Heartache

I spent the first part of the day enjoying how amazing the house looks with all the prep and painting done.  Now I can’t think about anything except today’s events.  While I watch the coverage of the shootings at the school in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, I want to write that I can’t imagine hearing that there had been a shooting at your child’s school, going there and hearing that your child’s class  had been wiped out by a murderer.  But that’s all I can do–imagine–and be thankful that I don’t know this indescribable hurt personally.  I can only imagine what it would be like to send your child to school and never have him or her come home alive…and it hurts. 

Storm warning

It’s Monday evening and the outlying effects of Hurricane Sandy have reached into Ohio while the center of the storm  approaches Philadelphia where our younger daughter goes to school.  The rains have been ravaging northeast Ohio since Friday and now with the winds rising, there’s not only danger of flooding but that the roots of trees will be unable to maintain their hold in the soft, saturated earth,  allowing the trees to topple onto anything in their vicinity…fences, plants, houses, garages, electrical wires, people.

Sunday

                                         This is the day that the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.

 

Today we head back once again to Cleveland, leaving behind husband and father once more. Not an ideal situation by any means and one that will hopefully be resolved soon but also one that I know God has His hand on at all times. I take comfort in that and pray that he helps my husband find comfort in that as well when we can’t be together.

As always, I pray for safe travel and that when I get home, I can get done all that needs to be done, a sometimes daunting task.  I will try each day to be glad in it; to see what God wants me to be and do.

Tea and friendship

Getting together with a friend is about the best way to start a day that comes to mind! Especially over a cup of tea (or coffee for her) and some unrushed sharing time. I was blessed to start my Friday that way, with a friend who I don’t see nearly as often as I’d like, but when we do get together, it’s as if we’ve never been apart.

Our friendship started when both our families attended the same church, although it was more like a mentoring relationship in those days. She was younger, wanting to accomplish things, to take on the world, sure that her way was right while still being a loving person, a cheerleader as opposed to my athlete. I was home schooling our girls. We were both teaching Sunday school, she originally as the superintendent, as I recall it. Although I had a lot of maturing yet to do (and still have more to accomplish in that area even today), I found myself listening, mediating, calming, talking. When she began working as the school librarian, we started meeting once a week in the library for prayer, prayer for our families, our friends, our church, our country and, probably, the world. We met at each other’s house, too.

Then she and her family moved, not far, but far enough that we weren’t within that easy distance for stopping by for a short while. Instead of five minutes or so, we were looking at an investment of twenty or more each way. I stayed busy home schooling, she took a part time job as a reference librarian, a job she kept telling me would be the perfect one for me some day.

But we still made the time to meet periodically. A Caribou Coffee was, although not equidistant, at least not too far out of her way, which brought her that direction sometimes anyway. It was the perfect place to meet, greet, catch up, pray again, make use of the time we had to keep our friendship not only alive, but the kind that works despite the distance and time; the kind where you know if you needed something or someone, you could call or email (I don’t text) the other person and if at all possible, she’d be there. We both have other friends, other things going on in our lives. But it doesn’t matter; we’re both secure enough in what we have to know that it’s important no matter what else is happening, no matter who else is there.

That type of friendship is worth much, especially in a world that grows busier every day, where communication, despite the plethora of ways it can be accomplished, is often sparse or facile, a Facebook world of sound bites and other people’s posts.

We met again Friday morning at CC at GG ( at Caribou Coffee at Golden Gate, the mall location), our shorthand for “our” spot, the place where along with our tea (for me) and coffee (for her), we imbibe the much more delicious and valuable drink of time together with a friend. Another brick in the wall of friendship. The perfect way to start a day!