Sometimes you are just ready to fly away.
*obscure reference to the Church of God hymnal I was raised with and one of the most sung songs of my childhood, “I’ll Fly Away”
Category Archives: 6 Looking Back // Memories!
That was then…
On the 11th day of Christmas…
I remember Christmas 1968, the oldest of 5…
Des Moines, Iowa. It was Ross the Boss, Mrs Moss and all the little Landers: Jeanie, Joey, Timmy, Tammy and Danny (known at that time as Dana, his given name). My mom was always trying to set up a scene. In the days before Photoshop and Picnik.com, she colored on sheets and set up vignettes. I come by it naturally, you see…
I remember Christmas 1988, when I had five of my own…
No one can say I didn’t do my part to populate the earth with godly seed – really, really quickly (5 kids in less than 7 years)! Church plays and cantatas; school programs and crafts around the kitchen table. Opening our home to be toured (9 trees, NINE trees!) in an 1886 Victorian, winning the community house-lighting contest. Popcorn balls and having the whole church over for a party. I was young and thought the energy would never wane.
I remember Christmas 2008. With 5 grandbebes.
Their parents do the work and I just rake in the love. There are 6 now!
Does it mean you’re old when you have this much stuff in your headful of memories? Ohmygoodness. I do have a bunch of memories. And since I can no longer remember everything, I am sure choosing the good stuff. If I could only bottle the great moments of my life and share it, hold them close..but I guess, in a way, I really can – that is the cool thing! Want some?
Be merry all, be merry all,
With holly dress the festive hall;
Prepare the song, the feast, the ball,
To welcome merry Christmas.
~William Robert Spencer
~
Red Letter day for Guini! I look ahead at many years of wondrous joys to come…
On the 11th Day of Christmas – Guini lost her 1st tooth.
J
I remember Christmas, 11 days ago…
Christmas Playlist
I tend toward the sentimental with Christmas music. And I’m a little bit {more} country. At Christmas. For some odd reason.
But certain sings must have certain singers.
- “Happy Holiday”s has to be Andy Williams.
- “Winter Wonderland” belongs to Johnny Mathis.
- “Drummer Boy” has to go to Bing, but Bing gets bunches of them (including “White Christmas” and “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day”) because I love him. he is Mr Christmas!
Ellie invited me to do a Christmas music swap, my favorites for hers and I decided, though on different days I am in love with different moods and melodies of Christmas, to put together 12 songs that represented our family from 1981 to the present. They include Bing, and there is Judy Garland singing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” but I included Whitney Houston (“Joy to the World”) and Mariah Carey (“O Holy Night”). Kenny Rogers got 2 selections (“Kids” and “Christmas is My Favorite Time of Year”) because his was the first cassette Christmas music tape we bought as a new family. I did include Casting Crown’s updated version of “I heard the Bells” because Dave really likes it and of course, the collection would not be complete with the Charlie Brown Christmas song, “Christmas Time is Here.”
I didn’t get ot include a lot of songs I love by Dolly Parton, Karen Carpenter or Elvis, Alabama, Amy Grant or the Partridge Family. I just really love Christmas music and I have lots and lots of it representing the 1940s to the present. They made thousands of recordings in the 50s, it seems and each year, a new song or two is added to my list Christmas songs I love…
And I am kinda in love with this duet, which is more about winter than Christmas, but don’t you just love Willie and Norah? I do! CLICK BELOW TO LISTEN*
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It WAS actually cold yesterday for about 17.238 minutes and we actually got at least 6.798 minutes of some sleety, snow-ish, rainy/gray/sky something or another before blue skies busted back out just before sundown. I had inserted the word “finally” above the word “cold” but alas this morning, another sunny, temperate day and they are saying no snow for Christmas. But I am sure we’ll have some for May Day. Grrrrr…….
What are you singing these days?
*Willie Nelson & Norah Jones – Baby, It’s Cold Outside
OOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooo-K!
It was just one of those things
The candle…THE candle.
It was just one of those things
Just one of those crazy flings
One of those bells that now and then rings
Just one of those things
I never- ever-ever pay a lot for a candle-in-a-jar, but Target had a fall selection of Yankee Candles (the best candles in the world) near my birthday (early October) on sale for $18, down from $24.99 and when I expressed great pleasure in the “Autumn Festival” scent, Dave insisted on getting me one. You know – for my birthday.
I have burned it, and burned it and burned it. When I am home (and sometimes when I not, shhhhhh, it isn’t on purpose!), I burn it. It has burned all day long and all night long (like, ALL night long, much to Dave’s dismay). I have burned that thing for hundreds of hours by now. 300+ I’d say.
It was just one of those nights
Just one of those fabulous flights
A trip to the moon on gossamer wings
Just one of those things
Was it meant to last this long? Was it meant to make my early mornings so sweet and my evenings so romantic? Was it supposed to burn for untold lengths of time where the memory of it lingered in the air as I’d descend the stairs come morning? And as I watch the flicker this afternoon, smaller, much closer to its end, I wonder how on earth I shall ever replace this beloved candle?
If we’d thought a bit about the end of it
When we started painting the town
We’d have been aware that our love affair
Was too hot not to cool down
I have been preparing myself for the end, dreading it, yet helpless to stop it. I have been sniffing candles madly at stores, looking for my winter comfort. But so far, none can surpass my Autumn Festival – both fruity and spicy; tangy and zesty, yet mellow, rich. It has been the scent of my home as the days have grown shorter and the nights longer; as the chill has forced its way into early morning and long hours of dark azure skies.
So good-bye, dear, and amen
Here’s hoping we meet now and then
It was great fun
But it was just one of those things
It seems hard to believe another candle could ever match this one. This one. But I am fond of a deep red cinnamon scent, earthy and multi-layered…where o where is it?!
SONG LYRICS “It Was Just One of Those Things” by Cole Porter, performed by gazillions of artists, though I am fond of the Diana Krall version!).
NOTE: I used to get very teary when my mom threw out the Christmas trees at season’s end, too. They’d just made me so happy….
Song for a Sunday ~ The Blood Will Never Lose its Power
Andrae Crouch. Demos Shakarian. Beth Moore. And a song…
It started with my dad making me watching Jesus Explo ’72, nearly having to drag me from my room at the time, which I wrote veeeeeery extensively about HERE (click!).
Andrae Crouch and the Disciples sang and oh, I loved their sound, oh yes! I sang my heart out to many an 8-track or cassette tape of his music. Andrae is the soundtrack of my spiritual heart and soul from about 1972-1980.
I just completed my first-ever Beth Moore Bible Study(confetti flying through the air- bells and whistles going off, and all that jazz). In one of the sessions toward the end, she was preaching up a storm about the blood of Jesus and started quoting the lyrics to Andrae’s song, “The Blood Will Never Lose its’ Power.” Wow-it brought back a flood of memories – maybe especially because just that very day, the physical therapist I have been seeing about the Labor-Day-weekend knee-wrenching episode, had said, “You know, it is probably time to get the MRI and look at getting surgery. And oh how I hated that. You see, this very same knee had been broken and mangled before and after two+ years of 24/7 pain, God just healed it. Just like that. While I was running up and down these massive industrial stairs to the finance office at Heaven Fest 2009. It was crazy!
So Beth quotes the words to this great song, resisting, she says, the urge to actually sing it out.
And I remember. 1972. Davenport, Iowa.
I had the flu, apparently. Achy beyond comprehension. A fever of 104. Sort of delirious. Just misery. It was a Sunday, but I was 12, and old enough to be alone in my utter despair, so off to church my parents and family went…me left on the couch, just sort of moaning. My mom had the left the television on very low, I couldn’t really hear it beyond my whimpering, but it was background noise, as I lay there suspended in a gauzy pain, the kind that makes you cry out to Jesus for relief making you acutely aware that you haven’t been crying out to Him for much of anything recently. You think about making deals, promises, but haven’t the strength and know He is probably glad for that.
At some point, however, the sound of TV seemed suddenly to have become louder. I became aware of what was on. Demos Shakerian was hosting his weekly Full Gospel Buisiness Men’s Fellowship International show. And his guest? Andrae Crouch. I don’t remember what they talked about, but at some point, Andrae moved to a grand piano and started singing this song. And I am telling you, the Presence rode in on that melody and just poured over me. That room turned in to a holy place as that song filled the air, the volume somehow mysteriously louder, clearer than it had been (in the days before you could just use a remote to change the volume!).
“The blood that gives me strength from day to day…”
I started to cry as I heard those words which were etching truth into my very heart. Andrae sang and I felt healing surge through me as pain just – went! Gone. My head stopped throbbing, I started worshiping. It was strong, but tender; it was mighty and powerful, but for me, not against me. Andrae sang and sang and angels must have been singing along. I was very suddenly and immediately energized and whole – like not one thing was wrong, not one. No more pain, moaning, no more achiness – all of it: gone! I grabbed the thermometer and took my temp, it had instantly fallen to exactly normal! I felt light as a feather, ready to dance with joy.
I hopped up, got dressed and walked 2 1/2 miles to church. Didn’t even get a day off school because of that flu.
The knee.
Just finished up a big fundraiser. About 2/3 of the way through the evening last night in heels (covering lots of area at high speed), it started popping out of place again. Today it is so very sore. Today it feels like I will be a cripple forever. I am on the couch on a Sunday morning, sort of achy all over from the last few crazy days, wondering: is there a numerical limit to how many healings one knee gets? Or could He do it again? Would He?…
Short Version by CeCe Winans
Someday I hope to find the footage of Andrae on that Demos Shakarian show
Isaiah 53.5
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
Shake your boot-ies
My mom turned me on to boots while I was yet a toddler. I started loving them when I was 3 and they were Majorette boots, thank-you very much. {thank-YOU, mommiekins!}
These boots were made for marching
At barely 10, I got my white go-go boots, a highly-treasured Christmas gift.
When I was twelve I thoroughly loved my black patent leather boots, which I wore with wide-collared dresses and hair long, parted down the middle.
I bought some dark blue platforms from Famous Footwear with babysitting money when I was 14. I loved those boots. They were simply Soul-Train-GROOVY! And I love-love-love being tall!
These boots were made for strutting
There was the “Urban Cowboy” phase and yes, I had cowgirl boots like Debra Winger, and a suede leather vest or two…in deep purple and dusty blue.
The eighties were all about dressy-ness and high heels with textured and patterned pantyhose and tights and green suede ankle boots.
Speaking of the 80s, remember leg-warmers? Yes. O yes. I actually did do this ~ fishnets*, white pumps and all. Kinda boot-esque, huh?
Guess what!!?? I just got an email from Famous Footwear and they have boots on sale and they want me to stop in and try them on! Isn’t that thoughtful of them? So sweet!
*I wore my first chartreuse-colored fishnets when I was 7…to church with a groovy paisley dress. I know my whole life history is important to you!
google images…someone kept my boot record!
October Skies
l (a leaf falls) one li ness e.e. cummings
My “leaf-is-falling-but-not-really” photoshoot in the backyard. ;p
It had actually already fallen. I was just replicating it a little {camera in my right hand, leaf stem in my left}.
I quit watering the veggies when I went to Montana over a month ago. I have been gathering regularly ever since, as the vegetable garden seeks to proliferate madly before the end. Then the rainy nights came and they thought they had been asked to stay a while longer. It pains me to tell them no, but I must. Until the spring, my sweet veggies – just until the spring…
“Well, it’s a marvelous night for a Moondance
With the stars up above in your eyes
A fantabulous night to make romance
‘Neath the cover of October skies
And all the leaves on the trees are falling
To the sound of the breezes that blow
And I’m trying to please to the calling
Of your heart-strings that play soft and low
And all the night’s magic seems to whisper and hush
And all the soft moonlight seems to shine in your blush.”
– Van Morrison, Moondance
FULL MOON on the 23rd!
Blue
Keeping an eye out
I have always wanted blue contact lenses – really blue…knock-your-socks-off blue. Well not always just blue. For a long time I wanted one blue and one slightly turquoise so that when people looked at me, they would not know what they were seeing, they’d just know something was different, that I had a “unique quality.” My eye doctor (also in a Sunday morning Bible class I was leading) said, “You want THAT to be what people think is unique about you?”
Yes. I was {am??} that shallow.
The weak-eyed one.
Once my mom started using color film exclusively in the early 60s and beyond, I was always the one with red eyes. Then as a young teen, every. single. picture. caught me with my eyes closed. I think it was backlash about hearing my poor mom bemoan the red eyes, or “weak eyes” as they were sometimes explained. I was just trying to spare 2 red dots from ruining otherwise good pictures. She did not like those either. Nevertheless, almost every photo between 1972 and 1978 were with my eyes wide shut!
I felt a great connection to and affinity for Leah, the weak-eyed one in the Bible.*
Enter Ellie.
Months ago Ellie mentioned wanting to take my picture. I resisted with every imaginable excuse (the hair fiasco, the knee – you name it), but alas, finally, I ran out. Do you know what she said to me a couple of weeks ago? She said, “So many people love you and think you are beautiful. I just want to capture what they see.” Really?, I thought. How can you resist that?
And what did she capture, what did she bring me exactly, but my very own deep-heart’s desire? Blue, blue eyes, opened appropriately. So pretty. And though I bear in my body “the [brand] marks of the Lord Jesus [the wounds, scars and other outward evidence of persecutions–these testify to His ownership of me!] (Galatians 6.17 Amplified), though heartbreak has caused lines on my face and etched creases caused by grimace near the corners of my eyes for the things that have sent a deep reverberating ache throughout, though I carry the weight of things left unresolved for far too long and walk with the limp that wrestling with the Angel of the Lord and my very faith causes, and even though I have abused myself in overwork, performance orientation and unyielded anxieties and caused actual deterioration of my health and well-being as the Lord Himself relentlessly pursues and loves me and calls me His own, He still sees the me He created me to be, the one He knitted in the secret place. He sees past the war-wounds and the scar-tissue I could have avoided, and sees? me.
El Roi – You are the God who sees…
*“Then [Jacob] gave them these instructions: ‘I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my fathers in the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite, the cave in the field of Machpelah, near Mamre in Canaan, which Abraham bought as a burial place from Ephron the Hittite, along with the field. There Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried, there Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried, and there I buried Leah.’ … When Jacob had finished giving instructions to his sons, he drew his feet up into the bed, breathed his last and was gathered to his people. Gen. 49.28-33 NIV*
Somehow, in the end, Leah won her heart’s desire and was redeemed from the curse. Jacob asks to be buried there, where he buried his wife, Leah.
www.lilacphotography.com Ellie is amazing. She sees things, too. She sees them very beautifully. Thank-you, Ellie.
Remembering
“How we remember is as important as what we remember.” -Brent Curtis and John Eldredge in The Sacred Romance
“We view the present through the pasts glasses,” -P. Arnold
Viewing the past through the chosen treasure of my heart rather than making a list, checking it twice just so I can remember who was naughty or nice…
I don’t have room in my head for everything. For most of my life I had a “continuing -calendar” in my head. You could name a date in my history and I could scroll backwards and tell you, because I could actually “see it” in my mind, what day on which that date occurred, as well as related events and things that stood out from the time surrounding it. I remembered every telephone number I’d ever had, addresses including zip codes (and if you know my moving history, you know this was quite a feat) and remembered birthdays and anniversaries for every relative we had, even “in-laws.”
Then I crashed. I had a system blow-out. The hard-drive in my brain fried. My RAM was so full it exploded. 2006. I became an unwilling recipient of a brain-erase, kinda like “The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” but also sort of an emotional lobotomy. It wasn’t pretty. I didn’t want it.
I couldn’t keep it all, so I had to choose.
I started a trek to retrieve my lost memories: the good ones, the treasures, the fine times, the blessings. Because keeping a record of absolutely-everything had caused me to melt-down, lose my way, hurt people and feel sick – literally sick. I have to remember to remember blessing sometimes. I have to be reminded to recall the good things, the rich, the treasure.
The ways I want choose to remember:
1.
I HAVE TO REMEMBER With my eyes fixed on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of my faith. He endured and I can endure, too {all things}, for the joy set before me. For all the ways I have failed and sabotaged His call on my life, He has a plan to bring me out and set me right. He is my Story-Writer, my Author. He knows the whole plot-line of my life and it isn’t finished until He says so. He will finish my story – I can’t wait to turn the page!
2.
I CHOOSE TO REMEMBER For the joy set before me. There is life ahead (as there has been so much to be thankful for already!), there is laughter to be shared. If I look back in sorrow I will miss the present. The present is a gift. So, I look back long enough to catch glimpses of the people who still matter and see that we have so much more ahead for us. I joy in the God of my salvation and thank Him for all He has done and I go forward in that strength.
3.
I HAVE TO REMEMBER LIKE A GROWN-UP… because when I was a child, I thought and acted like a child…but now that I have put away childish things, I can see and understand the past more clearly, with the wisdom of years, with understanding and a heck of a lot more grace. I can see that my reactions to some things of the past had some immaturity and needed to be readjusted in my heart. I can, as a grown-up, let some people off the hook, now. It frees both them and me.
4.
I WILL REMEMBER Redemptively – as part of the good work God started in us, which He is being faithful to complete. There is a whole love story being played out. I love seeing how God is able to use the sometimes-shattered fragments of my broken life to create a whole, cool thing. Redemption is awesome.
5.
I WANT TO REMEMBER Aware of the accuser’s distortions of truth, careful to hear the Voice ( “My sheep know my voice”). Some memories are torment. I am asking the Lord to give me clear vision to see when the Accuser has used the past to cripple my present. And to show me what He was seeing when all seemed lost…
6.
I AM COMMITTED TO REMEMBER so that the LORD might be glorified {the prayer God always answers}! He is all, everything and I want my life and my memories to bring Him glory. May He be glorified in my story…