I was so amazed by this that I nearly forgot to add it to my posts. So many people said that was such a great testimony I thought I had best include it. I often forget God’s miracles because they are so much a part of my daily life, it sometimes takes another person noticing for me to realize just how significant sometimes they are.

The day after Christmas was the day my son and I were to return to Florida from our holiday in Vermont. On Christmas Day, we never turned on the TV, only the music. We were gratefully spared all the pre-storm fear that evidently was rampant around the country at that point. We awoke at normal time the day we were to leave, as our flight was not until 5pm and we were two hours or less from the airport. It was at that point the news started seeping in. A concerned call from returning relatives followed by turning on the news to see that all major airports on the east coast were bracing for a huge snowstorm. I woke my son and we tried to get the airline on the phone (useless) and find out online what was happening and what our choices were (also unproductive, though scary). It appeared there were no more available seats to our destination for three days!

I put in a quick call to a friend who works at the Jacksonville airport and she went by the USAir counter and called me back. She said while it didn’t look good, our best bet was probably to go to the airport and hope for the best. That is what we decided to do. My son and I packed up our things, took off in the rental car at about 11am and headed to the airport in New Hampshire.

When we arrived to return our rental car we were met with a totally empty lot. One employee met us, and he was going off duty soon. He advised us to keep the car and go back where we came from. There had been no flights leaving that day, and while our 5 o’clock was still posted ‘on time’ he knew it would be canceled shortly. We thanked him for sharing and proceeded to the check-in counter where there was no one in line (day after Christmas…has that ever happened?) The nice lady at the counter advised that our flight was the only one not canceled, but as the weather was not improving anywhere it was only a matter of time…an we were still five hours from departure.

I looked at my son and said, what do you think? and he said, lets check the bags to Jacksonville and go wait it out. So we proceeded to the gate, through security check where we were the only passengers in the area. The security head offered that we should probably be looking for a hotel room and to be sure to hit the restaurant because they would all probably close by 3pm and that would be the end of the food. Though we had grabbed a quick lunch before we left home, we heeded her advice as far as ordering a sandwich to keep just in case, we went to the gate without checking hotel availability. There was one other person at the gate, and we all sat there reading books in a dead airport for the next three hours. Our flight changed from ‘on time ‘ to ‘ delayed, but it was still not joining the list of all the others that said canceled.

A very strange thing happened about 45 minutes before the original scheduled departure time. People started flowing into the gate area. A very nice agent took his position at the counter and started informing us what was happening. Our flight was delayed and had not departed from DC but was to leave momentarily. Some of our connections had been canceled, ours had merely been delayed inbound as well. The fight came in, left with a full load and hour and a half late and arrived quietly in DC where we deplaned and awaited our next flight. Again, in a very quiet airport, we ate our soggy sandwiches and listened to the roll of canceled fights as they were announced. I looked at my son over our meal and said do you have any fear that we will not get out and he said No. I didn’t either.

Two hours after the scheduled departure, we were boarding our full flight, being told that we needed to board and be in the air in twenty minutes or our flight would be canceled because Jacksonville’s airport shuts down at midnight. The pilot was determined to get us there, and everyone hustled to get their bags tucked away, and off we went. In all this time we had not seen more that a flutter of snow, very few airplanes anywhere, and less people than I ever remember in an airport. They were probably told what we were: stay home, don’t come, turn around, etc.

As we arrived home only two hours late and stood claiming our bags , it began to sink in how fortunate we had been. The traveling mercies I had asked God for on our drive to the airport had been very visible the entire day. What was totally missing was any confusion or fear. We felt like we were in a protective bubble of some sort. We caught the bus for the parking lot and thanked God for His amazing guidance and provision through the storm. Sometimes you can be in the eye of a storm and not even feel it around you, if you trust God to take care of you. It was a very smooth ride.

I sing in the key of G. I didn’t know this until I was in my late 40’s.

My Dad was an amazing singer/piano player. He taught himself to play by ear. He never learned to read music. He accompanied himself, found lots of warm and wonderful songs in the key of C, and musical friends who either played, sang, or just enjoyed listening in the key of C.

As I listen now to the radio station playing the songs he sang and loved, I realize I know all the words and music to over a hundred songs by heart. I can’t read music either. I learned them by listening to a father I adored. I was fairly musical as a kid, singing alto in my schools A Capella choir, and being the lead singer in a guitar folk band of three. I loved finding unique harmonies to complement the melodies. It seems I sang by ear also. I sang with my father only when he invited me to, often in front of his friends at parties given frequently at our home. I was only asked to sing Scotch and Soda; a funny choice I often thought for a preteen daughter, but I guess its notes were neither to high nor too low for my range so I didn’t disappoint him and upon finishing I was always greeted with a round of applause,  after which I went back to serving horsd’oeuvres.

I later had a son, who not only bore his name, but seemed to inherit his genius for music. I thanked God that I had been a ‘carrier’ of the music gene. When he was in his teens, my son asked me to accompany him on a CD of songs he was making for a fiftieth anniversary gift for his grandparents. I said I would without hesitation, because I trusted my son would not put me, or himself, at risk.

He transcribed some songs for me that I knew by heart but couldn’t sing without stretching my voice. He said merely “Here Mom, you’ll be more comfortable in the key of G”. It was a slight modification, and one that seemed easy for him, but it was a revelation for me. The notes flowed easily and I never feared that my voice would crack somewhere, embarrassing me or anyone else who was listening.

In the key of G, I am a singer. But please don’t ask me to sing in the key of C. There is such a difference in trying with all your heart, but just missing the mark, and easily and competently using a God-given talent. One slight correction and you can have a completely different outcome; for a song, for a life. How much I value those who can hear the solution and offer a simpler, easier path. They are teachers, coaches, parents, children, and  open-hearted people  everywhere. Keep your ears open, you might just hear that note for someone. Imagine the harmony in a world where everyone could sing the notes they were born to sing.

I have a bookmark that I keep in my Bible (I update my Bible about every five years, because I make notes in them and I always love a newer version that gives me new perspective and insights). It says on December 9th, 1983, I asked Christ into my life, and my life has never been dull for a moment since then! Now it probably wasn’t boring before that, as I am a person of high energy and life seems to move fast and pick up speed,  but previously I had no framework in which to resolve the recurring drama and disappointment.

So today is my birthday in Christ, and for some reason it is more special to me than the other one that comes every year…possibly because it doesn’t add any lines to my face? I won’t be offended if no one remembers, because I know Someone who will never forget. Nor will I. I was home with a newborn son, wondering why his father had failed to do all he said he was going do when the child was born, among them being accountable and participating in the costs of his care. The fact that this had been a long term relationship and formerly good friendship made the abandonment seem even more crushing; I had a business to run (a gift store at Christmastime….yikes!), another young son to care for, and my world seemed to be crashing around me.

At that moment a single mom from my newly found church came by to offer her time and assistance. In the process of her visit she shared with me the difference her relationship with God through Christ had made in her own life. She made her living as a Mary Kay salesperson, and yet not once did she try to sell me anything (that made a huge impression on me that lingers today….don’t try to “sell” Christ with anything else…..why I was always leery of pyramid schemes that suggested using Christ as a door opener!) Anyway, she tithed her time instead of money she didn’t have, and I am ever so grateful for her obedience.

Twenty seven years later, I no longer remember her name, but I am sure God has it in His Book, and I have the bookmark, to remind me that all my struggles have made sense since that time, and  have opened the door to my heart to share His love with any others He sends across my path. May I never cease to be obedient to His voice for the lost and hurting. Not once in all these years have I felt a sense of abandonment from Him, even when something threatened to stir that memory within me.

I believe God has used this year to clear out whatever debris was left of my past, cleaning out closets and garages and attics with me to make way for a beautiful, bright and loving future. Having been willing to go to the mat with Him to clear the foundation and seal the fissures, I am seeing that I am open to all kinds of possibilities that seemed to escape my grasp in the years behind me. I feel as though we have done the hard work together, and the deep cleaning is over. Time to celebrate, throw open the doors and have that Birthday Party! I have asked Him for a special gift this year, and I will let you know when it arrives.

I heard from a good friend as a response to my last blog, that her group is her family. I thought about that, and thought how God really did put all the elements into our families that we need to grow emotionally. Unfortunately there is also always the potential to do harm as well. If we really could get a grip on the fact that this group is as committed a group as we may ever find in our lifetimes, even though for the first eighteen years or more of our lives, we may not be there by choice. However, what if we could choose to be there instead of fighting it?

Even though we can never see behind the curtains into what really goes on in a household, there are some families that come to mind when I think of how this might be true for a number of people I know. If we always hold the others in a safe and respectful place, there isn’t much that couldn’t be approached in that atmosphere. Living with others sometimes brings out the best and the worst in us.

As I read this I am watching a documentary on ADD (ADD and Loving It!…on PBS) and I think it is so well done that if it had been around when I was growing up, my family would have had a reference point for my behaviors and struggles, and we could have laughed more with me not always feeling like the brunt of the joke. I would also have been able to get started figuring out how to work with it rather than against it about forty years earlier. Might have saved me stepping into two marriages without much thought as to how that might go for me (and them!)

Wow, see even as I am writing this and totally absorbed, I am also not missing a word of the television program, proving one of the points they have just made! My poor family, they didn’t have a clue how to help me with something they really didn’t understand. No wonder I see ‘problems’ where other people don’t.  I am always trying to sort things that don’t seem out of place to many others. Now if I was only as concerned with the piles of magazines, books and assorted clutter in my home….:-)

This documentary has all the benefits of having ADD also, many of which you may notice in my blog! I hope so anyway. I know that all the people in my life help me appreciate my differences now and the long road it has taken me to get here. Thanks for being there and appreciating the differences!

As for my family, of origin and the one I created, I am going to get this DVD and we are all going to have some ah-ha moments over Christmas! Let the healing begin!

I was walking Gypsy the other day and noticed how, even though he loves his morning and afternoon walk and sniff’s more than just about anything except food, there is a significant excitement when we happen to run into another dog walking a human.

Is it that after days of living with someone who is clearly nice to him and takes good care of his needs, that he has just gotten a glimpse of something that offers the potential for more than that? Some other being who validates his shape, size, furriness, and communication skills? Is this perhaps why, no matter the outcome, every few years I try out a new singles site in the vague hope that someone of the male persuasion just might happen to be searching for someone exactly like me this week?

There is something about like kind, definitely. We do like to know that we are not the only ones inhabiting a similar body, and it helps to cross paths with others who look the same, are perhaps even from the same gene pool. I find that for me, connecting with others of like mind is also of amazing importance to pique both my ability and desire to want to fully participate in life and to be excited about my future.

There are blogs of people like me that I now read on an almost daily basis. They are out there in the world, and thanks to the internet, I can connect to them and feel instantly at home. My odd duck feeling dissipates immediately when I read something that sounds familiar to the voice in my head who has not yet given it words.

I also love to read blogs of similarly minded thinkers who are throwing a curve ball into my path. They make me turn my brain around like a kaleidoscope until I find a new picture that challenges or comforts me. At the very least they urge me, without criticizing, to change the channel for a moment and see if I might enjoy something different than I had previously thought.

That’s why I love these blogs. A chance to put our thoughts out there; sometimes others tune in and add to the music, sometimes it’s a solo, but it sounds good to me either way.

I had the opportunity to watch a couple of movies this week as the holidays approached, and I realized how often movies portray the nature of our families as we grew up. It is indeed a bottomless pit of possibilities for fun and dysfunction!

I noticed how uncomfortable I often was in watching ones that reminded me more how I felt in my family of origin, and how much more comfortable I was watching the ones that really showed the craziness, but also a deep acceptance and love. The one that brought me the most tears, laughter and joy at the end was Little Miss Sunshine. A mess of characters to be sure, all packed in a VW bus, but it was the total acceptance of their differences and uniqueness that finally cracked open their immense love for each other.

I am most grateful as we approach Thanksgiving, that I have in my two sons and daughter-in-law, the family I always wanted: the ones who would jump up on stage with me if I was making an utter fool of myself (if for no reason other than the fact the people I was trying to please were the real jackasses). There is no right or wrong way to do most things, only different ways. We lose a lot when we forget that and criticize one another for being different. The saddest part is they also miss out on feeling the love that we may actually feel for them.

I know my family knows who I am, and while we may not always agree with each other, we respect each others differences and actually seek  them out, rather than a family group-think mentality. We all learn life lessons from each other, and I hope that will never end. It is that for which I am most thankful. Enjoy your family, and lighten up on those criticisms….instead, how about telling them one thing that you love most about them because it is different from you!

I was reminded yet again, that the safest way to make more acquaintances, and stay on good terms with many people, is to never delve into any area conversationally with any depth. That way, no one’s feelings get hurt and no one puts themselves at any risk (by no one, I mean me).

I have come up with a list of the possible things that are OK to talk about. I am going to venture out of my comfort zone this week and try them out, particularly with people who seem to like to stay on those topics.

1) What I ate. 2) Where I ate. 3) With whom I ate. 4) Plants and flowers and 5) Rate the weather today from 1-10. There. That’s it. If I stay on those topics I will probably triple the number of people who will want to talk with me daily.

From there perhaps I can start to follow a team of some sort, and then with all those in my repertoire, I may become proficient at lasting more than a week on a singles dating site.

Is it that I am really deep, or that the world appears sometimes rather shallow? I have a friend in my Bible study working at having deeper thoughts. She is finding it quite a struggle. I, on the other hand, am grasping at straws for some really surface comments about life.

Cheerios, standing in my kitchen, my dog Gypsy, no garden at present, 9+….(OK, I really think the last four days have been 10’s, but does that make me a Pollyanna? Someone told me it rained one afternoon, but I didn’t even notice it!  I mean this weather is fabulous!) Oops, there I go again…off into the wild blue yonder of thought and enthusiasm….now stop that. It might lead to meaningful conversation. Perhaps food conversations could do that also…? Maybe I am missing something!

I was invited to dinner by my niece last night, and asked if we could stop and pick up a bottle of wine for our hosts en route.  I have always felt incompetent in this area and don’t have any system to follow, so I asked her how she goes about finding a wine to give to someone. What she replied amazed me.

“I look for the one that is not the cheapest, but maybe just a little above that. Then I look at the label to see which one is attractive to me…it could be its design, colors, or something on it that reminds me of the person (a frog, a rooster?). Then I decide whether white or red based on whatever I know about their taste or what they are serving.Voila!”

Having been around some fabulous connoisseurs over my lifetime, I have to say I was thrilled. This was my system too!!! Coming from a twenty-something, it certainly validated me and let me feel I hadn’t missed a whole lot by being out of the wine loop for years.

In the end we picked one with a rooster and a color on the label that matched the hostess’ kitchen…bright red! Now I wonder how that will affect all the people making those wines so worried about the aroma and all those other things that we are supposed to be looking for? It was terrific, and so was our meal….a perfect match …for the kitchen, the cook and our pocketbook!

As far as using the computer goes, my son says the baby boomer generation is “obsessed with forwarding.” I have to admit I finally agreed with him, as I opened my  900th email sending me a ‘money angel’…if I merely forward her to eight people in twelve minutes I will receive an unexpected windfall within four hours! Who comes up with this stuff, anyway? And why would anyone in their right mind (and I have to believe dementia has yet to set in for most of my friends, although I am not sure how much longer some of us will be able to keep it at bay!) would believe that these absurd things have any value?

All I can imagine is that it reminds us of when we were little and we played a game walking to school (yes, we ‘walked’ to school in those days). It was “Step on a crack, break my mother’s back” and other sing songy rhymes that went with it. OK, a part of me knew that my mother’s back was really in no danger, but….what if? What if it did break and it could somehow be  traced to my stepping on a crack? Would I live under the guilt forever of having caused it by not avoiding that obvious line on the sidewalk?

Too much to bear. Easier to just avoid the crack. I think those things ceased to bother me after I accepted Jesus had died for my sins. I must say for the past 27 years I have had no fear that any single action like stepping on a crack would cause unforgivable consequences for my family members. Thankfully, I can walk the dog on a sidewalk without that running through my brain any more. But why are we still forwarding this nonsense?

I wrote my friend back this morning and asked her if anyone she knew had ever been the recipient of a windfall following their obedience to the God of Forwarding Absurd Financial Nonsense? I also suggested we each put $10 in a savings account every time we receive one from now on. Let’s see, 900 times $10….I would definitely consider $9000 a windfall! Alas, I doubt that my missive will be forwarded…..I wonder if a picture of a cute little fairy would have helped?

I was speaking with a good friend and sister in Christ today, grateful that she was yet another wounded warrior who has graced my life over the past twenty seven years. I had the vision of her as suffering a kind of post traumatic stress, having been hurt by her church a long time ago in the aftermath of a divorce from a Christian husband.

Whether we like it or not, very often some of the harshest blows to a believer have been delivered by other well meaning believers. One of the greatest sorrows I have seen is the one of someone who loves God but is terrified of His church.

My picture of her, when I met her almost twenty years ago, was of a woman who was shell shocked. It was as if she had been wandering in a mine field and was not sure where to put her foot next. I had been given her name by a man in my church, and I went to see her with her permission. Both recognizing a fellow traveler we began a friendship, albeit tentatively, that has stood the test of time and many misfortunes, because at the center of it was our mutual love of God.

She and I share a heartache for those who often go unnoticed in a church, those who may come one Sunday, only to sneak back out the way they came in. We often don’t have eyes to see those who have been hurt by other churches, perhaps even by our own. I believe it takes a person who has walked a similar path to notice the body language of that person. As much as they want to be there, they are somewhat fearful of the well-meaning of others.

I believe there is a huge calling for the wounded healers to come back to the Church right now, to give it another chance. I also  believe that the church needs to value the people that God calls there, and try to discern by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, why they might be there. I believe they do not come in their own strength(because they have been worn down), but in His, and they have a great deal to offer the church right now. I believe my friend is one of those we should listen to, because God is saying something through her story that we need to hear.

I pray that her church will not only receive her, but welcome her with open arms.