays.

I quickly ran in the house…to try to enlarge it as much as possible without losing the proper dimensions…and here is our amazing, surprising  dragonfly perched on another dragonfly decor stake! (extreme right)

I mean…what are the odds that a dragonfly would perch on an ornamental stake dragonfly and just stay there? It completely made my day…immediately I texted Honey and sent the picture because dragonflies have always been an important symbol in her life.

She replied:

Oh Becky! The dragonfly has always been a positive for me!  I can remember being  in our pool on Ayers Circle and they would light on my arms and legs as I floated in my chair.It was always a positive! Good things always seemed to follow. Somewhere along the way I read that they are angels-that’s why they have extra wings.
Just today when I got your email I was emptying the kiln with 4 dragonfly plates. They are ready to go to shop in Brevard. Six more dragonfly plates are being bisque. Many people seem to like the dragonfly. She brings hope and positiveness!

The dragonfly symbolizes wisdom, change, transformation, light and adaptability in life. Each attribute and/or characteristic is something we all seek in our lives….being open to change, following the light, transforming and adapting to whatever obstacles come our way…and having the wisdom to know we will be stronger people for going through the transformation.

Dragonflies have a fascinating history in how they have evolved over millions of years….yes…millions!

The dragonfly is born as a nymph who lives in water for the first three to five years of its life. During this time, it can molt between 9 – 17 times. Then, it transforms and evolves into the flying wonder we see around us, but very little of a dragonfly’s life is actually spent flying through the open air. When you have a dragonfly sighting, you are seeing a symbol from our Creator to live in the moment and make the most of the time you have…they don’t live long in their flying stage.

Dragonflies can see in 360-degree angles—another clue from our Creator to open our eyes and to see beyond limitations. Each of their four wings works independently. They go up, down, backward, and forward at any axis, which makes for some unique maneuvers. This allows the dragonfly to fly in any direction and at a speed of up to 30 miles per hour.

Even at top speed, dragonflies can make hairpin turns or suddenly stop and hover. From the time they’re born, dragonflies are constant vehicles of change and transformation, demonstrating why this insect has survived since before the time of the dinosaurs.

If I really want to boggle what’s left of my mind…I try to wrap my brain around how many millions of different species of living organism call our blue planet home…and each tiny creature up to the largest mammals on earth… the blue whales to elephants….everyone has their own unique blueprint…and each original set of instincts are designed to keep all organisms alive for as long as their blueprint designates…to carry out their specific task on earth.

How can anybody not believe in a Supreme Being upon witnessing the marvels and mysteries of life itself?

So until tomorrow…each day we have the opportunity to witness another surprise from all God’s creatures living within their universal habitats. Amazing beyond comprehension.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

A big shout-out to my cutest little nephew, Rhodes, who is not so little any more…he is turning four…a “big” little boy now! And don’t forget it! 🙂

Happy Birthday sweet Rhodes….your Aunt Becky Boo loves you through and through!

Gin-g brought a birthday pizza last night and we had so much fun catching up, eating cake on the deck, and being so chilly we needed a sweater…hard to believe. Thanks Gin-g for the meal, and most especially for the memories…what fun we had reminiscing over old teaching days!

Dear Reader:

These days it is very easy to be in love with life in nature…every minute of it. Mums, pumpkins, butterflies, gords, chilly nights and cool mornings. Truly…what is there not to love about the favorite season world-wide…Autumn?

And guess what? It arrives today…September 22! Some years we are still “sweating bullets” upon its arrival or in hurricane/tropical weather storm patterns…but this year…Fall falls softly…inviting everyone to lengthen their shadows and turn up their smiles.

One of the best gifts that the Autumn Equinox brings us is the September Corn Moon and the Harvest Moon...which this year will arrive October 1. For several evenings it will appear just around sunset lighting up the Northern Hemisphere with its powerful rays. (In fact the origin of the name ‘harvest’ or ‘corn’  evolved because farmers could harvest crops, like corn late, into the day and early evening on Corn Moon Days.)

Here is a nostalgic painting from an earlier time period on rural farms.

This more modern photo interpretation is just as beautiful.

We are very lucky this year (2020) …We (the Northern Hemisphere) will witness a Corn Moon on September (2), a Harvest moon October 1, and a blue moon on Halloween, October 31. Pretty cool, huh?

There is also a spiritual meaning behind our Autumn moons….especially for 2020…and we need some good spiritual encouragement… don’t we?

Whether we’re celebrating the Harvest Moon in October or the Corn Moon in September, this time of year is all about balance and abundance. It’s a time to honor and appreciate our special place in the universe.  A time for reflection and gratitude for all the God-given gifts we are blessed with…

Full moons always symbolize a time of climatic conclusion, but this is felt even more deeply now as we near the changing of seasons and the cooler months ahead are imminent.

We are beginning to turn inward. This is a time of balance just as it is for the natural world around us. We feel the coming of the darkness and pulled towards our spiritual side in a new way. Each day of sunlight and brightness must be commemorated in our memories and celebrated for the light to return.

We must take the promise of the full moons to  renew our faith in dignity, courage, strength, morality and honesty as the  anchors for our lives, our family’s lives and our beloved place in God’s world as one of God’s children.

So until tomorrow…Go buy a “book” of stamps…the late summer/ autumn version… filled with fall vegetables and fruits….a delight for the recipient.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Susan and Ady came for a birthday visit bringing me lemon chicken/rice soup (I told Susan the best chicken soup I have ever put in my mouth!)) and a beautiful fall candle with a fall kitchen potholder/linen cloth. So good to see family!

Anne checked in yesterday with friends to show her latest completed artwork.

“Just finished “Rain Gauge” for the Summerville Public Works Art Center’s ‘WATER’ community show which runs from 10/3 – 11/7/20.” 

The more I stared at the picture…the more I thought it was a photo. I decided it must be a photo contest this time.

When I texted Anne to tell her how much I loved the photo in its simplicity and symbolism…she said it was a painting of a water jar with added background…all accomplished with watercolors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A painting…not a photo!

See for yourself why I was mistaken…it blows one away. Anne can take the simplicity of the ordinary and turn it into extraordinary…what a talent!

Tommy and Kaitlyn got away this past week to Lake Toxaway in North Carolina….Look how gorgeous! Just what the doctor ordered! 🙂

Dear Reader:

Anne sent me one of Quinn Caldwell’s recent devotionals….she knows how much I enjoy his takes on life with all its surrounding circumstances and complications.

In this devotional he was concentrating on the musical “Hamilton” and the mystery revolving around the last scene as the curtain falls.

Here are his thoughts on this powerful and dramatic ending to one of the most popular theater productions in history.

The one who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! – Revelation 22:20 (NRSV)

At the very end of the musical Hamilton, the newly deceased Eliza Hamilton, having been reunited with her son and husband, faces the audience. Her eyes grow wide, she gasps loudly in delight, and the house goes dark. Curtain.

Much has been made of that gasp, especially in the days since those of us who couldn’t afford to see the show in person watched it streaming online. What did she see, or understand? Was it God? Did she break the fourth wall and see the audience sitting there and realize the work she’d done to preserve her husband’s legacy had come to new fruition? Something else? Lin Manuel Miranda’s not telling, and of course that’s part of the point.

There’s a line in the hymn “I Was There to Hear Your Borning Cry” that regularly makes me weep. At the end, after the hymn has taken us through a human lifetime marked by God’s constant presence, it says,

“As the evening gently closes in
and you shut your weary eyes,
I’ll be there as I have always been,
with just one more surprise.”

To think that no matter what I’ve done or haven’t, no matter what I’ve learned or failed to learn or forgotten, no matter what I’ve lived through and no matter what finally kills me, still there will be one last new thing: that whether it comes when I’m old and ready or young and unwilling, at the last my eyes will widen in delight. It relieves me unto tears.

I long for it. Not for death, mind you. For the surprise.

Prayer
For the promise of the gasp, O God, thank you. Amen.

The actress who played Eliza, Hamilton’s wife, says that personally the meaning behind the “gasp” changed, for her, at each performance….she never planned ahead what the “gasp” would mean…she just let the individual performance and the audience’s reaction to the play dictate her powerful ending’s feelings…the gasp and the “Mona Lisa” smile seeing her dead husband and son again after so many long years. (And that is all she will say about the meaning of the “gasp.”)

Actress Betty White, the last of the “Golden Girls”…well into her nineties (98) said her mother always repeated the same idea  at a funeral… about death…”Now he/she knows the secret.”

As a young person hearing her mother’s words…she found them comforting (she always loved secrets)…and like the author Caldwell (while not looking for death but yet curious) she, too, is excited about the “gasp/surprise” that accompanies it…

Betty White says, however, that she now knows at least part of the secret.

“If you’ve ever lost a loved one, or witnessed it, you can’t help but see that the body is only an envelope for the letter.”

I love that metaphor.

So until tomorrow….I experienced my own  gasp of delight when I woke up Sunday morning…one moon flower blossom had apparently bloomed during the night or early morning hours….but instead of being withered back inward as I stared out the window by my computer…it was gloriously shining in all its fullness and grandeur as the early morning sun peeked through.

I “gasped” and ran outside to get a photo…the only blossom to survive the night…it stayed in full bloom until almost noon. (I think it is the change in weather…50’s at night and sixties in the morning… that adds to its longevity…it loves the cooler, dryer air. And I love it blooming longer for me to enjoy!)

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

It was too pretty a day to stay inside…so  I walked around the garden where the butterflies were out in full force…they must be enjoying the cooler weather too…they were more exquisite than ever…and they let me get as close as I wanted… to take a picture. Here are three of my favorites taken yesterday

And check out this beauty!

Welcome now to Boo’s Fall Garden…

Dear Reader:

When I “laid my eyes” on my college roommate, my sister in all ways but biological, my friend forever-Brookie…I knew Covid had to take a backseat…while we physically hugged.

I told God we needed Him to protect us for just a few hours while we got caught up. We realized that we haven’t seen each other since February when we were all at the Pawleys Island retreat. Wow! We have never, ever gone that long without seeing each other.

When Brooke burst through the door it was like a long-awaited breath of fresh air …waffling in happiness and joy. The kick-off to my birthday has started! Look at the gorgeous, gigantic yellow mum she brought!

We went out on the patio to talk and catch up….Honey I decorated one of your vases with garden flowers and that was my “surcie’ to Brooke for taking time out of her busy schedule with her son, Riley’s upcoming birthday…to spend Saturday with me.

If we could  just have had Jackson and Libby…the circle would have been complete….but we are already planning for the next retreat as soon as everyone has their “bells on their toes” back on and hopefully Covid has turned the corner and starting to slink away.

Showing up for life…making time for friends and family has got to be one of the most important aspects of the usage of our short time here on earth…nothing is more appreciated…calls, texts, emails, videos, are nice but nothing will ever take the place of human contact and friendship.

How many of us wish we had carved out more time for a grandparent, aunt or uncle, neighbor, etc. who was always there for us….and even though we loved them we took their presence and love for granted…until the day they were no longer with us. Not making time for others…always ends in regret.

The Importance of Making Time for Others- article- Kari78

Make spending time with people extremely important in your life. The more importance you give to meeting up with someone, the more likely you will be to do it – no matter what else happens.

• Remind yourself of how important they are to you.
• Remind yourself of how valuable spending time with them is to your happiness.
• Remind yourself how much they love you and support you.
• Remind yourself how much they need you!
• Remind yourself of how important strong relationships are for your happiness.
• ……………………………………………………………………………………………

I want to thank Harriett Edwards for sharing the title visual message on Facebook (love it!)…After Brooke left I realized that I had just experienced a glorious day when fall weather descends with cool breezes and a different scent outside…no sticky humidity…just the smell of fresh sheets hanging on the line! What a good day to be alive for sure!!!! No complaints at all…just deliriously happy for friendship that have lasted a lifetime to date.

So until tomorrow….

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

Yesterday was “Real I.D. Drivers License Day.” For the past couple of days we have experienced a little of everything when it comes to weather…some wind, on and off torrential showers, gray skies and bursts of sunshine followed by tornado warnings and more rain.

I picture Mother Nature emptying her mixing bags of weather with gleeful abandonment…pouring  a sprinkle here of rain, another sprinkle of wind…a handful of thunder storms, followed by tons of electricity….lightning.

I do believe Mother Nature is “fudgelling.” Fudgel is an ‘old new’ word added back in the dictionary last year.

To fudgel is an eighteenth-century term meaning “Pretending to work when you’re not actually doing anything at all.” Modern offices are full of it, largely because when somebody is staring intently at a computer screen and typing it’s hard to tell whether they’re busily putting together this year’s accounts or busily updating their Facebook status or buying something on eBay. “Stop fudgelling” should be the catchphrase of every efficient office manager.

I must admit that sometimes while ‘working’ on the blog post…I get distracted by a visit from Sammy the Cardinal…or the little brown bunny that runs out from behind the moon flower trellis and I start  to “fudgel” a little myself…while I shop on amazon.com. 🙂 But then I do return!

I decided to use St. George’s DMV office instead of some closer ones to me…simply because it is rural,  smaller, more manageable, and I always have a good rapport with their kind staff. This was true yesterday too…but it did seem to take forever to get there.

Part of the reason was the weather….it was fairly cool, overcast, and slightly drizzly…misty the whole way there and back…about a 40 minute drive. It was just enough drizzle to turn on the windshield wipers but not enough to leave it on…so I was turning them on and off and on and off.

The closer I got to St. George the rainier and darker the overcast day became. It has been a few years since my last visit and somehow I thought  the DMV was closer than it was…so I kept slowing down to check the road signs along Highway 78.

That last mile before arriving was definitely a “wheady” mile. You know how I love new words…I am constantly checking to see what unknown words have entered the Oxford Dictionary in the past year or two. That is how I discovered the word “wheady.” 

The wheady mile is the last mile or so of a journey that, for some reason, seems to take much longer than it should. It’s an old dialect term from rural Shropshire, but it still applies to modern journeys. It feels as though you’re about to finally arrive at your destination when suddenly another twist and turn in the road dashes your hopes.

That is how I felt…especially with the darkening skies and dreary rain falling…passing sections of swamps that started turning into eerie-looking spooky places. I was ready to get to the DMV and “get real” with my new driver’s license.

I discovered that even with an appointment and all my required documentation complete…I still had one more form to fill out…which required me to return to the car and fill out the form while listening for the office to call me to return.

Then I played bumper cars with waiting chairs…inching up when each person in front of you was called into the office section. I lucked up when my name was called…I had the nicest lady behind the plexi- glass counter.

When she asked me what I was there for…I told her that I wanted to get “real” with my new drivers license…so “real” she was going to think I was the Velveteen Rabbit before I left. She stared for a moment (like I was a lunatic) and then burst out laughing.

“

That was a good one…love the quip…I used to love reading that story to my now grown children when they were little.” From that moment on… we hit it off and all the paperwork, forms, etc. just fell into place.

By the time she took my new photo…she was yelling “Work it Sister…you got it…a little smile to the left …turn slightly to the right”– hilarious. I left smiling with a big check-off item for yesterday…no “fudgelling” at all…In fact it was such a big check-off item…it will last me eight years. Not bad for a rainy, misty, day in September!

So until tomorrow…

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on.” – Robert Frost 

*( So true…and if we are very lucky…we get to continue on as life goes on and purchase a new drivers license that assures us of eight years of  more driving …if we still need wheels and not wings yet!) 🙂

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

A Big Shout-Out to Lassie…my September birthday friend and sisterly co-hort. We love having birthdays in early fall…So many beautiful mums of diverse colors…Happy Birthday Lassie and thanks for all the Race for the Cure memories…I miss them and seeing and being with you on ‘race’ day! 🙂

GO TIGERS! First home game of the 2020 season… against the Citadel! Love you tigers!

Dear Reader:

By now many of you have heard my story, the setting-home, the time... the night before my first surgery, the plot my left breast mastectomy, for breast cancer. *It would be the first of four surgeries in all…to date. For those who recall my memories by heart now…you, also,  know it was when I first heard God’s Voice.

Let me back the story up three days prior….it was May 2008…a few days after Mandy and John’s wedding…I had a red rash around my collar bone and neck that kept getting redder. I had lost a lot of weight…which, initially, I delighted in…’Just in time for the wedding‘ I remember thinking.

But I was also weak, my hair was thinning…something was wrong. Preparations for my only daughter’s and oldest child’s wedding took precedence over everything…but now it was over and I needed to get the rash checked…other family members had noticed the changes in me too and strongly encouraged me to get checked…

From the first stop…my primary doctor visit…things moved at a rapidly increasing crescendo pace…I left the primary doctor to see a breast surgeon who told me immediately it was breast cancer and he was scheduling surgery in two days. The next day was spent doing paperwork at the hospital and receiving transfusions of blood before  surgery the following day…since I was extremely anemic.

*(My particular type of breast cancer was treatable but not curable and my surgeon told me and some of the family following the surgery….probably three years.)

I called my brother Ben to take me to the hospital for the surgery very early the next morning…I only had time to call the children and tell them what was going down…so the night before the surgery I found myself wide awake…lying on the sofa…praying as hard as I have ever prayed.

It was the same prayer, over and over…Heavenly Father, please help me…”I don’t know what to do…I just don’t know what to do!”

This repetitive prayer went on for hours, it seemed to me, and then I heard it. “HOLD MY HAND.” I sat up on the sofa…”What?” I called out in a shaky voice…did somebody say something?”

*I thought Ben had awoken and come into the den…so I got up and went to the guest bedroom and peeked in…he was sound asleep.

I returned to the den….puzzling over the voice I had just heard. And then it happened again…”HOLD MY HAND.” “GOD?”I tentatively called out into the darkness. “Is that YOU GOD?”

And then stronger, firmer, clearer than I ever heard a voice… ‘HOLD MY HAND!!!”

I did…and a few hours later while brushing my teeth…I had to un-pry my left hand’s fingers…I had been holding on so hard that my fist was ‘frozen in time.’

To date I can tell you that God has never stopped holding my hand…if ever I have felt distant from Him…it has been me who let go and I have had to find it again and secure my hold once more.

Family and friends  questioned me about what the voice sounded like that long night…now so long ago…  But, initially, I was never able to identify the voice, even gender, or height or depth of the vocal chords until….

….a God Wink appeared in the form of a book. A friend loaned me a popular novel (two years after my surgery- in 2010) called EAT, PRAY, LOVE. For those of you who read it or saw the movie…you remember the famous bathroom scene when author, Elizabeth Gilbert, talks with God for the first time…and then she identifies the voice.

***Her recognition of the voice had me jumping up and down in the delights of an epiphany… when I got to this part of the book…saying ” That’s it….Oh My Gosh...She’s right…exactly right!”

Excerpt: “Hearing the Voice of God on the Bathroom Floor”

In the story…Elizabeth is desperately trying to pray to God but is struggling since she has never tried it before.

“I pulled myself together enough to go on: “I am not an expert at praying, as you know. But can you please help me? I am in desperate need of help. I don’t know what to do. I need an answer. Please tell me what to do. Please tell me what to do. Please tell me what to do …”

And so the prayer narrowed itself down to that simple entreaty—Please tell me what to do—repeated again and again. I don’t know how many times I begged. I only know that I begged like someone who was pleading for her life. And the crying went on forever.

Until—quite abruptly—it stopped. A stillness came over me like no stillness I had ever felt…the most calming stillness in my life.

Then I heard a voice. Please don’t be alarmed—it was not an Old Testament Hollywood Charlton Heston voice, nor was it a voice telling me I must build a baseball field in my backyard. It was merely my own voice, speaking from within my own self.

(Back to my story)

Now I knew  the reason why I couldn’t identify God’s voice when people asked me…because it was my voice...yet, like Gilbert, my voice as I have never heard it before or since …confident, strong, loving, and compassionate.

The similarities in our stories were and are not lost on me…. I had finally discovered the answer to the riddle that had frustrated me for two years… since my first talk with God. God’s Voice = My Voice.

Suddenly I understood why scripture tells us we are all made in God’s image...that there is a piece of God in all our souls…each of us has a divine spark...because all of us are a part of God...the part of us we don’t recognize here on earth with our spiritual weaknesses but one day we will understand this mind-boggling truth… we were and are all part of God’s creation and as such…part of the Creator Himself.

Like the visual title today: “Don’t you know yet?…It is your light that lights the worlds.” Rumi  (God lights the world through us)

So until tomorrow….“I sought to hear the voice of God and climbed the topmost steeple, but God declared: “Go down again – I dwell among the people.”― John Henry Newman

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Wednesday the petals on two moon flower blooms were torn by the torrential rains just as they unfurled…I was sad. But yesterday…one moon flower unfurled in torrential winds and hung in there until it could smile in all its beauty.

I just finished the back door Fall Wreath…..letting the glow of the late summer’s sun’s rays of sunshine…fall inside.

*I want to take a moment and send out an universal prayer for everyone undergoing health challenges, no matter the cause or treatment, and pray that God fills each and everyone with His love beyond comprehension, caring beyond the  most expansive perimeters and comfort within the nestled Hands of our Creator.

Feel renewed with a new lease on life… filled with gratitude and thankfulness! Amen.

Dear Reader:

Occasionally I like to look back on earlier posts written the same month or season I am in now…and see what was on my mind back then….compare and contrast my thoughts about life and my place in it.

When I “accidentally” came across the idea in the title quote…I paused. If anything, this thought is more timely now than five years ago.

Now I am trying harder to disperse my gatherings through a continuous “down-sizing,” scattering project that never ceases.

I separate clothing, household articles, books, etc. in boxes or bags…throw away the torn, tattered or broken, save some memorabilia for the grandchildren, ask a friend or neighbor if they want something, give to a charity…Oh how I wish I could simply scatter the bulk of my belongings to the wind and let nature disperse  it all as seen fit. (If only it was that easy!) 🙂

I, also, wish I could have been a  Johnny Appleseed scattering apple seeds along the pioneer trails of our country’s frontier or perhaps a Hilda Edwards, the “Lupine Lady” who spread gorgeous purple lupine flowering blooms throughout Maine...scattering beauty wherever she went. These “scatterings” would be concrete and visual to many…everlasting.

I will have to settle, I think, hopefully for scatterings of memories left behind me when I leave.

Here is an excerpt from the original post written September 23, 2015… titled using today’s quote by Helen Walton:

” It’s not what you gather but what you scatter…that tells what kind of life you’ve lived.” 

Dear Reader:

Don’t we all remember our first taste of any kind of knowledge of world history? It all started with the notion of early man being divided into two roles by gender- male hunters and female gatherers…Even as an elementary student with no concept of world history…it did seem unfair to me that man got to be the hunter and woman got stuck with the gathering.

Surely there were some women warriors mixed in with the dinosaur slayers….but since nobody could  tell her story through writings…these female warriors just faded from history.

Today, however, with men and women hunting and gathering (dual roles) side by side…we have to look for one more role (that sets humans apart from our ancient ancestors) to bring spiritual meaning into our existence…the role of scattering. Hunters, Gatherers, and Scatterers. 

Don’t we all want to leave “scatterings” of ourselves around when we are gone? I know I am guilty of wanting these “scatterings” of memory to be strong, positive ones. But yet…aren’t the best family stories the funny ones about our mistakes we made along the way?

Isn’t leaving a “scattering” of smiles and chuckles behind us….perhaps better than a “scattering” of serious and sad memories of our departure…over-riding our embarkation of life with arms flung wide open?

So until tomorrow…Let us remember that scattering sometimes takes awhile to show itself to others…but when it does…it tells the most accurate version of our life story…the story of what we leave behind.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Soft rains have descended this afternoon…I do believe it is about to lull me to sleep…a luscious nap is calling me. I finished all my errands yesterday before the rains came…

While pulling out of a dirt road…I saw this mailbox decorated with pumpkins and loved the name of the location. I do believe it was a God Wink! And speaking of…I am “winking” off as of…now! 🙂

Dear Reader:

Monday started out a little “iffy.” I was all excited about calling the local DMV to schedule my appointment to finally get my new drivers license. I had to wait on some missing documents to be certified/copied, then sent to me…but now I had all my check-off list of “papers” I needed.

So I called the nearest DMV and instead of a human voice an automated voice gives me  an (803) number to call to set up an appointment? What? Why would I have to call Columbia, the state office,  to get an appointment for Summerville? Oh no! I could see the handwriting on the wall before I even dialed the number.

Sure enough…after a minimum of 35 minutes waiting time …listening to elevator music…I finally got a human voice. I was so comatose by then I couldn’t think why I had called in the first place!

The employee was very nice, I admit, but the earliest appointment is not until Friday…the end of the week…but I quickly took it and thanked her. I then called my primary medical office to see if I could come in and get my pneumonia shot…but I didn’t get a call back until they were about to close for the day… so I ended up going yesterday.

So Monday was a “call, listen, and wait” day…a lesson in patience I assume…it felt more like a wasted day as I looked at my check-off list and shook my head.

Mother would always assure me when I was little and experienced a “bad” day…to just wait…”Tomorrow will be better” she promised and quite honestly…it did happen more times than not.

So yesterday…I got my shot early in the morning, and decided not to delay “pumpkin time” any more. I needed to concentrate on making my Happy Room brim with fall happiness, decorate however I choose, and finally feel like I am in control of at least this part of my life…my home and decor.

It worked…I found myself humming and singing…the local weather forecasters have predicted we will feel the first taste of fall later this week…and now I would be ready for it! I was more energized than  the “Energizer Bunny!”

Throughout the day I was met with so many uplifting God Winks...I knew I was back on the right track again….starting with the waiting room where I took this picture of positive signs on the reception windows.

I left the doctor’s office and went to Publix to get some soups and other fall foods I was in the mood for….along with some cupcakes for my neighbors and our mail carrier. My sticker (supporting postal workers) had come the day before and I already had it on the mail post…now I added a fall-colored cupcake and one of my sticker ‘Thank You’s” on it. Our neighborhood carrier, Dee, is exhausted…having to pick up different shifts…yet she doesn’t complain…just praying she can keep her job she tells me.

And she is so appreciative…everybody needs to feel needed and supported by her “customers.”

And who did I run into for the second time at Publix...my old singing and storytelling co-hort Lorraine White…it is always a good day when our paths cross…so many fun memories! She is finally retired…except for running her own musical program for kids at her home. 🙂

After a quick lunch I was ready….Let’s try to get Fall to come a little earlier…with pumpkins galore! Initially I was just going to bring out a few…but then I got in the spirit of it…and just kept at’ it. Such fun!

But first, Jo…yours and Colby’s stepping stone was added to the row…putting yours in front of the entrance to the gate so visitors would ‘take time to stop and smell the flowers.’

I changed out the watering sprinkler planter and added some fall color to it too!

…And then came the pumpkins…how I have missed them! 🙂

…And you can’t have pumpkins without “Boo’s”!!!!

Beautiful flowers surrounded by little pumpkins work too!

…And the moon flowers make me smile each and every evening…instead of just one bloom…I am now watching three or four unfurl…Life is good and I feel God’s love supporting me when I get down about our fragile little ‘blue sphere” we call home!

So until tomorrow….Yesterday the world…”slowed down and it enjoyed the little things” with me. 🙂

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh