When do you let it go...

When will what I was become less important then who I am? As I reach the middle earth of living why do the whispers of my early years sound louder and louder? Do I have to listen...or am I finally able to understand that all my years make up all my life. The lonely 6 year old, the confused 13 year old, the angry 17 year old, the hopeful 21 year old, the curious 25 year old, the confident 31 year old, the grieving 35 year old, the restored 41 year old...she is all here. But...when can I silence the younger Heidi with the maturity of Heidi the 46 year old.

I work with high school students who carry their younger wounded selves close to the surface. The inability to carry some of their grief is understandably...I have enough years to hide the worst of mine but these students don't know how and somehow I don't really want them to...How to help them deal though is tricky. How do you deal with wounded souls when the wound was inflicted to a soul being formed...there is so much confusion.

I find my 46 soul protecting my 6 year old and 11 year old soul...but when can I just be 46 and look forward to 83? Do I drag all these years with me or can I be 46 whole, rather then a collection of bad and good years. If I live quickly in the dash...is bringing the past dragging the run? I think I am tired for that reason...I can't embrace my future because I have carried them all too long. They are me...but they can't define who I will become anymore.

Can I let her go? Do we really have to take our history so seriously?

Getting there

I am almost to the place I want to be to start again...maybe i have lost some readers, maybe I will gain some more. Those of you who have hung in there...so much thanks.

Under Construction...

Aren't we always...

I've decided

I think I am going to stop writing for awhile. Not that I have nothing to say...always have something to say. I just need to find the thing I want to say. I read many many blogs...it has become my favorite read in the morning after I catch up with the news. I want to revamp, restyle, rethink what it is I want to do. Needless to say...this is what I want to do for now. Thank you for your kind attention over these years. Please stay tuned...I will be back but differently.

I drove by...

I drove by a graveside ceremony today. Lynden may be the only town that has a cemetery at its entrance but every time you drive in and out on Front Street, one drives through a cemetery. The people caught my eye as they huddles around the plot. Dark colors and hunched shoulders, draped arms and white Kleenex were the unspoken reminders of this grave day.
I drove by enormous houses with closed gates and immaculate laws. Wealth displayed in houses and views and gardens and gates. I could not imagine having so much and living in such gracious surroundings.
I drove by a trailer park a few miles down the road from the mansions. Clustered together with nary a garden plot. Children playing in the space between, on old pieces of furniture and broken down cars.
I drove home, my little house on 10th. The kids were watching Dr. Who...Scott and I just had a wonderful evening together. So very grateful for what I have...and the grief I don't yet have to carry. Such reminders on a drive by...

Bits of bread

Scott and I were talking about God's interest in our personal every day lives. It is hard at times to think that the immensity of God is at all concerned for the finiteness of me. Everyone tells me this is true but in the riding to school, running the dog, figuring out breakfast...I still find it hard to believe there is a divine interest in me and my ho hum life. I asked Scott about this and he said we just need to look for the bread crumbs...which reminded me of that time that Jesus talked to the Canaanite woman. ( Matthew 15) She was wanting her child to be healed and Jesus in one of the more strange response seems to insult her by telling her he is really there for the Jews...it is a strange un-Jesus like response and though I have heard and read many reason why and how, I only want to think about is her response. "But even the dogs get the crumbs off the masters table"...She seems to recognize Jesus' point and makes one of her own. I like this...I am this woman. I am not saying that I am less but I am certainly not on the edge of God's Kingdom work. I am a vessel of ignoble use not noble...I am not Moses, or Paul, or Lydia, or any other named character in the Bible...I am one of the crowd, the many, the church. I am that unnamed women who knows Jesus well enough to know that he will not overlook my anonymity. My value to Him is not predicated on my culture, credibility, charisma, character, cash, career or color.
I am of value apart from my position in this society. I am of value outside the realm of human accomplishment.
Those bead crumbs from the table...nourish me.

Micro ... Macro

We are the proud owners of an aquarium and 4 little goldfish. Mijo and I were such newbies walking into Pets Smart wondering what it would take to get up and running. Much longer and much more complicated then you think. We had an aquarium from the biology lab at school and some objects to put in,all I thought we would need would be some fish, food and a filter. No...you need a water heater, water purifier, net, gravel for the bottom, scrubber, gravel vacuum, water stone and pump. One can't even have any fish until there is enough bacteria in the water after you take the chlorine out. you can either buy some bacteria and wait a week or so or you can buy some goldfish. Those hearty , dirty fish who when you have them a week dirty up the tank enough to allow the water to get to that magical ratio that is healthy for other fish.

Water life amaze me because not to many years ago all we knew about fish was what we caught in our nets or saw with our own eyes a few feet deep. The whole micro world was beyond our scope, just waiting to be discovered.

I love it that God so knew his Creation that He knew we needed to discover. How the unknown pushes us further. Deeper and higher we go looking and marveling and wondering. Seeing all the colors of the fish, their size and shape and 'personalities', I am so delighted to discover for myself a new living thing spoken from God's imagination. In the micro to the macro...from the simple to the complicated...all that is living dancing its beauty. I wonder what is still out there, up there under there...yet to be seen.

God's imagination swimming in my fish tank...running in the field...growing in my garden...kissing me goodnight.