Author: Mae @ Rainydayinmay

I read this book about a year and a half ago, I guess. I love this book.

Since then, I’ve danced between the ap on my iPhone and the journal I’m keeping, of my life gifts and gratitudes. Recently though, I came across Southern Gal Thoughts and I really loved how she incorporated her list into her blog. It might seem like one of those “DUH!” things, but for me it was almost revolutionary, so I decided I’m going to follow suit and start sharing my list. Because of the confusion going back and forth between the two other mediums though, I’m going to no longer use the Ap, and just pick up here where I’m at with the journal.

691.} waist high wild flowers behind our house.

692.} being so moved by artistic expression, tears streaming.

693.} early mornings when he’s home and I can reach across the bed, with my toes, and feel his warm foot.

694.} funny notes, with miss-spellings reminding me how full this life of mine is.

695.} the warm sesame bagel my sweet girl toasted for me, for breakfast, because she knew the morning was hard.

696.} the curve of my palm, around the steaming tea mug, warming and reminding me.

697.} the faithful belief, my dog has in me, each time she sets her ball in my lap.

698.} the watermelon layered fragrance of fresh-cut grass.

699.} Plum streaked pink skyline, fireflies dancing around my feet during an evening walk.

700.} The increasingly rare early morning with my fourteen year old, watching the sunrise and realizing what an amazing gift just that moment is.

701.} returned phone calls that ease the worry, even if it’s just for a minute or two.

On Sunday we, as a church, were challenged to accept change. To crave change. There was more to it than that, but that is what sticks out in my mind two days later. Partly because I personally am not a supporter of Team Change and therefore change usually finds me dragging my feet, flailing my arms and crying like a baby. That’s the thing about change though, it doesn’t really matter if we like it, or if we’re ready for it, it happens anyway. 

Kids grow up. Leaves color. Temperatures warm and cool. The days shorten, the nights lengthen. Change happens and as cliché’ as it is true, life goes on. 

I stand on the precipice of change. When we moved here, those five months ago, I knew this. {And I mean personal change, not moving changes.} My husband and I have talked and talked, and talked about this. In small ways, these changes are starting. They happen. They are good things, scary things, but good ones. They require courage, as all good things should. Amidst the unsteady storms of changes in my own ship’s rocking sea though, fears get the better of me time and again. 

As much as I detest change, I should really loath fear. 

I’ve told this story before, but when I was fifteen I had a very vivid dream that I would never give birth to a baby, I would be divorced before I was twenty-five and I would die before my thirty-sixth birthday. At fifteen, thirty-six felt a lifetime away and hardly the most pressing of the three issues. When I was divorced at 23 and having a hysterectomy at 24, after seven miscarriages, I knew what was coming. I mean, how could I not? It sat there, FACT, in the back of my head. As that birthday drew closer, the knot in my gut grew larger, like a cancer of fear and all things bad. 

I’m 37. I am incredibly grateful. The approaching of my 36th birthday was one of the hardest journeys I’ve taken. I was really sick for about six months and both Chw and I were terrified of what it would lead to. And now that I’m past that horrible, fearful deadline, that fear had to have somewhere to go. It doesn’t just die with the lie that it grew within for so long. No, instead it becomes a new fear. Now, ever time something happens, this voice in the back of my head says “borrowed time, this is it.” So, several weeks ago when my doctor heard something wrong with my heart and ordered tests (the results I’ve been waiting 10 days for) that precipice of good change suddenly morphs into this breeding ground for potential fear induced possibilities… 

I read this morning, as I did my quiet time, about how God doesn’t need any permission or assistance to manipulate any situation when moving it to do what is best for us. How can I not take comfort in that? 

So that is where I am, this Tuesday morning… Embracing change. Good, or bad, I have a path and a journey…

Now, in about 45 minutes when I need another reminder or a great big slap upside the head? I guess we’ll see.