Word Quilts

From my agitated past October 9, 2007:

I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANY MORE ABOUT….

Britney Britney Britney Britney Britney Britney Britney
“It’s like looking at the ambulance at a car crash….you just can’t look away.” TMZ, I beg to differ. Car crashes are so much more interesting. WHY are reporters falling all over themselves to buy a Zesty Bowl for Britney so she doesn’t have to get out of the car? I’m about to go off on a tangent, so I’ll just stop there.

Lindsay Lohan Daddy Lohan Lindsay Lohan Mama Lohan LL DL LL ML Little Sister Lohan

J-Lo’s pregnancy So what if she stumbled on the people mover? Endanger her baby? Nah. She’s invincible. Wonder Woman. Real life does not apply.

American media, there are truly interesting people out there for you to write about. Do you know what I want to read right now and can’t find? I want to read about Jane Seymour’s mother who recently passed away. Now there is something interesting. She was in a Japanese concentration camp for 3 1/2 years. Why is it you aren’t telling that story???

I miss the “old-timey” reporters like Charles Kuralt who traveled America and found the real stories. Stories about real people who did important everyday things. Americana. Everyday unsung heroes. Britney, you ain’t it.

Oh yeah, happy birthday Paris.

Unfinished draft from December 31, 2007. I think I had a good start going here….maybe I will finish this some day.

December 31, 2007

I’ve been trying all day to put some words together for this week’s In Other Words. I type, untype, type, untype. I can’t get any cohesiveness to my thoughts on this subject. Tonight I think I have isolated my problem.

The moments on the mountain are so few and far between that we remember them with amazing recall. They are special moments rewarded with great revelation and insight. But if I were to count my life moments, I have learned many more lessons from being in the valley.

There are numerous levels of valley. There is ordinary, there is below the horizon, and there is in the pit.

I wrote this post on January 1, 2006. My God-given talent for playing the piano is now an unused talent. I let my daughter have my piano on the condition that I could come play it from time to time. That is no longer an option. The game I played with my grandchildren (described below) is a very precious memory to me. I hope old age doesn’t take my precious memories some day.

January 1, 2006

From birth my parents took me to a small church where I was the only baby–at least till my brother, Greg, came along 4 years later. Boy, was I spoiled…er, loved! Everyone wanted to take me home for dinner after church and play with me. Which they regularly did. To this day I think I relate better to those who are older than I am! Anyway, those dear, dear folks tolerated me and loved me.

From the time I was big enough to climb up by myself, I would haul myself up onto the piano bench and “play.” I never beat on the keys; I played my heart out on the big piano on the platform until time for the church service to start–Sunday morning and night and Wednesday night. Someone would come tell me it was time to start, and I would slip down off the bench and go sit in my mother’s lap. How precious those people are to me for never telling me to stop!

As I grew, I would stand in my father’s shoe repair shop next to the huge finishing machine, listening to the sound frequency. I would listen intently till I “had ” it, then I would hum the exact pitch. I would change my pitch just a little to be sharp or flat and listened to the resulting waves of harmonics underneath the tone. I learned that when I had the pitch “right on”, the sound was amazing. These were my first experiences with perfect pitch, a precious gift from God. To have it has been marvellous.

Among my fondest memories is playing “match pitches” with my children and young grandchildren. It’s amazing how quickly they pick up on the purpose of the game as babies. It doesn’t take long for them to start tricking me by changing pitches themselves and making ME catch up while they giggle gleefully! They love to match my pitch, then slide up the scale to a pitch impossible to duplicate by anyone over the age of 18 months.

I don’t know how old I was when I learned to play by ear and to chord, but it was way before I could read. Music has been a big part of my life from before I had the ability to remember. I started piano lessons when I was in 2nd grade and took lessons through graduate school. I played the piano for hours every day because I loved it so much. During my teenage years, music was responsible for my sanity, though I can’t vouch for that of my parents. When I was angry (which was often), I would pound the daylights out of Rachmaninoff. Russian music was great for relieving aggression!

I definitely had “The Gift”, and I thank God for that.

In winding down this blog, I am going through my drafts, reviewing the posts you never saw. There are a lot of them, some of which I will share, including this one written October 9, 2007. I always expected to have tribulations in life, but I never expected them to come from my family. This post is an important testimony to my journey, so I am posting it.

October 9, 2007

“We are not built for the mountains and the dawns and aesthetic affinities, those are for moments of inspiration, that is all. We are built for the valley, for the ordinary stuff we are in, and that is where we have to prove our mettle.”
~ Oswald Chamber~

“…we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.”

I don’t feel strong any more. Life events in the last two years have pounded at me until my very foundation has been rocked. As life beats on us, we can stand firm in God, but that doesn’t mean that the important things around us won’t fall apart.

God has never left me, but most of the time I feel too unworthy to be His daughter. I fail to ask for help because I don’t deserve it. But isn’t that the point? What if I had to be perfect before Christ’s sacrifice applied to me? Then there would be no Hope.

Anger, bitterness, and rebellion are new to me. I have never had to look them in the eye before. My faith in God has never wavered. But my faith in myself….well, I’m still working on that.

I had envisioned my “Second Act” in life as a wonderful time, enjoying my family, enjoying the skills, interests, and talents God has given me. I envisioned peace and happiness while journeying toward our “Golden Years” with my husband.

Instead, family events have stressed my heart strings to the breaking point, snapping them like taut guitar strings. Now I am damaged. Now I have to choose to do the right things based on knowing they are the right things, not based on what is in my heart. Now fighting my heart is a constant battle. It is very draining.

I know I will be ok. Better than ok. I know I will be victorious. But I still have to walk through life’s tribulations. I knew they would come; they come into everyone’s lives. But I didn’t know how deeply I would be impacted. I didn’t know how much they would hurt. I didn’t know how much I would lose. I didn’t know how much I would change….

Precious God in Heaven, you know my heart like no one can. You see me as I am and know what You will make of me. Lord God, let this fire be Your refining fire. Burn out all my impurities. Reconnect my heart strings. When I get past this, through Your strength, may I come out of Your refining fire as a reflection of You, welded to You, an honorable daughter.