Tag: Laughter

Five Things A Recent Glamping Trip Taught Me About Life

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 5 Comments

On a recent Glamping trip with The Patient One, the kiddos,  and close friends, I learned a lot about life, the gospel, and of course some truths about Glamping.

1. Glamping requires a return to simplicity.

Our glamping vehicle was lovingly named the tinaminium (spell check does not recognize this as a word). It was a rented camper that provided many creature comforts (therefore the loose refence to the “minium” in the term of endearment, tinaminium. Condo’s bring some form of luxury to mind. I digress. What’s new.

Life lived under the brilliant stars and the ebony black sky is exhilarating. The air feels cleaner, the stars are brighter, and many of life’s accoutrements are left at home. This is by design, in order to do life differently, and due to a lack of space. They are somehow not missed at all. (well accept for the long hot showers and the strong internet signal). We packed high thread count sheets and white linen table cloths and our ipads. That’s why its called Glamping sillies.

2. It is important to love your neighbor as yourself, while at your glampsite. (spell check doesn’t know this word either.)

This means don’t run your generator when others are sleeping because it is loud and bothersome. It is important to be a good neighbor because you are parked very close to your neighbor, therefore any of the fruits of the spirit which you didn’t leave at home should be used in dealing with  communicating with others.

For example, if your neighbor’s campsite is in close proximity to the door of your home-on-wheels and the  smoke is wafting into your tiniminium, causing you to be engulfed
in smoke   slightly inconvenienced, its best to be a good neighbor by moving your vehicle out of the smoke’s way.  It is much simpler and kinder than asking them to a. move their camp fire b. extinguish their campfire c. use different firewood that doesn’t smoke up the entire neighborhood.

3.Glampsites are a breeding ground for good story-telling and honing your listening skills.

Writers love stories, and I love writing, therefore, I love stories.  I love listening to them, digesting them, processing them, and writing them.  That must be why I love glamping so much.  Because they are a breeding ground for story. Wait that may have been a leap, or I may have loosely connected the dots there on point 3.

Time stood still, as Time does when you are engrossed in a good story, so I don’t know how long I listened to a new “friend”, my glampsite neighbor tell me an amazing story of his life.  He is a writer and I am a writer so naturally we talked for a very long time.  And I will be writing more of his story here on these pages after I have asked his permission to re-tell.  It is his story not mine, so I’d like to request permission before pressing publish here on the blog.

What I can tell you, is it was rich and deep and heartbreaking.  I can tell you that his story is filled with redemption, hope, and C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity.” I can tell you that the strength and perserverance that it took to live through his pain, heal from his pain, and ultimately choose to share his story, well they inspire. And they are a beautiful story of forgiveness, healing, and love.

(I did not expect this story to come sit in my lap and pierce my heart while Glamping. Did I mention that I was surprised often while on this Glamping trip.)

And I can tell you if I hadn’t gone Glamping, I wouldn’t have met my new “friend”.  He called out to me and asked me to sit and talk to him while he breaded shrimp for the fryer.  He said  “I am a little OCD about this process.”  That is why we had an inordinate amount of time together, talking and listening over three pounds of shrimp being breaded. It was time very well-spent.

I also sat and chatted with a neighbor from home and learned that she had lost both of her parents this past year.  I have known her for 17 years, we live in the same small town, we have children the same age and I didn’t know that her mother and father had both died this year.

Her story caused me to stare into her eyes and listen with all I have.  There is more to her story than I can share until I ask, but losing parents in one condensed time frame has to be deeply painful.  She and I have made plans to go paddle boarding together.  I have another “new” friend because of glamping.

4. Glamping creates the need to be dependent on one another for “survival.”

We dragged a lot of stuff with us, but we still didn’t prepare well enough.  Our friends, not the ones in the glamper with us but the ones in a tent down the way, prepared better than we did in the food (protein) department.  Because they are kind, generous, and really good cooks, gifted really in the culinary arts, we ate like Kings and Queens.  We “lived” off of their grill and their kindness.  Well, I can’t speak for anyone else.  I did. And food tastes better when its prepared on a new $700 grill which is transported out to a glampsite for the weekend.  And food tastes better when it is eaten out-of- doors in the cool fresh air. In fact, a lot of things are better out-of-doors on a plantation in the middle of nowhere.  We know it was nowhere because the GPS couldn’t find it.

5. Friendship is better in close quarters (and friendships grow deep roots in the dark)

When Glamping, your generator must be turned on in order to have light. Well sometimes its just best to preserve your power and sit in the dark. Especially when it is late at night, and music from the music festival is serenading you on a Saturday night, on a quail hunting plantation, on a cool May night, in your tinaminium with a really close friend. Actually, your super-glue friend, your accountability partner and your sister-in-Christ. The dark can be good for sharing life, your heart, and having good momma time.

The dark of night can breed intimacy in friendship. And living in very close quarters could test the best of friendships. But this one survived and may have been made stronger. Many of our friends have walk in closets bigger than this space the four of us shared for a weekend.

Because we like to laugh, we imagined that Jesus could have written a parable teaching us how to treat others in a glamping campsite. We studied the parables in our Bible Study this fall, so they were still front and center in our frontal lobe parts. We had a stranger come to our door during that dark of night, generator off, talking heart to heart time. He scared us. We think we missed an opportunity to be kinder and gentler to him than we were. Did I mentioned he scared us? He had the wrong door, its like the wrong number when you call someone. He was looking for friends. They were staying in the tinaminium next door. Did I mention he scared us.( Well startled would be more accurate.) We pointed him in the right direction. But we didn’t offer him a meal or a kind word. And we weren’t particularly good neighbors. We felt like those in the parable of the Good Samaraitan who passed by the guy laying in the ditch. You know, the ones who didn’t help. Well we pointed him in the right direction. He just had the wrong camper.

Maybe we’ll get a second chance to “do unto others” on our next Glamping trip. Maybe we’ll get a do-over in the do-unto others department. We can only hope.

And there will be another. Even though the showers are short and sweet, and the creature comforts are few and far between, even with a loud generator.

Who doesn’t love the chance to hear stories under the blue sky days out in the middle of a field. And to live more simply.

There is much to learn out under the stars, and clouds, huddled by your camper with friends and family.

I wish I hadn’t stopped with five things I learned, though you may be.

wishing His grace….

If I Were A Phlogger……..

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

{Thank you for being here.  You may want to pop over to my Facebook Page and “like” it.  That would be a huge gift and another way to follow this blog of mine. And you are invited to scroll down and sign up to follow daily via email. Isn’t housekeeping fun.  That was my little bit of housekeeping.}

And did I say thank you for popping in and reading and just being here.

Today I am counting gifts at A Holy Experience with Ann Voskamp. You may enjoy her blog, her book, or her Facebook page.  I have.

It has been a gift to count gifts often, shifting that lense a bit to one of gratitude.

Today I am counting in a phlog format.  That is I am adapting to  a photographer’s blog format, a phlog.

Yes, I may have heard of everything now.

Come along with me as I count some gifts in my world.  Gratitude can be contagious. You may think of your own as your read. (This list is not cumulative because that is not how I am rolling with this.  It is a bit unorthodox, and I do not have a journal just for my gifts, though I wish I did. But I know that God sees a grateful heart. Or, gosh I hope He does.  One day I may have my gratefulness act together.)

* A fun lunch with The Patient One and my sweet girl.  This is the before of a crazy menu offering that he was brave enough to order.  My stomach hurt when it landed on the table was brought by the server to the table.


My tummy hearts reliving it. But the gift was in having the impromptu meal as a trio and finding what really was a lovely restaurant. Quirky menu.  Outdoor seating that allowed us to bring the momma lab.  And there was a cool breeze which you can’t see because the ginormous sandwhich is blocking the wind.

And this was what was left.

*Grateful for time with children. Relaxed time. Celebratory time. Even though one was missing, sadly, The Patient One and I focused for awhile on man/child and last but not least, growing up way too fast, daughter.

*Very special time with man/child and his very special friend on her graduation weekend from College. Very happy, calm, relaxing, and a day you just cannot imagine repeating — EVER.

This bird is about to fly the coop and take his feathers and all of his joy right out of our door in a matter of weeks. So every moment of soaking him in, and the man he is becoming is bottled up Joy, pure and simple. And this mother soaked it in with her eyes and her camera.

My imagination narrative is that he is dreaming of his future and what it will feel like to live outside of our home. In reality, he is probably daydreaming and watching his momma lab swim.

*Grateful for this momma lab to be. It was not easy but she is finally expecting her first litter of puppies in a few weeks. Our family is gathered around this event as if it were a person child on the way to join our family, not a furry person whose puppies will all be lovingly delivered to new homes.

I rather like this phlogging idea. I may have to make this a regular feature.

*I slipped away from friends and family for a moment to glance out at an amazing view. I love chairs, weathered, inviting, so full of potential. I am happy just to photograph them. I am grateful that they represent respite, and calm, relaxation and a slowed pace, all of which we experienced this day.

* The Patient One and I rode out to look at a house which our man/child may rent after he graduates from College in a few weeks. During our scenic tour of this wonderful island, I fell in love with all the potential this community holds for his new life. And I dreamed of his days becoming a man away from us.

*And oh, my beloved Mother’s Day cards. I am so grateful for the words, and the handwritten sweetness inside both of these. It is a gift to see that middle son can actually print so neatly. I know he tried his best to write plainly and clearly. That was the gift. And that he was fifteen minutes late for church, as opposed to missing completely, because he stopped to get the card before church….well the gift is he made it to church and had a some what acceptable reason for making it just in time for the sermon. I almost gave myself lock jaw, I was so tense waiting for him to arrive. I glanced over my shoulder a hundred times nervously searching  once or twice expectanting him to arrive any minute.

The Lord is teaching me patience. I am a VERY slow learner.

He is working on Pride issues too, as I did not want to be the momma in church on Mother’s Day with the missing kiddo.

I know I will remember this card FOREVER and will lovingly place it in a memory box.  The memories of my prideful heart racing and of his walking in to church on the very late side of the service will fade.  God is good that way.

* And I am grateful that I learned a little of the phlogging format. I am loving living behind my little camera lense, gazing at gifts and counting them not often enough.

Life’s Ooh’s and Aah’s

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

We have a little family joke that started with my grandmother.  She would ooohhh and aaah at every gift that was opened at Christmas and  any and all special occasions. It was delightful behavior  to be around as a child.

Pure joy.  Pure excitement.  Unrestrained rejoicing.

She, my Gama, was a child of the Great Depression.  One of thirteen children, she was appreciative of everything.  So when the bows and the wrapping were thoughtlessly tossed aside, she would gather up the bows and salvage any of the wrapping she could.  She’d gather and save.

And as each gift was revealed she would say, with her beautiful big smile and her beautiful big eyes, oooh and then aaaah.  She just simply delighted in the gift and the moment.  Large. Small.  Modest.  Simple.

The gift didn’t matter.  It was just the moment and the exchange, ever so small between family.

So we adopted this custom.  Truthfully we poke mild fun at her dramatic response as we  have family fun ooohing and aahhing over the unwrapping of gifts. We remember her.  Her joy.

But truly, isn’t life more fun when we celebrate the small unwrappings.  Delighting in the small things that border on just mundane.  When we celebrate small milestones, or small joys.  When we take a moment to rest in a moment of beauty.

Breaking out a smile, broad and wide, all toothy and glistening over a kind remark from a devoted friend, a text of encouragement or endearment from a woman who walks out life with you, an email that says simply. ” I am missing you terribly.”

Aren’t these moments worth busting out cheerfulness and joyfulness.

I delivered news this morning to a friend which I felt would disappoint and maybe cause her to feel that I had let her down.  Her response was one of affirmation.  You are choosing rightly, you are doing as you should, go and enjoy and have fun.  This is important, she says to me.

We have been deep cleaning and spring cleaning my house.  I look on the fruits of the shared labor, and smell the clean, and see some progress toward de-cluttering. I smile and say this is good.  This is better.  I am encouraged.

Such small things often delight the heart.  And they are worth taking a moment to say, “This is good.” To give it a simple label of “nice” or “good” or “beautiful” or “kind”. To release an ooh or an aahh over a favorite meal when fellowshipping with family or friends.  This is good. This is yummy.

Finding the moments that are gifts of life, ever so small and allowing them to be named as good.  To savor for more than a second.

This morning for me it was the smell of cut grass.  They say that the sense of smell is the memory which we hold on to the longest.  I don’t know if that is true, but a wave of memories poured into my bedroom and delighted my soul as I thought of times that were good as fragrant cut grass stimulated my memories, all tucked away and resting.

Words were said.  There was a disagreement.  I would not have won any mother of the year awards for my part, for my responses to the situation.  But in a moment of reconciliation my child told me how very much he loves me.

I was humbled.  I am deeply touched by a love that forgives and works through and doesn’t stay stuck.  This is good.  This is healing.  I stop and say this is unexpected grace.

I am looking for things to celebrate this weekend.  We are cheerfully and happily celebrating a graduation of a precious young woman in our life.  We love her so and we rejoice at this milestone.

But I am looking to rejoice in the small things too. The little oooh’s and the little aaah’s.  The shell on the beach, the giggle around the table, the crisp spring air with birds singing overtime, a clean fresh start for some places in my home, a comment in love, a comment in friendship, a word of encouragement. A gesture toward forgiveness.  A gesture toward healing.  A word of praise.  A word of thanksgiving.

I am seeking to rejoice in all that He gives.  And while I don’t have my Gama’s eyes which saw the world so differently than I, I can seek to  see what the Lord has placed before me as blessing and gift.

The tide comes in, the tide goes out.  The bumps and bruises and dust ups in life will come and go.  But I choose today to look for joy.

Will you join me. Won’t you join me. It’s more fun doing life together.

Wonderful Weekend Full Of Grace, to you all.

And may you ooooh and aahh all weekend long at all the joy that comes your way.

Blessings….

wynnegraceappears

A Letter To My Children

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 10 Comments

Dear Kiddo’s,

Since Mother’s Day is coming up in a few days, I thought I would write YOU all a love letter.  I am going to color outside the lines a little bit and make it a love letter, a list of what I want to do to be a better mom, and a list of why you guys are the best kids in the world. There will be some randomness thrown in so that you all know I’ve put my random mark on it, i.e. its not from just any mom, but your mom. (You grammar police go away.  I know I used random twice for emphasis).

So here goes…

You three are really something.  You always have been.  Something beautiful, unique and embedded in my flesh and on the walls of my heart.  (No comments from you three like oh mom you are getting all mushy on us.)  That’s why its my letter.  I get to write my feelings on paper.  But oh what subject matter I have been given. It started with this.  Just Dad and I.  But I have already explained all of that to ya’ll.

And all the moments.The mini-moments and micro moments  and humongous moments have been distinctly ours because we are us.  We are a tribe of five.  All the learning and loving could have only  happened as it did  because of you three.  You restored hope, you were miracles, you increased faith. Each step you took, moment you breathed, emotion you expressed poured you onto the canvas creating this painting . This art. This that is our lives.  Abstract, bold, colorful, screaming love and shouting grace.

Each one of you getting up and doing family every day. Bringing and offering and using  your unique gifts. I chase you around with the eyes of my heart trying to clumsily love you.  I stumble and fall and trip up pressing in a truth and repeating my mistakes, repeating my love. Crying out love.  Doing parenting sloppily, in my less-than-perfectness.  Radically receiving your love every day.   You give it so gentle.  You give it so perfect.  Because you all are life givers and life restorers. You look like miracles to my heart.  You walk out His love and your father’s love and my love with flesh and bones.

And lately I follow you around with my camera.  You shout and hide and say enough is enough.  But capturing you all doing life, eating it up with your passion is now my passion. Swallowing it whole without chewing and running down the good race with endurance like an athlete is my desire. Your lives are  something that should be saved and captured. To hold dear.  And hold on to. For more than split seconds. You are my prize. You are my glory.  You are gift.  You are so much more than I can clumsily say.

If I could make perfect sweet tea, I’d make it by the gallon to show my love.  If I could bite my tongue and never raise my voice to show my love I would.  If I could laugh and smile at every small thing you say and do to show you how much I adore you three I would.  If every favorite shirt and uniform were always clean and folded, all socks matched and every note signed pronto I would give you that. But I cannot go back, can’t bottle up the yuck.  Can’t re-do the what I did.  Can’t wash the dirty down the drain with the dishwater.  It’s just there in the mix, all mixed up with the love and the good intentions to love better and more.

So here is the part where I thank you for your grace, because you give it out and show it well.  Though you learned from one who was flawed and broken and full of sin.  Wrecklessly  extending grace, upon grace.  And tender Mercy.  Like He does.  You all do that well.

And this is the part where I ask forgiveness for my shortcomings and tell you how sorry I am.  And this is where I tell you a funny thing so you will laugh. Because you know I love Pooh and if you don’t you should.  And now you know if you didn’t.

“Oh Tigger where are your manners? I don’t know but I bet they’re having more fun than I am.” (A.A. Milne) There were those hundreds of times I reminded and prodded and begged and browbeat.  You know they are important.  I will never stop telling you so.

I know a wise young girl who told me once, “smile and laugh and we will smile and laugh with you.”  She just happens to be my own precious one.  So wise beyond her years. I can’t wait to do more of that.

I wish some things, in my memory and in my heart.  I wish that I could read “Goodnight Moon” a billion more times, while I breathe in your sweet smells and feel you cozied in on my lap.  You can turn the pages.  I want to dive into “The Very Hungary Caterpillar.’ We can swim from page to page together, with you saying the words in tandem with my breathe. We can read— together, we can go slow there is no need to rush. I will never again say those painful words, can you wait a minute. Because you shouldn’t.  You should have the all of me.

I hope you heard the parts about kindness, honesty, faithfulness, gentleness and doing your best.  I hope you heard me teaching you this when it sounded like preaching.  And when I wasn’t any of these things myself.

When I told you not to take the path of least resistance and mediocre was not acceptable. I hope you know that somewhere hidden in all that was a sliver like the new moon of love.  Me loving you into all good things.  Me wanting for you, all the best.

And now you would say that I didn’t follow the outline. And like when I say grace over the food, its just way too long.  You would say now that it’s time to wind down even though I have a trillion more things to say.  And no, I am not exaggerating.

I didn’t get a chance to say one more time to make good decisions, wear your seat belt, and all my other annoying one liners.

But since it is my letter and I am in control of the keyboard and little else, I can say that you amaze me, you teach me, and that my love for you is deep and wide.  It can never be like His love for us.  He loves you more.  And you should remember that if little else of this mother’s day letter to you, my children. My gifts from the giver of awesome gifts.

You delight, you surprise, you amaze me in so many ways.  This lover of words is out of them now. And to mothers everywhere I say love hard, love deep, love well.  And welcome with outstretched arms the surprises, the tomorrows and the right around the corner moments.