When you live in Washington you take the sun when you can find it. On this particular day in January the sun came out first thing in the morning never to be seen again that day.



And that is how the small joys in life often come to us, fleeting, and if we aren't paying attention, they are gone in a heartbeat.  When life deals you periods where grief seems all encompassing it is especially important to find those little bits of joy and sunshine and hang on tight,
because those are what will help bring you through the darkness and back into the light.

 The name of my blog is French and means "joy of life," and despite all of life's difficult seasons I really want to find those moments of joy in life. I want to deliberately choose not to stay in those painful places longer than is necessary to heal. I want to revel in being part of the plans that God has for me.
 
Joy may come in forms that we don't always recognize. It can be seen in: the unadulterated  laughter of a child playing a simple game of Peek-A-Boo, the discovery of the first flower of spring, in hearing a favorite song on your iPod, in the random smile of a stranger, in a compliment, in a job well done, and sometimes it may be something as simple as that first cup of coffee in the morning. You never know what form joy will take but one thing is certain, if you aren't looking for it you probably won't find it.

Relinquishing the Past

 

On the day that you give birth to your child there are no future peeks into the future, no way for you to comprehend the joy of watching them grow into adulthood and the painful wrench of watching them spread their wings and fly. It is, of course, the point of all your hard work and yet somehow, it comes upon you out of nowhere and you find yourself completely unprepared and incredibly sad.

 
I had the amazing privilege of having both of my daughters live at home until the their wedding day and it has been the delight of my heart.
 
Now I have come to this new place in life and when it came combined with the loss of my mom, I find myself not knowing exactly how to deal with it or if even want to. Somehow it seems like it would be easier to brush it all aside and move on, which is incredibly easy to do when school is so intense.

Just so it is clear, I am thrilled for my baby girl to be fulfilling her God-given destiny with the man God planned for her in His infinitely tender way; but there are times where it takes my breath away to realize that she won't ever come walking through my door in the same way as when  she lived here.

I know that with time acceptance will come, I just have to ride out the storm.

Meanwhile, enjoy the picture from the day she became Carlie-Rose Danielle Chrystella Geneva Scarbrough Madrid.

 

 

The Ghost of Christmas Past

"This blessed night may the cadence of Christmas carry glad skyborne hallelujahs to our Father who still fashions grand cathedral windows from the shattered fragments of our yielded lives."   ~ Dorothy  Purdy

On December 19, 1986 I copied this quote and I have always loved it. It seems that I am often a 'shattered fragment' but I don't want to stay in that place; I want to become the cathedral window that reflects God's light on a dark world.

The Wedding countdown continues inexorably downward, the clock is ticking, the finish line is almost here. I hope and pray that it will be a day that honors God and two young adults who have waited on the Lord to bring them to this place.

I know the day is bound to be laden with conflicting emotions, despite that I want it to be a day of joy that is only minimally seasoned with the bitter-sweet that is inevitable later. Carlie will only have one wedding day to remember and it should be a joy-filled memory.

I wish my my mom could be here for this special moment in Carlie's life, but I know that she is in heaven, pain-free, and will be looking down on Carlie and whispering, "Happy Wedding."

Wow, sometimes there is just no way to downshift fast enough for your life circumstances.School was such a pressure cooker and then mom died, school is over and I am at a loss to know what to do with myself. It isn't as if there aren't a million things to be done and yet somehow, I don't have the heart for any of these things. I am staring down the barrel of Carlie's wedding and moving out of state and I feel as if someone has torn out the place my heart used to be. It never ceases to astound me how the grieving process is messy, painful, and leaves you gasping for oxygen.

I understand intellectually that I need to marshall my emotions and energy  to the tasks that need to be done, I have not yet been able to do this.

Yesterday I was blessed to be able to share a Diet Coke with a dear Christian friend who sat and simply listened to me cry and pour out my heart to her. It is such a gift to give to someone, to listen and never say "It will get better." You are a gift from God Sonja and I love and appreciate you so much!

Meanwhile, today is another day and I have to get on with life and the things that are required of me. It still seems so odd to me that the world keeps turning even as my world seems to have crashed down around me.

So for today, I will plant my feet on the Rock, look upward, and belive that the sun will once again shine on my face,the dark days will recede, and I will find joy in the moment. Mom would have wanted it that way.



Although this isn't the best picture of my mom I chose it because she loved Janzen, and even as she lay in the hospital she asked for him, more than once. She loved that little guy all to pieces, she delighted in him and she was so proud of the outstanding job Andy and Heather are doing with him.

Today is really the first day I have had to process my mom's leaving this earth for her heavenly home. She died during my first week of finals and I just never had a chance to breathe or let myself think about what had occurred on any more than the shallowest level, I had to go to school and I needed to be able to function.

I am thrilled for her to be pain-free and with her Lord and Saviour, not to mention all the loved ones that went before her, however, the pain of her being gone and the enormous hole that is left behind is nearly  incomprehensible.

Mom loved God and people and she made no distinctions as to what kind of people. She loved them all and longed for them to know Jesus.  She lived to serve other people and she was always the first one to jump up when something needed to be done.

What seems strange to me is that the world continues on as if nothing happened. Life continues on for people and yet I feel as if life has stopped moving. It is surreal. I spent most of this past week feeling as if my head were filled with cotton, it was the strangest sensation.

I love you mom, I am thrilled that your faith has become sight, I just wish it didn't hurt so much.

Carlie-Rose Cooks


This is a picture that warms my heart, Carlie is cooking a Mexican dinner. She has been taking lesson's from Sam's mom, Eleanor, and we have been the oh-so-willing guinea pigs (and pig is probably the appropriate word here...) of the most delicious fare. Almost very time she cooks she makes a batch of salsa; around here chips and salsa are their own food group!  I guess I should probably be learning along with Carlie for the day that is bound to come when she is no longer here to cook for us.


Here is a quote that I found in a book I purchased recently: "Being a writer does not necessarily mean being published. It's very nice to be published. It's what you want.  When you have a vision, you want to share it. But being a writer means writing. It means building up a body of work. It means writing every day. You can hardly say that van Gough was not a painter because he sold one painting during his lifetime, and that to his brother. But do you say that van Gough wasn't a painter because he wasn't "published"? He was a painter because he painted, he held true to his vision as he saw it. And I think that's the best example I can give you."   ~Madeleine L'Engle~


And that, in part, is why I created this blog. I need to write on  a regular basis and this is one kind of outlet that provides the opportunity. Hopefully, the reader will bear with me as I continue the writing journey.

Easter 2010

Last year JJ was too young to get a lot of enjoyment out of the Easter egg hunt, but this year he got quite the kick out of it.  He would find the egg drop it into his basket and scurry off to look for the next egg. He had his share of plastic eggs with candy in them, pretty sure he got a sugar buzz because he was pretty "animated" when his Papa was opening belated birthday gifts.
He would throw his arms in the air  and yell, "BIRTHDAY!" and then shriek with laughter when we laughed at him.  Funny how children become the focus of family gatherings, they are just so much  fun to watch as they experience things for the first time or learn something new.     
We played a new game that Heather brought over called Banana Grams, it is like Scrabble only each person plays their own game. We only played one game as it had grown late for  JJ, besides we wanted him to come down from his sugar-high at home...