Rest

Find Rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from Him.  He alone is my rock and my salvation; He is my fortress, I will not be shaken.  Psalm 62:5-6

Rest- forbear, hold peace, quiet self, rest, be silent, keep (put to) silence, be (stand) still, tarry, wait.

It's Friday and I think the admonition (or encouragement) to find rest in God alone is a good one.  It never ceases to amaze me how peace can fill my soul when by rights, I should feel all the churning turbulent emotions of a world not quite right.  However, when I place my focus on the right place, there is a quietness within my heart.  The world still swirls around me, but I am firmly anchored to Him.

May you find your peace in Him today.

Change

There are an enormous number of quotes about change.  I suppose that makes sense, since change is a part of everyday life.  Quotes such as:

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.  ~Anatole France *

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.  ~Victor Frankl *

The man who looks for security, even in the mind, is like a man who would chop off his limbs in order to have artificial ones which will give him no pain or trouble.  ~Henry Miller*

I suspect that the intent is to reassure us or to pop us upside the head or perhaps just to annoy us.  I did find this one particularly appropriate and somewhat amusing though:

There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse!  As I have often found in travelling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position, and be bruised in a new place.  ~Washington Irving *

The point to all of this is that I've been away.  Away from my lovely little blog.  And since I've stayed away so long, one would expect that things have changed in my little world. But that's another funny thing about change:  When you are living day by day, things pretty much look the same.  Oh, you may have one or two major moments come along, but as the days pass, you absorb them little by little until they become a part of you.  However, to the outsider (or someone you haven't seen in a long while),  there might be some HUGE differences in your life, ones that if you don't mention, it might seem as though you were hiding them.  (Where did that elephant in your backyard come from?  What elephant?  Oh, you mean Todd?  He's been around forever.  We hardly think of him as an elephant any more.)  

So...if I mention something in passing and you think, "Hmmm.  I wonder when she got an elephant and why didn't she mention it?  After all, an elephant is a pretty big thing", well, you'll know why.  

To quote Prayer, the son of my daughter's heart, "Time Goes By."  And so it does.  (Prayer is ten, a true man of the world.)


All quotes (except for Prayer's) comes from the Quote Garden, which was the first thing that popped up on Bing when I "binged" for quotes on change.  

Hope in the Strangest Places

Three weeks ago, Amy died.  She was 42.  I don't know Amy and have never met her.  I do know one very important thing about her though.  Amy died from complications of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a progressive, degenerative condition.  The same condition my boy, Jonathan, has.  When I saw the notice of Amy's passing, my heart sank.  While no one knows for sure what the ultimate result of Jonathan's journey with EDS will be, we do know one thing.  As a genetic disease, there is no cure.  No surgery, no treatment, no pill that will make him well.  To dwell on this is devastating.  My heart ached for Amy's family.  However, as I continued to read, my heart began to fill with something...something like hope.  This is how Amy's family described her:

She attended Smith College and it was during her freshman year that she was first confined to a wheelchair. It was the impetus for her lifelong interest and passion to improve accessibility for those with special needs. To further this interest, she left Smith after her freshman year to volunteer her time with the Disability Rights Advocates, in Berkeley CA, an agency in the forefront during the early days of the ADA. She returned to Smith, where she served on the Northampton MA Zoning Board and addressed architectural standards for accessibility in public spaces. She graduated Smith in 1995 with a dual major in music and anthropology. 
As part of her senior thesis program Amy spent a year at Union College in southeast Kentucky. Her focus was Appalachian Studies, Culture and Music. She enriched that experience by joining weekly Bluegrass music gatherings with regional musicians, singing and playing the guitar. When she returned to Louisville in 1995 she and and her husband brought together bluegrass musicians from all corners of the state for jam sessions at their home in the Highlands. 

In 1996 she and her husband started a consulting firm that prospered until her condition worsened and the business demands were too great for her failing health. During that time she volunteered at the School for the Blind and recorded technical books that would aid those with sight impairment. These books required advanced skill in Information Technology and the ability to transform mathematical formulas, charts and graphs so that they could be understood by the visually impaired. Amy was a former member of the Louisville Downtown Rotary where she donated many hours of her IT skills. She served on the Board of Directors of The de Paul School. A primary contribution as a board member was to completely revise and rewrite the technology infrastructure for the school and empower teachers and students by bringing technology to the classroom. 

She was a Official Judge at the Kentucky State Fair for Knitting and textiles. Amy wrote grants, created business plans, and offered her IT acumen to create networks for non-profit organizations locally and across Kentucky. 

Her health may have limited her ability to navigate the world as others might, but she had the unique ability to bring the world to her bedside. Her interests were great: Photography, drawing, metal work, cuisines of the world, knitting, textiles, spirituality and natural medicinal arts, and always music. Although she was confined to her bed for most of the last seven years Amy remained focused on her life interests, which always were growing in scope and number.

She was the best kind of friend. Even while her physical abilities were shrinking, she continued to expand the world of others by teaching and sharing her talents and she made it seem effortless. The regimen of her health care played havoc with her physical body but she remained beautiful in her spirit to the end; charismatic, courageous, funny, generous and loving. Through all of these challenging years, it was maintaining her independence that was important to her core happiness. 

As a mother who loves her child, I have spent countless hours worrying about his future.  "Can't" and "If" seem to circle in my brain almost constantly.  I want the best life possible for him but honestly, sometimes it's hard to dream of anything other than pain, medications, doctors, tests, and FEAR.  So while I was initially shocked by this obituary, by the time I finished reading it, I found that I had a sense of hope.  There's nothing we cannot do with God's help and a determined spirit.