Giving Thanks

We're in San Antonio for a family Thanksgiving celebration. At the moment all is quiet. One grandson is sleeping and the two youngest went to the zoo. Grandpa is watching football, and I'm trying to learn to navigate around my new laptop, which has a different keyboard. I like the Spanish name for Thanksgiving Day, el Dia de Accion de Gracias, the day for thanks action. Somehow that sounds like more is required than just sitting and eating, or even praying, though prayer is always a good action. The last two days I have been offering up many prayers of thanksgiving for family and friends, for health and living in peace and safety. Too many around the world lack these most basic requirements for well-being, for shalom. I'm especially thankful for being welcome in my sons' homes and for the opportunity to spend time with them, our beautiful daughters-in-law and our grandsons. To be this blessed has been worth all the struggle and occasional pain in the experience of arriving at this point in my life. I will try to give thanks each new day that God grants me on this earth.

Grace and Peace,
Donna Sue

Flashbacks

It has been a year now since my dad died. This week was the first anniversary. It's hard to believe he's really been gone a year. Sometimes it seems like it was just yesterday. I've been having flashbacks of late, mostly to childhood Christmases. One morning recently I was walking the dogs and caught the scent of pine in the air, which instantly brought memories of the annual Christmas tree. More recently, I found myself frozen in the grocery store near tears as some sappy Christmas song drifted over the sound system. Grief has been such a strange experience, coming and going in waves that were initially overwhelming, but have slowly become more bearable, something like the ocean as a storm roars past first bringing enormous waves that gradually become smaller as the storm fades. Mostly I have found that the unpleasant memories have begun to fade, while the positive ones remain. Maybe that's God's way of helping me cope. I preached a sermon this past Sunday about trusting God in difficult times. Now I'm working on one on the topic of power. The world's view of power seems to generally involve force or violence. But I think the most powerful force in the universe is love. I remember my dad closed every phone call by saying, "Remember I love you." That memory has been a gift to hold close.

Grace and Peace,
Donna Sue

The Clock Angel

We were invited to a Halloween party by our oldest grand kids last weekend. We went with simple costumes. I once again dressed as the Fairy Grandmother in my long white dress with the scepter decorated with tinsel and the fuzzy halo. Of course the halo could also signify an angel, which is what the kids often assume. My husband asked me to bring him a simple costume from the grocery store if I could find one, so I brought home bright red horns surrounded with black fur on a head band. I told him it was not a comment on his personality, but the only thing available. He wore his red shirt. Some of the kids were a little frightened of the devil.

We helped set up the party, and while the 35 kids that had been invited ran around and had fun, I sat on the front porch with the big silver alarm clock, setting it off at regular intervals so the older kids and the younger kids could take turns in the jumping castle--our daughter-in-law wisely decided there would be less chance of injury that way. As the alarm didn't work on schedule, I set it off by simply turning it on, which worked fairly well. It also allowed me to vary the times, less for the little ones when they lost interest, and cutting short the time for the older ones when they became too violent in their jumping onto and into each other.

I wasn't sure anyone (besides the kids in the jumping castle) was really paying much attention to what I was doing. But, as she was leaving the party, one mother told me she had told her son he had to pay attention to the Clock Angel and leave the jumping castle when the alarm went off. So I have a new name, which I'm still thinking about. I think I like it. My mind keeps running to the scripture that says, "My times are in Your hands." I like knowing that all the days and times of my life are in God's good hands. Maybe he even has a Clock Angel to help keep track.

Grace and Peace,
Donna Sue