Can I offer you some hope?

What do you do when someone you love is broken? Emotionally, spiritually and physically broken. I have a dear friend who is dealing with this situation right now. Someone who is precious to her is broken. And she can't fix them. What do you do? Bring them dinner? OK, that's pretty much what I do, but really, don't you feel like a dork doing that? "Hey, I know your whole world just collapsed and you don't know how to take your next breath, so I made you this casserole." Ugh! So frustrating, because what you really want to do is show up and save the day...you want to make all the bad stop, heal the hurt, go back in time and rearrange things. You want to whip out the miracle they need to get back to "normal." You want to truly deliver peace and love and healing. But all you can do is take one less burden off their shoulders. (They gotta eat, right?) All you can do is sit with them. And hold their hand. Cry. Pray. Be frustrated. Offer hope. That's a good one...How do you "offer hope?" What does that even mean? Say something to make them feel better? They're not going to feel better! If you're anything like me, you're more likely to say something incredibly stupid then comforting, and then they'll feel worse. And then you apologize and they end up comforting you, "It's OK. Thank you for your concern...." or whatever. So how do we help people? Let's face it, we're not Jesus. Yes, we are supposed to love people like he did and treat them like he did, but part of his treatment involved healing. He HEALED the blind man. And the lepers. He cast out demons. He rose Lazarus from the dead. FROM. THE. DEAD. He NEVER made a casserole!!! I don't think he ever showed up and said, " Sorry about your eyes. I'll pray for you." and then left. He fixed broken people. But we can't do that. We don't have a miracle just burning a hole in our pocket. So, we bake casseroles. And we send cards and flowers. We text messages. "This too, shall pass." Slowly, maybe. Probably painfully. But it will pass. Is that where hope comes in? Knowing that tomorrow, things will be different. The possibility that maybe tomorrow, things will be better. Maybe not, but at the very least, they will be different. We sit in hospital waiting rooms. We hug and hold hands. We make phone calls. We are with them. Is THAT where the hope is? Knowing you are not alone? That whatever hellish road you're on, at least someone is there to walk it with you? I don't know about you, but that would make me feel better! Anyway, I love my friend, and I hope she is ok. I hope her loved one will recover. And I hope she holds on to hope, and that she knows I am with her.

Wait. Where am I??

So here is the embarrassing truth. I haven't blogged in so long that I forgot how to it all works. You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. That's why I've only posted one entry, and I tried to put a link in that one and messed up. I've tried to update my Twitter account (which I had forgotten I had) link. No luck. It took me FOREVER to update my side column thingies, and yes that is what they are called. And worst of all, I'm strugglin' with posting a video, and it's Tom Petty Tuesday for crying out loud! Plus, Blogger.com has made a few changes since I was last here, so that's a bit disorientating. Very much like when I went to the gym on Friday and found they had put in a new front desk area. I stopped in mid-stride and looked around, not really sure of what had happened or where I was. The guy behind the desk laughed at me and said, "Been awhile?". awesome. I say all that to say this: Bear with me. I'll get it, eventually.

"What if..."

" What if we have developed a religion that makes reverent and honoring statements about Jesus but doesn't teach what Jesus taught in the manner he taught it? What if the religion generally associated with Jesus neither expects nor trains it's adherents to actually live in the way of Jesus?...What if the message of Jesus was good news...not just for Christians, but also for Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, new agers, agnostics and atheists? And what if the message of Jesus also contained warnings...for Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, new agers, agnostics, atheists... and Christians? Would we want to know what that message is? How much? Would we be willing to look hard, think deeply and search long in order to find it? Would we be willing to rethink our assumptions?" ~ The Secret Message of Jesus, by Brian D. McLaren.

Back again

It has been 22 months since my last blog entry.

What. A. Slacker.

In my defense, I have been a little busy. And I have been posting on FB.

AND, most importantly, I have kept up with Tom Petty Tuesday.

Well, there is no way I can fill you in on all the crazy happenings over the last year in one post. It has been a beautiful, wondrous, heartbreaking, painful, exciting and tedious year and a half. I visited with family alot. We moved to a new home, hosted our first Thanksgiving, went to too many funerals, and celebrated many wonderful birthdays. I ran my first 5K and the following year, shaved 5 minutes off my time. I gained weight. I lost some people I loved. I've made new friends and connected with old friends. I've read ALOT of good books, and seen a few good movies. I gave up sugar. It has been action packed 9 days out of 10, and I just didn't find the time to write. But I intend do that now. Find the time. Make the time. Because I do enjoy writing.

I was going to interview my daughter Abby for today's blog post, but she answered every question with "I'm not telling you." Makes for a pretty lame interview. Her older sister was not interested either. So for today, I will leave you with a repost from several years ago.

And welcome back :-)

http://www.rhondajeanne.blogspot.com/2009/05/questions-questions.html

God Alone is Enough.

That's right, folks....Claudia Mair Burney's new book is out! Her first, non-fic, by the way, and I for one am pretty stoked about it. What's even more exciting is that I have a copy right here in my sweaty little hands, and I'm posting this as part of a blog tour! How fun is that? I'll not be reviewing the whole book...this tour is a chapter by chapter deal. I'll be reviewing Chapter 3. You can find informative reviews of Chapter 1 at http://www.alisonstrobel.com/alison-blog/2010/6/14/god-alone-is-enough.htmland http://kbhyde.wordpress.com/. Chapter 2 reviews can be found at http://rubysdaughterbrenda.blogspot.com/2010/06/god-alone-is-enough.html and http://www.wesuckatlife.com/wordpress/?p=189
So, shall I share with the class?

This lovely new book from Claudia Mair Burney is called God Alone is Enough: A Spiritual Journey with St. Teresa of Avila. And there go half of you ...you're not Catholic and you're not interested in Saint Anyone. Well, let me grab you by the collar and pull you back. This book is about a woman, her spiritual journey to God, away from God and back to God. Don't write her off as Ms. Piety. She struggled with her flesh. She loved, maybe even craved, the attention her beauty brought her. She loved the Lord, wanted to please him and be close to him, yet had trouble concentrating on Him for more than a few minutes at a time. Sound familiar? Ok, how about this...

"Dear Lord, Thank for another beautiful day. You are so wonderful, and your creation is beautiful...You have blessed me with another day....(What day is it, anyway? oh yeah, Thursday...It's Garbage day! Oh man, I'm sure my son isn't even up yet. What time is it???) OH! Sorry Lord, ok...You have blessed me..."

NOW does it sound familiar? Has that ever happened to you? It sure happens to me, and it happened to St. Teresa as well. She struggled with prayer, thought she was a failure at it...but that's not my chapter. My chapter is when Ms. Burney shares with us what she calls "one of the most sublime analogies about prayer ever written." The Chapter is entitled "Make a Garden" and in it we hear St. Teresa tell us about finding a plot of earth that is filled with weeds and barren soil. There's work to be done here if anything is going to grow, y'all. The ground needs to be tilled, weeds need to be pulled and seeds new to be planted. That's hard work folks, and guess what? God has taken care of that for us. All you need to do is show up with the water. What's the end result? A beautiful, lavish, fruitful garden.

That's how it is with prayer. That's how it is with your soul...God does the heavy lifting, we just show up with the water of prayer.

Claudia Mair goes into a bit more detail and expands more on the benefits of water and what happens when we don't have it.... but I won't go into all that. You'll have to read the book for those tasty morsels. You won't be sorry, lovies! ;-)


By the way, as you breeze through the pages of this book, please note the artwork scattered here and there. That is the hand of our talented author! Enjoy those treasures...they are a peek into her soul.

For more blog tour details, visit Ms. Burney at http://ragamuffindiva.blogspot.com/

Tom Petty Tuesday

Ever feel like this?

This is how I feel today. Just so you know.