A Cool God Moment

Today I saw God intervene. Did ya know that God loves cats? I have to back track for a moment so you can understand. There are two houses in our rural yard and each house has several cats. This story is about one cat that we call Mama, and she was always outside and pretty wild and aggressive. She was not my cat but my in-laws cat until they both passed away. Then about a year and a half ago a guy named Jay moved into the upstairs of this same house and began taming this wild cat. She fell in love with Jay and would let him pet her and she finally got so tame she would come in the house and not freak out. My brother-in-law Randy lived in the basement suite of this same house and they kind of shared the cat. Anyways when Randy moved to his own acreage about 7 miles away, we decided he could take the cat when he was ready. So about two weeks ago Randy took Mama home with him. She did not want to leave, was afraid, would not eat and hid all the time. Finally, Thursday Randy said she disappeared, but we did not learn this information until Sunday. So by the time I told Jay on Monday she had been gone for five days, living in the bush, where there are coyotes, which would kill her and we still have snow and it gets cold especially at night. Yesterday, Jay and I got talking and I realized how distressed Jay was about the loss of the cat and that he thought maybe if the cat heard his voice or the sound of his truck that she might come out of the bush. We both have been learning to listen to our souls or emotional tugs, regardless of logic. So off we went on a wing and a prayer. Much to my amazement we were not there five minutes when who should come traipsing out of the bush but Mama!! Randy said she had only come back about an hour before we got there. She had lost a lot of weight, but we were all sure glad to be reunited. We decided to take her back home. I was amazed that the small faith we had was honored by God. And before we started looking God arranged for her to come back to the yard within the same hour that He prompted us to action to go looking. These are the kind of things that remind me that there is so a God who cares. Life has been hard at times but then God shows up when we don't expect it and it is so cool!!

Whoops...I Made the Mistake of Goin' to Church

Do they hand out "let's suppress and mask our real emotions at the door pills"...cause if they do I missed getting mine? I know they will say I need to pray more, read my Bible more, have more faith, let the Holy Spirit in more...I haven't followed the Christian formula quite closely enough. Otherwise I would be HAPPY like them. Apparently we are only supposed to read the positive, think about the positive and speak the positive and all without drugs....unbelievable! The trouble is I used to believe this mother load of crap until the last few years...when I actually went out and got personally involved in real people's lives.

It gets messy!!
Sometimes we are in jail,
sometimes we are abusing someone,
sometimes we love our abusers and just can't leave them,
sometimes we are addicts,
sometimes we lost our job,
sometimes even though we did the work there was no pay,
sometimes there is no milk for our babies,
sometimes we steal formula to feed our babies,
sometimes we become homeless because of the economy,
sometimes we can't read because we need glasses,
sometimes....

Then the thing that really gets me is GOD opened my eyes and I have not been the same since. See as long as I stick with people just like me, I don't have to get uncomfortable and have my pretty little theories challenged. I am angry at God today because thanks to Him church sucks!! Not all the time, but often. I can't stomach the pat answers, hugs, smiles and "praise the Lord's" without the flip side being truthful about the pain of real life. If I feel shame about my negative emotions and believe that they are wrong, then how the hell do I pull it together enough to get to God when I need Him most. Its feeling my pain, embracing it for what is worth and asking the God of the Universe to extend mercy to my soul...then we get somewhere deep, powerful and earthshaking. This is the God I know, the Great I Am who can handle everything even my anger at Him and His church.

My Bachelor

I have a 76 year old bachelor who has no living relatives. He was never married and had no children, his only brother who also was never married and never had children....so therefore when his only brother died in January 2008 he had no more family. Just distant cousins, on to the stage steps me. So Charlie and I have been getting to know each other for a year now. Today Home Care called it seems that he has once again started yelling at them and not co-operating with day program. What to do? Getting old is hard! Having no more relatives except for this 40 year old chicky that they found to look after you is hard. Having a limited income with your health decreasing is hard. Being bored rattling around in your little apartment suite is hard. Having Home care workers come in to tell you when to eat, go to bed, take your pills and give you baths can be humiliating. But we can't be yelling at everyone because life is hard. So I guess I will go and care and love Charlie and try to help the situation where I can. It is no ones fault....just life. And I know that the Home Care workers are wonderful ladies who are kind and giving and I am sure don't get thanked very often. I would love to wave a magical wand and fix all of Charlie's problems and make the Home Care workers lives easier too. But alas my magic wand is broke.

My Grandmother

My mother's mother, this is my grandmother. Her name is Millie and she is 92 years old. She is palliative. I am turning 40 this year and I am still sad that my grandmother is going to dying. She is a woman who hauled water, cooked on a wood stove and raised ten children on a farm. My favorite memory is climbing into Grandma's bed early in the morning after Grandpa got out to fill the wood stove with logs. In my memory my grandparents had running water, but Grandma washed clothes with a ringer washer which I thought was cool. The washing machine washed the clothes but then to squeeze the water out of them you carefully stuck the clothes through two rollers. Grandma was always warning us to keep our fingers away from the rollers. The clothes came out the other side flat as pancakes! We thought this was a wonderful game. Now as an adult I realize how patient Grandma was...this was her work and she always had lots of it. She gardened, canned, baked, raised chickens which provided both eggs and meat. My Grandpa had beef and dairy cattle, which meant they always had fresh milk. She knew how to sew, quilt and knit. She did a lot of mending. This was her sitting down time. I need to learn from her example to just keep putting one foot in front of the other. I don't have to get everything done today, as long as my children are fed, clothed and sheltered, things are good. Not everyone has this. Sometimes I am hard on myself thinking I must do something of significance to better the world...but most times its the simple things:

A smile
A hug
Stopping to listen
Having a cup of tea
Watching the sun set or rise
Smelling a flower
Sharing a laugh
Holding a door open
Giving someone a helping hand

When I get to the end of my life like my Grandmother...what will be most important to me?

I am thinking: the health of my soul...if I listened to it
my relationship with God....how honest and close is it
my friendships.....how real are they and did I let them know they mattered
my family......did I share as much of myself with them as I could

So today I will attempt to live with this in mind and enjoy every moment.........even if I don't like them all........because sometimes life kicks the shit out of us.