The Party

I had a pity party. The celebration lasted for two full days but the preparation had been long and arduous, as most preparations of this sort are. I invited the usual guests: Disappointment, Anger, Sadness, Grief, Weariness, and the guest of honor, Martyr. The reason for the party involved my love of Christmas and my desire for the celebration to include my family and friends in good health, happy, and full of Christmas cheer. However, I also wanted my house decorated, smelling like fresh pine or fir, and all the presents either wrapped and under the tree or mailed, and its worth mentioning, I wanted it all right now! I cried for two day and dissolved into fresh torrents whenever the tiniest of stressors came about. As pity parties go, it was a hum-dinger.

Last year my Christmas consisted of trips back and forth to Oregon as my father clung to life. Christmas Eve was at our home with my daughter, her hubby and dear little granddaughter, Greta spending the night. Greta was sick though and her cough and discontent were persistent thorough the night. We adults sat huddled in the kitchen, living room, bedroom or den trying to sooth her as the hours slipped by. Our tired and weary little group assembled for gift opening in the early morning while Greta tottered around with her white little face and vomit-strewn hair, clinging to her parents for solace. We ate a quick breakfast, kissed and hugged goodbye then the kids returned to their home over an hour away and Don and I went to Oregon, for what we thought would be my Dad’s last Christmas.

After driving almost five hours to Eugene, we spent the rest of Christmas day and evening with Dad. When we left him, we were exhausted and rapaciously hungry for a delicious Christmas dinner. We searched the entire Eugene and Springfield area for a restaurant but both cities and their restaurants were closed. Eventually, we found the ‘Valley River Inn’ who agreed to make us a sandwich in the bar as they stacked chairs and cleaned. They even had a piece of leftover Yule Log cake for each of us and Don and I munched wearily as we silently watched people vacuum and clean up from their busy day. Our dismal Christmas continued after our return home when the Christmas tree fell over on our wood floors and broke many of my cherished family ornaments.  The above picture is the tree before it fell.

As blogged earlier, this last year has been full of worry, concern, triumphs and blessings. My husband has had three surgeries with painful recoveries and my Dad’s health has caused a roller coaster of emotions and countless long drives to Oregon. The days of my pity-party celebration involved my frenetic attempt to get Christmas or birthday gifts made, or bought and delivered to each recipient before leaving for my dad’s surgery to replace his failing internal pain-pump. My dad is very frail and I was afraid of him having a surgery and feeling the full weight of being his power of attorney.

I painfully decided to skip the Christmas tree and decorations this year because we plan to repeat our sojourn to Eugene for Dad’s second “last” Christmas. Therefore, part of my pity-party was actually a teary tantrum protesting my own decision to lighten my load. In addition, with my dad’s eightieth birthday party, as well as birthdays for my husband, a sister, and two granddaughters, well, my stretch is sagging. In fact, (lean in while I whisper this) I secretly wish that God would have thought about closing the womb of every woman in the month of March and maybe April so there could be NO December birthday’s other than Jesus…I’m just saying.

This last Sunday was the second day of my pity party. I teach Sunday school, and each morning before class we teachers join around a table at church and share our prayer requests before the students arrive. We joke about this time between us because it seems we each have a laundry list of woes, mostly concerning the aches of our own aging bodies, or the health of our loved ones. I sat at the head of the table in my classroom and tearfully emptied out my anguished list of misery. My friends gathered around in prayer and words of inspired wisdom, and my heart soaked up their love with a voracious hunger.

I left for Oregon after church and drove straight to my Dad’s nursing home. I lugged in a box full of Christmas decorations I had purchased from the dollar store and proceeded to create Christmas in my Dad’s room. As I began to decorate and chat with my dad, I felt my spirits lifting. I also began to realize that I did get to decorate for Christmas after all, and it felt like snuggling inside a cozy much-loved sweater. Afterwards, I drove over to my friends’ house to stay the night. They weren’t home but their house and yard were lit up in a festive array of lights, with a “Happy Birthday Jesus” sign planted firmly in the middle of their lawn. My “Home away from home,” as we call it, is a small little apartment at the back of their home and when I walked in, the room was warm and alive with lights, a nativity scene, festive decorations and the beautiful melody, “Oh Holy Night” was playing on a CD. I leaned against the doorway and dissolved into tears.

In the Bible in Mark chapter two, Mark talked about how four men carried a paralyzed man to Christ for healing. Finding the crowd too thick to get to Jesus, the men hoisted the paralyzed man up to the roof of the home where Jesus was teaching. They dug through the roof and lowered the man down to the feet of Jesus. When Jesus saw their faith Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “Son your sins are forgiven….I tell you to get up take up your mat and go home.”

This story has always moved me. Not just because God healed this man, but also because it took an entire group of faithful people to bring this person to Christ. Sometimes we are the one who is being lifted to Christ, as I am this Christmas season through the faithful love of my husband and friends. However, sometimes we are the ones who must carry the sick person and put our own worries aside.  By giving our time and prayers we are lifting others to the feet of Christ and when we do this in concert with others, if one of us stumbles there are many others there to help pick us up. I’m thankful for how wide the circle of hands are that are carrying me this season, and pray for continued strength for my own hands to complete the good work God has prepared for me. May each of your Christmas’s be as blessed.

A Grateful Heart

"Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever." Psalm 107:1

Thanksgiving is over but the feast lingers on! How grateful we are for our family, friends, church, and home, and the freedom to gather together in celebration and fun.  Our dinner included all the classics, as seen on my plate above and a full spread of desserts that included carrot cake, pumpkin pie, chocolate cream pie, and a pumpkin cheese cake with gingersnap pecan crust topped with a caramel drizzle.  Can you say, "sugar?"

Our daughter, her husband, granddaughter Greta, two friends, my sister and her daughter all gathered with my husband and me to give thanks. We had such a good time laughing and loving, catching up on each other's lives and playing Thanksgiving games that included tickling every one's memories for the most obscure facts about Thanksgiving and turkeys.  The winners got to wear the much coveted, festive feathered hats for the remainder of the evening. Here are are the band of winners:

It has been a difficult year for many who gathered around our table, but we embrace the time to remember the many blessings that overflow along the way. Yeah God!

The Dusseldorf Orphanage

An elderly woman with short-cropped white hair and sunglasses sits at a table in the dining hall of the nursing home where my dad lives. She is hunched over a cup of coffee blowing bubbles into it with a straw. The brown bubbles are spilling over the cup and soaking into the pile of towels the cup is resting on. “Pearl” is perseverating over her coffee again; a thrice-daily event that never fails to put a smile on my face. As soon as I push my dad’s chair into the large room I hear her familiar words delivered in the same loud spirited cadence, “Root-toot-toot, how do you do, la-de-dah, (tongue roll), four!” “This is such good coffee.” “Mmmm-mm!” “De-licious!” “Thank you Ma’am”. “Nothing like a good cup of coffee first thing in the morning, is there?” “Ah, come on you guys, is there?” “Yer darn right it is!” “This is the best cup of coffee in the whole universe!” “This is the best cup of coffee in the world!” “This is the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had!” “This is the best cup of coffee I’ve had all day, in fact it’s the only cup of coffee I’ve had all day.” “Thank-you daaaaaahling!” “Who made it?” “There is love in this cup and I found it!” “Who made it, cause it’s a hum-dinger?” “It’s making me burp though, one after another.” “Here comes another one right now.” “Can’t help it, root-toot-toot, how do you do, la-de-dah, four!” “I have to blow on it because there are bugs on the top.” “Look at them scatter when I blow!” “I’m going to take another drink.” “I took one.” “I finished this coffee in two and a half slurps and a few burps”. “I could use some more coffee”. “Who made this coffee?” “It is de-licious!” “Thank you darling!” “Root-toot-toot, how do you do, la-de-dah (tongue roll), four!”

My dad looks at me with weariness and says, “I hate this Dusseldorf Orphanage”. This is my dad’s nonsensical name for the nursing home where he lives. A name he coined by the emotions of abandonment he feels about living in a place where there are so many residents whose minds are tucked away in dreamlike places and whose bodies limit them from walking away to their own homes. My dad is very frail due to the effects of severe osteoporosis, and his mind is full of clouds that drift between periods of clarity and confusion, a combined result of dementia and pain controlling medications. His ability to swallow is worsening and he is fed pureed foods so he won’t choke. Dad is lifted with utmost care from his bed with the help of a machine called a Hoyer. It is named after the person who invented it as a means of preserving the backs of medical personnel who have to lift those who can’t help lift their own weight, and preserve the fragile bones that are so easily broken in patients like my dad.

Last year my dad’s appendix ruptured and because he has a pain pump inside of him that emits medication to dull the pain of his crumbling bones, it wasn’t discovered for three days. He went into respiratory arrest in surgery, was brought back to life by the help of a respirator, then preceded to battle bouts of pneumonia and colon infections. His decline has been long, painful, and heart breaking. I live in Washington and my trips to Oregon over this last year have been frequent and often times long. My husband’s own health has at times been an issue, and as I have stayed with my husband as he recovers from one of his own surgeries, I’ve been on the phone facilitating the care given to my father at critical times of his decline.

Sleep is an issue for me, as I seem to process everything when I lie down. Many times, I will wake up from a deep sleep in a full panic attack with heart racing and my mind filled with thoughts of my husband or my ailing father. Such is the life of a caretaker.

I am my father’s medical power of attorney. The decisions of how his care is facilitated rest on my shoulders. The ache I feel for Dad residing in his “Dusseldorf Orphanage” is constant. The residents’ minds and emotions there seem to be best described with adjectives more often used for the weather: “cloudy,“stormy,” ”blustery,” “dreary,” occasionally “sunny,” and most often, “overcast.”

Sometimes my dad is focused and his cognitive abilities so sharp that he can remember the name of a country band named the Poodle Creek Pickers that his cousin Joe plays in out in Crow. Other times, he forgets who I am and introduces me as his sister, or calls me the name of one of my own sisters. When I left him a couple of days ago, I stroked his forehead as he began his morning nap. I tenderly kissed his forehead and said, “Dad, I have to leave back to Washington now.” He said, “Good night Lisa I’ll miss you.” I told him, “Now don’t give the nurses any trouble today.” He replied, “It’s night time and I’ll be sleeping.” I reminded him that he had just had his breakfast and he said, “I did?” Then remembering, he said proudly, “Oh, I ate all my mush!” His eyes focused on me and filled with tears, “Lisa, I’m screwed up.” My hands cupped his face and I assured him that he was on so much pain medication that it made it hard for him to think sometimes, that without it he would be able to think just fine.” My dad whimpered and started to fall asleep as I stroked his head. I left with tears on my cheeks. How I miss my dad. How I wish for release from his “Dusseldorf Orphanage.”

Picture above is when Dad was in the hospital for his first bout with Pneumonia

Picture below is when he bravely gave up cigarettes and tried Tootsie Pops, he wasn't impressed.



Dad with one of his girlfriends last year.



We celebrate his 79'th birthday.



Better Times

I Love you Dad

Musings of an Oregon Girl

I was born in Eugene, Oregon and raised most of my childhood in the country town of Crow, Oregon. But, between the ages of five and ten years of age, I lived in a cozy housing tract in Springfield, just outside of Eugene. There, I learned the important milestones in life, like how to ride a bike, blow bubbles with juicy fruit gum, climb trees and play endless games of “Kick the Can”, and “Red-Rover.” Interestingly, it is in this very neighborhood that I find myself once more being tethered.

Last fall, my already frail father suffered and survived a burst appendix. We didn’t think he was going to make it and in fact, he was on hospice for six months until he was unceremoniously dropped from it because he just kept on keeping on. Although my dad is frailer than he was a year ago, his strong logger’s heart has served him well and his wit is a life force of its own.

The nursing home where he now resides is just a couple of miles away from our old neighborhood, and even more special, when I visit my dad I stay nearby at the home of my high school English teacher who, along with his wife, have been my friends for…well, let’s just say, “What are a few decades between friends?” In fact, my friends actually live next to the elementary school where I learned letters formed words, and words helped you learn about the adventures of Dick, Jane, and Sally.

In short, my life is coming full circle. But within that circle are concentric rings that bump into each other, providing me with memories spanning from childhood, my high school years with my teacher, and as dad and I wave from the sidewalk of his nursing home to the crowds of Oregon Duck fans going to the next game, some of my college years.

Recently I walked to my childhood home from my friends’ house and stood in front of it, remembering. I remember sitting on the planter near the front door and laboring with my signature fevered tenacity how to tie my shoes. I remember how a large tree, which used to stand in the front yard, was pushed over by the relentless dark angry winds of the Columbus Day storm. In addition, how I thought “Columbus Day” was what everyone named that storm, and didn’t really quite get it that there was this guy named Christopher who actually took credit for discovering America, or something, on that day.

It is in the back yard of this home where I saw my first bearded iris and fell in love with its sweet delicately curled purple petals and pollen-filled fur trim. We had a huge fragrant lilac that my five siblings and I would pick bouquets of for our mom each May Day. We would jam their top-heavy blooms into our flimsy paper cones, knock on the door, and run away as she tried to find us to give us kisses.

We lived across from a filbert orchard and in early fall we would line filberts across the road and hide in the trees and holler and whoop as cars would drive over them, hoping fiendishly that the drivers would worry they had just driven over young fragile children’s’ bones.

I remember one neighbor had a paper birch tree with its white peeling bark and strikingly contrasted toothed green leaves. I found it so fascinating I was often reprimanded for taking “samples” of its bark for my nature collection. Our own back yard had two very large black walnut trees that in the fall would rain down awful green and black slimy round pods onto the soggy leaf covered back yard. These pods held walnuts in them that my grandmother would drive from her home in the country to help us pick-up. My parents would bring them to a place to have them cleaned and dried and when they came back, they were a handsome honey brown with hard deeply grooved shells. My mom and grandmother baked all year with the meats from those walnuts and I was incredulous that something that started out so ugly could end up tasting so good.

I’m thankful for the richness of memories. Sometimes they are just a vignette, sometimes an emotion, and sometimes if handled carefully they are a story, strung together with images, voices, and lessons learned. They are the “who we are” through the “who we were” parts of us. I am an Oregon girl. Go Ducks!

The Snares in our Life

Proverbs 3:25-26
"Have no fear of sudden disaster or of the ruin that overtakes the wicked, for the Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being snared."

The other morning I padded out to my cold deck in my bare feet, eager to see the subtle color changes in my backyard.  Within three steps I found my face fully encased in a large sticky spider web.  My eyelashes instantly seemed to be glued shut, and without my vision I was even more grossed out by the sensations of the web around my entire face.  Fear quickly began to grow because I had no idea where the creator of the web, the artful orb-weaving spider, was lurking. As I jumped around pulling sticky webbing out of my lashes, I stepped on a cold, dense, squishy thing that gave way under my foot. My senses were on full-alert now, because I knew instantly the pest under my foot was a slug. I gasped in horror and danced around the deck like a crazy woman, sliding my foot along to rid it from slime and slug-parts.  I then walked around the wet yard scraping my foot along the grass like I was skating on a ice-covered pond. The word "gross" really doesn't go far enough in situations such as these, nor do the words "wretchedness," "torture," "torment," or "freakish misery". I ran from the yard to the shower and scrubbed my skin and  hair until there was no hint of outside pests or even natural oil left on my body. I then went out and salted the remainder of the slug and a couple of its evil friends.

Life can be like that sometimes.  We can be cruising along with every good intent, then we're struck by a temptation or calamity that we have to deal with, and deal with now! How nice it would be to have a warning that we were about to encounter something awful. I'm just saying...

But God tells us that we should have no fear of sudden disaster. He obviously knows we will encounter them, after all we do live in a fallen world. He tells us to have confidence in Him, that he will keep our foot from being snared, because once those feet go walking towards trouble, the rest of our body comes as a package deal and before we know it, we're stuck.  God is the creator of all things and therefore can and will provide a way to get through, over, or around, anything that threatens to pull us away from His loving arms.

How easy it is for me to forget these things. My natural temperament is peppered by fear. "What ifs" prowl around my head just looking for a place to pounce. But God gently reminds me to "Be still as know that I am God", and when I really do this, I rest and am at peace. Praise the Lord for He is good.

Fall Blessings

I sing for joy at the works of your hands. How great are your works, O Lord!

Psalm 92: 4-5.

As long as I can remember fall has been my favorite season. My eyes are drawn to the warm colors of gold, orange, reds and browns, so it’s no real surprise that the colors of my home have naturally gravitated to these. Lately my eyes have been riveted to Pottery Barn’s fall catalog because the vignettes of life on those pages look, well...homey. Its pages brim with peaceful earthiness, rustic charm and a touch of whimsy. Sometimes I want to jump into those pages and assume the life of a fall Pottery Barn woman...coming into my door with arms laden of fresh-picked herbs, a bottle of homemade wine has just been opened and about eight of my dearest friends are admiring my table setting and sipping appreciatively.  Pottery Barn women would seem to entertain a great deal (which I would like to, but for some reason don't), and work from home (which I would, but I can't figure out what I want to be when I grow up). Yes, fall is a magical time, and I would assume even more so for Potter Barn women.

My daughter says fall brings with her urges to buy something in bulk, reminiscent I suppose of our fall school-shopping expeditions. I, on the other hand, feel a yearning to make soup and knead bread, shop for colorful squashes, make applesauce, and eat pork chops with my fingers. My eyes are scanning for each day’s color changes and my skin awakens to the crispness of the fall air. One of my favorite fall thrills is watching leaves flitter downward from the trees and then dance enthusiastically upward for a festive and elegant waltz after a car zooms over its carpet. Fall also brings dew-bejeweled spider webs that are stretching over expanses of air like a spidery art show. The one stretching from the rain-gutter to my grill, takes “best-of-show” in my book

I know the beguiling magic of fall has long been with me because when I was a little girl of eight or nine, I wrote the following poem and a year later submitted it to a grange national newsletter where it was published, much to my youthful glee:

Fall

Orange, green, red, brown,
Fall is the time the colored leaves fall down.
They titter and tatter up in the trees,
Then swoosh comes a big hard breeze
Then, down, down, down, goes my beautiful leaves.

I was chatting with a Starbucks barista the other day after buying my first pumpkin latte of the season. We were agreeing over the deliciousness of fall and she was bubbling over with the anticipation of fall and winter holidays. How much easier it is to say good-bye to warm weather and summer flowers when the beauty of fall is so prevalent and the family feasts of winter holiday celebrations beckon us forward. How blessed we are as a nation. How blessed we are to live here in the midst of so much beauty, treasure and bounty. I’m humbled to be the hands and feet of our Lord, and pray for eyes to see his blessings, hands to serve others and feet to walk with those who need a friend. Help me Lord to serve; I have more than I need. Help me to realize that when I'm reading the Pottery Barn fall catalog.

Here are a few of my blessings around our home:

"I Think My Kids Ate All My Frogs!"

That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil; this is the gift of God. Ecclesiastes 3:13

My sister and I were stretching out lazily on our perspective lounge chairs listening to the peaceful sounds of late summer on the back patio of her Oregon home.  It was dark and we watched the moon cast beautiful shadows on her nearby pond.  The quiet and warmth were blissful and we sat enchanted...well at least I was enchanted. My sister was thinking suspiciously like a cowboy in an old western..."It's quiet", she slowly reflected, "in fact it was TOO quiet..." Suddenly she sat up abruptly and said with astonished realization, "I think my kids ate all my frogs!"

The frogs were normally plentiful in the pond and even her two chocolate labs and her alpha female-want-to-be-lab-Shih Tzu, had not depleted the quantity with their raucous romps in the water causing huge numbers of frogs to leap in all direction to escape the dogs' gleeful fun.  Yet, here we were at night, next to a pond and we did not hear one single croak.

My sister's grown children had recently had a camp out with their children around the pond while she was away.  They had text-ed her that they were having  such a good time and were even going to cook some frog legs like they did when they were younger.  My sister had smiled fondly at the text, remembering the fun frog giggling times their family had when the kids were small. However, her country kids had learned their gigging skills well and their aim was apparently true, because the uncharacteristic quietness of the pond did indeed suggest that her fears had substance...her kids had eaten all the frogs.  I offered weakly, "Maybe they're just a little cautious about croaking right now..."

Now I remember my city-born kids eating all the cookies at one setting, and even a particularly stealthy and mysterious dessert thief in the family who always struck at night, but I never had to worry that they were out marauding the neighborhood depleting its frog supply after we went to bed. Therefore, when my sister strung those crazy-sounding astonished words together, I could do nothing but laugh...and at the same time feel a bit of sadness for the frogs.

I have a frog at my front door every day. Sometimes there are two or more lining up on top of a painting I hang from the porch light for the summer.  The frogs have found that good eats are always around the porch light and are undoubtedly thankful when I place the painting back under the light, thus making their feasting all the more expedient. 

Sometimes frogs cling to my small window near my front door in obvious effort to thank me for their bounty, jumping in to join us on occasion. Crane flies and moths are their usual diet, and before the frogs found their high-rise dining table, my porch floor was littered with the singed carcasses of these insects each morning. Now, instead of lifeless insects, my porch and the painting sport a much different look...frog poop.

It is amazing to me how large and abundantly a small frog can poop. Every few days I wash off my painting and sweep the poop from my porch, wondering if the trade-off from dead insects is worth it. Then I remember how those crane flies and moths attack my lawn, and I'm thankful for the help I receive from my frog family. "That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil; this is the gift of God." May my niece and nephew and all our frogs find satisfaction in the toil of their work and be blessed.

The Richness of Soil

Ephesians 3:17-18: May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is.

Before my 2/3 mushroom compost, 1/3 topsoil blend came to our home, my gardens were "special needs". The clay was hard and the rocks were plentiful. I shoveled on the nutrient rich compost like a mother feeding her hungry child. And my little piece of earth responded. The above picture is after the compost. The picture below is what this same little bed looked like as I was applying the compost.

Here is another before and after picture:

And now some more fun afters:

Clearly, the soil where roots are planted is vital to the life and proliferation of plants.  So too with us. I've found in my own life that when I have tried to plant my desires apart from God, my efforts have been frustrated.  However, when my roots are planted deep into God's heart, reaching to him, hungry for his nutrient rich guidance....then I produce fruit.  How wide, long, high and deep God's love is for us is best demonstrated when we plant our lives, our roots, in Him.  I'm thankful for God's mercy for those times when I plant my roots in clay and rocks and for His overwhelming blessings when I choose Him.

My Lavender Birthday Pilgrimage

These are but the outer fringe of His works; how faint the whisper we hear of him!

Psalm 104:24

It seems like each time I go to the lavender festival in Sequim I think, "Have the fields ever looked THIS beautiful?" "Do the farmer's personal gardens have more colorful flowers and scented pathways than in previous years?" The lavender festival always falls on or near my birthday, and never fails to renew my spirit and usher in the next year of my life with a beautiful welcome. To think that beauty like this is only a delicate whisper of God's works, just fills me with thankfulness and awe!

Sequim (pronounced: Squim) is wonderfully situated in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains and the Strait of Juan de Fuca.  The Dungeness River flows from the mountains, through the town of Sequim and into the strait.  Years ago, farmers channeled the river for irrigation on their farms, and about 10 years ago the crop of choice became lavender. The mere 16.81 annual inches of rain (quite an anomaly for the Pacific Northwest), ocean breezes, mild climate and alluvium soil from the Dungeness River, converge together in perfect harmony to produce what is now, world famous lavender.

I love it when a community carves out a beautiful new niche and utilizes all the wonderful attributes of its land for a great product. Oregon has done that with its vineyards and award winning wines, after its timber industry declined. Reinventing yourself like that is like finding out in your old age that you still "have it".  I'm hoping for that very discovery as I start my new year in life! What new plans does God have for me?  I hope I'm open to His guidance each day and don't miss out on any new beginnings!

Glass-Winged Butterfly

Proverbs 27:19: As water reflects a face, so a man’s heart reflects a man.


Colors capture our attention. Bright colors like yellows and reds seem to clamor loudest for consideration. Often times red can be a warning color in nature, signaling poison, a bitter taste, or conversely a bright invitation to pollinate to help carry on a plant’s life cycle. Now, greens are amazing. There are endless shades of green just in my back yard, yielding depth and texture that can only be truly treasured if you are standing actually in the yard and purposely noticing the dimensions of their pallet. Blue is like that too. Water and sky have so many shades and hues that I don’t think anyone could possibly dream up that many names for blue, although many have tried (like Benjamin Moore who named a lovely dark colored blue simply, ‘Stunning 826’).

I think people can be a bit like color. Sometimes we meet colorful people in our lives who brush in and out like a well-dipped red paintbrush adding laughter, brilliance, or even poison and leaving us changed. Other people are here to stay and their shades of green, gray or brown can be muted and lovely adding such a dimension to our lives that we could scarcely breathe without them.

Today I saw a picture of glass-winged butterfly from Panama and it is so beautiful, I cannot stop thinking of it. Its wings were iridescent, reflecting the colors of whatever it was near, and magnifying the beauty of whatever it rested on. Oh, to be like the glass-winged butterfly, reflecting the beauty I see around me, and magnifying the beauty of others who are near! So often, I will only reflect my own dark heart, brooding and worrying so much that I am missing the beauty and potential that I am actually resting on, and the words of wisdom God has prepared in other’s, will pass on by without me knowing.

It would seem that glass-winged type people are the quiet people in our lives, whose gentle spirit softly bring out the best in us, their humble strength receding to let others boisterously jangle their needed colors. However, the world would be a bit dull if we were all like the glass-winged butterfly. There would be no colors to reflect or emphasize, and so much passion, as well as the flushing lessons from angst might be lost. 

Its not my nature to be glass-winged (at least the positive elements of it). I am far more colorful than even I can handle at times! I am thankful that God works with me daily in refining my colors and helping me along in my little piece of earth.