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Spring Getaways

Posted on March 29, 2023March 31, 2023 by deannagreensandgardenart

My front door now pops with Spring. I found a bargain moss basket as well as dainty greenery and flowers to put inside for the “Welcome” metal art piece. Even a little nest with the florals. The birds had pecked at the wreath I had placed on the door for the past three Springs, looking rather bald on one side. Time for replacing and refreshing with different textures and colors. Is not that what Spring is? Renewal.

“In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, when birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding; sweet lovers love the spring.”
William Shakespeare, As You Like It

It was time for our Spring fling. My husband and I love road trips, short ones and long. This time only 2 hours from home for a town and country weekend away. Spring rains follow us to a Swedish-style hideaway. Hygge at its best, we find Spring with the frogs’ croaks, bird tweets, flowering plum trees, and tender green sprigs sprouting in the woods. Using my hooded poncho and Dean the umbrella, we keep somewhat dry walking to the welcoming forsythia-wreathed door. We fiddle with the door code, breathing each other’s space, and finally figure out the magic touch. Inside a string of lights on a tree and small table lamp greet us this rainy afternoon. Dean fetches our remaining bags and hung clothes. I remove my wet poncho and find a hook to hang it on to dry. My packed throw in our luggage quickly becomes the desired item to snuggle up into after our short excursion in the Spring rain. Dean joins me on the comfy couch for a short nap until our dinnertime plans.

That perfect weekend leads us to another work week. Taught a spring baking class one evening. I recently trained for a full-time human resources position and felt it not a good fit. The training was meager as well as too different from what my previous experience had been with employee benefits. I had a difficult time retaining the necessary details due to this stressful time, many sleepless nights. A week after I had started this position my daughter and family’s house burned down. And Dean’s mother suffered a stroke that just about killed her last month. More adequate housing arrangements have been made for them.

I spend time in the quiet. Being still. Each day listening to the songbirds outside our cottage home’s windows. Gleaning a word or two in the Holy Scriptures. Praying. This week I think about Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Mary’s belief in Jesus. The miracle, He raised Lazarus, Mary’s and Martha’s brother from the dead. The stench of death did not permeate. Jesus made anew, fresh Life when it seemed hopeless. My Jesus, make fresh Life for my daughter and her family. Make fresh Life for my mother-in-law and father-in-law in their new home setting. Make fresh Life in me.

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The Biscuit Prayer and His Purposes

Posted on February 25, 2023 by deannagreensandgardenart

I have been complaining about the season I am in, and the cards I have been dealt. Negativism dominated my thoughts. I have prayed for a changed heart. A refocus on Jesus and His purposes not mine. I am making an effort to be more present moment and in prayer. Ash Wednesday begins the Lent season this week. Attending the evening bi-lingual Mass at our neighborhood church, I recognize the mediative beats of the rosary being said by our Hispanic brothers and sisters. There were plenty of noon time rosary reciting at a nearby church during the noon hour when I worked in Clayton. Cannot mistake that mediative beat. The priest says “repent and return to Christ” while marking a cross on my forehead with black ash. That is the Holy Spirit speaking through Father Godefroid.

I read this story I am calling “The Biscuit Prayer”…

A pastor asked an older farmer, decked out in bib overalls, to say grace for the morning breakfast.

“Lord, I hate buttermilk”, the farmer began. The visiting pastor opened one eye to glance at the farmer and wonder where this was going.

The farmer loudly proclaimed, “Lord, I hate lard.” Now the pastor was growing concerned.

Without missing a beat, the farmer continued, “And Lord, you know I don’t much care for raw white flour”. The pastor once again opened an eye to glance around the room and saw that he wasn’t the only one to feel uncomfortable.

Then the farmer added, “But Lord, when you mix them all together and bake them, I do love warm fresh biscuits. So Lord, when things come up that we don’t like, when life gets hard, when we don’t understand what you’re saying to us, help us to just relax and wait until you are done mixing. It will probably be even better than biscuits. Amen.”

Within that prayer there is great wisdom for all when it comes to complicated situations like we are experiencing in the world today.

Stay strong, my friends, because our LORD is mixing several things that we don’t really care for, but something even better is going to come when HE is done with it. AMEN!

“Don’t try to boil the ocean,” I heard on a webinar this week. Change one thing at a time. What’s the one thing I can change? Myself. The me, myself, and I attitude, actions, and words. Unlike the trio: Me, Myself, and I Personal Pizzas made in the kids’ cooking class this week. More like this trio: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. “Thank You, Father for creating me. Thank You, Jesus for loving me. I love You because You loved me first. Thank You for Your guidance every day, Holy Spirit. Let me serve God’s purposes today. Let me be faithful today. Let me share Jesus’ love today.”

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Prayer Like A Lace Shawl

Posted on January 22, 2023 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.

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Be Quiet, Be Still

Posted on November 12, 2022 by deannagreensandgardenart

Get out of your own way. Just sit down a bit. No radio or TV or computer or phone. Pick up that devotional book and read what words are found for today. “Noise is the mouthpiece of the world. Silence is the mouthpiece of God,” author Matthew Kelly shares in his book Amazing Possibilities. The Holy Spirit prompts me to turn off the morning news, put down my i-phone, and to sit in silence. What do I hear while waiting in silence? The songbirds at the feeders, a firetruck zooming down the street, and then the church bells. I sit awhile longer; I can hear and feel my own heart. I start to unload the needs of my family, and miracles requested as I pray to our God. These are big orders, but with God all things are possible. And then those precious thoughts and intimate words only the Divine can share. With faith I embrace His words.

"Be still and know that I am God." 
Psalm 46:10

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Lavish Love

Posted on July 30, 2022July 30, 2022 by deannagreensandgardenart

Some days I feel people just don’t even give a damn. Other days it hurts to see those you love in pain, physical or emotional anguish. I holler out, “God, where is Your mercy, Your justice.” Then other days when the flood waters rise, it is hard to see God in it. We prayed for rain after 100+ degree temps and no rain for days this scorching summer. We got it alright in one stormy night of 8 -12 inches of rain. Destruction surrounds us and the local news captures the next devastating story of the flash floods. One person dead. 10 puppies from a stray rescue facility drown. Basements and houses fill with water. Businesses close. No flood insurance for most. Is this the Noah’s ark story being told again, I wonder? I attended the funeral service for my uncle this week. A man wrongly accused the latter days of his life. My cousin cried. Many of us shed our own tears, crying for mercy.

The pastor who shared at my uncle’s eulogy reminded us of the beautiful Japanese art form that is made from broken fragments. Nothing is wasted, everything made beautiful it its time. Ravishing lavish love, this is what I want. Flooding in. It’s what we all want. People will fail, just living this life will disappoint, but God does not. His love is perfect. Let Him fill that emptiness you feel with His perfect love. The anxiety about your present-day situation will subside. Feeling overwhelmed is real . . . Stop now. Pray. Count your blessings. Your cup will overflow with His love. Families, neighbors, and the community have come and will come together to help those in need. People and pets are rescued. Officials and first responders care and continue to share the burden. Jesus is carrying you. He cares.

“May mercy, peace, and love be lavished on you!” ~ Jude 1:2

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Take, Lord, Receive

Posted on September 9, 2021 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.”

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Soar Above And Through

Posted on August 2, 2021 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.

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Dear Mom

Posted on May 10, 2021 by deannagreensandgardenart

Mom, I miss you. I needed you this week. I needed your listening ear. I got scared, too scared to trust for little while. I let the world bother me to the point I was doubting who I was. I am still your daughter. Even if you are not here with me, reminders like the female cardinal bird at the feeder last evening that seemed to peer through the window pane at me. This is my first Mother’s Day in my 60 years without you, Mom. If you were here you would be telling me “God gave you the strength and brains to get through this tough patch in life.” You’d also say, “count your blessings, be thankful.” You were always so strong. Well, maybe not always, but most times. Tougher than me for sure. I remember tears from your eyes just a few times. But mostly you plugged through things, complained when you had enough of Dad or one or all of us kids. Social injustices fired you up. No angel, a tough cookie that was very independent in most aspects, and gave that same tough love to me and those around you.

I sought God this week. He answered my cry, and sent other people in my path to pray for me. Mother Mary, other heavenly saints, and probably you and Dad, too prayed for me. My cries turned to gratitude. I am thankful for my husband. I am thankful for my children. I am thankful for my whole family, Dean’s, too. I am thankful for my jobs, and my retirement around the corner. I am thankful for the physicians caring for me and our girls, Rachel and Elisabeth. I am thankful there are medicines to keep our health. Rachel found a new doctor, a better one. She made it to California with her family, and are on the way back now. Praying for the traveling angels to guide them along the way. Those grandbabies got to put their toes in the ocean for the first time while in Malibu! I am thankful for where God has me right now. He has much more for me to do but also to rest and relax more. “Flex your gratitude muscle to fight off fear,” author Ann Voskamp encourages me. And it works. Stronger to fight off doubts and let God’s love win. Happy Mother’s Day in heaven! We left flowers for you!

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Inside My Aching Heart

Posted on May 6, 2021May 7, 2021 by deannagreensandgardenart

An ear infection lead me to the urgent care before we left for vacation. My blood pressure was alarmingly high. The urgent care sent a report to my primary care, and she messaged me while on our 2-week vacation to take my blood pressure the next few days, and send her the readings. Still high and some chest discomfort soon after our multi-state road trip, I was in the doctor’s office when I got back to reality. Referred to a cardiologist and more testing, we discovered I have an arrthymtic heart condition. I have premature ventricular contractions (PVCs) that cause echo beats. This Friday I meet with my doctor to discuss what I need to do to take care of my physical heart besides take a beta blocker and lose weight. Questions flood my brain … How did I acquire this condition? When will I feel myself again? Can I return to speed walking as that helps in my weight loss efforts? How long has this arrhythmia been going on? I know I have not felt myself in a long while. I am tired much of the time. Not sleeping well most nights. I have become anxious with my relationships and social settings. I thought that was because of the COVID social distancing for too many days. This learnt introvert does not trust people easily. Trauma does powerful things to one’s mind, body, and soul. I cannot take anxiety meds, as they upset my digestive system so bad, and that causes more anxiety as I worry if I will find a bathroom in time when I go out. I am an insecure woman right now who doesn’t feel or even know if I am loved by those I have been close to over the years. I feel out of rhythm and vulnerable. The ironic thing is my physical heart is going through the same, out of sync and aching. Which came first, my aching physical heart, my stifled emotional heart, or my parched spiritual heart?

I suppose it doesn’t matter which was first. God wants to restore all three. Where do I start? My foundations, the Word of God and prayer. I recall Holy Scriptures that says I am “fearfully and wonderfully made”. In 1 Samuel 16:7 it says “The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” King David’s prayer wells inside me into a song … “Create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit in me. Cast me not away from thy presence, take not thy Holy Spirit from me, and restore onto me the joy of thy salvation, and renew a right spirit in me.” Psalm 51: 10 -12. I cannot hide from this truth nor the truth inside myself. The truth is I feel unsteady, insecure and timid right now in life. I do not know how long I will feel this way. With God’s help I will come out of this. I need to get my spiritual heart right first.

Author Ann Voskamp so eloquently writes . . .These days feel like a flood of heartache . . . And there’s not one moment God doesn’t feel that with us. “His heart was filled with pain” (Genesis 6:6). God has a heart . . . and it hurts. It hurts with what hurts us. His heart hurts not just with a few drops of ache, not just with a slow drip of sadness—the whole expanse of His heart fills, swells, weighs dark with this storm of pain. God, who hung the stars—He has taken a thread of His heart and tied it to yours. And He didn’t need to, but God tied His heart to yours — so when you feel pain, He fills with pain. Time only continues on in this impossibly suffering world because God Himself is willing to keep suffering the impossible with us. We read the headlines and wonder, lay in our own beds way too late at night & soundlessly cry: If there’s a God who really cares, He’d look at this world and His heart would break. And God looks to the Cross, and says, “My heart did. ”On that Cross, they speared His side and pierced straight into His heart, filled with pain, and it was the water and blood of His broken heart that gushed right out, a flood of love. Grace—it, too, has floods of its own. . . . The way heaven comes down so we can rise. In a world of grief beyond magnitude, what will change us and the world, is the attitude of Beatitudes. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” In a world that doesn’t feel fair — His cruciform love and outstretched arms embrace us — so what we feel is Him. No one knows more than Jesus that this world isn’t fair — and no one loves us to death like Jesus, until everything is fair for forever. In a world of loss — the deeply suffering are deeply touched by the suffering of Christ. We do not weep alone. No matter what happens in this busted-up world in the days ahead, in your own beautiful world: Pray. He listens & He holds. “When you call on Me, when you come & pray to Me, I’ll listen…I’ll give you strength. I’ll help you. I’ll hold you steady” Jeremiah 29:12, Isaiah 41:10MSG #TheBrokenWay #WeepingTogether

The physical and emotional heart healings will come . . .

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Bathed In Prayer

Posted on July 13, 2020 by deannagreensandgardenart

My heart has been so heavy these past few weeks. Thoughts have run through my head over and over. I could not publicly write about it until today due to finding the words, as well as work and travels. The ramifications of the COVID pandemic are many. Like a spider web, it’s intertwining in every aspect of our lives. It is about protecting self and family. For me it is also about the 4,000 employees I work with as an HR professional. If COVID wasn’t enough, then the international racial riots in response to a bad police officer’s apparent murder of a black man. How do you and I deal with all this negative news and multiple lives affected with such hatred?

I remember years ago while I was in distress over the lost of a child due to a miscarriage, an older Christian woman called me to tell me she would bathed me in prayer. That afternoon I was so tired from blood loss and mourning over the loss of the child I would never know. My husband then was insensitive to my feelings and said, “Well, you will get over it. We didn’t really want another child anyways.” So hurtful to me, but this was how he rationalize the pain of this death. I slept the remaining day and into the night. I was able to fall asleep knowing another woman was praying for me. It was the intentional prayers of another, as well as this person sharing this with me that brought peace to my soul, and eventually rest. From this I learned to pray fervently and unceasingly for others, as well as for myself.

“All strength that we give away comes over us again, experienced and altered. Thus it is in prayer…” author Rainer Maria Rilke writes. Strength is what I receive when I pray. “And what is there, truly done, that is not prayer?” Rilke adds. I take it that the author speaks of works that coincide with or because of faith and prayer. Holy Scriptures tell us in James 2:14-26 New Living Translation (NLT) “What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, ‘Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well’—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. Now someone may argue, ‘Some people have faith; others have good deeds.’ But I say, ‘How can you show me your faith if you don’t have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.’ You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror. How foolish! Can’t you see that faith without good deeds is useless? Don’t you remember that our ancestor Abraham was shown to be right with God by his actions when he offered his son Isaac on the altar. You see, his faith and his actions worked together. His actions made his faith complete. And so it happened just as the Scriptures say: ‘Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.’ He was even called the friend of God. So you see, we are shown to be right with God by what we do, not by faith alone. Rahab the prostitute is another example. She was shown to be right with God by her actions when she hid those messengers and sent them safely away by a different road. Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works.”

Today our prayers and the works that match those prayers sustain us. We cannot justify hatred between family members, neighborhoods, co-workers, religions, and races. Pray. Pray for the “peace that surpasses understanding.” Do a good deed towards someone who may be in opposite view as yourself. If a good deed is not possible right now, then continue to pray. “Pray without ceasing” until you can. Bathe yourself and the other person in prayer.