Serving One-Handed

This morning I had the privilege of going to Sunday service.  There have been more weeks than not this past year, when I did not have the option of going since I could not leave the house.  Thus, I was truly thankful for the privilege.


It was a beautiful Sunday morning here in Paradise - birds singing, sunshine, and pleasant thoughts running through my head as I drove the brief two miles from our house to the church building.


And yet once again I was confronted with the unpredictability of life's events, and reminded of how important it is to prepare ahead of time to trust through the trial.  As Riding Shotgun said in her post a day or two ago, she knows how to "trust and row" (the life boat) but she struggles with how to just trust, and let God take over. Don't we all?


The pastor was wearing a sling as he approached the pulpit and I wondered if he had sprained a wrist or something.  It was "or something" all right; a very big, very scary "or something."


Tomorrow his MRI results are due, and he will learn whether or not he has a life-threatening condition, and if so, will he still have two arms when he is finished with his treatments.  And just last week, he had no inkling that anything was wrong with him!


One thing I appreciate about this guy (we can call him Pastor L.) is he is pretty down-to-earth.  He talked about feeling like he had been "kicked in the gut" when he got the first diagnosis.  And he talked about having to remind himself, "Wait a minute.  Who do you belong to?"


This was no plaster saint telling us all about how he has it "handled."  But he could also joke about preaching with one arm, and learning to be left-handed, if need be.  He said it couldn't be too hard, as his wife has been left-handed forever and seems to do just fine.


Then he spoke with quiet conviction about what God orders, as contrasted to what God allows (for reasons we may never understand) and about the sovereignty of God.  I appreciated both his courage and his candor.
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I don't know about you, but I plan to get up tomorrow morning,  make some tea, read my Bible, say my prayers and get on with trusting.  There seems to be lots to trust about, and much that all the rowing we can muster will not solve.  Meanwhile, we serve a God who loves us even when we are full of doubt.  But I think He smiles on us when we choose to trust Him through the storm.


May you find rest and peace this quiet Sunday evening.  Until next time ... Marsha

The God Particle

A few days ago the news papers and the evening news broadcasts were all abuzz about the great discovery scientists are calling the "God particle."


Using the large Hadron Collider, they sent protons whizzing around a circular 17-mile underground tunnel along the French-Swiss border at almost the speed of light.  Out of some 500 trillion collisions, a few dozen produced "events" during which they observed (but observed was put in parentheses in their own report, and in fact they did not actually see it, but saw something they then interpreted to be evidence of this particle) which they then proclaimed was the "missing cornerstone of science."


Two different research teams connected to CERN (the European Center for Nuclear Research) announced that after decades of searching, they believe they have located the missing subatomic link in the creation of the universe.  Sort of.

It is called the Higgs-boson, and while they are not sure this is actually "it", they know they saw something and they think this may be it.


The alleged Higgs-boson particle cannot be seen or felt, or weighed or measured, unless what they glimpsed for a few micro-seconds the other day was actually "it"; but they are all excited and think they have just about figured out how the whole universe got going.


An yet, some of these same scientists, if one were to tell them about a God who created the universe, would rebutt with "but you have no proof, we cannot see it, we cannot weigh it or measure it."  Uh-huh.


Nevertheless, they would, with their well-meaning but incomprehensible arrogance, try to set the whole world a twitter with something they cannot "prove", and which neither they nor we can see or feel, and they are not even sure what it is.  Astounding, isn't it?


Here is something to consider.  God's word referred to subatomic particles thousands of years before the first microscope was invented, and it described how God used them in the creation process.


By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. (Hebrews 11:3 NIV)  An older version says that what is visible was made from what is invisible.


We see matter and mass.  But matter is comprised of atomic and subatomic particles which we cannot see.  What is seen is made out of what is not seen, just as His Word tells us.


The scientific community is likening this "discovery" to Newton's explanation of gravity. Before his theory, they knew things stuck together, but they could not figure out how.  Gravity explained that.


Yes, it does, physically speaking.  But again, God's word had explained it long before Newton was in nappies.


He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:17 NIV)  Again, the old KJV used the term "adhere".  God created the "glue" (gravity) that holds our world together.


Truly, the point is not  to disparage scientific research, as it has given us many wonderful discoveries which make our everyday lives immensely better.  My point is that we humans can be a little bit childish when we think we have suddenly explained the universe to each other. We are like a toddler finding an ant, presenting it to his parents, and then thinking he has just explained all of nature, if he only knew how to talk.


While we can certainly "agree to disagree" respectfully about various view points on the details of the creation process, I'm thinking we might want to listen more often to the Creator.
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Hope you have a wonderful weekend.  Me, I'm planning to practice my listening skills.  Until next time ~ Marsha

Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy;

they will sing before the Lord,

for he comes, ...

  Psalm 96:12-13
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Singing for joy.  


Apparently the Father loves a good concert.  A heavenly sing-a-long.


We are told the angels sing.


King David was a singer - before he ever was a king.


The morning stars sang together at the time of creation.


"Then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee - how great Thou art."
sang George Beverly Shea for well over fifty years of his life, and folks never tired of hearing that magnificent bass voice of his.


Not all of us are great singers.  But we all can sing our gratitude and joy to a Great God.


It is an opportunity not to be missed.  Singing for joy.                           

                 ..................

Have a joyful week ... Marsha

Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake

                                                  
Thought I would share some more of my summer reading with you.  This one is non-fiction by Pulitzer Prize winner Anna Quindlen.  Her latest book is Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake and is essentially a commentary on life in general and her own in particular, from the vantage point of her sixtieth year.


She is witty, insightful and downright funny.  She also hits too close to home for my own comfort from time to time.


One of the early chapters is called "Stuff."  She writes, "I have a lot of stuff.  I bet you do, too."  She goes on to list her stuff.  Lots and lots of it.  Furniture, clothing, books, etc.


I once lost all my stuff overnight.  Thereafter, I found that having things didn't hold much appeal for me.  However, even with that stark experience as a reminder of how quickly all our belongings can disappear, it has been a continual struggle to avoid accumulation.  I thought maybe it was just me, but Quindlen points out that at least part of this accumulation bent is cultural.


"At some point in America, desire and need became untethered in our lives, and shopping became a competitive sport."


Now truthfully, I do not enjoy shopping.  I really do not, and never have.  I find it tiresome and uninteresting for the most part.  But still I sometimes find myself teetering on the edge of what Quindlen calls the "black hole of consumption."  Yep, I have stared into the abyss and found myself scared out of my wits.


Why just this morning I found myself wandering the aisles at Home Depot looking for ... well, just looking, mostly.  Yes, I needed a couple of small items, and they were cheaper here than at the local grocery market.  But still, I could have been in and out of there in five minutes; but somehow nearly an hour whizzed by before I came to myself and got the heck out of there before I took out a huge loan and ordered a whole-house-makeover.


And remember, I don't even like to shop.  What must life be like for those who actually enjoy this kind of endeavor?  Gads!  One quails at the thought.
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On a slightly different note, she writes about wardrobe after a "certain age" and I found myself laughing out loud at her description of owning upmteen pairs of black pants.  At some point, she asserts that all you really wear are black slacks and some kind of "colored jacket".  Oh my gosh, I thought it was just me.  Of course, I am more colorful than that, as I also own (and actually wear) grey pants and navy blue pants with other colored jackets, scarves, pendants and paraphernalia.  But still .... 
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If you are looking for an enjoyable journey through the age of consumerism and the general confusion called life, as seen through the eyes of an aging baby-boomer, and you don't mind laughing at yourself, you can expect to find plenty of cake among these candles.  The woman knows how to write.


What are you reading this summer?  Until next time ... happy reading. ... Marsha

Three Prunes and a Peanut Butter Cookie

This morning I began my digestive day with three prunes, Sunsweet to be specific.  They are actually very tasty but it makes me feel old to be eating prunes on purpose.  I always thought prunes were one of those dietary items destined to be disguised in some kind of combo dish.  That way you obtained the benefits of all their anti-oxidants and vitamins without being aware of what you were actually eating.


But no.  These days I know I need to eat my prunes and therefore, I just down a few (hard core /commando) with a cup of tea.


Ah, but then I decided to just go crazy and followed up the prunes with a gourmet peanut butter cookie from The Cookie Shoppe.  Wowzer!  What a rush.


I am pretty sure I will be able to run on the sugar high until sometime next week.  Of course the sheer size of that one cookie (somewhere between a pancake and a dinner platter) explains the hit to the old bloodstream.


But there is a wonderful benefit to this super-sized lip-smacker, I can bat my eyes and innocently proclaim, "But I only ate just one."


Ahhhh, I think I will go run around the block first, then scrub down the sidewalks, vacuum the garage, sweep the street, weed the south forty by hand, and then whip a dozen souffle's for the neighbors.


That ought'a do it.  Just in case you are wondering, I typed this little missive at approximately 120 words per minute.  Shoot, I could have written War and Peace in two hours if I had eaten two of those peanut butter cookies.  Yowzer!


I'm tellin' ya, John Denver and his measly Rocky Mountain High had nothing on me.  I am on a Peanut Butter Pinnacle here - so there!


Hope your day runs along nicely, too.  But if you are feeling a little sluggish, you might want to try munching down a peanut butter cookie the size of Texas.  It will fix you right up!
Until next time ... Marsha

Love Those Blackberries - Hate those Chiggers

                                  
My maternal grandmother, Hazel, was an imperious and somewhat intimidating old lady.  When visiting her home one was always reminded that one did not run in the house, one did not shout, one did not bang the screen door, and one always minded one's manners.  Just so.

She was a strict, fundamentalist, church-lady who always wore dark silk dresses to church with a hat and a little veil on the front of it.  At least that is how I remember her.  At home she wore sensible old brogans, with opaque stockings which, on particularly hot days, she sometimes rolled down below her knees, and held in place with those little rubber-band type garters of yesteryear.


The only toys she kept for the multitude of grandchildren (there were well over twenty five of us) who visited were "stored" on top of the refrigerator in an orange mesh bag with a draw string at the top.  I think it probably was originally a bag of either potatoes or oranges.  If you had known my grandmother, it would have made perfect sense to store the toys atop a tall appliance, as this was meant to assure that no one could play with them unless she first gave permission, and then she would personally reach up there and bring them down to child-level.


As a young child I was a bit afraid of her.  You can see why.


However, my fondest memory of her was so completely different from any other that I still smile when I recall it.  That hot summer morning, there was no silk dress, no hat, no church-lady demeanor.  That day we had some fun.


Never before or after did I ever see my Grandma Hazel in a pair of well-worn men's denim coverall's and an old work shirt.  A wide-brimmed, beat-up-looking, old felt hat was plopped over her hairdo. The stockings were gone, too, replaced by some big old white socks, with the legs of the coveralls tucked into them and topped off with actual rubber bands.


As my mother and my sister and I put on our own jeans and long-sleeved shirts, socks and tennis shoes, we were handed our own set of large rubber bands.  My mom had picked enough blackberries (for that is what we were preparing to do) to know what this was all about.  My sister was too little to ask or care; so I was the only one who asked Grandma Hazel "why" that day.  


"Why are we tucking our legs into our socks and putting rubber bands around our ankles? It is going to be really hot today.  Why are we wearing long-sleeved shirts?"  That was me.  Always, "why, why, why."  Drove pretty much everybody nuts.


Grandma Hazel responded with just one word.  "Chiggers" she said, as though that explained everything.


I was only a little girl and I had never been blackberry picking before.  I didn't even know what a chigger was.  Some other small fruit or something ?  "Chiggers?  I thought we were going after blackberries."


"Oh, we are going after blackberries.  But the chiggers will be going after us!"  She chuckled knowingly.


For those who have never lived in the Midwest and have never picked blackberries, chiggers are a tiny bug, so small they are hard to see with the naked eye, which bite anything that comes near.  The bites itch like crazy and make you feel like your skin is going to crawl right off your body.


Of course, that morning I was blissfully unaware as we picked up our pails, got into the car and drove a couple of miles into the country where the berry bushes were loaded with ripe, luscious, blackberries.


We waded into the thickets and we picked.  Boy, did we pick.  Buckets and buckets full.  Occasionally, but not often, I would feel a little prick near my foot.  But I was having so much fun (you could eat as many as you wanted while you picked and they were sooooo sweet on the tongue) that I hardly noticed.


What I did notice, though, was the sound of the buzzing of bees and various insects lazily flying about the berry patch.  Huge blue bottle flies caught the sun's rays as they flew past our heads. The sun was warm, and we were the only people in the patch, bending, plucking, plopping the berries into the pail.  Bend, pluck, plop.  There was a wonderful, purposeful, rhythm to our efforts.


The birds were out and singing away.  Mom and her mother talked quietly about this and that and nothing in particular.  Theirs was a strained relationship for the most part, but that day they seemed in real harmony.  My little sister and I picked, ate, picked, ate.  We squealed and ran around, playing as much as we picked.


By the time we loaded our haul into the trunk of the car and started home, though, I noticed something else.  I was squirming and scratching my ankles raw.  As soon as we got home, mom put my sister and me into the tub, scrubbed us and after our bath, she put calamine lotion on our bites. Fortunately there were not too many of them.               # # # # #


Over the next few days, mom and Grandma Hazel canned what seemed like dozens of jars of blackberries, made blackberry cobbler, and baked blackberry pies.  We were happily awash in blackberries.  Our teeth were purple and our lips were too.  We gave each other purple grins for days, my sister and I.  No amount of tooth brushing quite erased all the evidence of our summer blackberry-fest.


Our chigger bites healed up.  Our memories settled in.  I decided chiggers were the frog-kissing equivalent to getting to kiss the prince.  You have to wade through a lot of chiggers to get to the best berries. One of my earliest "life-lessons."              


To this very day I love blackberries.  And I still hate chiggers!


Hope your day is full of sunshine, good things, and nary a chigger in it.  Until next time ... Marsha

Begone the blues! Begonias are here!

Around here the first thing you think about, when you think about planting anything, is whether it is on the deer's preferred menu.  If they like it, better skip it.  If they are hungry enough, they will eat it even if they don't like it.           


I am researching, non-obstructive-view fence contractors, and hope to have a small flower garden area fenced off from these doggoned deer soon.  I had no idea when we moved here last fall that they are more like goats when it comes to what they will eat.  Pretty much anything that doesn't eat them first.


But I just could not wait until the fence gets built.  So today I bought some begonias.  Just the fun of getting out my gardening gloves, and washing off my tool carry-all, and wiping off my tools, and dragging hoses around, snipping, digging, watering ... well, color me happy.


Sure it is just three small containers planted.  Nothing fancy, just something that was left here from the prior owners.  But it is a start.


Nothing banishes the blues like a little gardening.  And while, frankly, begonias aren't my favorites they will likely grow (provided they don't get eaten first) in the shady planters near our back patio.


I have taken sensible precautions:  sprayed 'em with that smelly deer repellent.  Awful stuff, but you do what you have to around here in "deer country."


Still, even spreading slug bait felt like fun.  I know, I know, I must be hard up for a little fun.  True, but cut me some slack here, I did have fun - just a few begonias, no gardening awards in the offing here.  But lots of smiles.  


Works for me!  till next time ...Marsha
(Note:  I got to go "up the hill" to my house for one day last week, and I wrote this post that day.  And BTW - the deer did eat one of the three pots of begonias, but a week later the other two are still doing just fine.)

Real Authority vs. Pre-Authorization

Welcome back!  And welcome to the tale of our latest trip on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.  It's been a humdinger.

As many of you know, late last month the doctors decided my son, K., would need another surgery.  They just could not say when they would be able to do it.  Every week delayed meant a reduced chance that he would be able to recover in time to regain his teaching post in the fall.  

Like most of you, we are not wealthy.  No job for K. means no paycheck, no health care coverage, no ability to make house payments, etc. Bleak prospects.  For K., the kind of surgery necessary would require approximately twelve weeks recovery time, due to the need for "scar tissue maturation" so that he could sit all day while teaching from his wheelchair.  We were running out of time.

Finally he was given two potential surgery dates:  May 21 or June 4. The June date meant he would not be ready to resume work by the beginning of his school year, which is in early August. They said there "might be an opening" on the May 21 schedule, but it wasn't looking good.  June 4 was the likely date.  Not helpful.  

With a May 21 surgery he could, just barely, make the school year start date and he had already been informed that his position was no longer assured, due to his continuing medical leave.

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Praying.  Waiting. Praying. Waiting. Praying. Waiting. ........

On Friday, May 18 at 3:00 p.m. we received a phone call from the surgeon's office that they had an opening on the Monday morning schedule - but oops - they had not yet obtained the required pre-authorization from the insurance company.  

Really?  Seriously?  They had known for over three weeks that he would need this operation.  How was this possible?  

The surgeon's office administrator (P.) asked if K. would call his insurance rep and request an expedited pre-authorization.  Whaaaat?

I worked in healthcare administration for over fifteen years and I had never heard of such a thing.  The patient asking the insurance carrier for his own pre-authorization?  And late on a Friday afternoon for a proposed Monday morning surgery?  Were these people crazy or just plain incompetent?  (Rhetorical question.)

But desperate times call for desperate measures and thus we began working the phones.  Literally, several times K. was on his cell phone while I was on the land line or my cell phone while we spoke with case managers, patient advocates, health care administrators, back to P. at the surgeon's office.  It was a two hour marathon which by necessity ended at 5:00 p.m. as all their offices closed then.  And we still had no pre-authorization.

Some people think that, if you are a Christian you sail on through these things with a plaster-saint smile plastered on your mug.  Dream on folks.  K. was furious with frustration, and I was on the verge of tears at any moment.

At about 7:00 p.m. the OR coordinating nurse from the local hospital called to confirm pre-surgery orders, no food or drink from midnight Sunday, etc.  We were told the OR was reserved and he was on the schedule for Monday morning. We hesitantly mentioned that we did not yet have the pre-authorization for the surgery.

"Oh.  Well, now that is a problem," the OR coordinator said gently.

I wanted to scream, "Ya think!"  But I did not.  Instead we said, "We understand, and we are working on it."

Saturday and Sunday were excruciating.  The hours crawled by while we waited for 8:00 a.m. Monday to arrive, so that we could once again make calls to try to obtain pre-authorization.  My son's usual case manager, a kind woman and experienced R.N. within his insurance company, who would ordinarily have been able to sort this mess out, was on days off and unavailable.  And for a very good reason.  She was out of town attending her son's college graduation from UC Berkley.  

                       

Thus, on the last gasp Friday evening, the unknown case reviewer who could issue the pre-authorization had refused to do so, claiming he had not received the clinical notes from the surgeon's office.  P. at that office had faxed them - twice - so they were either floating out there in the ether, or they were buried under dozens of others in a fax in-tray somewhere.  And at 5:00 p.m. on a Friday, no one was going to go looking for them.  S-w-e-l-l-l......

At 7:59 a.m. on Monday morning we began the next round of phone calls.  Had the faxes miraculously appeared?  No.  Had P. called again, or faxed them again?  Yes.  More calls.

"They won't budge," P. finally told us.  "They now have the clinical notes, but say they have five to seven days to review the case and they plan to take the entire time."  P. had obviously dropped the ball, the insurance guy was ticked-off that he was being rushed and K. was caught in the middle.

At one point, K. said, "If only we could get to someone who has some authority."  I replied, "Son, I know Someone who has real authority."

From 8:00 a.m. until 8:45 we called every one in the chain of authorization we could think of.  One loop hole was that we could go through the emergency room admitting, rather than regular admitting, and technically an emergency admission does not require a pre-authorization.  But it was risky, and if denied the "loop hole" would be on the insurance company's side - they could deny the claim, and we would be ruined with an astronomical bill that was not covered by the insurance.  We were due in admission at 9:00 a.m.  The surgery was scheduled for 10:30.

At 8:50 K. looked at me and said, "Mom, what do we do?  Do we go down there or tell them to cancel it?"

I took a deep breath, gave God the outcome, and said, "Let's just keep going until someone says 'stop.' "

He lives just a mile and a half from the hospital, so we were rolling into admitting at just after 9:00.  We began the paperwork, handed them his photo ID and his insurance card, she pulled up the case on her computer screen and looked at us with a puzzled frown.

"I see you on the surgery schedule for this morning.  But I don't see your pre-authorization in here."

We briefly recounted our dilemma, and said that we had been told that if we admitted through the emergency process rather than through the general admission desk, pre-authorization would be waived.  We realized it was unorthodox but delaying the surgery really did carry the risk of infection to his open wound (he had already had three such infections over the prior months) and other ancillary risks.

Just then, a lady walked up behind the admissions desk, smiled, and leaned down to the woman entering the information on the computer and said, "We got it.  It just came in."

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Someone once told me that when you take a leap of faith, God always catches you.  But he often waits until you are "two inches from going splat."

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We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life.  Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God..."  (II Corinthians 1: 8-9)

Perhaps, you are "two inches from going splat" today.  Maybe you are under great pressure beyond your ability to endure.  If so, please know that God truly does care and He is there to help you.

Even if there is no miracle, there may yet be a wondrous exception to the ordinary rules.  It happens.  Yes, it does.  Until next time, when we continue with "the comeback tale"... your fellow endurance partner, Marsha

Waiting While You Are Hurting

This morning I spent some time reading Keith Green's biography by his wife/widow Melody Green.  Then I went to the Last Days Ministry website and read some of Melody's more recent writings.  There was one statement that caught my attention.


She wrote that God will take care of us and do good things in our lives  even when bad things happen, provided we are willing to "wait while we are hurting."


Yes, well, there's the rub, isn't it?


Of course, it would be easy to say, "What choice do we have?  We have to wait even when we are hurting.  No way around it."


True.  However there is more than one way to wait, but there is only one way God can bless us while we wait.


If we wait in bitterness and anger - we just wait.  The hands on the clock go 'round, the sun comes up and goes down.  We breathe in and out - we wait.  Nothing much happens.  We just sit and wait.


But if we choose to wait in hope, in faith, in the belief that God is good and wants to share our burdens, then waiting becomes an act of faith.  


So waiting can be a passive purgatory.  Or it can become an active way to serve the Lord.  Waiting in hopeful anticipation of God's goodness does not mean that we do not hurt while we wait.  We will not always get a sudden warm wave of feel-good emotions washing over us.


It does mean, however, that we will grow in faith while we wait.  We will grow stronger and more embedded in His purposes.  Today in various war zones all over the world, journalists who want to see and hear with their own eyes and ears what is going on in those terrible places become what is known as an "embedded" journalist.


They are traveling, eating, drinking, sleeping, and running with the soldiers as they fight and live and die.


The believer can become embedded in God's purposes to the extent that even while we fight, and struggle, and hurt - we also learn and grown and become more like Him.


Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.
Psalm 27:14



Linda Chapman, over at Linda's Life's Journal talks about us being in "God's waiting room."  She is waiting for her quadruplet grandchildren to be born.  Their mother is waiting to hit her 28th week of the pregnancy, struggling every day to keep those babies gestating just a little bit longer.


Sandie over at the Chatty Crone also talks about us being in God's waiting room.  She is writing about some struggles she and her husband are experiencing.


And K. and I are here waiting to find out what his next surgery date will be. Another phone call yesterday yielded no solid information, only a "please wait and we will get back to you as soon as we have a date."


Waiting.  Praying.  Hurting.  Learning.  Growing.  It is all part of God's plan for each of us.


While he does not cause the hurt, He does use it for our good to help us become more of what He wants us to be through it.
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If you are hurting today, and waiting for solutions, hope you know that Someone is waiting with you.  He is able to carry you through.
Until next time, from one of your fellow "waiting room sojourners" - Marsha

Godly Ambition - Oxymoron ?

We tend to think of ambition as a desire for personal advancement and, indeed, that is one meaning.  However, another equally accurate definition is a desire to achieve a particular end.   


The former generally does not find favor in God's eyes as it usually involves a good deal of ego, stepping on someone else's toes to get ahead, and willingness to ignore some valid obligations in order to obtain the object of our ambition:  wealth, power, or fame.


However, the second kind of ambition is not only acceptable to God but is, in fact, encouraged by Him.  The Apostle Paul writes, 
           
           Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own
           business and to work with your hands, just as we told you,
           so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and
          so that you will not be dependent on anybody. 
         (I Thes. 4:11-12)


Today's society says "if you've got it, flaunt it" -  "look at me, look at me".  In this environement an admonition to make it our ambition (our aim, our desire, our goal) to "lead a quiet life"; well, it just goes against the grain, doesn't it?


As life goes on, however, we learn that the bigger house, the next promotion, the larger savings account does not guarantee any real satisfaction beyond the moment of attainment.


In contrast, what can "leading a quiet life" gain us?  There must be something in it for us, or God would not have encouraged us to seek it out.


Here are a few thoughts about the benefits of leading a quiet life.


Simplicity:  A quiet life involves fewer things to worry about.  Fewer things to clean and care for.  Fewer items to insure, store and .... oh, let us not forget ... fewer items to pay for.


Serenity:  A quiet life leaves more time for things that have lasting value. More simplicity and serenity in our lives gives us the gift of more time to become the kind of partner, parent, and friend we all long to become.


Service:  Leading a quiet life does not push us out on a limb of over-involvement, over-commitment, and over-anxiety; and it allows us to serve others in more peaceful ways.  We do not have to be the one to "chair the committee"; perhaps we volunteer to cook someone a meal, run an errand, or offer some other tangible help.


Granted, I am presently looking for value in leading a quiet life, because I am somewhat restricted in my daily activities. Nevertheless, I am honestly trying to see God's hand in the process and learn through it.


For example, this spring I had a large-scale landscaping project planned for the home we bought last fall.  Plans had been drawn and approved, cost estimates negotiated, and a start date was set.  The project was due to begin on a Monday morning, but on the prior Friday I received unwelcome news and I had to cancel the whole thing.  I was/am really disappointed.


The other day, here at K's home, I noticed a large planter on his back patio.  It had one forlorn little evergreen plant in it and a few weeds.  It looked as sad as I felt.


So off I go to the garden store, and now the planter has lobelia, marigolds, dianthus, and petunias surrounding the little evergreen, which is beginning to perk up. So am I, now that we have a cheery little corner on the patio.


Helen Keller famously said, "I am only one person and I can't do everything.  But I can do something.  I will not let the fact that I can't do everything prevent me from doing what I can."


Steinbeck, in contrast, wrote that "We all lead lives of quiet desperation."
                                                 # # # # #
I don't know about you, but rather than sitting around in quiet desperation, I would rather be doing what I can.  There is value in leading a quiet life, in creating a spot of beauty where possible, in serving where needed, in keeping it as simple as the road and the load allows.


So that is my ambition today - to lead a quiet life, but not one of desperation.  I choose simplicity and service and it just could be that serenity will find me watering the planter on the patio.  Hope your day is full of quiet sunshine.  Until next time ... Marsha