Mirror Mirror...

Here's a safety tip, Kittens.  If you have been sick for, let's say, a week AND you purchased a magnifying mirror prior to that sickness, perhaps you should not look into it.  I am just saying.  Do not do it.  You will feel a palsy come upon you and you will react as though you have seen The Eye of Sauron.  It will be instinctive and a very harsh reaction.  Look away.  Don't do it.  Vanity is not worth it.

You have been warned!

Marie

Looking past what I can see...

You know that feeling at the very deepest core of your being that feels the new things on the horizon before you actually see them? That is exactly where I am today.  I can almost taste the new season of life that is upon us.  I am so excited about it.

When I left Oklahoma, I was being obedient to what God asked of me, and of us, but I wasn't excited I just knew it was necessary.  Denver was nearly a year of new discoveries and of a lot of peeling away of the who I thought I was and what I thought I SHOULD be.  My memories are more fond that I actually recall feeling when I was there.  Although, the weather was really awesome!  We got to do some really fun and exciting things and I met some very cool people.  

We moved to Arkansas for the my husband's job.  I did it again, with necessary obedience to God.  I wasn't excited about it, but I knew that if God wanted us here, then well, it was for the best.   We have been here almost a year and now the winds they are a changing!  Here I went through a spectacular grief hissy fit.  Really, that is a very nice way of saying that I was extremely pissed off.  I could pray for others, but to talk directly to God about me, or how I was feeling - the words just chocked off.  I didn't want to hear it, and I didn't want to say it.  I felt somehow that I was being unjust to the wonderful gift that God gave me - showing me what my sister saw as she died.  Did I have a right to be angry after I had so much peace?  Did I have a right to be pissed off that she was on a cloud playing some kind of lute, fist-pumping with St. Peter and hanging out with Jesus, while I slogged through this crap storm of a world? Did that make me petty? Did it make me less than?? What it made me was...wait for it...human.  GASP!!!! Anything but that!!! You know how I HATE emotions!!! Ugh.  Well, I have been dealing with lots of them.  God has been gently putting pressure on me to face myself and my fears.  Ugh.  Lessons, more lessons, SO MANY LESSONS!!! Maybe if I wasn't so pig-headed and stubborn, then maybe I wouldn't need so many!!!

Frankly, my grousing about Leslie tripping the light fantastic smacked a little too close to home of the elder son in the parable about the prodigal son.  Everyone focuses on the younger one, goes astray, and then comes home and the father is SOOOOO happy.  Meanwhile, older, responsible son who has done all the right things is a little grouchy about killing the fatted calf.  I was that older one.  Why should I be angry that Leslie got such an awesome gift?? Why should I be angry that she doesn't have to deal with this crap anymore??  Because I miss her.  We were always a team - even if people didn't understand our very complicated relationship.  We were always a team.  Now, I am the cheese standing alone.  Ugh. I hate it.  

I am totally rabbit trailing tonight.  My thoughts are all over the place.   So, I was praying yesterday and this mantle of gratefulness just fell over me.  I had such gratitude for what God has done in my life.  Gratitude for the trials and the hardships.  Gratitude for His immense love for me, and for my sister.  Gratitude.  Thankfulness.  Peacefulness.  It just slid over me, so easily and for once I didn't shrug it off.  I didn't harden myself to it.  I just let it cover me up and my heart, well, it sort of welled up.  Easily.  My love for the Father, which I had started to question existed, rose out of me so sweepingly that it was overwhelming.  His love overwhelmed me.  Anointed my head.  Like the healing Balm of Gilead, it soothed over the scars of the pain that my soul still wears.  

I am hopeful. It is a sensation that is new to me again.  Hopeful in a way that I haven't been since I got that phone call July 29, 2011.  I feel the breezes of change on the horizon.  I feel strength coming into my spirit.  I feel the hope of what is to come.  I know, that I know, that I know, that God has it all under control.  I don't have to fret. I don't have to worry.  He is. He has been. He will be.  It's not my job to do His job.  My job is to just love Him, obey Him, and follow Him.  The rest is just details.  

If you are in those dark places that I know so well, I ask that you just look up, if you head is to heavy for that, raise your eyes and see that He is there.  He is always watching over you.  All you need to say is Jesus.  There is nothing more powerful you can say.  Jesus.  He is there.  

Peacefully yours,

Marie the Magnificent

Poor Jello

Jello. The unsung hero of childhood. Plain or creepily filled with fruit - I am looking at you pears - you were a smile on our faces every time.

Now, look at you. Relegated to hospitals and sick days.  How did it come to this? Are you not still delicious? Do you not still wiggle and jiggle?  Why are you so forsaken?

I don't know the answer to this troubling question, but I salute you!!

It could be the flu talking,

Miss Magnificent

P.S. Except you green Jello, nobody ever liked you.

Dear Flu

I hate you. That is all.

My Momma Done Told Me...

Now, if you can finish that with, "when I was in pigtails", then you really know your blues.  My Dad loved that song, and I used to play it on the piano for him.  Rosemary Clooney does an excellent job of singing it.  "The Blues in the Night" is the name of that song.  It has  been ringing through my brain for a couple of days.  His birthday was a couple days ago.  He would have been 73.  Crazy.  He's been gone almost 16 years.  He loved the blues, and I guess through years of listening, I do too.

My sister's birthday is coming up and she would be 41 this year. Life is so crazy and short.  Although in my case, if FEELS very long!!

I was talking tonight to my cousin.  He is my sounding board for all things spiritual.  I was telling him how sometimes I get so angry and down on myself for not being a pillar of strength faith-wise like Abraham.  I mean, that guy, he was on the downward swing with the knife before he was told to stop.  That is some  FAITH.  I told him whenever I feel bad, I think about Peter.  I mean, here is a guy who was with Jesus 24/7.  He saw all those miracles first hand.  He lived with the Son of the Living God.  He talked to Him.  Asked Him questions.  Jesus was his BFF!! I mean, if anyone is going to be knocking it out of the park every time, it is this guy.  Right? No. In fact, I go to the time where he was sinking in the waves.  See, he had scrambled over that boat and run to Jesus - ON THE WATER! Didn't hesitate!  Over the side he went and he was booking it.  Then, he looks around.  Circumstances.  Wham, he is sinking and fast.  He was just walking on the freaking water and then, sinking.  He cried out in fear for help.  Jesus helped him.  Then, they walked on the water back to the boat.

If you haven't seen my point, or I am just rusty in making one, since it's been a while since I've written..then it is this.  If someone can do the impossible and then get scared and fall, and that person lived face to face with Jesus, then I guess I can cut myself some slack.  I mean, we are doing this all on faith, not by sight.  We are following the greatest love story ever told, the only true love story ever told.  We are souls caught up in an epic fight for our eternal destinies, and it is foolish to think that it will be easy or the way will be smooth.  God doesn't want that.  He wants us to become strong warriors, but He also gets that sometimes we are going to sink.  I think He would prefer we call out to  Him when our shoes got wet, and not when we are practically drowning, but He leaves that choice up to us.

I have been sinking - drowning really - lately.  It is all my own doing.  I have been so stubborn to call out to the One who Loves my Soul.  I have been too angry to open my hand and my heart to Him.  It is my own fault.  The Blues.  They are wailing.  I know I am not alone even in my stubbornness, He is there waiting to catch me.

Your,

Miss Magnificent