by Sharon O | Mar 17, 2010 | Uncategorized
Sometimes I am nervous about having other people read my writings.
Especially if I know they have written a book, or they are well known in the field of writing. I think of my inadequacies in grammar and punctuation at times. I might not say the perfect thing or create the perfect story. Others can write better than I do and create word pictures so much better.
Then I hear a small, tapping, a slight nudging within my heart.
tap tap….tap tap…. I quiet myself to listen.
For I know it is the Lord,
Saying to me, “Did I bring you this far to focus on yourself and your fears?”
No… Lord you did not. I say in my most quiet voice.
Today I read something a lady by the name of Wendy Blight wrote. I don’t know her and
I hope it is OK to share it with you maybe you need these words as much as I did.
————-
Sweet friend,
God brought you here today.
He wants to remind you of a precious truth.
Hear it and never forget it…
before time began, before God spoke the world into being…
He had you in his heart.
God chose you to be His child.
God has a perfect plan for your life.
No one else has your plan, your family, your gifts, your talent, your heart, your education, your past and your present…no one.
He chose you to use you to do great things for His kingdom…things that only you can do.
He is preparing you… even now.
But, to be used by God, you must Trust Him with your PAST,
BELIEVE Him for your future, BELIEVE He has a plan for you.
SURRENDER your life to His plan,
and believe He will equip you to do what He has called you to do.
Psalm 139:16
“You saw me before I was born. Everyday of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.” (NLT)
When I opened this up and read it this morning, it was like God was saying,
“TRUST me. I make no mistakes. You are loved, You have always been loved.
I have given you gifts that I believe YOU can do even if you don’t believe it. Are you going to trust me in this process as I teach you, to believe more fully in your self?”.
It is a challenge for us all.
by Sharon O | Mar 16, 2010 | Uncategorized
Faith is trusting God in the dark.
I was reminded this morning of a song I heard years ago.
Our neighbor was a single mom.
She lived 4 houses away from us. She had a son who was about 15 and a daughter around age 12. The three of them created a new home together after a nasty divorce.
She was a wonderful encourager.
A powerful Christian witness, and a really nice person.
She loved her children and always did what was best for them.
One afternoon we sat in our kitchen sharing coffee and life issues.
She was tired. The hours at her work had been long that month.
The overtime helped for the holidays. She was looking forward
to a happy Christmas with her kids.
She was gifted in music and had been helping a church with their holiday programs.
The night drive was about an hour away from where we lived.
She left my house, and I waved goodbye as she drove away.
I was thankful for our new friendship.
That night about 11:30 or so I remember hearing a loud ‘knocking’ on our door.
We were sleeping.
It startled us awake.
My husband got up first and went to the door.
Looking out the window he saw a uniformed officer standing in the dark.
The porch light reflecting his shiny badge.
The slick black shoes, and the leather belted gun holder looking so official. As the door opened, he wanted to know if he could come in.
My husband rushed to our room to hurry me out; “you are needed in the living room”.
When I saw his uniform panic and fear walked with me, as I went out to where he was.
Our son was in college living in a different city, I had no idea why this man would be here.
I felt a deep sinking feeling move into my spirit.
The officer said to us, “Do you know your neighbor?”.
I answered, “Yes she is a friend of mine”.
He said very quietly, “Well we found her car overturned alongside the road, and she was killed”.
The numbing words slammed me against a wall.
Disbelief came forward first, “no I just saw her. She was fine”.
Denial moved in next to disbelief. “She has two children, they are teenagers she can’t be gone”.
She left my house hours ago, she hugged me and said ‘see you tomorrow’.
I looked across the road to the direction of her home.
The decorated windows and Christmas tree lights still turned on.
The officer told us he drove past it, and noticed the children inside.
He said, “Would you be open to coming over to the house with me, so that I am not the only one with them, when they are told what happened?”.
We answered yes.
It was very dark and the stillness of the night so quiet.
We walked in silence as the three of us headed towards her door.
I was remembering our last conversation only hours ago.
How would we have known that was our last conversation?
The children greeted us and, questioned why we would be visiting that late at night.
Their mom should be home soon, she was running a bit late.
The grim reality of our news broke my heart as my tears began to fall.
My husband sat both of them down.
The officer had suggested that it would be better for us to tell them the news, since we knew them personally.
My husband placed his hands on her sons face, looked him in the eyes and said, “your mom’s been killed. She’s gone”. The numbing silence followed, as they tried to understand what they just heard.
Our immediate need for phone numbers and relatives to notify was first on the list. She had a mother alive and a brother. The children could not help us. So we rummaged through her private papers till we found what we needed. It felt very intrusive to me but we had no choice.
The officer suggested we go back to our home as soon as we could. Hot cocoa was prepared and the kids made small talk. The officer stayed with us almost 9 hours until family could come the following day. He was a wonderful big shouldered man. I will always remember his warm hug. He told us he was almost retired and felt he should stay with us as long as we needed.
Her son zoned out on video games as the officer talked with him and her daughter fell asleep.
That tragic night would forever change their lives.
Her elderly mother took the kids in and eventually they moved back with their dad.
My neighbor had made a taped recording just weeks before she died and these are the words to the song, she sang at her own service.
“God is too wise to be mistaken, God is too good to be unkind. So when you can’t understand, when you don’t see his plan. When you can’t trace His hand, Trust his heart”
I think it was a clear and loving message for her children. When you don’t understand the plans of the Lord, Trust His heart. I don’t know where they are these days. I hope they will remember the neighbors who cared and the wonderful police officer who gave his time to all of us.
I pray their lives were forever richer for knowing her love.
by Sharon O | Mar 15, 2010 | Uncategorized
The phone rang tonight.
I answered and said ‘hello’.
The voice familiar to me, it was an old friend of ours.
We met when I was twenty. I was young, in a scary sterile hospital setting.
Our first child was to be born and the doctor wanted to induce labor.
Not knowing what that really meant or what to expect. I listened to the doctor and felt he was the one who knew the most. When you are young you believe they know more. The doctor felt the baby was too big for me and wanted to watch the delivery really close.
Labor was slow. Inducement slow.
The clock on the wall moved into long anxiety inducing minutes, as the hands seemed to be frozen in time.
Very stressful for a young couple, not knowing what was going to take place in the next few hours.
Our lives would never be the same.
We would leave there with a baby.
The nursery at home prepared and waiting for the bundle of love to go home.
The three pm shift began. A new nurse came in said to me, “Oh you are not in labor yet, let’s turn this pit drip up and you can have a baby by dinner.’ A pit drip is an IV mixture that moves labor faster than a normal labor schedule. That is why they call in inducement. They force the contractions to move fast to allow the baby to be born through an unnatural process.
The intensity moved quickly, as I watched each liquid drip fall faster and faster down the IV bag.
The nurse got her wish. The delivery came very fast, from 3:30 to 5:35 pm I moved from no labor pains at all, to hard labor in minutes.
A whirlwind of feelings and emotions slammed me.
At 5:35 pm our beautiful baby boy was born.
We named him Christopher.
As I rested in my bed, I heard the moaning and groaning of another lady down the hall.
She was not quiet in her labor journey and I was feeling the anxiety with her.
Hours passed as I listened to her ‘difficult labor’.
I kept asking the nurse, who is that??? As I listened to her screams in the background.
The hospital was small, and I could hear almost everything that took place with her.
Eleven hours later she was wheeled into my room.
She was exhausted and worn, and I knew she needed her rest just as I needed my own.
As we both woke up we made small talk, and our husbands visited.
We both had our first born sons. They were so similar one weighing 6.3 and one weighing 6.8.
Our son was very beautiful
although the nurse had to reassure me his cone head ‘would go away’.
Their son had lots of hair.
Two boys born eleven hours a apart.
Each day we would visit and share small talk. Those days in maternity wards the baby’s went back to the nursery and the moms actually got to rest. They also kept the moms for 4 days so we had lots of time to establish a ‘friendship’.
When the time came, we bundled our son up and left for home.
They left for home a day later.
Weeks had passed and one chance meeting in a local grocery store, rekindled the friendship.
We exchanged phone numbers, addresses and wished each other well.
It has been 35 years. A friendship long and treasured.
At least once a year we get together and share stories of children and life.
Their children grown. Our children grown.
A friendship that has kept strong throughout the years.
We were young, they were almost ten years older.
It has been a friendship that has lasted, and it is very interesting to watch our aging process.
We have a warm understanding of ‘who we are with them’.
It is good. It is treasured, and valued.
We were two couples in different stages of life, learning together, the ideas of being a parent for the first time.
It is no different whether you have been a professional working person for years
or a newlywed young mom. She worked full time and I was a stay at home mom.
The journey is the same for both.
New babies: equal fatigue. New babies: equal anxiety.
It has been a warm wonderful friendship that has lasted for years.
We often joke about the ‘nurse’ who was not so gentle to both of us.
It is a story of friendship.
God is so wonderful to keep us close to those who really matter to us.
Friendship is wonderful.
I thank God for all of the special people in our lives.
by Sharon O | Mar 12, 2010 | Uncategorized
Psalms 81:1 (NAS)
“I will sing of the loving kindness of the Lord forever, to all generations I will make known your faithfulness with my mouth.”
Throughout the years, I have been collecting pretty china and crystal pieces.
Along with special books, dolls and other assorted things, given to me by my grandmother and other significant people.
In the hopes that some day, I can pass them on to my children, and then their children.
Many hours spent planning and purchasing, and thinking of what would be special to hand down. For I wanted to leave something of value and significance to our children. We purchased Royal Doulton Old Country Rose china, a set of 12 with the intention of splitting in half a set of six for each child’s family.
My grandmother started me on this collection, by giving her dessert sets to me.
Rather than have a mix and matched china collection I kept on with this one.
I have beautiful crystal pieces. Even my parents and I think my grandmothers sterling silverware set, minus a few forks or knives. (Somehow I did manage to get them in spite of our sad growing up years)
All of these have value.
All of these are wonderful and thoughtful.
After I read this verse,
‘to all generations’ … I realized something.
Something profound, a soft reminder in my heart.
God is speaking, I silence my heart to listen.
Giving my children or grand children beautiful things to admire or show off in their homes is nice. Nothing wrong with the idea.
But….
The verse is saying, to all generations I will sing, of the loving kindness of the Lord. I will make known your faithfulness, with my mouth.
My most important ‘thing’ I can give to my children and grandchildren is the legacy of God’s love. In the hopes that as I would give china or crystal that they would value. God’s love and faithfulness would become far more valuable to their life than a china cup. I desire to hand to them something of purpose.
I don’t have to literally sing to them as the verse says, but our children remember the old southern gospel music playing every Saturday night.
As they fell into a deep peaceful sleep down the hall.
This means, to share God’s love and pass the ‘grandmother baton’, to all generations, so that they will know that God is faithful and kind and has endless love for them.
I will make known.
That means I talk, I share, I pray, I encourage the ways of the Lord to them.
Thank you God for showing me.
A different new legacy of love for all generations even after I am gone.
I pray that each one of them
will find value, purpose and meaning from your heart of love for them.
Passed down from a legacy of faith, from a mom and grandma who loved.
by Sharon O | Mar 10, 2010 | Uncategorized
The other day we were getting ready to take our twin 6 year old grand daughters home to their parents along with their sister who is 10. Pillows and backpacks were taken out to the car along with other items going home.
Hannah wanted her helium filled balloon too and as she was trying to put it in the trunk, it began to float away. Grandma tried to catch it, but the wind was faster than I was. Huge tears fell down her face, crying for her balloon, wanting it to ‘come back’. I tried to talk to her but it wasn’t working. As I helped her into her car seat, tears falling down her sad face.
I said to her, “do you know why that balloon was floating away ‘so fast’?” she was listening now, not crying (which was my goal). “No why, she answered me with her sad quivering voice and teary eyes”.
I began to talk in my grandma tone, “well way up in the sky, way way up in Heaven. There is an angel who is just waiting to reach for your balloon, and when she gets to touch it, she will say, “this is from Hannah, a very special little girl”. Now all three girls were listening with great anticipation of what was coming next. ” I said “she always catches balloons of little children that is her job.” {OK theology is not in this lesson}
She was now beginning to calm down, wiping tears off her cheeks… then Hannah said to me with questioning eyes.
“But grandma, how do you know? who told you this?” as she was still sort of crying only not as loud.
Without a moments passing I said ‘Oh grandma’s just know these things’…. as I looked at the face of Faith the ten year old. She was giving me the look back, as if to say ” where did you come up with this?”
Sometimes us grandma’s just have to come up with something very special and very unique for the moment. That is our job you know.
by Sharon O | Mar 8, 2010 | Uncategorized
Colossians 3:12 (NIV)
“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.”
This verse has been a focus of mine for several days now.
The writer starts out with therefore. Most pastors say, whenever this word is written, it means ‘now listen’ it is important, it is not to be missed.
So we are not to miss the fact that we are God’s chosen people.
HOW awesome is that? HE chose us.
Not only did he choose us purposely, but we are set aside
as holy and dearly loved.
Doesn’t that just give you a warm wonderful feeling?
Then the writer says, as God’s chosen, holy and dearly loved people;
you are to clothe your selves in an appropriate way.
This is an action word, such as, putting on as a sweater over your shoulders when you are cold. Or a blanket on the couch when you are watching something.
I was thinking, so what does this mean for us?
As I get up in the morning and look into my closet and decide.
Do I want to wear the red sweater and the black pants,
OR do I put on compassion.
Do I want to wear the denim shirt with the denim pants,
OR do I put on kindness.
Do I want to wear the soft flannel shirt with the flannel pants,
OR do I put on humility.
Do I want to wear the frumpy pants with the frumpy shirt,
OR do I put on gentleness.
Do I want to wear something fancy and have a dress up day,
OR do I put on patience.
As we wrap the warmth of our Lord’s love around us.
We choose to wrap around his attributes also.
It is not natural for us to show compassion, be kind, be humble or gentle, and most of all to be patient.
So it must be a choice for us, an effort on our part.
Just as we get up in the morning and decide, what ‘look’ we are going to present for the day, for others to see. We also can get up and choose, what attribute we are going to present for others to be a part of.
I think it is an awesome thought.
One that I am going to work on, as I make a conscience choice of what I am going to wear.
by Sharon O | Mar 4, 2010 | Uncategorized
Psalm 101: 2 (English Standard Version)
I will walk with integrity of heart within my house;
What a statement, and what a test.
In our homes, we are private.
No one knows what we do but us and those who we live with.
Integrity;
Dictionary.com says:
1. adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.
2. the state of being whole, entire, or undiminished: preserve integrity
3. a sound, unimpaired, or perfect condition:
The steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code a sense of “uncorrupted virtue”.
When the Psalmist says, I will walk with integrity in my home, it was a cry for a heart condition.
An ultimate personal test.
Where no one sees, no one observes, no one participates, but us.
As Christians we are accountable to ourselves and our God, for our integrity.
It is a choice.
What we read, what we watch on TV, what we subscribe to, what we view on the computer, even what we say to each other, it is all a part of the integrity process.
In our hearts..
yes in our hearts. It is a heart choice.
In our homes, in our families.
May we be true to the strict adherence of virtue and truth, so we may lead a life of integrity.
by Sharon O | Mar 3, 2010 | Uncategorized
I love the Psalms.
Psalm 90: vs 12
Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom.
vs. 14
Satisfy us each morning with your unfailing love, so we may sing for joy to the end of our lives.
vs. 15
Give us gladness in proportion to our former misery! Replace the evil years with good.
Isn’t it just awesome, that God delights in teaching us new awareness’s,
so we can worship Him.
I love the thought of rising in the morning with singing.
I love the idea that ‘HE’ can satisfy us the way nothing else can, and the verse says ‘every morning’ so it is continual.
Daily growing in wisdom and love.
Teaching us that life is precious.
I challenge us today.
To open up the Psalms and reach into them, for encouragement, answers, direction, hope and growth.
In that process may we all become more wise, as we realize every day is a gift.
Our choice is how we open it and respond.
by Sharon O | Mar 2, 2010 | Uncategorized
“You have made us for yourself Oh Lord, Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
St. Augustine
As the Lord has been pressing me forward to share the journeys of brokenness that I had to walk through. He reminded me of something I had written down. I am not really sure where I got it from, a book or message from our Pastor, or a ladies meeting? “people won’t believe your message, until they know you are real.”
Reminding me of the childhood story, The Velveteen Rabbit.
The questions between the Skin horse and the rabbit in the nursery full of toys and blankets and childhood magic. Read with me:
“For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like Skin Horse understood all about it.”
“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were laying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that go buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes.” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful.
“When you are real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or a bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse.
“You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
“I suppose you are real?” said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.
“The Boy’s Uncle made me Real.” he said. “That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”
I believe the only way to be real is to be transparent and open.
Allowing others to see us and love us, in and through our brokenness.
As the Lord dislodged the pain that I carried, my ‘real self’ began to emerge.
His love saturated my heart and the woundedness of my soul.
I could never go back, to where I was or who I was.
Just as the Rabbit said. When we know He loves us.
It frees us to be, ‘who we were meant to be’.
The restless heart that was within me for most of my young life, could only be filled and calmed by the Love of God.
Our Pastor once said; “It is not knowing about Jesus, it is understanding through Him.
Fully grasping His love for Us.”
So God is showing me through this new transition of my life, the need to allow Him to help me to become who I was created to be. If it is through my writing that I am able to bless others.
Then I will write. If it is in speaking and sharing my story. Then I will do that also.
He will give me the strength and the words when the time is right.
The Lord said,”I will show up in your midst, my presence will be upon you, as you follow me and encourage others.”
Psalm 101:1-3 “I will sing of your Love and justice Lord. I will praise you with songs. I will be careful to live a blameless life – when will you come help me?
I will lead a life of integrity in my own home.” vs 6: “I will search for faithful people to be my companions”.
Psalm 95: 1 The psalmist says :”Come, let us Bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our maker, for HE is God. We are the people he watches over, the flock under his care. If only you would listen to his voice today!”
I encourage us all… as we journey through this thing called life, may we earnestly seek to listen to his voice. We must stop, and listen, for it is often in the stillness of the moment when He will whisper.
by Sharon O | Mar 1, 2010 | Uncategorized
Our pastor challenged us yesterday.
It was awesome. Thought provoking.
He talked about Shame.
Just the very sound of the word, brings feelings.
Dictionary.com says it is the arising of painful feelings, brought on by yourself or others, dishonorable, disgrace, improper or ridiculous.
It is an internal feeling inside our heart, rather than an external feeling.
It is deep. A core truth that we have chosen to believe.
I am bad and unlovable.
Pastor said; shame is not guilt.
Shame is more about who you are, not what you did, it is personal.
Guilt is more action, it is embarrassment or a revelation of ‘I did wrong, I am sorry’.
Guilt is freeing, a way to repent and start over.
Shame says, ‘I am wrong, I am not worthy, there is no hope’.
He talked about Moses, when he was on the mountain receiving the ten commandments from God, he also received a ‘glowing’ countenance. It was radiant, bright.
When he walked away from the presence of God, the glow went away. Moses put a veil over his face so the ‘people’ couldn’t see the change.
Exodus 34:27-30 the story is told, how Moses covered his face, over and over, to cover the shame of the ‘dimming’ glow.
Pastor said ‘how is that different than what we do with each other’?
We cover ‘ourselves’ so others cannot see.
The real ME.
We hide.
We sometimes cover more than just our face. He showed the visual of ‘covering our entire body’, so others cannot see the real ‘inside self’ of who we are, as he wrapped himself in a dark piece of cloth.
When I began my recovery journey, I was hesitant to say, ‘I am in counseling’.
Why? I am not sure, maybe it was a concern about ‘what would others think?’. Maybe I was hiding, my truth so I didn’t appear less ‘together’, than what I was presenting. Maybe I didn’t want to explain why?
I don’t know, but I do know now, as I am more mature in the process. I find it to be as valuable as going to the dentist or doctor. It is a point of ‘checking in’… is my health OK? am I thinking clearly?
Recent news has stirred me.
I find it fascinating and sad this weekend to see on the Internet and news. The headline:
Marie Osmond devastated by her son’s death.
Why would that even appear in the news?
Wouldn’t that be normal to be devastated as a mother, as the news came to you, that your child is now gone?
Why would they be ‘surprised?’ Why is that even worth mentioning or writing about?
Then they go on and say, ‘he fought a life long battle with depression, and wrote about it in a letter which he left behind’. Then they write about her divorces and how he was one of her 5 adopted children. Then they go on to tell how he had been in a rehabilitation facility and how she as a mom, did not want to discuss or disclose the reason why.
I just couldn’t believe what I was reading and hearing. So now you have a grieving family, and you place on them the ‘shame’, that you should have loved more deeply or more intensely.
It was like they were saying, ‘she saw his pain and couldn’t fix it’.
The end result was ‘his shame, of who he was’ and he committed suicide.
How horrible. How awful. How devastating to all who are involved and knew him.
I pray we do not assume it was a mothers love, or lack of it, that caused the hurt in his heart.
I pray that we stop the talking and pray for her and her family.
Shame probably did play a role in his heart, to do something that drastic.
The shame of ‘who he was’ that he couldn’t over come.
The depression and feelings that would not leave.
It was a heart hurt.
Suicide is never the answer, there is always hope when we look deeply for it.
God in your wisdom and mercy, I pray that we as a people never say cruel or mean things to others in their deepest ‘grief’ moments.
The media should feel ‘guilt’ over what they said. The media is wrong.
I don’t know Marie Osmond, but I would guess she is a mother who loved with a mothers heart. We as a people need to be thoughtful and pray for her. The words, shame, and suicide are ‘like salt and pepper’. They so often go together.
I pray, I pray, for the these families right now.
I also pray the media will respect them and leave them alone. It is a very sad thing.
This is just ‘something for us to think about’ today, as we move into a new week.
