2023.
A blur.
Many painful and challenging private moments. Many beautiful and precious moments too.
I am thankful that it is over. I am happy to move forward.
My family and the memorable moments we had together bring joy to my heart. They remind me that even in the difficulties of life, God gives joy.
Through my husband's battle with cancer, I learned to finally choose to trust in the Lord for my future.
Through my unexpected pregnancy, I learned that God doesn't have to ask my permission. He is in control.
Through homeschooling I learned that pride is also self-sufficiency. True humility is surrender and submission to God.
In parenting I learned to give my best each day and trust that God gave my kids the mother they needed most in me.
I just learned that my former boss of 13 years passed away.
Of all the possible feelings, I mostly just feel acceptance. Other feelings may pop up as my brain processes the information over the next several days, if past experience counts for anything.
She was a good and loving boss.
She drove me bonkers.
I appreciated her greatly, yet she stretched my tolerance and my patience on a daily basis.
She cared for others with the full love of Christ. She knew no strangers and never acknowledged any subtle boundaries of others at any time. You had to be direct or your boundary wasn't perceived. Her extroverted personality was oblivious to the passing of time or other responsibilities that needed her time and attention too.
I learned much from serving under her. I was grateful for her constant support and fighting for better wages and more respect for her employees. She did many things that made her very loved by her staff.
She was pushy and loud, yet never missed a chance to witness to anyone and everyone who crossed her path. Every interview she conducted included the gospel message and a heart-to-heart with the unsuspecting interviewee. She had the privilege of praying the prayer of salvation with many parents who brought their children to our childcare center.
Her final two years as my boss, her admin. assistant and I served as her hands and feet, her mental stability, and we ran all aspects of the business with her at the helm delegating everything possible to us, with the exception of the personal interactions she was so gifted in.
Several times in our time together, we thought God might be calling her home. Her health was always in question. More times than I can remember, I was with her at the hospital or racing to get her some orange juice because her blood sugar had dropped incredibly low again.
Never a dull moment.
I remember a bible study that she led, a verse about how wide, how deep, and how far God's love was. It was her heart's prayer to experience God's love and share it to that degree. Finally, she gets to experience it live, and in-person. I can see her joyfully praising her Lord and Savior with all of her being up in Heaven.
This chapter can be intimidating, but I think it is a beautiful portrayal of a woman who strives to be her best for the Lord. A portrayal of a regular woman, not a perfect woman on a pedestal that we have to try to emulate, but an honest, down-to-earth description of the ways she strives to do her best and be the woman God has created her to be.
As I read verses 10-31, I jotted down some paraphrases of the verses and here is the message I found the Lord sharing with me:
1. Her husband's heart trusts in her. She does him good and not harm. (this speaks to the relationship between this husband and wife)
2. She uses her skills and hard work to provide and support for the needs of her family that God has given her responsibility for. (the gifts and talents God has given her, for the specific needs she is responsible for)
3. She travels as necessary to feed her family. (she goes the distance, puts others first)
4. She rises early to meet their needs. (like feeding them a nutritious breakfast)
5. She uses her resources to further the benefit to her family and she follows through to see something to fruition.
6. She works on herself and doesn't give in to laziness, or give up on her efforts when the going gets tough. (her character, her relationship with the Lord, all areas of her life)
7. She's not afraid of hard work and works alongside others. (doing what it takes, humbly)
8. She is gracious and generous with what she has.
9. She is not afraid, she knows the Lord provides...He gives her strength and dignity.
10. Her words are wise and kind.
11. She is a woman who fears the Lord.
I am truly surprised at how satisfying and fulfilling it is to grow your own food. What started as a means to an end (feeding my family better), has accomplished so much more than ever imagined.
It is relaxing to spend time in the garden, inspecting the plants, caring for them and watching them grow and mature.
There is so much more involved in gardening than simply planting, watering, and harvesting. There is bug identification (friend or foe?), plant diseases to watch out for and treat, pruning (knowing where, when and what to snip), all the various methods of supporting vertical growth to pack more into our space...
I was a bug catcher as a kid, so using my bug app on my phone to identify all the critters in our garden is fun. We have California Glow Worms that look like tiny lightening bugs, parasitic wasps, lady bugs, leaf cutter bees, ants, leaf miners, cabbage moths, flea beetles and lots more that I can't remember the names of.
The kids love to help me water and end up soaked at least every other day. They like to learn about the different bugs and see the food growing in the garden. It was my baby this year, next year, now that I have a better idea of what is going on, I will involve them more in the process.
We have harvested a handful of strawberries, three cucumbers, radishes and one zucchini. We still have at least two more months of harvesting to come!
We had to put our "puppo" down yesterday. It was unexpected and heart-wrenching.
She liked to play with rocks. She tossed them into the air and would try to catch them again. Kind of like she was playing catch with herself. The x-rays showed a jagged rock stuck in her small intestine. It was completely blocking her system and too large to pass. The price for the 'exploratory' surgery would have taken up everything we had, with no certainty that it wouldn't happen again. We have a lot of rock in our yard.
Choosing to put her down was one of the hardest decisions of our lives. I didn't anticipate that being a possibility. Her spay surgery was so much cheaper, I never imagined the cost being so high. Grieving her loss has been hard. The unexpected loss adds to the hurt, watching our children grieve is absolutely heartbreaking...
Our older three were present. Everyone got to say their goodbyes. Our kindergartener sobbed and hugged her, he asked all kinds of questions. I explained everything as simply as I could for him. On the way home he was sad, but still curious about the world and asked me which was meaner, wasps or mosquitos? That's when I knew he would be okay.
Our freshman bawled and bawled, but seems a little better today. Our oldest is taking it the hardest. She always does. Walking through grief with them is hard.
