Thoughts Brought on by a Beautiful Day

Today is a day my friend would have loved-blue skies with fluffy white clouds, chirping birds. I will take Rufus for a walk later and, as I have done so many times before, look to the north-eastern sky over the desert town where my friend lived, and smile because the warm sun is shining down on the town and its residents. My friend's husband asked me a couple of weeks ago (on our way to the wonderful hike I spoke of earlier), how I was handling the grief, whether I found myself crying at times. The answer has been a long time coming, it's taken a while to put it into words, but the answer is yes. Yes, I do find myself crying. There are so many things I wish I could say to her, but I think I did say all of the important things while we were together.

In our first face-to-face adult conversation, my friend spoke of how important she felt it was to be honest, especially with her high school students; not to put on a happy face and pretend she was fine with having cancer. She wasn't. She was scared, and it hurt. I am emboldened to be honest by my friend's honesty. I don't like being sick. I live with it, and I can see some benefit to this trial, but I don't like it. I really didn't like it when Mr. M said that we should do things "while we still can." I was angry, and I reacted as if he'd called me a name. He did. He called me "mortal." The most realistic and factual name one can be called. Mortal. That's me. That's you. We are all mortal, and have a limited number of days, so I do my very best not to waste one of the days God's given me.

My Prayer Window

I have a large window facing east that lets the warm sunshine come streaming in every morning. I sit with my back against this window every day to read and to pray. This morning as I sat, I remembered how much my friend loved to sit in the sunshine. She is now in that blessed place where "the sun never sets." I do my best thinking here, and this morning I was thinking about God's will, and about the book I am reading, The Godly Man's Picture by Thomas Watson. He writes at length on patience, specifically in regard to God's will. I have said I don't like being sick. That's true. I would like to be healthy, and to be a mommy. However, that obviously is not God's will for my life. I am called to trust Him and His will; so I patiently bear this set of circumstances. I look for the benefit in His will, knowing His will to be "good and perfect." I see many benefits. Nevertheless, I still sometimes wish things were different-but they aren't-and so I will trust Him and bear His will patiently.

A Funny Bit

We are getting new sod. The old grass was ripped up and hauled off earlier this week. We were expecting to have new grass by now, but the rain delayed things. Today our regular gardener came to mow the grass, but found only a whole lot of dirt in the yard. The look on his face was something more than just being puzzled.