Beauty in Rough Places

This has been an emotionally tough summer, last week a friend of ours was in a head-on car crash; fortunately she survived but is looking at three months of rehab. Standing by her bedside in the hospital I wished there was more that we could do to help her recover, but healing is in God’s hands and we just need to give her our love, time, and prayers. Two weeks ago, an old friend died; Tommy had been fighting cancer for many years and was in remission. In December, while visiting my sister, John stumbled across Tommy’s business and we were able to spend some time catching up. Good things came out of seeing him again and we are thankful, even though we had hoped to see him again, it was not to be.


This has also been a hard year for my clients and their families, one recently died: Steve was 54 years old. Many of the others are suffering health problems due to aging and chronic illnesses. My prayer list is as long as my arm. I find myself doing more ministering to their emotional needs then to their hair…It is a blessing to pray for them, but I wish that every one of them could be healed and never have to put up with a body that is no longer young and full of energy. What we cling to, is our hope in God who promised to travel this hard road with us.

I wish that everyone knew that when our life goes through these rough places, that it is only one part of the journey. An artist knows it is the dark and shadow that endows their painting with depth and contrast to bring out its beauty, so it is that in suffering we draw close to each other in those moments of grace. Sadly, not everyone knows this. At the beginning of this summer my client was murdered by her husband who then killed himself. In her early 60’s, this beautiful vivacious woman had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and was losing her energenic personality, and her husband had had cancer a few years before. On her last appointment, I spoke with him encouraging him to get all the support he would need for this dark time, I wish I had called to check on them in April or May when they were frequently in my thoughts, but I waited to long. Now I’ll never know if a kind word would have helped him through the darkness, and he’ll never know the beauty of God’s touch in rough places.

Discerning God's Will

If only I could discern God’s will as easily as my dog discerns when I’m going for a walk. He can be sound asleep, in another room down the hall, and he wakes up, runs over to me, sits by my feet and starts to whine “Take me, take me, please take me.” Wiggle, wiggle, wag, wag nudge! Quietly dressing, I haven’t said a word, and yet he knows. Maybe it’s the tennis shoes, maybe he reads my mind or could it be that he has spent so much time with me that he senses what I’m doing because he knows me?


We went for that walk this morning, exploring the neighborhood and enjoying the good weather. We didn’t hurry, I stopped to smell the roses—he stopped to smell the you-know-what. He didn’t even bark at some neighbors strolling by with their little fox terrier. That in itself is a miracle.

Earlier, before our walk, I had spent time reading the Bible. In Hebrews 13:5 it says “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” I think this is what God is telling me today, “Relax. You know me; I want what is best for you. Let’s enjoy the day. I have some great stuff to show you. Don’t worry about what you see as problems. They are just lessons, and you’ll discover the answers in good time.”

Today I have nourished my spirit with time spent communing with God. I exercised my body by walking and pulling weeds, and now I’m writing and problem solving to keep my mind energized. Bringing balance to these parts of my life keeps me healthy in spirit, mind and body.

Happy Easter

We have another Dove nesting on our grapevine this year, but she is so flighty (no pun intended) that she flies away everytime there's a sound or slight movement. She laid the first egg and flew off, then the next day laid another and settled in until she got spooked and flew off again. For almost a week we've watched her, then yesterday a male came by to help out, and their both sitting on the eggs....It's gonna take an Easter miracle to hatch these two little rewarmed guys, but the parents seem determined to try ;-) To read about what happened to the last Easter Doves read the post from April 2009.

 

More pictures from our garden. We wish you a Happy Easter.

The Path

Today is Good Friday, the day when Jesus followed his path-the path his life had been leading toward, death on the cross. His death, which was the ultimate laying down of self in obedience to God's will, needed to happen so that we would be released from the bondage of sin. Jesus knew where his path would lead, yet even he felt fear and sorrow. In Gethsemane, with his disciples sleeping close by, he asked for a different path, one in which he wouldn't have to carry all the sins ever done by mankind. He prayed " My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."* In the end he took the path of suffering that was choosen for him and because of his obedience we can enter the Kingdom of God.

For over a year I have been on a path, a path through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. I know this path is part of life-the loss of loved ones and the uncertainty of where to go next. I'm trying to make the most of it, looking for joy in small pleasures, living with disappointment and not being shaped by it, and struggling against frustration when I've lost the vision of God's plan for my life. Even though it looks like the world we live in is coming apart at the seams, it is just a season, and in every season there is beauty to be found along the path. Even death isn't the end, there is more beauty up ahead.

* Matthew 26:39 NIV

Ooops

Went to the Embassy Suites today to sell some jewelry at one of those "We buy everything shows" and as I was upstairs talking with the appraiser, John went downstairs to look for a mail box. 15 minutes later I walked out the door and John is upset telling me this man hit him and pushed him down! The man was yelling something about John trying to take his customers from him all week, and the manager was on the phone calling the police! I tried to tell the guy we'd only been there less than 20 minutes and that we were selling not buying, so he had the wrong person. Then we found out he was the guy running the show at the hotel! The police came and long story short the man appologized to John and me, and asked for our forgiveness; I think this was because he realized we could have him arrested or sue him and the hotel.  Well this was his lucky day, we didn't press charges, we are Christians and it is lent, so we forgave him. Unfortunately for him he shook John's hand and John's been sick all week, and of course I'm on Facebook and I can tell everyone to stay away from his show ;-)

Tales of survival - Living - SanLuisObispo.com

Tales of survival - Living - SanLuisObispo.com This the article that Sarah Linn wrote for the San Luis Obispo Tribune about my me and two other authors on the Central Coast. Click under Bobbe Tyler's picture and you'll see the pictures they used of us and our books.

The Novel Experience

My favorite saying right now is something by Winston Churchill “Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” Yesterday I experienced my first bookstore book signing. Exciting yes: Successful no. I signed one book, only because some sweet person called in and ordered it because they couldn’t make it to the signing. I think it might have been because of the rain. Buckets of rain for days tend to dampen the spirits of us Californians. I was happy that it cleared up before we left. And I’m posting a picture of how the sky looked on the ride home… Now back to success, how am I to judge the lack of people lining up to grab a copy of Tales of the Titmouse? I sent the press releases, sent personal invitations, announced it and even the newspaper called asking for a copy to add to a feature they were doing. If you do all the right things and no one shows up do you take it personal? Nah. Well for a moment, maybe it stings, but then I added it to the list of experiences that authors go through and looked at it through a different lens. Remembering, as I sat at the little table waiting for readers to stream in, that a young woman ran up with a bouquet of flowers from my loving friend: (gulp, misting eyes) she remembered me and I felt loved.

The time wasn’t a waste; the owner of the bookstore had been reading my book and really liked it, telling me about how it brought back memories of his college days in San Francisco. And there was this homeless guy who walked up and called out “Titmouse” like he knew me, and I spent an interesting time explaining that I didn’t know Timothy Leary or Ken Keesey. When he left the table he asked a man passing by for some money by saying "Master, do you have some spare change?"  The only problem was that the man didn't hear him correctly and thought he called him a Bastard! The next thing we hear is the homeless guy shouting "I said master not bastard!" Then there was the 20-something gang-guy who turned his speaker up on his cell phone to let me hear his mom read the morning headlines about his friends who had just gotten arrested for grand theft auto! He asked her proudly if they mentioned his name and in the same breath said 'No mom I'm not guilty." John’s favorite moment was the college girl walking down the street shouting rude things with an unmentionable item stuck to the top of her head and her fraternity members laughing hysterically and yelling “did you see the look on that guys face?” Novel experiences at The Novel Experience.

If I have to describe what success is, it is what God showed me this morning in church. A woman came up, hugged me and with tears in her eyes, whispered, “Look who I brought with me this morning.” I looked over her shoulder at her daughter, who I hadn’t seen in years. I went over to hug her and she said “Your book came at just the right time for me.” When she read it she told her mom it was like God spoke to her and she stopped taking the prescription drugs she’d become addicted to….success is one person being set free. This morning the scripture reading was about the disciples who had been out all night fishing and came back with their nets empty and Jesus told them to cast out their nets again. This time He filled them. God spoke to me too.

Do you see the rainbow?