wednesday, November 1, 2023 Quote of the week

Looking behind I am filled with gratitude. Looking forward I am filled with vision. Looking upwards I am filled with strength. Looking within I discover peace.
Quero Apache Prayer

November tends to be the month for recognizing gratitude. I have read people's Thirty Days of Gratitude posts on their favorite social media feed for the past few years, so I decided this was a path for me this month. With Thanksgiving arriving within the next few weeks, it is healthy to be mindful of all I have.

A steady rain continued throughout last weekend, and I was thankful for the quiet time. I listened to the drops ping from off my roof and watched the water puddle in the streets. Water can be as crushing as tidal waves or violent tsunamis, but water can also be as gentle as mist.

Outside my window, I noticed a tiny drop of rain clinging ever so delicately to a branch of my juniper bush. I felt incredibly blessed to witness such beauty. Simple beauty yet so magnificent.

Yes, it was a "gloomy" weekend, but it allowed me time to settle and absorb nature that I would have been too busy to see otherwise. Sunshine is inviting, but in the words of John Updike, he said that "Rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life." We need the sun, and we need the rain; we need the waves, and we need the stillness.

I am grateful for the ordinary transforming into the majestic!

wednesday, November 8, 2023 Quote of the week

"The wound is the place where light enters you.”

Rumi

During this month of finding gratitude in our everyday life, I am sharing with you an excerpt from my memoir, Choosing to See: How Miracles Carry Us to the Other Side of Grief, titled “Gratitude.”

Claiming to be self-made is an untruth, for we all stand on the shoulders of others. Maybe we’d like to think we are where we are because of what we alone have accomplished, but that is arrogant, so ego-driven, so exaggerated.

Parents and caregivers first teach trust and unconditional love through the bond of families. As our world expands, we learn more lessons by inviting and embracing new experiences through relationships outside our familial bonds. Our teachers, friends, and clergy empower us to communicate, to listen, and to understand each other even if it means we agree to disagree. Marriage is the ultimate connection; standing before one another stripped entirely of our earthly confines, discovering and truly knowing deep, unfathomable love. What mighty shoulders we stand upon!

Every encounter, every soul gifted to us, is like a pulsation of energy surging us into the purposeful direction where we need to travel. I am on this “other side of grief” because of the immeasurable love of those who hoisted me up to get me through and forward. God provides all that is good, and He has given me everything I need to heal from the loss of my husband.

God provided for me the shoulders to support me as I trek through each aspect of my life. God’s beautiful gifts, those miraculous souls, are like lily pads floating across a stream enabling me to warily step from one side of the bank to the other. One lily pad at a time, one moment at a time, until suddenly finding myself across.

I am most grateful for all those strong shoulders. I love you.

wednesday, November 15, 2023 Quote of the week

“...knock and the door will be opened to you.”

Luke 11:9

My sister-in-law and her husband recommended a movie for us a few years back called, Sliding Doors. The character, played by Gwenyth Paltrow, leads us through her two lives based on the split timing of the subway trains.

In one scene, she jumps through the subway doors just as they were closing; the other is when she misses the train completely and the doors slam seconds before she arrives. It may not seem like making the connection or missing it would matter, but the direction in which her two lives take is mind-blowing.

Adjusting to life without after loss is much the same. Where our lives were once timed well and sailed along so beautifully, is replaced by what feels to be dead ends. We feel out of control and “off” as we navigate out of our comfortable routines. Doors shut on the old ways; friends change and family dynamics shift. Some doors remain wide open, while others close with resounding finality.

It is tiresome negotiating what we have left, but "when one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closes door," Belinda Enoma states, "that we do not see the one which has been opened for us." At times, I have tried so desperately to rekindle what was, that I was not willing to to see the miracles resting on the horizon of my life yet to be."

Helen Keller said, “Don’t waste your life banging on a door God doesn’t want you to walk through.” Release what was and be assured that we are led in the way we should go. Sometimes the closing door is an actual passage through to something more honorable and pure. Helen Barry noted that we should “be thankful for the closed doors, the detours, and roadblocks. They protect you from paths and places not meant for you.”

I am most grateful for God’s wisdom and guidance.

wednesday, November 29, 2023 Quote of the week

“Memories are the key not to the past but to the future.”

Corrie ten Boom

November brings up so many memories of my mom. She loved the cool air and the colors, rust, brown, and deep burgundy. Her birthday and her wedding anniversary are both nestled within November too. November was always, in my mind, her month.

Although she has been gone a few years, her spunky attitude resounds in my heart. I have many, but the one story that always makes me grin and shake my head was when she would shoot her BB gun at our neighbors’ dogs.

We had just moved to St. Louis from our country farm in Bowling Green. I was like a fish out of water; never had I had neighbors and friends to play with, so I just wanted to fit my nine-year-old self into my new life in the suburbs. Dogs and puppies meandered in and out of yards doing their morning thing, but I suppose my mom had a differing viewpoint on this custom.

Aiming her BB gun ever so carefully, POP, she’d pepper the backside of a trespassing puppy. Really Mom? All I wanted to do was make friends and be accepted, but here was my mother shooting at their puppies. The pets were never harmed. In fact, I think she simply pelted the ground just right underneath their backsides. I guess in the 70s it was a bit more tolerated because I don’t recall any repercussions regarding my mom.

Artist and writer, Flavia Weedn, said that, “Each time we embrace a memory, we meet again with those we love…”, and when we tell their stories, they live on. As we release November into our yesterday, the approaching holidays allow oodles of opportunity to bring our missed loved ones into conversations. Tell their stories of the past and as Corrie ten Boom referenced, they forever remain in our present.

I feel my mom with me, pushing me onward. I even reached for the phone twice this month to call her. I guess she was reaching for me too.

I am most grateful for the memories we make.

wednesday, November 22, 2023 Quote of the week

“As your days are, so shall your strength be.”

Deuteronomy 33:25

Cell phones, iPads, gaming devices…what do they all have in common? They need to be charged. At the start of our day, our devices are fully charged, but throughout the day, the battery dwindles, and suddenly we see the percentage is down in the single digits. Racing for our charger, we plug in and power up as we prepare for a new day.

Approaching the bustling holiday events, we may feel like we could use an extra charge ourselves. However, it’s essential to pay attention to what our bodies are telling us. Reflect on what provides energy and what depletes it. Oprah Winfrey said that, “Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.” The little voice, the Holy Spirit inside, will alert and direct us to what we need to do or not do.

Jesus is the charge! When we go forward with Him, we power up; although the body weakens, our spirit cannot if we remain connected and charged to the truth, and to the joy of His eternal love. God will provide us the allocated energy we need for each day. He enables us to march forward despite our circumstances.

As we proceed through each day, let us stay “powered” to a charge that will never fail. Let’s stay attuned to the fact that our plans may deviate to something else intended. We are God’s children, and like all parents, He will love us and will protect us. He will also challenge and push us with loving encouragement.

Allow old habits and routines to fall away, so we can experience the open pathways He has prepared. May our desires yield to His, and may we seek to please Him above all else.

I am most grateful for His sustaining and unconditional love that cares for me so deeply.

Storylight A transformational journey SHARON M WIBLE

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