The Little Things

What are the things that make a difference in my life? What are the things that make me smile, from somewhere deep in my soul, and all the way out my eyes? What are the things that give me pause for a moment, to think about what I value in life? The little things.

The little notes or homemade cards that one of my children give to me, randomly, that says “I love you Mom.”

Every time one of my children just comes up to me and gives me a hug out of the blue.

Every time one of them come up to me, get in my face (literally) and all they do is smile at me and give that happy, little hum with their silly grin on the face.

Each success or progress that I or anyone I care about makes.

Every time I get a card or letter in the mail just to chat or say hi.

Every time someone I know drives by my house and honks and waves.

Every sweet memory I have of happy things.

When I find a dollar in a random place.

When I see my children seek me out from the stage at school, during a play or school event, and they make eye contact with me and can’t stop smiling afterwards.

 When the flowers start to bloom.

Picking produce from the garden.

Playing games with the kids.

Playing in the water in summertime.

Dancing in the rain.

Snowball fights.

Building a snowman.

Taking pictures of the sunsets.

Walking along the river, and tossing some rocks into the water to see if they skip (mine only bounce like…twice).

Taking pictures of my lovely children.

Having friends.

Watching the shooting stars.

We all have a lot of little things in our lives that make a great impact on us. What are some of the things that appear small, but make you smile and walk tall?

Instead I Give Thanks

Today, as I sit in my house, while family and friends go out and gather with others for this Thanksgiving Day, I could be bitter. I could be angry and hurt. I could be depressed. And, I actually though about doing so at more than one point today. But, I have thought about other things as well…

Even though my sweet godmother has been gone from this life for 27 days today, I got to enjoy over 25 years of her presence in my life. So, instead of being angry at God or the world…I give thanks for so many memories. Laughter, tears (happy and sad), games, prayers, singing, group trips, ideas and dreams, and the first time she curled my hair. With each memory springs five new ones behind it. I couldn’t be happier in my thoughts.

Even though I had my power shut off at the beginning of this week, and everything in my house is operated with electricity, I got to enjoy some flashlight games in and out of the house with my sons. The moon was full, and the light outside was bright. I was able to stay at my parents’ house for two nights, and thanks to wonderful people in my life, was able to get my power back on before Thanksgiving Day. Instead of being outraged and bitter, I give thanks for those who were there to help and support me during this rough week. All of you!

Even though I am sitting in my bedroom, while my family all goes to my paternal grandmother’s place for Thanksgiving Dinner, and while Sean is at work and my children are all playing games in the other room, I could be bitter and hurt at the outcome of my day. NO! I will be spending the day entertaining my children, cleaning my house, that now has power, and then going to help my dear godfather, and spend this first Thanksgiving without my godmother with him. In part, it will be therapeutic for all of us. He has no functioning vehicle right now, and we are going to gather some people to help him get his car up and running again. I honestly could NOT think of a better way to spend my day. So, instead of having negative thoughts, and sulking in some self-pity, I will give thanks that I get to use this day to help someone in need.

Honestly, I did not care to participate in the Facebook popular “30 Days of Thanks” deal, because November 1 did not introduce to me a month of happiness or joy. But as the month has gone on, and I have endured trial after exhausting trial, I have been brought back to that place within myself where I find good in most things bad. I look for the good. It has become a practice for me personally since a couple of years before my divorce. When looking for the good, we tend to lose focus on the bad. Yes, the bad is still there. Sometimes it hovers overhead like an anvil just waiting to drop. But peace and contentment within one’s self does not come from standing under that anvil. I just move out from underneath it.

So today, on this Thanksgiving of 2015, the Thanksgiving that has not given me much of my own to be thankful for, I am thankful. Because without trials there is no victory. Without some struggle there is no strength. Without loss there is no gain. Without emotion there is no feeling. And once all things are considered, the list of things to truly be thankful for reaches far beyond the number 30. I don’t have to be thankful that my godmother is gone, and I am not. But I am thankful for a LONG list of things she brought me in the years I did have with her. I don’t have to be thankful that I am not attending a family dinner that I had intended to attend all year, and honestly I am not. But I am thankful that I get to reach out and tend to the hurting heart of another today, which I would not have done had I gone away. I don’t have to be thankful for events in my life, but I am thankful for things I have gained and learned through hard times. I am thankful for people, friends and family, my children, my car (that is also breaking down on me), my job, a house for my family (two and four legged), and my shade tree! I could be so many things on this day, but instead of those, I am truly thankful.

Back to School Blues

The staying up late and sleeping in days of summer are over. Everywhere, families with children are battling the bittersweet beginning of......school days! Combined with the disappointment over new bedtime hours, strict schedules, and (shudders) homework, there is also a sense of excitement in the air. New grades, new teachers, and new adventures await this year! Everything from academics to sports, and all things in between, the school year is something that no parent or child can elude. Some parents worry about their children's school year this year, and some are zipping right along like this is second nature to breathing. I am fairly certain the teachers spent their final days before school began wondering what this year holds for them. New students, new personalities entering their classrooms, and new challenges and adventures to experience over the next 9 months of their lives. Parents likely wondered about their children's upcoming year as well. How will my child's teacher be with the kids? Will my child be successful, or will we struggle? And if you think you are battling with conflicting thoughts about the upcoming school year, just imagine what is going through the minds of the children!

And the children's thoughts? Do we, as parents, think that we know what is on their minds? If you do not know, I encourage you to communicate with your children and find out. I can assure you, it will be enlightening, and, quite possibly, entertaining. I have a child who loves to exaggerate, and I'm sure I have a future entertainer on my hands with him. He is seven years old, and the following scenario is how he interprets the beginning of the school year to me.

Standing in the kitchen, I am chopping vegetables for our supper. Today is Friday, and the end of the first week of school for the boys. It's been a long week for everyone in my home, and this Friday night I planned to sit back and relax with the family...as soon as I finished cooking for them.

Levi, my seven year old son, walks into the kitchen, head down, shoulders slumped, and obviously frustrated by the look in his face.

“Mom! Why do we have to start school again?! I don't like school!” He said, scowling and crossing his arms over his chest firmly. I sighed, put the knife and bell peppers to the side, and turned to my child, who had the puckered look of someone who had just sucked on a lemon. I could not wait to get to the bottom of this one, though. Levi is known around my family for his unique spin on reality.

“Why do you not like school, Levi?”

“Because, we have to get up before the sun wakes up, and we have to go to bed before the sun does. We are there ALL DAY”, he said as he spread his hands to emphasize time length. “My butt hurts from sitting all day long on my chair in class. I can already read. Isn't that enough? It takes HOURS to get to school and back home every day, and my math problems and answers keep changing themselves after I write them down! It's not fair, Mom. I always get “F's” for my math grade because my math problems change after I answer them! I just can't do this anymore!” After his elaborate finish with the math problems, Levi crossed his arms again with another scowl and a “humph” and turned around and stomped 'softly' right out of the kitchen, leaving me staring after him.

Oh yes, I smiled. I started to chuckle a little too, after I knew he was out of earshot. We handled the issue, to a degree, later on. But the moment was very enlightening to me. It was in that moment that I experienced a deeper understanding of effective communication and “listening” to my child when he is communicating with me, verbally and non-verbally. My son was so angry with his words, but he had a mischievous gleam in his sparkling, blue eyes the whole conversation. It was adorable. However, there is a bit of truth to my son’s exaggerated tale. He does struggle with some aspects of school, and we are hard pressed to find solutions so that he can enjoy his learning experiences, and become successful now and in the future.

This brings to mind a question. What do our children need to succeed? They need us. And how can we help them? With the proper tools. Those tools are: Our eyes; to notice when things change and when our children need help. Our ears; to hear their joys and their struggles. Our voice; to support and encourage them in all they desire and do. Our understanding; to know what they are saying without their words.

If nothing else, remember to lead by example. Our children are extensions of ourselves. We can teach respect by giving it. We can do more than hear, we can listen. We can do more than speak, we can communicate. We can do more than acknowledge, we can understand.

The keys to success lie within ourselves, and we can help the younger generation find their inner keys, and watch as they unlock their potential with education we and their teachers provide them. So here’s to another great year for all families, and to the success of the children as they advance in another chapter of their lives! Cheers!

The Day I Died...The Day I live

My godmother, Debbie Jenkins, is a woman of few words in many cases. So, when she speaks, I listen, because there is something that must be heard. I have seen this woman live when people said she would not. I have seen her and her husband overcome numerous battles in the many years that I have known them. Miracles are nothing new to them, as the two of them are walking embodiments of miracles themselves. Now, she is also a woman who needs no introduction, but I just want to say that this blog post is copied by me, from her own words. A testimony that she has, and that will forever be in my mind, in my memory. I will never forget the day I got the phone call, where I was, what I was doing. When I answered my phone, sitting at the drive through window of Dairy Queen in Metropolis, my world turned upside down and back again multiple times with the words that were spoken from the other end of the line… “Becca…Debbie died today…”

And now, the story written by Debbie herself.

I would like to share with you how God blessed me on July 30, 2010, during my battle with Ovarian Cancer. This was the day I was to go in for chemo-therapy. We knew that typically I would be okay for a few hours following the treatment, but that I would be quite sick for the next few weeks. This was normal for the type of treatments that I was receiving. We arrived a few minutes early and the nurse connected the lines to my port. As I was about to finish the first drug administration I told the nurse I needed to use the restroom. She asked if I could wait until she started the next drug. I said I could, and she began the next drug treatment. After she got it going I went right into the restroom.

All at once I felt a fiery sensation going down both legs, and this was extremely painful. Just as quickly, I felt that same fire going to my head. I knew then that I was in trouble, so I opened the door and yelled for the nurse. When she got to the door and saw the state I was in, she yelled, “Oh, my God! Deb!” She then yelled for her helper…and this is the last thing I remember of that event. In the next instant I saw the most BEAUTIFUL bright light!!

Words cannot describe the beauty of this light! I felt the most wonderful peace, like the peace that surpasses all understand, spoken of in the Bible! I was in the presence of God! I know that the light was the Glory of God, and the peace that I felt was from Him also. I could feel myself drawing closer to that light, that comforting, warm light. Breaking into that moment, suddenly, I heard a voice calling my name, “Deb! Deb!” In my heart I knew this was Clayton, my husband, and he was hurting, deeply. Then, I heard another voice saying to me, It is okay. You can go back now. I still have work for you and your husband to do.”

At that moment I heard voices. “I have no response! I still have no response!” I felt pressure on my chest, like an elephant siting on me. I took my hand, and moved the object that was causing the pressure off of my chest. A voice then said, “I have a response! I have a response!” The medical team began working on me, hooking up the life support machines, attaching the tubes and devices that would breathe for me for a time. All I could think about while they were working to keep me alive was my husband. I needed to see him! I needed to know he was okay, and I wanted to ask him if he was sitting beside me, calling out my name. This was not to happen…yet.

The next thing I recall is being in a room, hooked up to these machines, with something in my mouth, preventing my ability to speak to anyone. My husband was standing there, looking so sad and lost. It was that look in his eyes that I will never forget, because it was that look that I could hear when I heard my name called out. I was on life support for three days. When they took me off life support, my husband was right there, as he never left my side. My first words to him were the words I had been needing so badly to ask. “Honey, were you standing right by me, calling out my name?” He looked at me. “No.” He said. “They had put me and everyone else out into the hallway. They called a code blue, and it took several minutes for everyone to get in there to get things moved around to work on you. The medical team came out and told me you were dead. They asked me what I wanted them to do. I told them to do all that they could. So the nurse went back in, and in my heart I began to call your name, ‘Deb. Deb!’ and then I prayed for you.” I looked at my husband, into his eyes, and I said, “I heard you. The Lord allowed me to hear you crying out my name, and I could feel your pain. The Lord then told me that I could come back because He still had work for you and I to do.”

While I was still in the hospital, the man who performed CPR on me came to visit me. He said that he could not believe he was standing and talking, and laughing with me. He said that he has been in this profession for 25 years, and that the other patients who were gone as long as I was could not talk or function because they had irreparable brain damage, or were deceased.

Later, my chemo-therapy nurse visited me and shared her side of the event of that day. She came into the bathroom when I called to her, and immediately saw that I was in bad shape. She sat me down and called for help. Then she said that I had stopped breathing, so she began working on me to get me breathing again. Soon they called the code blue, because I was gone. She informed me that I had died twice while they were with me in that restroom. The second time I died, they noted the time and went out of the room to find Clayton and let him know that I was gone. After talking with my husband, the nurse came back into the room. She said that when she got back in there, suddenly my hand came up and took the hand of the man performing CPR on me, and as I emphatically declared, “Now that will be enough of that!” I threw his hand off of me. At that moment, the moment the silence was broken, everyone began to laugh. They told me that I had been dead, declared dead, for 15 minutes.

I was dead. They had to inform my husband. When informed, my husband began to pray to God for me. When the nurse told me I had died, and that they had to tell him, and he prayed, this is what I felt, and what I know…The Scriptures say “The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (James 5:16). This came to me as she was telling me her account of that day. I thank God every day for my husband, and for each new day that I am here to live, and share my testimony!!! I will tell my story to ALL who will listen. While you are able, you must make the decision about where you want to spend eternity, because you never know when you will draw your last breath. When you take that last breath, you will not be able to change your mind! You will either spend your time in the light with God, or in the darkness. I pray that you will choose an eternity with God. I am telling you, I know there is a God who cares for you. Just reach out to Him. I hope to see YOU in Heaven!

Debbie Jenkins

It's Going to be Okay

Psst. Hey you. Yeah, I’m talking to you. To the person who is sitting quietly, right now, contemplating life and how in the world you got to the point you are at this very moment. The road has been a long one. Everything and everyone is grating on whatever nerves you feel you may have left. Money, job, school, kids, and daily life stresses you out before you even sit up in your bed first thing in the morning. Your house is a mess, your car is a mess, and you honestly couldn’t tell someone when you remember actually eating your last full meal. You are tired. Sleep is the only thing that sounds half-way decent to you right now. I know. I get ya. But I want to be the one to tell you the one thing you find hard to believe right now: it’s going to be okay.

I know! I know, it sounds cliché, and you just rolled your eyes at me. I have no idea what you are going through right now. While that may be true, I do understand the emotions that you are experiencing. Why? How? Well, because I am feeling them too. And with that, let me share a little something with you…

People struggle. This is not news. We all have problems that we share with others, and we all have problems that we keep to ourselves, suffering in silence and solitude with whatever reasons we may have for not disclosing our battles. Big or small, battles bring a person to their knees. Many people question their ability to continue on, and some just don’t bother trying…and end their own lives. Everyone handles stress, pain, grief, and of these other strong emotions differently. But to those who feel alone, rest assured we have ALL been there at least once in our lives. SOMETHING has affected every adult on this planet (and many children), putting them in a warzone of their own, testing their strengths and exposing their weaknesses. Nobody truly knows what other people are going through, and oftentimes people who live together in the same home have no clue what the other may be struggling with internally.

Whatever it is that you are going through right now, be it health; money; family; job; school; or even just some hormonal imbalance putting you into a depressed state, the struggle truly is real. And, as real as it is the struggle is hard. I know, because I, too, am struggling.

So, here we are, you and I, suffering alone…silently…whether it is because we choose not to share our pain or because we tried and nobody cared to truly hear us. The tears that are shed daily, the strange sensation inside that scares us because it is not pain anymore, but the terrible reality that we don’t feel the pain like before. Numbness is setting in. The ability to feel, along with the desire to care, is vanishing and we are powerless to stop it.

Now, for those of you who may not know what this feels like, I can assure you that you know someone who does. All around us are people who suffer from depression in one form or another. It is a scary place to be. There is no certainty in life when depression is present. There are only questions, and many of them are not good ones. Many times the depressed want someone to understand, but they will not be the ones to make a move to be around people. No, their conscious mind doesn’t want to be around other humans, and they will avoid as much as possible. Most of them have to function in a normal, daily routine, however, and will be around other people. My challenge to you is to Be There for them. Start a conversation, simple as it may be. Listen to them when they talk. Don’t respond with “I don’t know what to say”, “I wish I could help”, or anything like that. Even if you don’t have a solution, help them find one in your conversations. This is when we tell each other that it’s going to be okay…and mean it.

You will be okay. Even if everything is not okay right now. There may not seem to be an end to the dark days you are in, and every moment weighs heavy on the heart and mind, but relief will come! Even though even an hour seems like an eternity, and days and weeks are even longer, you can hold on and make it through. And when you do, I will be at the end of that road waiting to embrace you and tell you that you did it… just like me.

The River

Today I looked at my reflection in the calm and smooth surface of the river. I am at peace. There is the slightest breeze, causing fine ripples in the water, giving a whimsical addition to the subtle smile on the reflection looking back at me. I love this place. The river settles my soul, with its flowing waters, constant and lasting. Today my reflection is smooth, and I see signs of life beneath the clear surface of liquid glass.

Days pass by and the calm serenity that flows with the steady current of the river has been disrupted by rain. It is gloomy today, as the gray clouds hover low, nearly touching the water’s surface. The river is choppy, with little white capped waves tossing debris from upstream back and forth in its current. My heart feels like the waves today…rough and scattered. The moments of gray and heavy thoughts descending on me like the clouds and rain, weighing down the smile and pressing on the heart.

Leaves are falling from the trees along the riverbank. All colors of little pieces of nature’s confetti sprinkled across the flowing waters, being carried off on the current in motion much like a slow dance, give me pause as I watch in silent pondering the unique display. There is a chill in the air, but it is a good change. There is something settling about autumn, with the canvas painting appeal that the river banks display for miles and miles to see.

The bitter cold will not deter me from going to my place at the river today. The vision of frozen water, glittering snow shining in the soft sunlight, and my sheer amazement at the constant flow of this amazing body of water draw me here once again. Life’s winter has my heart frozen in place. Unmoving and unfeeling, I have come to the river for a sign…that one, small spark of life that I know is under the surface of ice in my soul. I see no reflection today. The water is muddy, flowing fast and strong as the snow falls into the murky depths, being carried off to the unknown. Much like myself, deep inside.

The warmth has melted the ice, and the river is calm again. There is sunlight reflecting off the water, making it shine and glisten, putting on a show of dancing light and reflection all around. Today I am afraid to come to the water’s edge, because the ice that has covered my heart and soul will thaw. Have you ever been frozen, and then warmth brought back? It hurts! Have I become accustomed to my frozen state? Will this be where I stay forever?

But then I remembered why I come to the river. I remembered the little sparks of life beneath the glassy surface. I remembered the colorful display flowing down and out of sight. I remembered the beauty even when frozen in places. But, most of all, I remembered the one thing I never paid much attention to before this moment: The river, although forever changing, never changes. The water’s surface is always moving, changing with the weather and things that come into contact with it. But underneath the river never stops.

Yes, the seasons make things around the river look different, feel different, seem different, but the river itself has yet to move from its purpose. It is a force of nature, constant and true, in all things. Even if the waters dried up there would be a mark on this earth that will remind us of the river. The course it led, the life it gave, and knowing that until the last drop was gone the river never wavered, and remained true. Yeah, the winds may blow, rain and snow fall, and the darkness and cold may creep its way onto the banks of this river. People even come to the river banks and throw rocks into the waters, causing splashes and ripples, momentarily disturbing the waters. But every time I come back to the banks of my river I see what the river has been trying to tell me this whole time: keep going. Don’t stop. Never change your course, no matter what may come your way. Make your mark in this world, and let it sink deep. Be free.

This ice in my heart is melting. Yes, it hurts…but it’s a healing pain. I cringe with each pulse that pushes warmth into the cold places, but now I can breathe…I can feel! No matter the season in life, no matter the struggle and trial, I will flow constant and true, true in all things never wavering. I have set my course and, like the river, I will run it. This current may vary, sometimes fast and furious, sometimes slow and serene, but one thing I know to be true; here with the river, I am free.