Back Porch Break

A Moving Experience: Part Two

July 29, 2015 by Nancy 18 Comments

In every move there is the physical side and the emotional side. Physically you are dealing with the logistics of the packers, the movers, the storage locker, what can’t be packed, where to put houseplants, pet relocation, etc. Even in a local move, the “to do” lists can be extensive.

Then there is all the emotional baggage. We prepared for the move we made in June out of a house we’d been in for 26 years for the better part of two years. All the fixing up and spiffing up that precedes a move had taken a toll on our personal time and our checkbook. We were ready.

Still, I expected the departure to be wrenching. Every place I looked in that house another memory would wash over me. (Imagine my consolation in knowing that those memories are still with me now although the house is not.)

I’ll never forget seeing our oldest granddaughter Francesca climbing up the steps from downstairs by herself for the first time. Her dark hair was in two ponytails that stuck out on either side of her head. She wore a red sweater with a black Scotty dog on it. As she climbed each step she was saying, “Juice! O’s!” letting me know it was time for breakfast.

Similar memories of visits from all 12 of our grandkids are permanently with us wherever we go. We shipped the stones with their handprints to their parents before the move, but we’ll never be without their impressions on our hearts. And in their hearts, they have so many memories of “Papa and Grancy’s house.” A collection of finds from the family room provided a history of those visits. Behind the bookcase that was too heavy to move for cleaning was one blue Barbie shoe, a marble, an orange plastic Easter egg, some cat toys, a green Hot Wheels car, a wooden block, and one red checker. Oh the fun we had!

And then there were all the gatherings that occurred under that roof! Graduation parties, engagement parties, showers, Bible studies, holiday meals with departed moms, dinner parties with friends…and on and on. God blessed us richly when He provided that home to us and our blended family.

How, I wondered, would I be able to say good-bye not only to the memories, but to the everyday joys I experienced there, especially in the last 20 years when I’ve been working from home and such a part of daily life in that house? I was saying goodbye to the deer who greeted me most every morning, the hummingbirds, the rainbows from the deck, the gardens I nurtured and cared for year after year. I was saying good-bye to the pink sunrise reflections on Cheyenne Mountain, and to neighbors we’d known for so long. It just seemed like too much good-bye. More than I could face.

But the Lord knew that. That’s why He showed us the new house He picked out for us just as we were ready to give up and look for an apartment to rent. We were energized by the discovery of the new house as we patched nail holes and cleaned at the old one. Amazingly, although there had been tears at unexpected times in the preceding weeks, when it was time to get into the car and drive away for the last time, I didn’t cry. Instead there was just a sense of blessing and relief flowing over my husband and me. The words from a favorite praise song came to mind and made their way to the refrigerator at the new house, where a month later even the cats feel right at home: He gives and takes away. He gives and takes away. Still my heart will choose to say, blessed be the name of the Lord.

A Moving Experience: Part One

July 28, 2015 by Nancy 15 Comments

It really happened. A large moving van arrived at our house the middle of June and the men loaded up what was left of our belongings after the two-day garage sale, the bulging boxes shipped to family members, and the donations. Then they took it all away. We moved.

My guess is, you know what it was like in the days leading up to the move. You weren’t there, but you’ve been there. You, too, know the sound of packing tape being pulled off the roll (and the aggravating attempt to find the end of the tape again), the desperation to grab hold of anything even slightly resembling a box, and the last-minute scrawling of “miscellaneous” on the last boxes of stuff that didn’t get packed anywhere else. (Turns out those are the boxes holding most of what you’re looking for after the move!)

Moving out of a house we’d been in for 26 years was a bit unsettling and emotional for us, but we knew there was a plan and we were excited to downsize and begin what we happily referred to as Act 3. Our cats, Molly and Beau, didn’t have the same level of reasoning and understanding, however.

The day of the move they were cloistered in an empty back bedroom with food, water, and litter. When we let them out at the end of the day, they slowly explored the completely empty house. We could only imagine what they mewed to one another.

“Well this is definitely NOT an improvement. What were they thinking? I’ll just jump up on the…the couch is missing!! Oh well, I’ll just hop on the…the kitchen table is gone!! How are we expected to live like this?”

Retrospectively it may not have been the best idea, but we decided to leave the cats alone in the empty house that night since we didn’t have to turn it over to the new owners for a few days. We wanted to get ourselves situated at The Residence Inn, where we would all live for 10 days, before bringing them over. Other than food, water, and litter, all they had was a sundry assortment of toy mice and jingly balls that turned up behind the furniture that was moved. Happy to see their lost toys, they would still have preferred a stuffed chair or a bed with a down comforter.

The next day they were most cooperative about being put into their cat carriers, however. My husband thinks they may have thought they had been left behind permanently and were relieved we came to get them. If so, that may explain how easily they adapted to life in a one-bedroom apartment at The Residence Inn.

“What do you think happened?” Molly may have asked Beau.
“I don’t know. Obviously they’ve had some sort of financial downturn,” Beau may have conjectured.

“Well, at least they kept us. We’d best just hunker down and make the most of it,” Molly may have concluded.

Whatever they were thinking, it’s true that there is bonding in adversity. The cat fights have drastically reduced since the whole moving experience began!

TO BE CONTINUED

Books-a-Bazillion

May 7, 2015 by Nancy 23 Comments

Ah, spring! Time for tulips, green grass, baby calves frolicking in the fields, and spring cleaning! My husband and I have been in the process of downsizing for a while now (or “rightsizing” as we Baby Boomers prefer), so spring cleaning is sort of an ongoing thing at our house. I’ve had no trouble at all sorting through clothes, linens, dishes, pots and pans, and even jewelry. So many items have found new homes or been relegated to the recycle bins. But there’s one problem. Our house is chock full of books, and I can’t seem to let them go.

My husband and I once fantasized about selling everything we own and buying a sailboat to sail around the world. We figured we could generate enough income via the internet to keep the galley stocked, and we could stay in touch with friends and family via e-mail. Only one thing—well, besides the fact that neither of us knew how to sail—was stopping us. What would we do with all our books?

It’s not that we never give a book away, sell a book at a garage sale, or take a stack of books to a used bookstore. We just don’t seem to have done any of those things frequently enough. Hardbacks, paperbacks, pocket-sized volumes and coffee table tomes…our house is full of books.

Even with all the moves over the years, we both still have textbooks from college courses we took in the late sixties. I saved valuable texts like the Norton Anthology of English Literature and the Harbrace College Handbook. He, on the other hand, has texts titled (I’m not making this up) Engineering Economy, Applied Regression Analysis, and Principles of Operations Research with Application to Managerial Decisions, copyright 1969. Now, excuse me, but William Blake will always be William Blake and the tiger burns just as brightly “in the forests of the night” in 2015 as he did in 1967. However, any manager needing advice based on what was known about systems operations in 1969 is probably managing a push broom—if that!

In addition to nonfiction titles and novels, we have a complete library of children’s books. Now I’m reading Dr. Seuss favorites like Hop on Pop, Mr. Brown is Out of Town and The Foot Book to a second generation. I suppose I could forgo the set of 1975 Encyclopedia Britannica Junior (minus Vol. 16, which one of my sons left at school), but I couldn’t abandon Tuggy the Tugboat for the most luxurious sailboat made!

We also have travel guides to every place we’ve ever been or dreamed of going. Those would come in handy on the sailboat, but where would we put them? At least I could toss overboard those for inland locations, like Beijing: An Illustrated Guide. We would need one whole foot locker to hold those classics we plan to read some day, including the Complete Works of William Shakespeare and the Complete Novels of Jane Austen, and another for the books we bought but haven’t read yet. We’d need all the books we’ve saved from foreign languages we’ve taken so we could look up how to ask directions to the post office in every port, and I’d need my full supply of cookbooks in the galley, with titles spanning trends from fondu to gluten-free.

You may be wondering why we don’t just read books on an electronic reader like a Kindle or Nook. Well, we do. But somehow that hasn’t replaced the joy of holding a book in hand and turning the pages one by one.

Although we do own a book titled Sailing for Dummies, I doubt we’ll opt for the sailing fantasy. Far more likely is that we’ll move to a smaller house with a lot less stuff—except for the books stacked floor to ceiling in every room!

The Good News of Easter

April 2, 2015 by Nancy 11 Comments

This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.—1 John 4:9

How astounding it is that the good news of Easter is not just to bring us comfort when someone we love dies, or when we ourselves are preparing to pass over into eternity in heaven. The good news of Easter is that once we believe in Jesus Christ we are already living an eternal life—right here on earth.

If we really grasped this truth, wouldn’t it completely transform the way we live out each and every day? When a friend disappointed us when we needed her most, we’d be able to forgive her much more quickly with an eternal perspective. When we felt our bones creaking as we got out of bed, we’d think of those creaks as the normal shortcomings of temporary housing—not part of our eternal state of being.

I once read a touching account of a family learning to live without the daily presence of their husband and father who died while serving with the U.S. Army in Iraq. The soldier’s four-year-old son repeatedly heard, over the period of a few days, that his dad was now in heaven. Finally he asked the only logical question: “Then why don’t we just go there and pick him up?”

Unfortunately it’s not that easy to physically span the distance between our earthly existence and our eternal home, but we can find great comfort in accepting the truth that we live one life in Christ—whether here or there, we are alive because He died on the cross for us, and rose again from the dead on Easter morning.

Paul wrote in Romans 5:1-2: Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. What comfort in knowing we are NOW standing in God’s grace, right in the middle of His will for our lives. No longer separated from God by our sin, we are forgiven through Christ’s death on the cross for us.

On Easter Sunday when we sing our favorite hymns and glory in the truth of the good news of Easter, may we also pledge anew to live every day of the coming year as people who are already living an eternal life. Let’s say along with St. Augustine, “We are an Easter people, and alleluia is our song!” Happy Easter!

Excerpted from THE HOPE OF GLORY lesson on “Easter Joy.” So blessed to share it with 7 assisted living residents this week. We raised the roof of the assisted living facility singing “He Lives!”

New and Improved?

March 20, 2015 by Nancy 20 Comments

I realize this blog post may guarantee my listing on the “greatest geezers of all time” list, but write it I must.

Has anyone else noticed that progress isn’t always, well…progressive? Just because something is new on the market doesn’t necessarily make it better or more useful than something that has existed for a long time.

Case in point, the new one-cup-at-a-time drip coffee makers. I’ve been to several gatherings in the past year where 10 or more people are offered coffee and have to queue up to select a choice. Then they wait for the coffee maker to very slowly make their individual cups of coffee. By the time the tenth person in line gets some java, the first three people are ready for seconds. Heaven forbid there is anything else on the agenda for the gathering, because getting everyone a cup of coffee will pretty much take up all the time. And, if I may be so bold to proclaim, no matter which variety you select it ends up tasting like the instant coffee my mother made when she ran out of the real kind.

Have we forgotten the convenience of a coffee maker that makes a whole pot of coffee at once? Not only can you brew as few or as many cups as you need, you can pour exactly as much as you want into each cup. When you want a second cup, guess what? It’s already brewed, and the coffee maker has kept it warm for you in the meantime. Brilliant, no?

Next category: iron-clad cookware. Like many couples, my husband and I succumbed to pressure from the younger generation to get rid of a perfectly good set of pots and pans and go for the much heavier iron-clad variety. Not only did I have trouble lifting a full pot off the stove, I couldn’t understand how it was progressive to have cookware that you couldn’t give a good scrubbing, and couldn’t put in the dishwasher! We gave them away, and I bought a wonderful, lightweight set of stainless steel pots and pans. You can scrub as hard as you want, they all go in the dishwasher, and I can actually pour soup out of the pan without having to grasp the handle with both hands, bend my knees, and count to three before lifting.

One last thing and I will have “geezed” enough for today. I’m not yearning for the friendly grocer who would call all your kids by name, load cans and a bag of flour into a cardboard box, and carry it out to your car (well, maybe I am), but I do appreciate and respect grocery store checkers. I feel that the prices I pay for the items I purchase in a grocery store are set to cover the salaries of these well-trained, competent employees. Not only do I “check out” with my favorite checkers, but “checking in” with them on a periodic basis is a social interaction I enjoy.

So why would I want to self-check my groceries? I’m not good at it, and it’s obvious the machine doesn’t like me any more than I like it. Never once has it asked me about my day or laughed at my jokes. Instead it makes rude comments like, “Strange item in bagging area.” Human checkers are better. After all, God made them, and you just can’t improve on His work!

Letting Go of Luggage

February 17, 2015 by Nancy 12 Comments

I have difficulty emotionally letting go of both cars and luggage. Once I’ve driven a car for 8 or 9 years and it has taken me safely wherever I wanted to go, trading it in seems like such a betrayal. Likewise, it’s hard to let go of a suitcase that’s collected memories like the stickers they used to put on the old steamer trunks.

Yet trading up to a new set of luggage had become a necessity for my husband and me. Even though we didn’t particularly want new luggage, we needed it. No really. We’d already had the zippers on the old set repaired once, and had resorted to using paper clips for zipper pulls. Each bag in the set is pretty well coated with airport grime, the faux leather trim is scraped off in many places, and the linings are ripped and holey. It was time.

I look at the new bag we bought (shown on the right) and it’s exciting to imagine all the places it might go with us as we move into Act 3 of our lives; but I look at the old bag on the left and remember all the places it’s been.

I have so many memories of the old bag laying open on our bed as I struggled through packaphobia before any one of the trips I’ve been blessed to take—often with a cat or two curled up inside hoping to go along unnoticed. That bag has been on numerous trips to visit grandchildren over the last 10 years or so since I bought it on sale at Sears…one of a nesting set of three for about $100. (The day I bought it I never dreamed it would last this long.) It’s carried Christmas gifts, birthday surprises, stuffed animals…you name it.

I can’t begin to remember all the vacations this bag has taken, but I know we pulled it for what felt like miles over cobblestone streets in Venice a few years ago as we looked for our hotel. That may be why the wheels are a bit wobbly. It was also on our 25th Anniversary trip to California in the Summer of 2013. Did it enjoy traveling the Pacific Coast Highway from the back of our rental car as much as we did from the front seat?

Maybe my affection for luggage stems from the fact that, like a long lost friend, I’m always so happy to see it again after a separation. When my bag emerges from the belly of the airport onto the carousel at my destination, my heart skips a beat and I’m silently screaming, “There it is! My bag made it!”

I know suitcases don’t have feelings (well, I don’t think they do!) but just before taking this one out to the donation pile I wanted to stop and acknowledge how grateful I am for all the times it traveled alongside me, showed up when I needed it most, and fulfilled its purpose well. May the same be said of me some day.

Christmas Tears

December 19, 2014 by Nancy 20 Comments

What is it about this season that has us gazing at blurry Christmas lights as we fight back tears? Or digging through our purse for a tissue as we let them flow?

There are many reasons for the feelings that fall from our eyes this time of year. Many of them joyful. My granddaughter Amanda called to tell me, with great excitement in her voice, that she’s engaged! I’m truly happy for her, and at peace that her match with her fiancé Taylor is a God-ordained one, yet I cried off and on for about 24 hours. I can’t explain it; I just needed to cry. For the precious little girl she once was. For the beautiful, Godly woman she’s become. For the future she’s been given. For love.

To stem the tide of tears, my husband took me over to the Broadmoor Hotel, a very nice resort near us, to walk around the lake and see their Christmas decorations. That helped for a while, but we also browsed a specialty kitchen shop there and I happened to pick up a jar labeled: Southern Pecan Pie in a Jar. Jim took one look at me and knew the tears were going to flow yet again. “You can’t put Southern pecan pie in a jar!” I exclaimed, as a flood of memories of my mom’s pecan pie, served around her dining room table in Tennessee, washed over me—along with the realization that while I have her recipe, I’ll never taste her pecan pie again.

In fact, memories of loved ones who have gone before us stimulate many of the Christmas tears we shed. Last Christmas season I offered to take a dear, recently widowed woman in our church to a “remembrance service” the church held. During the service I saw her dabbing her eyes with her embroidered handkerchief and silently but foolishly gave myself a mental pat on the back for making the effort to bring her to the service. Yet afterwards, when I asked her what she thought of the experience, she said, “I think it made it worse.” So much for trying to comfort her. Sometimes we just have to cry, and for a time at least, little else helps.

Yet could it also be that our senses are more alive this time of year? Everywhere we look the world is aglow. Bright lights adorn church sanctuaries and gas stations alike. People are kinder. Faces of loved ones are dearer. Life is sweeter. It’s all just enough to make a grown woman cry. And the music! We can’t forget the music. Last Sunday our worship pastor invited a cellist to play with our praise band. The melodies of familiar carols never seemed so rich and uplifting, nor the words so meaningful. There I was, digging in my purse for that last tissue I knew was there some place.

“There is a sacredness in tears,” writes Washington Irving. “They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.”

It’s the unspeakable love that has my Christmas tears flowing this year. Love for family. Love for friends. And the love that came down on Christmas. The love we read of in John 3:16: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. Unspeakable love indeed.

If you’re also feeling weepy this Christmas, let’s just watch Hallmark movies until we can’t cry another tear. Let the feelings flow into a sea of unspeakable love. Then our hearts and minds will be cleansed and ready for the New Year. Tissue, anyone?

Fall Gardens

November 19, 2014 by Nancy 14 Comments

Before last week’s brutal cold and snow, my husband and I busied ourselves getting the gardens ready for winter. I was reminded of a Back Porch Break classic column from 19 falls ago:

Sometimes the simplest tasks can bring unexpected rewards when we have the time to do them consciously. I’m reminded of this as I make one last trip through the yard and garden before winter.

When the last of the leaves go into the lawn bag, I find myself appreciating the tenaciousness with which they held to the trees. Don’t we all try to hold on in times of change? Two leaves escape and bounce across the yard in the wind. The cat chases after them for a while and then decides he will also let them go.

On top of the leaves go the trimmings from the pansy plants in the big iron pot by the door. My mom and I are connected by pansies. I remember the photos I sent her last summer, and how hard it was to convince a little grandchild to stay next to the pot long enough for me to snap the picture. As usual, the plants are left in place in hopes they’ll make it through the winter.

Clipping the heads off a row of dianthus, I notice new green growth underneath the dead stems. No doubt the plants were fooled by the warm days of autumn. I smile at their impatience and hope they won’t suffer too much for it.

Arriving in front of a stand of iris, I kneel down beside them and stop. Before I reach out to pull away the brown leaves, I imagine the regal purple blooms on top of sturdy stalks swaying in the early breezes of summer. These iris aren’t from catalog bulbs. My dad gave the bulbs to me when he divided the ones in his yard in Tennessee. I’ve had the same bulbs, or derivatives of them, at two houses in Tennessee and three houses in Colorado. They have transplanted as well as I, and they grow ever dearer now that my dad is gone. Sleep well, my friends.

Around the rose bush I rake the smallest leaves I can find, creating nature’s equivalent of flannel sheets and goose down comforter. As the wind picks up, I collect the last of the Columbine and Sweet William leaves and a handful of fading mint. The mint still has a rich aroma, much headier than its summer offering, so I save a few twigs to add to a potpourri inside.

On to another patch of garden. The shriveled cherry tomato plants come up easily, uncovering a feast of sun-dried tomatoes for some yuppie birds to enjoy on their way back to California. The strawberry leaves, now a russet red, are an unexpected find. Having a “Martha Stewart moment,” I collect a few to tie to the top of a loaf of pumpkin bread cooling in the kitchen, leaving the rest as a quilt for the small berry bed.

The ritual complete, I realize how dulling to the senses it must be to live year round in one of those places where the seasons never change; a place where a forecasted temperature of 62 degrees sends everyone scurrying off to find a wool coat. No, I need the seasons.

The lawn bag is closed and tied; the garden gloves and clippers find a home on the shelf in the garage. Let it snow.

(The small grandchild I referenced then was Francesca, now a college graduate living in Ireland where she’s finding wonderful subjects for her photography, like the photo of the red berries above! ©FrancescaMcConnell.com)

Meet Author Norma Gail

November 14, 2014 by Nancy 10 Comments

I’m pleased to introduce my readers to another Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas author, Norma Gail. Her romance novel, Land of My Dreams, may be just what you need to escape the hectic pace this holiday season! I enjoyed reading about her journey as a writer and trust you will too.

How and when did you begin to write?

I began to write after the first time I read Little Women. Jo March seems to have inspired a lot of women to write. I would make up a story and get my younger sisters and the neighborhood kids to play parts I assigned them.

Through junior high through high school, my best friend and I wrote stories and poems, critiquing them for each other. In fact, she helped me many times during the writing of Land of My Dreams. I always wanted to be a published author, but the lure of nursing, marriage, and two children 21 months apart kept me from it until they were grown. I did write adoption stories for both of them which became bedtime favorites, but other than that I did not write for over 20 years.

I began writing poetry again after my dad was killed by lightning, and from that I began to write devotionals for the openings of the Bible study I lead at our church. That grew into weekly devotionals for our church webpage, to a weekly devotional blog, and finally to my dream of writing fiction.

Can you give my readers a short description of Land of My Dreams?

Alone and betrayed, American professor, Bonny Bryant longs for a haven of peace. She accepts a position at a small Christian college in Fort William, Scotland, craving escape from her painful past. The passionate love which develops when she meets fellow professor and sheep farmer, Kieran MacDonell, is something she never anticipated. Kieran harbors a deep anger toward God in the face of his own devastating grief. When Bonny’s former fiancé reenters her life, Kieran’s loneliness draws him to a former student. How will Bonny decide between her rivals? Can they set aside the past to make way for a future, or will it drive them apart? Land of My Dreams spans the distance between New Mexico’s high desert mountains and the misty Scottish Highlands with a timeless story of overwhelming grief, undying love, and compelling faith.

What led you to write it?

After a trip to Scotland in 2006, and a very vivid dream about a Scottish sheep farmer on a misty hillside, the idea began to grow. We met an American from Phoenix who married a Scot and had lived there for many years. Since I am married to a Dutch immigrant, it sparked an idea which grew from there.

When I broke my foot and was confined to a wheelchair for several weeks, unable to drive, I had the time to begin writing and it snowballed from there.

What are you working on now?

My current work in progress is a sequel to Land of My Dreams, entitled Within Golden Bands. It picks up the night after the first book ends and all of the characters make an appearance in the first chapter. I have found it interesting that readers wanted the two antagonists to continue in the book. One person said they were too bad to leave out. After that, I plan a historical series partially based on stories of my own pioneer ancestors in the south and southwest.

Do you have any advice for beginning writers?

Start attending writer’s conferences early on, before you finish your book. Pay for a professional edit before pitching it to anyone. Spend time learning your craft, and if you are so fortunate to have a local Christian writer’s group, get involved. I don’t have that and really wish I did.

If you really desire to be published, don’t let rejections discourage you. Learn from them and keep trying. A teachable attitude will go a long way toward making someone consider your book. If it doesn’t make it with the big publishers try the smaller ones. They are often more open and offer a really special, nurturing relationship to a new writer.

How can my readers find out more about you and your work?

I love connecting with readers! Here are my social media and book links:
www.normagail.org
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorNormaGail
https://plus.google.com/b/102717101441594679714/+Normagail/about/p/pub
http://pinterest.com/normagailth/boards/
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7874459.Norma_Gail
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/norma-gail-thurston-holtman/42/71a/3b2
@Norma_Gail

Book Trailer:

Land of My Dreams is available at:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Land-My-Dreams-Norma-Gail/dp/1941103170/ or
Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/land-of-my-dreams-norma-gail/1119606864 ?ean=9781941103173

Thanks, Norma Gail!

Blogger’s Block

October 20, 2014 by Nancy Leave a Comment

The photo says it all. Beau and I have both been staring at the computer screen for some time now, but no blog posts have magically appeared. Writing coaches always say the best way to break through writer’s block is just to begin writing. Begin scribbling. Begin doodling. Just begin! So with that in mind I decided to begin blogging about the fact that I seem to have blogger’s block.

Yet I do so with hesitation. You and I both know that there is a lot of blathering going on out there under the guise of blogging. I don’t want to send another useless blog into the blogosphere to add to the glut in existence. Yet I feel I owe it to my faithful subscribers to offer up something. So here it is.

How, you may wonder, could I let all of September and half of October go by without blogging? We’ve had a glorious fall here in Colorado with golden-baked days, blue skies, cool nights, and the prettiest, most awe-inspiring Aspen season in recent memory, yet none of this beauty inspired a blog. During September we traveled to the South to see precious family members and overnighted in Vail with dear friends, yet no blogs were born.

Maybe the reason for my blogger’s block is that I seem to be in a state of suspension right now. Our house is on the market as we attempt to “right size” but hasn’t sold yet. My next book, Take My Hand Again, is at the publisher but hasn’t released yet. I’ve had some success on the Paleo diet but haven’t reached my goal yet.

Still, through all the “not yets,” I wait with a sense of wonder and heightened expectation. That’s because I’m also seasoned enough to know that when we feel blocked, or stifled, or stuck in a holding pattern, it may be because God is intent on getting our attention. In this “not yet” season of my life, He gently whispers, “It will all happen in my time. You do trust me, right? Rest in me.”

I do trust Him and His timing in my life. And so I will continue to look out the windows of the home I’ve loved for 25 years and be blessed by the golden trees, the mountains, the cityscape, the sunrises and sunsets. I’ll continue to enjoy cozy dinners and watching football games with my husband, and cuddling my cats during morning quiet times.

And I’ll continue to be grateful for the mystery of the creative process, however it torments me, and for the readers who connect with me whenever I find something worthwhile to say. Thank you for understanding while I wait for the inspiration to blog to return. Don’t worry. There’s joy in the waiting!