Fences

It seems that no matter how good the fences are there is always a way to get out.   Or at least my cows are finding that to be true.  When we bought this place we knew it was a fixer-upper and it is proving to be true.  So all our fences need re-built.  Currently we have a bull who is totally out in the desert looking for some cows.  Our cows climb out of the fences on a regular day for no good reason except that the grass is greener on the other side even though it looks exactly the same to me.  A couple of our cows might go down the road all the way to the market just because they crawl fences.   It has been said many times and many ways that the grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence.  This often seems to be true.   My cows think so and I think we do sometimes too. In our lives it seems that life would be better if . . .  Or if I only had . . . If I had made  . . . . this choice or not made this choice . . . . If I only lived . . . . . or if I didn't have . . . Or if this had not happened.  Sometimes it is easy to look back at life and wonder if it was better.  Or was it just different?  What is Normal?  Normal life is something that seems to be non existent.  Many of my friends wonder what "NORMAL" is.  I wonder what it is. I have decided it I a setting on a washer!  What is normal for one is maybe not for someone else.  I feel like there is a new normal to life.  Would it be normal on the other side of some fence?  And would I really want that normal to be mine?  I think we are all in process of figuring out what our new normal is.  Today we hit one year since my Dad passed away.  Crazy.  I look back and wish I still had him.  So many things I have wanted to talk with him about this last year.  But now that part of my life is past.  I can't just pick up the phone and chat with him.  That is the reality.  Painful but true.  I can't replace that with anything.  I can just keep going down this path.  In this fence.  The grass really would not be any better on the other side of any fence.  Even if my cows continue to think that!

A year ? . . .?? . . . really?

I am kind of in shock that it is April again already.  Tax Day is next week.  I know I don't feel like it has been a year since I made my big heavenly deposit when my Dad passed away.  Some days it seems he has been gone for a long time, other days I almost start dialing the phone to ask him a question or tell him something funny.  I still feel my heart is pretty raw.  The wound is still very sore.  The missing is still very close to the surface and it doesn't take much to bring it on.  I think my empathy and understanding of life and people and the struggles, choices, wrongs, and rights of life have gone up in this year though.  I have learned that stress and grief and lack of sleep can really put you through the ringer.  Sometimes being an ostrich has a very big appeal.  Either sticking your head in the sand and pretending everything is fine, or taking off in a fast run to  . . . somewhere.  But also that sticking with it and keeping going is good too.  I still find myself wondering what the next shoe will be that drops in my lap will be though.  I saw a great sign the other day though that felt so true.  It read "Due to recent cutbacks - the light at the end of the tunnel has been shut off!"  As I have felt this way many times this last year  - or wondered if the light was the next train barreling towards me -  I thought this was a great sign.  But all at the same time this last year has had good things too.  I know we built a house - lots of fun but also lots of work.  Met lots of new people.  Moved to a great community.  Are almost through 4th grade!  I still can't quite believe that!  I think that this last year has made me think more too.  Taken serious thinking to a deeper level.  A friend and I were talking about life and choices the other day and it really was interesting a point she brought up.  Like we are all wheels with spokes going out and touching the lives of others.  If something happens in our lives it affects those spokes, those relationships and all those lives.  My choices matter.  It is like the ripples of water on a calm pond.  They keep going out.  Affecting other water.  Other lives.  So what choices am I going to make? I can affect others in a way that brings them closer to healing, closer to Christ.  I can bring friendship and caring.  I can bring love.  I can bring questions and concern for others.  Those are the ripples that I want to give off.  For those I meet to know that I genuinely care about who they are.  Simply because God had crossed our paths so that I could be a blessing to them.  It goes back to my favorite verse.  Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, Plans to Prosper you and not to harm you.  Plans to give you a future and a HOPE!" God has a plan in mind.  I can't see it.  I can't see the end of the road. I have questioned the plan.  But I have clung to the HOPE!  Even when I was thinking that maybe my plans would be better, I could not let go of that Hope!  Even when it felt there was more harm coming the Hope is too strong.  The hope is sustaining.  That eternal Hope that now my Dad is enjoying!  The hope he shared with so many.  The ripples on the spokes of so many lives. 

Pencil Marks

As we were building this house, we did a lot of drawing on the walls.  Finding and marking studs, drawing straight level lines, writing measurements to cut trim, marking more studs, writing more numbers . . . you get the drift.  As a kid, I don't remember ever writing on walls, but we sure did in this house.  It still had the feel of a bit of a construction project.  One of my friends came over yesterday and we went around with small sponge brushes and erased pencil marks and scuffs and smudges with paint.  It is amazing the effect this has.  Instead of looking like a guy and his elf had gone pencil happy with a pencil, level and stud-finder it looks like a home.  There are no longer pencil marks telling us how high to hang the already in place stair railing.  No marks on the walls under existing towel hooks or cabinets.  It is so nice.  My walls look so clean.  So neat.  So nice!  It has been kind of funny and I have laughed at myself as I have been dragging my feet at hanging pictures on my beautiful walls.  I think I worked so hard to make them look so good that I truly am having a hard time figuring out where to hang them.  And I don't want to mess up my walls!  So I finally just put all my pictures in my guest room closet and will sort and decide from there where and if I want the pictures up.  I guess part of it too is that where pictures go up matters in this house more than it has in others.  This is not a rental.  It is not - I hope - a short term house.  I plan to be here for a long time.  And it matters.  The other thing is that some of my pictures are from my Dads office and house, kind of weird to hang them in mine.  Others are some my Grandma painted and now I have them to enjoy, but also weird for the same reason.  I know it sounds funny, but processing pictures is also worth a thousand words.  Some thoughts and sometimes tears.  But good ones.  It is just part of the process of  sorting through life.