Ocean Dancer

This morning I was sitting in my car at the beach while a young girl was braving the cold water. These words simply flowed from my pen to the paper:

The cold water surrounds you
Like a warm woolen blanket
The micro currents rippling
Around your bare legs
The ocean, alive with promise
While holding centuries of secrets
Rejuvenates the part of you
That has forgotten how to live
Freely and unselfconciously
You jump, you move, you dance, and forget
The strangers on the shore
Watching every move
Because your graceful moves
Are not for them
Only for yourself
Only for your own soul
For the nourishment of
The places that have become parched
The places that have learned to survive
On strict rations
Of glimmers of hope
Even when there was none
You feel life in the salty water
You feel that you can go forward
You know, suddenly, that life
Does have meaning
That tomorrow
You can face the day
That all is not lost
And that life will be good again.

I am a widow

I am a widow and I am going to do the best I can to be the best me I can be. My husband contracted Covid19. He got sick on Christmas day of 2020 and early on the morning of 8 January 2021 he passed away. He was 63 years old but he wasn’t sickly, in fact he had never had a life threatening disease in his entire life. He ran a business full time and still found the time to play golf twice a week. He was not a candidate for death. Or was he? Do we have any say in the matter of our own death? I’m speaking from a Christian point of view. Does God determine when we are to leave this earth or do circumstances? One day I will know all the answers, but for now I know what I believe.

God made the earth and everything on it was perfect. Then Adam and Eve disobeyed Him and everything changed. People had to start toiling for their daily bread and they would have to face death. But then Jesus came and changed everything when He was crucified and rose from the dead. He said if we believe in Him we would receive eternal life.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16 ESV

Therefore death isn’t the end, but the beginning of a glorious new life that we cannot even start to imagine. The Bible gives us glimpses into this life but doesn’t tell all.

Revelation 21:4 ESV

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

John 14:2 ESV

In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?

1 Corinthians 2:9 ESV  

But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”

Revelation 22:1-5 ESV

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

This last verse is enough to make me believe that I have absolutely no idea how wonderful Heaven is going to be. I don’t know where Heaven is or is going to be, and frankly, it doesn’t matter to me. All I know is that it is going to be so much better than anything here on earth.

I believe emphatically that my husband is in Heaven experiencing the glory of God. I miss him and my heart aches, but I wouldn’t want to deny him the peace that he now has. I have read articles about the process of grieving and come to the conclusion that there are no hard and fast rules. I have found that there are well-meaning people who expect me to fall apart and think there is something wrong, or that I am not being honest when I say that I am fine. Obviously I am not as fine as I was before my other half was torn from me but I am coping. I have to guard my heart constantly against good people who say insensitive things. They don’t realize what they are saying hurts and at this point I have no desire to get into any discussions about it. I have to guard my thoughts against the doubts and fears which invariably sneak in. I have to literally take every thought captive and decide whether I can entertain it or not. I have days when the air is so thick I struggle to breath and moments when a memory is triggered and I cry buckets, but I get up, dress up and show up. Every day. I am not suffering from depression and I still engage in the hobbies and interests I did before his death. Yet, everything has changed. Every single thing I do is new and I have to reinvent the way I do things. At work I have to be the boss. I don’t particularly like being the boss, but for now I have to do it. At home I cook for one. I sleep alone on a big bed. I have to make all the decisions alone. I don’t have the luxury of bouncing it off someone as close to me as I am to myself. On a lighter side I can’t go back to a bad decision and say, “That was your decision!”

Because of the lockdown things are not normal and we are only having a service on Sunday. Not a memorial or mourning service but a celebration of life. Of his life, of the lives each one of us has, of life after death.

This is how I feel today. I am a widow and I am going to do my best to be the best me I can be.

Your mercies are new

Renovations at our shop have been going on now for almost 2 months. It feels like two months going on for two years. The pressure of working in less space has been getting to me. My desk has been shoved behind a Coca-Cola fridge in the back corner of the shop. The seating has been moved out to accommodate the equipment that has come from the part that’s being worked on. The whole shop is going to receive a facelift and a lot of much needed TLC. It’s going to be really awesome when it’s done, but right now everything is a mess. At the end of last week I thought I couldn’t take another week of building!

Lamentations 3:17 says, “You have moved my soul far from peace; I have forgotten prosperity.” We feel like that sometimes. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of believing things are never going to change.
Then I realized that I was living under the circumstances and not above them. Psalm 121 says, ‘I lift my eyes to the hills…” Obviously help doesn’t come from the hills, it comes from God. But if we don’t lift our eyes off of the circumstances we aren’t going anywhere. We will never see the forest if we keep staring at the trees. We need to step back and realize that everything is temporary and leads to the next thing. We don’t need to know what the next thing is, only that there is a next thing. Lamentations 3:22 – 23: “Through the Lord ’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I hope in Him!” The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, To the soul who seeks Him.”
His mercies are new every morning. We just need to remember that. Every new day brings new challenges but it also brings new mercy, new grace, new opportunities.
I undertake not to live under my circumstances but to look above them, to lift my eyes and see what the Lord has for me. To see the mercies that every new morning brings.

Just not you

People judge others

On what they say and do

And on the choices 

they make each day

Just let it not be you. 
People get angry at things

That seem so small

At things they should

 just let go

Just let it not be you
People steal and cheat

And lie and swear

And pretend to be 

what they aren’t

Just let it not be you
People reject God every day

They say they don’t need Him

They think they are strong

Just let it not be you
You are a special one

A chosen one

One who is destined

To be great
You were known long

Before you were born

Before you were even conceived

Before the beginning of time
You have a future

And a destiny, and there are

Plans which will not harm you

But will give you hope.
Your trust and hope in God

Will cause you to be

Like a great, green tree

Flourishing beside the water
When you call on God

He will surely hear

And deliver you because

It’s in you that He takes delight. 

Buy a field

On Saturday, the day before Christmas, we had gale force winds all day. And just to add insult to injury there was a power failure that lasted from 8am to 6pm. Fortunately my handyman had decided a couple of weeks ago that we would braai on Christmas day so there wasn’t a lot of cooking to be done beforehand, just a couple of salads. I am so glad that I had mulched the garden with wood chips because that wind just dried everything out – except the soil that was covered with mulch. It is still hot and dry and looking at my garden I see that lost of the plants are still alive, but there really isn’t any growth. Only rain will make them grow now. It would be extremely easy to give up and blame the weather. I feel depressed when I see the spinach wilting and the parsley and coriander seedlings dying. In Nehemiah chapter 2 the king sees that Nehemiah looks unwell and says to him “This is nothing but sorrow of the heart.” That is how I feel about my garden.

In the book of Jeremiah, Chapter 32, things are going very badly for Jerusalem. God tells Jeremiah that He is going to allow the king of Babylon to besiege the city and carry off all the people too Babylon. Jeremiah is actually in custody in the court of the prison while this is taking place. Then God tells Jeremiah to buy a field. That is quite likely the last thing that he expects, or wants, to hear at that moment. But God tells Jeremiah in detail how his uncle, Hanamel, is going to come and offer to sell him the field, and goes on to describe in more detail what he has to do.

Eventually in verse 25 Jeremiah can’t stand it anymore and says, ‘And You have said to me, O Lord God, “Buy the field for money, and take witnesses”! -yet the city has been given into the hand of the Chaldeans.’

Verse 26 – 27:

Then thee word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying,

“Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me?”

That is the reason I can go out into the garden and fasten string to the poles around the tomatoes to hold them up when they grow taller. That is the reason I water the plants that look like they would rather not be alive. That is the reason I get up every day and get dressed and smile. That is the reason I live. I know that even when things look impossible, God has everything under control. I also know that even when bad things happen (they do and they will) that everything will work together for good to those who love God. (Romans 8:28)

I picked this patty pan squash and cherry tomatoes today as well as beans that have dried that I can use for seed.

 

Then also in Romans 8:31 we get the well-known words, “If God is for us, who can be against us?

I know that it will rain and even if the rain comes too late to transform my garden into what I want it to be, it won’t matter.