Quiet Time

There is a still small peace that comes from spending a little quiet time each day.  How do you fill that space of time?  Do you read?  Do devotions or Bible study?  How about yoga or prayer time?  Maybe just getting lost in your favorite tunes...

One of the newest ways, at least for me, is coloring. Yes, I am an adult!  But if you search for coloring books aimed at an adult doodler, you won't have to look far to find hundreds, even thousands, of coloring books with varying themes just for you!

Here's one that I picked up over Christmas for a friend and loved it so much I bought one for myself!

This inspirational book is filled with beautiful black line illustrations just waiting for you to customize it with your own color combinations...your own work of art.

For me, this is great because, although I can make mechanical drawings, my artistic drawing skills offer little more than stick figures and primitive 2-D images.

The designs in Whatever Is Lovely create a wonderful release as you get into the art of blending colors and filling spaces with happiness. 

You can use markers, crayons, colored pencils, or gel pens to make these pages your own!  Here's a nice set of gel pens from Frog Lily.

Why not pick up a copy of Whatever Is Lovely, turn on your favorite music and get lost in a simple, relaxing coloring page?!

Pondering My Meanderings... with much herbal love, Wanderer

Gone From My Sight

It's been nearly a month now...but that seems so hard to believe.  The following thoughts were pondered and roughly recorded as I rested in the room across the tiny hall from my Mom...

The winter snow falls softly but quickly outside the window.  Inside the quiet is almost suffocating, cut only by labored breathing and soft moans of pain.  Modern medicine has very little to offer in these last days...last hours...of a life ravaged by cancer.

As I sit here pondering what lies ahead and all that's transpired under this roof my eyes fill with tears.  
So much hurt.  
A soul can hardly imagine the desperate search for worth that follows a young life full of abuse and drunkenness, poverty and fear.   

And why continue to spread that hurt by building a wall around yourself too high for a little girl to climb?  

And so it goes, from one generation to the next, the sins of the father.

This is the second time I've stood in these rooms and watched and listened and even smelled the last signs of life.  They give you a book...signs of death at the end...the last months...the last weeks... the last days...the last hour...kind of a morbid countdown toward the inevitable end.  

The first time I did this dreary countdown, we learned about the cancer, after a week spent in the hospital Dad came home.  Home to die.  The signs from the death booklet moved quickly.  One week later he was gone from my sight.
  
I thought that week was the hardest week of my life.
  
I was wrong.

This time the battle has been going on for 2 1/2 years.  The pain, the suffering...the beginning of the end.  A very long beginning.  The blood, the tests, the surgery, the long recovery - never to be the same again.  Treatment, more cancer...more treatment...and more cancer...out of control.

Most of the signs in the book are physical and behavioral, measurable.  They are here now, even to the last page and I know it won't be long.  While she's resting in one of the few pain free hours she's had in a while, I ponder my thoughts.  I can't say feelings right now because I am numb.

This week I've literally watched the life blood flow from her shrunken body.  Red and harsh.  Stark against the white bed linens.  I pull the sheets and quilt over the red but the tell tale hose that carries it away snakes out from under the covers.  A hateful reminder of the internal damage done by this greedy, consuming killer.

I used to think that death was ugly.  Now I think that it can be but not always.  This death, approaching steadily, will be the answer to prayers...hers and mine...for peace, freedom from pain, escape from a body, once strong but now a weakened shell...a gateway to what lies ahead.  

She says she is ready to meet her maker...just waiting on His timing.  

Sleep...just for a moment...rest on the edge of consciousness...ready to take the few quick steps to her side if she needs me.  She sleeps too deeply, breathes too hard.  I step across the hall to check on her and squeeze her hand, this time there is no response.  I linger for a moment and then go for a drink of water.  Coming right back I know something is different as soon as I reach the top of the steps...the complete silence hits me hard.  My steps quicken but it feels like I'm walking through water.  When I step into her room, I know.  Her time has come.

She is gone from my sight.


Pondering My Meanderings... with much herbal love, Wanderer

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

Sometimes, I just want to write...I need to write.  I'm not good with words out loud.  They choke in my throat and trip over my tongue.  My mind is thinking of the "right" way to say things but it usually doesn't come out that way.
So, I write...I can change it and tweak it until it says what I want it to say.  At least in my mind, I understand all the nuances that may be lost to those who read what I scribble.  It's the meandering.  The pondering too much.  Then, when I open my mouth, no matter how well I think I have prepared for this verbal thought, it stumbles out in a sentence that sounds like it just crawled out from a rocky cave.  Not well formed or eloquent...not even really me...just a crude fragment with a few hesitations and stutters.  At least that's how it sounds to me. The fear of making a mistake or sounding stupid manifests in what tumbles out.

Strife. Stress. Bickering and bitterness.  Things I usually try to avoid.  But other times, I meet them head on with a return fire that spews as much venom as the initial strike. Justification...that's what I'm saying...if you're going to stir it up, prepare to defend your stand because I'm gonna defend mine.  The walls of this fortress have been thickening over time and they've stood strong through a lot.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie. 

True enough if you've ever seen a loyal dog roused by what could be perceived as an attack on it's master.

But metaphorically, it's a warning to heed the frenzy of barking, maybe even growling, that comes with the bleary eyes, tail tucked or pointed straight, the hair on it's back rising in a vertical spine like a razor back hog. It reflects the stir of activity and angst that flows from the stirred ashes of a long dead fire to fan the flames of anger, bitterness and unforgiveness to life once more.  Not easy.  I try.  I try again.

Into the glow of plans for a new life and a new family come the dark clouds that rain on everyone's parade. As though the plans for a life together, at least started in a foreign land far away from family...new babies grown before we meet them, and the matriarchs on both sides of the family dealing with the ravages of time on their health and mind, weren't enough to cause me to reach for the light in order to hang onto hope.  This.

This ugly thing that I've kept from those who might be most hurt by it for 23 years.  I've protected and hidden the dark, horrid truth so the cycle could be broken.  But there are those who could not be protected...those whose existence has been shattered by the knowledge for over a decade.  They can't let it rest.  They have to share the miserable tale so that all may be hurt by it as they have...raw, dirty, hateful truth...but to share the pain seems to ease the burden.  Selfishness at it's best, this tale of yore.  Now into the light and glory this thing hangs on the air and draws strength from the doubt and fear and disgust of it's gloom.  It serves no purpose...it only shares the sadness like a blanket of smoke...and isn't that just what darkness wants?  To steal the light?  To hide bushels of glory behind this one huge cup of hurt?

Let it go.  I know that's the thing to do and I really thought that's what I was doing by keeping it from my most beloved ones...after all, it's not my sin...not my burden...but it's become a pain for all of us...from the dark deeds of a few, generations are affected...and the joy is stolen, at least for a time.

I have a hand to hold, a palm to nestle in, that others may not know...maybe they did know but they've forgotten in the shadows where the colors, like the joy, seem so much more dim.  My refuge and strength.  My Protector who tells me in Exodus 14:14 to be still and know that He will fight for me.  He's got my back.  Thank you.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie? ~ yes, let's.

 Pondering My Meanderings... with much herbal love, Wanderer