COME SO ALIVE

Finding breath and beauty amidst the storm

Tag: pay attention

Beauty in the not-normal

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On 09/22/2023

In Gratitude

In search of a photo of the stunning fog rising off the small lake I had just driven past, I walked down this path.

The path led to the lake but once there I realized that the rising sun was now behind me – I stood on the opposite side of the lake I had driven past and could no longer see the beautiful mist backlit by sunrise.

The path didn’t lead to the view I had hoped for but a different beauty greeted me.

When we are open to beauty, it is more likely to appear to us. When we share that gift by pointing it out to others, we find we have even more of it to celebrate.

Trebbe Johnson

Last week someone told me my life wasn’t normal. Which, while validating to hear, is not what I want to spend my brief days focused on. Hence stopping for fog, something most people on that road probably didn’t even notice.

Looking for beauty in the not-normal doesn’t negate the pain. Our hardships hurt and do damage. At the same time, pain doesn’t mean beauty no longer exists.

Looking for beauty in the not-normal changes my focus from being only on the pain to also being on gratitude. And gratitude reaches out and keeps my head above the waves.

My husband likes the term “spiritual jiu jitsu” to describe times when I figuratively end up on my back on the mat after encountering a major insight from God. For me, gratitude is like that. It provides a way for me to perform a throw down on the pain trying to beat me.

Well, maybe more like “Karate Kid” and “wax on, wax off.”

Focusing on gratitude, I find a way to deflect even more damage that the pain from my not-normal wants to deliver. Pain wants me on my back and down for the count.

Gratitude deflects and even heals the wounds that pain inflicts.

Perhaps the more pain I experience, the more crucial it is that I look for beauty.

Gratitude as a discipline involves a conscious choice. I can choose to be grateful even when my emotions and feelings are still steeped in hurt and resentment.

Henri Nouwen

Summer reading

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On 06/09/2023

In Gratitude

“…having a positive attitude isn’t always painless – it’s a process, much like keeping a journal.”

It’s Gonna Be Okay journal

While shopping yesterday for items for Cody’s camp next week, I remembered I had wanted to buy a gratitude journal for a friend. I sent her a text asking if she or her whole family would use one. I hadn’t heard back from her by the time I finished my shopping list so headed to the journal aisle.

The reason I wanted to buy a gratitude journal for her is that her family is facing a summer of some very intense health issues. A gratitude journal wouldn’t magically make things better but it could give them a way to watch for good things this summer during the hard.

I was looking for one with a nice cover, something they could keep as a remembrance of getting through this stressful time. Instead, the first one I saw said, “IT’S GONNA BE OKAY” which caught my attention because I have a few friends who say that or something similar frequently. Then I read the rest of the cover and actually laughed out loud:

“A journal to reassure myself when I’m overwhelmed by the creeping sense of impending disaster and the all-encompassing fears both specified and vague that colonize my mind, body, and soul…”

Ha! I realized I was buying a journal for myself too.

Then I saw the journals “OKAY FINE, I’M GRATEFUL!” and “I’M SO FREAKING FREAKED OUT” – and grabbed one of each of those as well. I thought they were a nice complement to each other for my friend: some days we can be more grateful than others…some days we just freak out.

It turns out my friend already had a gratitude journal, but she readily accepted the freak out journal.

I paged through the other two last night and, while I have no shortage of unread books that I could read this summer, I appear to have two new ones to add to the summer reading list. There really isn’t much to read each day, just a quote about gratitude or optimism and a blank page for me to record “What I’m hanging hope on today” or “Why I’m grateful today, more or less.”

“While it’s true many of life’s ups and downs are out of our control, it’s also true that we can choose to enjoy the ride.” (introduction to It’s Gonna Be Okay journal)

There will be ups and downs this summer, not just for my friend but I’m sure in my own life as well. Because that’s life. We have good days and bad days. Or, as the Lawrence Welk quote for today’s summer reading states,

There are good days and there are bad days, and this is one of them.

Lawrence Welk

A Superior rest

By

On 03/17/2023

In Lifelines

We had an amazing, restful vacation last week for the first time in four years. Four years where we’ve amassed two open-heart surgeries, a job loss, a stroke, shoulder surgery…oh yes, and a pandemic. We needed to rest.

Interestingly, I didn’t sleep well on vacation (shoulder pain post-op still and pain medication-induced vertigo waking me up).

But I actually felt rested.

That’s because sleep and rest are not the same thing. Sleep meets a physical need, a life or death requirement of the brain and body. You can’t live without sleep. I would have liked more sleep but I’ll live.

Rest, on the other hand, refreshes our souls, something deep inside yet not physically inside. You can be alive without rest but you’ll be dead to really living. To seeing and receiving soul-restoring peace.

Rest is being awake at 6 a.m. (not my normal), seeing a clear sky, and deciding to go take sunrise photos. In 23-degree F temperatures. (Really not my normal!)

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An interlude with God

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On 05/20/2022

In His Vast Strength (stroke), Pay Attention

“a short period of time when… something else happens,”

“a musical composition inserted between the parts of…a drama“

Last week, I wrote about taking an interlude from grief.  On Friday, I decided that I wanted to get dressed up, including jewelry but my necklaces were all tarnished…since I haven’t exactly been getting dressed up much lately.  So, sighing, I put on my everyday necklace, the “come so alive” lyrics necklace…the one that started it all, this foolish idea to write a blog.

Cody and I then hopped in the car to drive to school. The CD player is always on in my car, so as soon as I started the engine, the music also started – started playing the song whose lyrics were written on the necklace I had just grumpily put around my neck!

I had excitedly wondered that morning what my joy bomb would be, after a week of paying attention to them.  Was it the male and female gold finch eating together at the feeder while we ate our breakfast?  Maybe it was hearing that song after very consciously putting on the necklace. If not that, when would it happen?  Would He make me wait all day? (Because I kind of have a deadline here, God, on posting my blog.)

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The things I would have missed

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On 11/21/2021

In Beauty in the Storm (epilepsy), Gratitude, Pay Attention

What did you think your life would be like as an adult when you were in high school?  Did you have specific plans?  Is your life filled with things you never could have predicted?

I remember an exercise in high school that instructed us to write out a timeline of goals for our lives, how we saw them unfolding.  Schooling, marriage, kids.  All the things we think will play out in our lives.  I can’t say I followed that timeline of expectations very well, both by choice and by circumstance.  All the best planning could not have predicted where I have ended up. Do you know the feeling?

I’ve been trying to learn to let go of planning and to just receive instead.  (Yes, I know some of you are laughing – I’ll wait until you’re done).

One great way to do that has been learning about contemplative photography, whose principle is to not “take” shots, but rather to receive an image.  Three times recently I have received an image but only in looking at the photo did I really see the whole picture.

I decided to avoid the highway and take the back roads to run errands one day. The greens and blues and peace of the little lake (which I’ve driven past for 20 years) made me stop and back up so I could photograph it. I posted it to Facebook with the caption, “I took the road less traveled.”

Somehow, I missed the fact that I included the side mirror in the image. I was kind of bummed about that because I really only wanted to see the lake. Then a neighbor commented, “I can see your past” and I really looked at the image captured in the mirror. That image was, in fact, my past – the road I had just taken, a road very much “less traveled.” A past that lead me to the beauty I was currently enjoying. That reflection in the mirror actually became my favorite part of the picture.

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A short post for someone in pain

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On 06/29/2021

In Pay Attention

Two years ago, before my husband’s open-heart surgery, I realized I had been waking up morning after morning with a song already playing in my head. It didn’t start at the beginning of a song but somewhere in the middle, and it wasn’t the same song every day. So, I paid attention. For weeks, I had lyrics, usually about fear, playing in my head.

This morning I woke up at 4:37 a.m. – for some unknown reason – and had lyrics running through my head from a song I haven’t listened to in several days. So, I paid attention again and realized I was supposed to write about it. Because you may need these lyrics to get through today. Yes, you.

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What is your next step?

By

On 04/20/2021

In Pay Attention

Have you ever felt frustrated that your life just can’t seem to follow a straight path? Maybe you have no idea where the path is even going.  You’re sure it’s going the opposite direction from where you expected it to go though. 

My cousin recently posted on Facebook about walking a labyrinth in his town and it just resonated with me. I had an upcoming trip planned to Duluth in northern Minnesota so I found a labyrinth to walk while I was there. Well, that was the plan at least.

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Lifeline Friday – How God showed up yesterday

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On 03/19/2021

In Lifelines, Pay Attention

Even though I usually publish the Lifeline Friday posts just to Facebook, this one is a little longer and I want to share it on the website too.

While I was running errands yesterday, I turned the radio on for the first time in weeks as I usually listen to CDs (yes, I’m old school). I turned it on just as a new song started…and from the very first note I realized it was Blessed Be Your Name by Tree63.

In case you missed it, that is the song that I referenced in this week’s blog post. I wrote about it in 2014 for what turned into the first part of this week’s blog post – about God’s presence – and here God was, showing up two days later in a song that was first released in 2003!

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