Tag: Family

Posted in art, authors, birds, book, Christine Valters Paintner, Family, health, monks, Physical, prayer, quote, season, Spiritual, summer, weather, write, writer

What’s Your Summer Story?

Posted on by deannagreensandgardenart

I joined a summer book club called Summer Art Club. I found the group through Substack. A small group of creatives meet together for an hour on Sunday evening via Zoom for a 12-week journey. We are reading The Artist’s Rule by Christine Valters Paintner. It’s about nurturing your creative soul with monastic wisdom. Thus far I really enjoyed the chapter that covers the sacred rhythms and the seven traditional praying hours for creative renewal. I love the nuggets of pure gold in this book as well as the sharing with this group of women.

“I want to live my life in healing rhythms that honor the limits of my body, the pleasures of rest, and the delights of play.” ~ Christine Valters Paintner

As I look out the atelier’s front window, I see the fat little hummingbirds make repeat returns to the two front yard feeders for more sugar water. My husband is trying to keep up with these hungry hummers. The children’s book Little Green by Keith Baker explains the repetitive nature of these little birds. In Missouri the ruby-throated hummingbirds come to us late spring and fatten up over the warmer months before leaving us in October. Their homes are in the warmer climates. Migration with the warm weather is in their nature, part of their story.

What’s your summer story? Are you zipping along with your days minding your own business, attending to your job duties, family matters, vacation, or your health? Are you in status quo or planning for or making a big change in your life? Me, well, two or three mornings a week I am zipping along with culinary work at the local senior centers closest to my home. With my writing I take on new contests, challenges, and projects. These fill my afternoons and some evenings. One of my recipes is featured in the July issue eMerge Magazine. A poem of mine is the 2nd place winner in a contest with the local writers’ group, Saturday Writers. I am writing short articles for The Hope*Writers magazine.

Family is a part of my husband and I’s everyday life in one fashion or another. A long weekend vacation is in the plans for late August. After these steamy humid days, the destination will need to be for someplace cooler. I am hoping to get to a lake soon, even though it will not be my favorite place which is Island Lake in Minnesota. We keep hoping to return to this northern haven from my childhood. Meantime, my kinky hair gets clipped up off my neck, and sundresses and thongs are my summer attire.

In regard to my health, I am trying to make positive changes. Eating healthier with loads of vegetables. I have been lacking regular cardio exercise for some time. I get weightlifting in with the heavy commercial pans filled with food enough for 100 – 130 people. I do stretches with an online program. But when I was at my healthiest in my adult years, I went swimming at least two days a week. This was 15 – 18 years ago. So, I have returned to the pool this month. I aim to keep this part of my weekly routine at least two days a week until the end of time, my time that is. I cannot afford not to. I only have this life to live. I am praying for long healthy days and years ahead.

Posted in heart, Jesus, pain, Physical, scripture, Spiritual, thankful, truth, words, write

What Kind of Words

Posted on by deannagreensandgardenart

What kind of words come from my lips when I am in arthritic pain? Kind words? Not most of the time. I stay silent as this is better than cursing. But if truth be told, if cursing is your only expression while in pain, go for it. Your existence matters, whether kind words come out or the sobering truth words are uttered aloud.

“Be thankful in all circumstances. This is what God wants from you in your life in union with Christ Jesus.

~ 1 Thessalonians 5:18 GNT

Words of gratitude is what I aim for. I started a daily gratitude practice this month. On paper I list out three things I am thankful for each morning. It ranges from my arthritic joints, my breath, boundaries, a budget, Earl Grey tea, blueberry kuchen, my job, skills to be able to work, my Dean, my Rachel, my Elisabeth, my Ben, knowing my father and mother for many years, an ability to write, communication, words … the list goes on and on. Pain is such an annoying state of being. So many of us bear through it. Several of my loved ones lived with it and others still live with it.

My prayer and words of encouragement are to take your pain to the arms of Jesus. He is there for you always! Whether it be physical and/or emotional pain, He is wanting your heart, curse words, and all. Words of thanks are what changes your heart.

Posted in compassion, Emotional, eyes, faith, God, heart, heaven, hope, Mental, mercy, Physical, prayer, scripture, Spiritual, temporal

A Heart Knowing

Posted on by deannagreensandgardenart

Do you ever talk until your blue in the face, like talking to a wall or deaf ears? Maybe the trouble is that the person you are trying to reach has a stoppage somewhere. Either the head doesn’t know, or it is that the heart doesn’t know, or both.

Uh, prayer! Prayer for me for more patience. And prayer for him to open up his doors to God’s heart of compassion and mercy. Look beyond what can be seen with the physical eyes. Big eyes of faith, I call to our Father for this because I lack right now.

To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we cannot see. ~ Hebrews 11:1 GNT

And for him, that he realize what is more important. The physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being of our loved ones or stuff, stuff that is temporal. Give each of us a heart knowing and then, living out God’s heart in these matters. Two hearts melting together for a heavenly purpose.

 For we fix our attention, not on things that are seen, but on things that are unseen. What can be seen lasts only for a time, but what cannot be seen lasts forever. ~ 2 Corinthians 4:18 GNT

Posted in faith, Family, flower, God, Holy Spirit, Jesus, life, love, Martha, Mary, prayer, season, Spiritual, thankful, works

A Season For Martha And For Mary

Posted on by deannagreensandgardenart

I am coming out of a very busy few weeks with St. Jude fundraiser and Asheville outreach projects. I finally am able to sit down and breathe deep breathes even though Thanksgiving brunch preparations started. Cooking for nine or ten family members seems easy compared to cooking for the hundred or double that many meal-on-wheels and seniors on any given day last week. I have a four-day weekend ahead of me. Nice.

As Christians, we cannot have Martha without Mary, and vice versa, Mary without Martha. This is the pull for each of us. “Faith without works is dead.” Then there is the contrasting scripture. “She has chosen the better,” Jesus tells Martha after her complaint about Mary sitting at our Savior’s feet. I sit in the quiet before sunrise, before steps are heard from any other eleven family members (including the furry creatures) in the cottage and meditate. So much to be thankful for. God, You give me life. You give me Jesus. You give me the Holy Spirit. You give me love.

My Novena Rose Prayer
O Little Therese of the Child Jesus,
please pick for me a rose
from the heavenly gardens and
send it to me as a message of love.
O Little Flower of Jesus, ask God to grant the favors
I now place with confidence in your hands…
St. Therese, help me to always believe, as you did,
In God’s great love for me,
so that I might imitate your “Little Way” each day.
Amen.

Posted in children, connection, death, devastation, Family, food, give, God, grace, grandchild, health, help, Holy Spirit, live, love, mountains, need, People, prayer, provision, spirit, Spiritual, water

Need

Posted on by deannagreensandgardenart

I had an odd feeling this week; it was kind of like a deja’ vu feeling. But instead of the feeling that I have been somewhere already, it is the feeling that I need to be someplace I have been before. And that need to be somewhere is now, or as soon as I am able. It is a place Dean and I had vacationed at for a 3-day stay while Airbnbing for a 9-day vacation through Tennessee and the Appalachians over 7 years ago. Asheville, North Carolina. We fell in love with the mountains and streams there. I felt a spiritual connection to its people. For my health, it is a locale we considered moving to for milder winters than the St. Louis area. God hasn’t moved us yet. We are needed here in St. Charles, Missouri as a help to our children and grandchildren.

"We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them." 
~ 1 John 4:16 NLT

Asheville and surrounding counties are one of the hardest hit areas by Hurricane/Tropical Storm Helene over a week ago. Death and devastation for so many. Out of this disastrous storm follows stories of great loss, but also great humanity, sacrifice, love, God’s love seen through His people. The Appalachian people will have months and even years of recovery from this one. The need is calling us.

"Your Father knows what you need even before you ask." 
~ Matthew 6: 8 CEV

This week Dean and I looked over our calendar of commitments, and mid-November is the best time to get to Asheville for a weekend of hurricane relief service. We already booked a place to stay nearby where we stayed 7 years ago. We will keep our eyes peeled and ears open to hear God’s voice on the best organization to be involved with to provide assistance. I hope to be cooking meals. Dean wants to be loading and unloading supplies. We will see what the needs are of the people in Asheville when we get there. Meantime, we will gather bottles of water and toiletry items to take for one of the charitable organizations to distribute.

"In certain ways we are weak, but the Spirit is here to help us. For example, when we don't know what to pray for, the Spirit prays for us in ways that cannot be put into words." 
~ Romans 8:26 CEV

Our God’s Holy Spirit is at work in us. It is with confidence that we can pray because God, Our Father knows what we and those we love need even before we do. The Holy Spirit prays for us. God loves us, so we can come to Him by the grace that He has given just when we need it.

"Let us have confidence, then, and approach God's throne, where there is grace. There we will receive mercy and find grace to help us just when we need it." 
~ Hebrews 4:16 GNT

Posted in bed, blessings, breathe, care, children, co-worker, comfort, creative, day, Family, father, food, friend, God, granddaughter, husband, Jesus, joy, love, neighbor, thankful, words

One Big Chore, One Big Love

Posted on by deannagreensandgardenart

Life has become one big chore once again. Busyness and obligations have taken over my calendar and mindset. I dislike it when I allow these to take over my gratefulness and joy in life. Little time to think about what I want to think about and do what I want to do. Like reading, writing, and creating, the introvert’s dream.

This busy season too shall pass as other seasons have and will do. Besides carving out the space and time for a few days of reprieve, it is taking moments during these pressing everyday things to thank God for the breath I breathe, the food I eat, warm bed to sleep in, and loved ones to care for. I count it a blessing to be a part of the lives of many family members that include my husband, children and their spouses, grandchildren, a parent still with us, and a big extended family. Then there are my friends, co-workers, and neighbors. I feel I neglect so many. One day at time, sweet Jesus. Allow time for a tea with my granddaughter, hug and cuddle my grandbaby, party with the young ones, or an early morning breakfast at the neighborhood diner with my love. Guide my tongue to speak words at the apt time.

“Like apples of gold in settings of silver
Is a word spoken at the right time.”

Proverbs 25:11

Tyler Childers does a wonderful rendition of Space and Time, a song original to S. G. Goodman. The lyrics so eloquent and apropos. My heart is singing again …

I never wanna leave this world
Without sayin’, “I love you”
Without sayin’ what you mean to me
You know you make me happy
Oh, when we, share this space and time
Want you to know you shape this heart of mine
And I never wanna leave this world, oh
Without sayin’, “I love you”
Oh, and out in the woods
This picture is clear to me
I owe my life, to even my enemies
The ones who have loved me
The ones who have tried
Thеir grips on my heart
And their grips on my mind
The strangеr I pass, my momma, brothers
Friends and my father
They’re God undercover
I’m tellin’ you now
In case I must go
Want you to know
I never wanna leave this world
Without sayin’, “I love you”
Without sayin’ what you mean to me
You know you make me happy
Oh, when we, share this space and time
Want you to know you shape this heart of mine
And I never wanna leave this world, oh
Without sayin’, “I love you”

Posted in anger, daughter, disabled, earth, empty, faith, Family, fear, feelings, gift, God, grandchild, grief, heart, home, house, insecurity, Jesus, life, pain, poverty, prayer, quote, resilience, season, seed, son, sorrow, time, truth, worry

Prayer Like A Lace Shawl

Posted on by deannagreensandgardenart

Snow has covered the roof tops, grass, leaves, and trees like a lace shawl early this morning. Soft, no harshness with this snowfall. But life has been harsh this past month, like a blizzard. Details to provide for my daughter’s family after their house burned down Christmas night are harsh realities. Life has not been a bed of roses for my daughter most of her life. Disabled with a nerve disorder caused by an error during a disc surgery went undetected for months. Consequently, she has and still suffers with pain most every minute of her day. Every day. Most days she is on top of it, smiles at the days to come. At this bleak season of her life, she lives one day at a time, one hour at a time, and one minute at a time while those details are being covered in prayer. Prayer like a lace shawl does not completely cover the substance underneath. You still see glimpses of rawness; although the bare reality by a teaspoon instead of gallons at any given moment. Loss, grief, disbelief, emptiness, doing without, fear, doubt, anger, just surviving, insecurity, faith at times smaller than a mustard seed, coping, resilience rising, moving a finger at a time and then a hand to say “I am alive” are some of the heart’s feelings they share. God completely envelope my daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren with Your love this very moment.

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan;
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.

Our God, heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain,
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty —
Jesus Christ.

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am? —
If I were a Shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man
I would do my part, —
Yet what I can I give Him, —
Give my heart.

“In this bleak mid-winter” as the Christina Rossetti poem and lyrics go, “yet what I can give Him, give my heart.” As we conclude the Advent season, I resound “I can and will give my heart”. We all must in order to survive this harsh world.

Posted in answer, anxious, believe, children, choice, day, empty, failure, faith, Family, give, God, grace, heart, house, life, love, mother, People, prayer, quote, rain, resources, rest, saints, scripture, Spiritual, understand, water, worry

Take, Lord, Receive

Posted on by deannagreensandgardenart

It has been a summer touched by St. Francis, St. Joseph, and St. Ignatius. Their lives still live in God’s people today including in me. A stray puppy became a part of my husband and I’s life one week in August before finding the perfect family to adopt him. After several weeks of packing, donating, moving, repairing, scrubbing, and just plain hard work, we finally put my mother’s villa on the market with the St. Joseph statue buried in the yard. Several willing buyers offered contracts more than what we asked for within 24 hours of being on the market. The closing is in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, Dean and I have some major household upgrades. We replaced a furnace well over 20 years old, a roof maybe as old, and gutters failing their job even when removing leaves and debris on several occasions this spring and summer. We have had plenty of rain even over the summer. One wall was showing some leakage during a storm prior to the roof and gutters being replaced, so some plaster work will be next. St. Joseph intercedes while God oversees the details.

“Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what you will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me.” ~ St. Ignatius of Loyola

I awoke one day singing from my heart the spiritual song, Take, Lord, Receive. I sang all day long, beginning with my shower and while I worked around the house that day. This song is based on the quote above from St. Ignatius, co-founder of the Jesuit teachings and Spiritual Exercises. I knew I was singing this for someone else besides me. A phone call from one of the kids revealed who. But the words welled up in my heart for myself, too. A yielding I need right now. A yielding of my own heart matters. Worry about things I cannot control, anxiety about the future of those I love, and my lack of understanding for some of God’s people placed in my life. Take, Lord, receive. My liberty, my memory, my understanding, my entire will. All I have and call my own … To You, Lord, I return it. Everything is Yours. Do with it what You will. Please Lord, give me only Your love and Your grace, that is enough for me. Amen.”

Posted in change, day, faith, Family, God, grandchild, health, life, prayer, quote, rest, trust, write, writer

Soar Above And Through

Posted on by deannagreensandgardenart

This summer brought change, several of them. I retired from my full-time job right into culinary day camps to teach, a week of writing camp for myself, multiple family gatherings, grandkids and grand dogs staying over, moving furniture and home goods, and prepping my mother’s villa for the real estate market. Life isn’t rosy even in retirement. I have had some adjustments to my new job demands. My per diem job requires a devotion and creativity to lesson plans, and with timeliness. Making more time for writing is still a challenge. That week away in June to write and recipe development was so nice. Hard to capture those moments in my home, but discipling myself to keep to pen and paper most days. The house still needs repairs, loved ones’ bodies and souls need healing, and more of Jesus in our lives. Good news, my PVCs have subsided. The meds and part-time rather than full-time employment have been key as well as prayers.

Where is life going? It is a question I ask often. I am a planner, but I must rest in God’s plans, not my own. Faith. Trust. In God, not myself or others. While I have launched into this new season, I spent part of July in quiet, just not doing anything some days. In these contemplative hours, I considered where I have been, and then where life is going for my loved ones and I. I cannot dwell here very long as I begin to think things too much, try to figure out God. I simply need to pray, trust that He is caring for me and my loved ones in every minute of our days. “What wings are to a bird, and sails to a ship, so is prayer to the soul,” Corrie Ten Boom has said. Soul, fly and sail through this busy month of August, soar above and through all the unknown and unanswered details with God’s guidance. Father God be with me.

Posted in authors, blessings, book, change, children, community, Crescent Dragonwagon, daughter, Family, feelings, God, grandchild, granddaughter, happy, house, husband, job, People, silence, solitude, walk, write, writer

New Pace And Space

Posted on by deannagreensandgardenart

I have taken on a new opportunity this summer, and not just for this summer. On June 1 I retired from my full-time HR position in order to slow my pace down. I have more time for the activities I love like gardening, cooking, antiquing, and writing. Even with these fun hobbies, I am learning to pace myself so I get enough sleep, exercise, and make healthier food choices and proper time to consume. For additional income I am teaching culinary classes part-time with kids’ 1/2-day camps this summer. Come the fall semester, I will teach culinary classes 2 evenings a week to kids as well as adults.

More time for family is the another reason to slow my pace down. My husband and I already spent a weekend at the lake with his three children, spouses and three grandchildren. Next weekend I will be opening a booth in an antique mall with my daughters and granddaughters. But this week, is time for myself. I signed up for a writing residency at the Writing Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. I learned of this place over 15 years ago. This place has been in existence for 20 years. I could almost pinch myself, to check if it is real. I am actually staying at the Dairy Hollow house made famous by author, Crescent Dragonwagon. I am taking a week’s residency in the comfortable culinary suite creating some recipes to share in a book of short stories with a culinary theme. My first book. See what becomes of this week. It has been productive so far.

I take casual walks in this enchanted town of Victorian wrap-around porches, bungalows with inviting archways, crevices filled with wildflowers, groves of trees and moss-covered cliffs laced throughout the town. I do some porch sitting, watching the hummingbirds and song birds feed. While on the front porch yesterday afternoon sipping iced peppermint herbal tea a doe and her fawn meandered between the two residency buildings. Later this afternoon I hear the readings of one of my fellow writers at the Carnegie Library a few short blocks away. I will make it to the farmer’s market and a couple of local shops tomorrow morning before returning to the laptop for my story writing and making a peach-blueberry slump. Visits with the other writing residents have been at dinner time. We sit and dine for an hour at a long table filled with delightful foods prepared by an excellent cook from the Old World. Yes, life is good. I feel God’s blessings.