One of Life's Joys ~

This is our puppy. Two pounds of fuzzy fury, named Rambo. He's a silver teacup poodle, and has, with a sweep of his paw, changed the tenor of our household since he came. My manly husband melts into a smiling boy, each afternoon as he comes home from work. Rambo fills the void left by small children, who used to crowd the glass door every day when daddy came home. Now they are grown, and almost always gone when he drives up into our steep driveway. Our youngest son Isaac might be home, but he no longer squeals and jumps up and down, arms waving, yelling, "Daddy's home!!!"

He's going on sixteen, you see.


But the puppy senses when dad is on his way to home and hearth. I guess it is the daily phone call I get, "Hi Beautiful! I'm on my way home. Need anything?" (No lie. Every day. I am a blessed woman. It so rocks to be me!) Rambo must be able to observe and understand my voice and tone, whenever it is Tim, telling me he is headed this way. That itty silver bit of soft fluff will always skitter to the front glass door, and watch until he sees the old green mini van pull up.


Then, he jumps up and down, twirls, and barks loudly. There's no way around it ~ he has to be saying, "Pappa's home! Pappa is home!" That is not a stretch, nor is it overly imaginative. That is pure fact. It is a fact that never fails to put a smile on my husband's face, even on the worst of days.

In the words of a pastor's wife friend of mine, from rural Virginia, who met Rambo not long ago....(imagine a soft, southern drawl):

"This doggy's a gift from God."
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"I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it."
~Abraham Lincoln

"Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring - it was peace."
~Milan Kundero

It Is GOOD To Be Me...

(my daughter Hannah, and her boyfriend Justin)

(Hannah and Sarah-opening gifts from loving grandparents-matching diamond necklaces)

I am still savoring the memory of a long dinner table at Carabba's (a chain restaurant, Italian, full of darkly stained wood and twinkle lights, with a wood burning pizza oven)...

...fourteen family members crowding the table in the back room we had reserved - each one laughing, each one loving the other. I felt brimful of joy, celebrating my twin daughters' 21st birthdays. We toasted their past, present and future, just by being there, in the moment, with them. We finished a long, lingering dinner with birthday cake, gifts, and hugs all around. What a season of Harvest I am in!

The character "Nacho" in the movie Nacho Libre said, "It sucks to be me!" All personal fears and healthy introspection aside - it is so fantastic to be me lately! I don't always like what I see in my own heart, and I want to pull every weed that threatens to make me barren and unfruitful. But that is only because the fruitful places are so, so satisfying. I want more of this rather charmed, blessed-and-highly-favored kind of life. It certainly has never "sucked" to be me.

I sit here, wanting to convey the very opposite of Nacho's sentiment, fingers poised over the keyboard searching...I've been wracking my brain to think of one word, a verb, that can mean the opposite of "sucks". Why is it, our English language can come up with negative slang like that, but there is no ready, tongue-in-cheek, joy-filled phrase I can quickly grab, to tell you how utterly sweet my life is these days?

It "glories" to be me.

It "shines" to be me.

It "smiles" to be me.

It "sparkles" to be me.

??

In the end, only one word comes to mind. A word that my teen and twenty-something children would identify with. It would not be the word I would choose - I'm far too artsy. It takes zero creative genuis for a middle aged woman to speak the language of, and partake in the frenetic activities of the upcoming generation. That requires no sense of hard-won personal style. It takes no unique spark whatsoever - you simply follow the lead of your children, all in the name of "relating to them". I can find more thoughtful, delightful, creative and appropriate ways of relating to my children, ways that do not blur the lines between youth and the seasoned elegance of age...

And relate we do, my children and I! We are close, even though I'm no Facebookie. I have a Facebook page. I promise you, however, that there is a large difference between my Facebook page, and that of my teenager's. They don't look anything alike. I don't send pots of virtual herbs, or little buttons, and accept no applications, so don't feel badly if you never get a virtual trinket from me. In addition, something inside me feels sorry for anyone, of any age, who "rates" a friendship, as in "who is the coolest" . My fifteen year old does it, but even my 21-year-olds find it a tad bit pathetic. Ranking precious people in your life, is a sad concept for a twelve year old to ponder, much less a grown woman. A Mother in Zion would never. I watch over my youngest children in the Facebook/Myspace world - it is the real reason I even have a presence there. Life is not all about "Me, Myspace, and I".

So it is with a sense of reluctance I borrow some Young Slang. It is the only word that, honestly, really fits what I am trying to say:

It so rocks to be me!

Well, it does. If you have a better word, do suggest it. Being me is the best, because patience is having her growing-up work in me. I have no need to be younger, richer, or better than the rest. Patience does make you "mature and complete". Henri Nouwen said “...patience means willingness to stay where we are and live out the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us.” I am learning to love life as God gives it. THAT is why it rocks to be me.

This present season, this present day, this very moment comes to me "trailing clouds of glory"...brand new, baby-fresh. This season, once passed, will be personal history, with only the memories to mark it. This day, once the sun sets, will consist of random impressions, neurons firing in my brain, recalling scent, emotion, flashes of sights and sounds. All that will be left of this day are words written in a journal, and a blog entry. This day will also leave behind the fruit of every word I spoke from the time I awoke, till the time I go back to bed. "May the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in Thy sight, oh Lord!"

I will never live this day again. It contains a gift or gifts that God intensely desires for me to open and learn from. Most of His gifts are educational, in some fashion or other, even the seemingly frivolous gifts like puppies and cherries. No one else can live my life with me, experiencing this blessed and favored thing called "being me". No one else is in my skin, no one else but God Himself is, in reality, part of the fiber of my spiritual being. So if I don't tackle this day's joys as they skip past me, who will taste them, touch them, see and hear them?

It rocks to be me. I am so grateful for these present moments. God is good. Tell me....does it out-and-out rock to be you? You ought to know it! Believe it. Live like it.

A Childhood Game

"Sheila Atchley - take three giant steps!"


"Mother, may I?"


"Yes, you may!"


Remember that childhood game?


A nameless fear has been gripping me of late. It is the fear that some situations will never change. That a relationship will never change. That a child will never change. That I will never change.


There, I said it. I named the fear. And the light that naming the heretofore nameless brings, dispels the darkness.


I always see my weaknesses and besetting sins in all their disgusting glory. They are as plain to me as the hair on my head, as near to me as my own beating heart. And I am afraid of them. I am afraid I will never change, never be the mother I dream of being, never make any progress, not even when I see so vividly exactly where I want to go.


I do see where I want to go. Sometimes I get glimpses of the Sheila Atchley the Father is designing. I see she whom the Father is still busily creating, and I want to BE HER, to the depth of my whole soul. I want to be her right now. Oh, how I want to change.


But I want it to be simple. I want the progress to come lightly and easily. And instantly. In reality, my distance is usually covered inch by tear-soaked, will-relinquished inch. Change comes too slowly. Fear taunts me, telling me that, sure, I will finally change - but one month, one week, or one day too late.


Once in awhile, though, there comes a Fresh Wind. I read, just today, that wind is "hope on wings". Once in awhile, there is a Real and Present Grace. I hear the voice of my heavenly Father - warm, inviting, having all the time in the world to give to just and only me:


"Sheila Atchley! Take three giant steps!"


"Oh Father....may I?"


(could it be true? three giant steps, instead of one wretched inch? can I really wake up tomorrow, and be different? will I really see transformation in this area of my life?)


"Yes, you may!"


And suddenly I am able. Yes I may, and yes I can, and yes I DO! Because He loves me. Because He is still holy. So the gnawing fear that makes my stomach feel like a stone, dissolves. Tense muscles in my forehead and face, soften.


Three giant steps are enough to bring peace. For now.

Spiritual Truths, Illustrated in the Butterfly Garden...

If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things are passed away; behold, everything is made new! II Cor. 5:17

The Black Swallowtail, just by being alive, testifies to the power of God.

A Day of Sunflowers...

Just this morning, the first sunflower of the Atchley garden fully opened its bright, beautiful face. The timing could not have been more appropriate. In the language of flowers, the sunflower means, "I am proud of you!"

...and today is my identical twin daughters' 21st birthday. Their dad and I could not be more proud.

Happy Birthday, beautiful women!

Better Late Than Never...

I hate that I've been late entering the blogosphere. My reasons are good - number one being the fact that the computer I had was a used one, and constantly crashed. And the computer before that. And the computer before that. Fact is, until recently, I never had a computer that could have enabled me to blog. This one seems to work well now, and for that I am most grateful.

But the possibilities inherent in a blog are still being explored. In that sense, it is NOT too late, and so I've begun...

A couple weeks ago, I finished the book "Blog - Understanding the Information Reformation" by Hugh Hewitt. This book will inspire you to blog! The internet has truly become the Great Equalizer in terms of anyone, anywhere, getting their thoughts out there. But you do have to be quite good to even garner a single comment, much less continue blogging to anyone but your three best friends. Still, if I never got a single comment, I would continue to blog because it frees my thoughts. I have to "write it" before I know what I think about "it", whatever "it" might be.

And I am intensely grateful for the comments I receive. Every blogger lives for them! Yes, if these virtual pages are worthy of your time and brief attention, please do tell others to come visit me. I'll do my best to send them away blessed and encouraged, or at the very least, with some food for thought. Or a snack of an idea.

Choice bits from Hewitt's book:

"The blogosphere is evolving at an incredibly rapid pace, and a lot of the best mindspace is being claimed, but there remains incredible opportunity among the hundreds of millions who have yet to figure out that there is a better way to gain information than watching the tube."

"...None of us have time to understand everything, so we have to trust surrogates. People don't trust the old media with anything like the old level of confidence. "

"Change isn't coming. It is here. Information is being absorbed in new and startlingly different ways, from new, and until recently, unknown sources."

"...information is an essential element of freedom."

"From the 'big bang' of blogging, fifty thousand new virtual newspapers had been born, for that's what an "updated daily" blog is: a newspaper with one editor, and as many sources as he or she cares to link to."

"Anyone who wants a say can have it. Attention to that "say" must be earned."

"The genius lies not so much in the bloggers themselves, but in the transparent system they have created. In an era of polarized debate, the truth has never been more available. Thank the guys in the pajamas. And read them."

"(a blog is)...an agent of persuasion or dissemination."

"The blogosphere has been noticed by forward thinking people of faith!"

"Writers write for the same reasons today as they did in Homer's age. Blogging is just a new means of transmitting that writing, one that bypasses completely all editors."

"If you are a leader, then you ought to be blogging, and the folks you lead ought to be reading that blog. Every day, if possible. Most days, if not."

"Morning coffee will be shared by spouses not over the paper, but over the laptop."

"Fear or enthusiasm" (about blogging) "really doesn't matter. The blogosphere is a fact as real as a brick, and even though bricks can be used to build houses or hospitals or be thrown through windows or at heads, the reality of bricks doesn't change."

"The advantage of blogging is that it will oblige you to live in the world of ideas and debates, and to do so at the modern pace."

Well, I take issue with the last quote. I don't think everyone who blogs is obliged to live in the world of ideas. I've seen too many blogs that are little more than the middle-aged equivelent of the pink diary. All about "myself, my kid, my angst, my life, and what-I-will-be-doing-next-month", and very little in terms of ideas can be found on them. While a certain amount of "me, myself, and I" detail is tolerable, and even desireable; for a blog to become a prosaic personal diary is a poor use of a powerful medium.

I'm a late arrival to blogging. I should have been doing this four years ago. I hope I can catch up.

A Garden Visitor

Tiger Swallowtail...

on a hanging basket in the butterfly garden. We've seen lots of these lately - floating, flying flowers!