This I Will Always Remember

July 23, 2012July 23, 2012 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 14 Comments

I want to start a list of all these things. The things I will remember, always.

I want to entitle it something simple like, “Things I Will Always Remember.”

I want so desperately to go back and fill the pages with lovely memories of the cherished past. And to collect them in one leather bound place with gold embossed lettering.

Things I will always remember.

And I wonder if I have the discipline to keep filling the pages as I live forward. To fill the white space up with lines , phrases and photographs of these times. The ones emblazened boldly on my heart. And in my memory. In the crevices of my story. In the cracks of my life.

I know I can start today by and in His Grace. I can begin a list of these things I will
always remember.

These moments that dance and sing and take our breath away.

The ones that fill us up so we can pour back out. Those that breathe life into us so we can breathe life into others.

Those that restore and rebuild.

That define us and mark us with beauty.

The ones which we record in technicolor in our memory to pull out on the black and white days, the grey ones too. The ones where we can’t see the grace. The days when we get stuck and can’t remember the beautiful we promised we’d always remember. We swore we’d never forget.

I know that by His grace I hiked a mountain hemmed in by ones I love. With ones who love me back with a deep unfailing love.

I hiked Lookout Mountain with my 74 year old father and my 11 year old niece. And Shadow came too. The rescued dog. The furry family member who is his name to my father and mother.

I look back in my mind’s eye over the pictures and over the moments on the trail and I see so clearly now. How the walking up is life. How the hiking along side one another is life. How the journey is what we do daily. How we are given the opportunity to live well in community. In family. In relationship.

How God tethers us to others to teach and build up. To strength us. To grow us. To challenge us.

We can choose to do this daily. In love.

We can choose to get up and go out to seek the relationship challenges.

We can choose to speak a word of encouragement and be encouraged by others who are walking right beside us. We can be life givers and hope builders. We shared one bottle of water between the four of us, and it was just enough. Under the shade of the green canopy, a sip here and there was all we needed.

Just being with was gift.

Just the presence of the others blessed.

I am grateful that these two spoke encouragement to me and that they undergirded me and accompanied me in on this hike.

It wasn’t easy, the trek up. But it was important.

It was vital for seeing life this one particular way. It gave clarity. I see with a lense focused on journeying in community and in love. The lense is angled and tilted and pointed to perfectly see things this way. On this trail.

To see this life and its relationships.

Again. Anew.

How grace extended to one another on the huffing and puffing parts brings joy to the journey.

How stopping and resting and extending hope, breathing life into each other’s weary souls, its what makes the journey joyful.

I will always remember my father’s cheerful spirit on the trail. His strength and stamina and joyful spirit pushing us up and on.

I will never forget extending hands out, holding on for the hard rocky part. I will remember forever my heart beating hard at the top as we took in the views. Resting after the tiresome parts to savor. To stand in awe of the God-beauty and savor what we had come to soak in at the mountain top.

My book will add this memory to its pages. The book written for now in my mind with gold embossed lettering on the spine.

This I will always remember.

And counting gifts with Ann today too. These gifts I will always remember. I am grateful to have these things in my life, to count, to savor, and to always remember:

*a week of getting to know my niece, her heart, her humor, her sweet sweet spirit

*for all the things I learned from an eleven year old which I could never learn from a book

*for that split second moment when I embraced my husband after a long absence and how the spark and beauty of the moment lasted for hours in my heart

*for the sound of running water over rocks outside my bedroom window for days and days of endless joy

*for cool nights and cool mornings and lots and lots of green canopies

*for an endless supply of inspiration for my photography, thank you Lord for your God-beauty, your creation

*for fresh blackberries and one summer cobbler

*for an “A” in chemistry for a hardworking child

*for a very social monarch butterfly which let me take what felt like a million pictures of him (cannot wait to share the picture here)

*for a daughter who loves the mountains and how late night trips to the Blue Cone for ice cream is her idea of summer nighttime fun.

For When You Want a Second Chance To Get It Right

July 17, 2012July 17, 2012 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 7 Comments

Sometimes you simply wish you could go back and choose differently.

And yesterday is one of those sometimes for me.

I missed an opportunity to connect with someone. These relationships He puts in our life are immeasurable gifts. They are opportunities for deep connection with other souls.

So I missed out.

And I grieved.

And I spent a very long while wondering why I missed a chance to speak and listen and learn and love. I missed a chance to be blessed, to laugh, to hug, to smile, to embrace and to hear from someone who has been told they have two months of earthly life left to live.

My daughter was in the car and she said “turn around, go back.” And even then I did not. I glimpsed him standing on the sidewalk and I chose to drive by.

Yesterday I called my husband to say I had chosen poorly. “Please take me for a visit soon. I want to go visit.” I need a second chance.

And today I will go to the Prayer Labyrinth down the road from our mountain home to pray for our friend, for his cancer, for his life, and for his ministry.

And to thank God that he has always been a God of second chances.

He has always been and will always be a God full of Mercy, Grace, and Forgiveness.

He was yesterday as I gripped the steering wheel of my car so full of regret.

And He is today as I walk the Prayer Labyrinth offering up prayers for my friend. Prayers for healing and for thanksgiving for his life.

And He will be the God of second chances tomorrow when I choose poorly again. He takes our regret and sorrow and redeems us with His beautiful Love and Amazing Grace. Always. Every time.

He heals the hurts of those who long for second chances.

May we all delight in the relationships and people He puts right in our path, right here, right now today. And may we not miss a chance to love another as He would have us love.

{I thank God for each of you and am grateful for you today}

When Joy Is Contagious

July 13, 2012 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 6 Comments

I am standing at the kitchen sink peeling eggs for my man-child who leaves the nest for good in days. He will have an insurance plan a house, a job and wings spread wide before July yields to August.

And I wonder.

How did we get to a birthday which is a speed limit designed to save gasoline. That’s the collective we. Today is The Patient One’s birthday and it screams out for attention in the repetition of fives like an umpire yells “OUT.” One leaving, one growing older while I think back to springtime as I peel back memories while I peel back bits of shell.

I think on all these days and all these years and wonder where they are. The years line up in my mind. And I remember a Spring breakfast with a friend at The Flying Biscuit diner. Where words flew and peels of laughter rang out loud and I bridged the gap of over 20 years.

We re-connect after all this living, after all these years of life. An un-planned, unintentional pause in a friendship that was deep and wide with laughter and growing up. A friendship put on ice, left untended to and malnourished for over two decades.

A breakfast can last for three hours. And laughter and can be so loud that other diners feel the joy. And you can feel the years of separation melt away like a pad of butter on a heap of hot grits.

Life has bumped her around. Her story is riddled with hurt and pain. I knew via email and phone calls wet with tears big chunks of her story. Before we pulled up our stools for grits and eggs, my heart had begun to prepare for the re-telling as I looked into her soul, into those chocolate brown eyes.

I went believing that I would cry with her and show kindness and comfort. In the upside down economy and inverted paradigm of life, she was comfort and joy to me. She was wisdom. Her story and her battles became my balm.

Her struggles became my new insight. And stories of her journey which the young me didn’t quit know or understand are heard with a knowing anew. By the me who is a woman with wrinkles and graying hair. Because story as teacher shifts perspective of the heart. And story with flesh and bones looking you in your eyes wraps new understanding around how we learn from each other— about life and living, joy and hardship, laughter and tears.

I hear. I listen. I receive. And she teaches. And she explains.

Loud laughter is the trademark of our friendship. And heads turn from patrons in the diner wondering how love can laugh this loud. How a deep down longing to re-connect souls and lives can rumble up and come out as bellowing belly laughs. How friendships full of grace and love can touch strangers, and joy becomes contagious.

The young thirty somethings or twenty somethings, I cannot tell any more, turn and say how special this thing is that we have. And we laugh and we say, yes we know. They tell us how unique it is for friendship to show up like this. And there is bitter sweet in every bite.

What did I lose by loosing touch? Why do they smile and remark at our Joy? Why did I let this friend stay so far from my heart for so long? What bumps in my road could she have helped me with when I was bruised and roughed up if she had only known, if I had only reached out, if friendship didn’t take a break.

And how beautiful contagious Joy is when we are vulnerable, and loud happy, and free to show remarkable love, extravagant love. And to share our stories, our lives, our authentic selves.

My girlhood friend told stories that my memory hadn’t held. Of us. Of me. Each telling of a slice of story transported me back to happy times of our teens.

But the most valuable piece of the three-hour breakfast was my single, childless friend taught me about being a parent. She shifted my perspective and my lense. She gave me eyes to see. And a heart to listen.

Her story and the story of one of my own children, they share common threads. And I have been blind and unknowing and in need of a teacher. A teacher to show me how to bend in to love with a changed heart.

I learn in the loud and messy friendship pulled up to the counter.I learn in The Flying Biscuit about patience and perserverance and loving uniquely. And of loving the differences with a heart that embraces the fact that each of us has a story.

My friend is the teacher, the one with no children to raise, and she is teaching me a few things about being a parent. And about love.

The vast separation between us is closed in three hours. We are 16 and giddy girls laughing with tears rolling down our wrinkled cheeks. Salty love serving up Grace and contagious Joy touching souls over breakfast.

And I know anew to look out for wisdom and kindness in the simplest of places.

And to expect healing to come when we least expect it.

We will not let twenty years wedge between us again.

And I will listen hard and seek the lessons of life being taught through the stories being spoken and lived around me.

Looking to listen with an open heart, a bent ear, and a spirit seeking and longing for those moments of contagious Joy served up with an extra helping of Grace.

Thank you my friend for telling me your story and listening to mine. And giving me a chance to be your friend, anew.