Finally Back...November Reflection

The last number of days I have been taken back a year and I am reminded of a couple of events from November of 2011.  One is a silent prayer retreat for women that I went to at the end of that month that was such a blessed and needed time.  I know for some of you just the idea of being silent with God seems like the last thing you would ever want to do or be comfortable with.  I admit I was sure nervous about it the very first time I went to one back in 2008, but once you allow yourself to just "be" and to listen to however God might speak, it is amazing that He actually does!! Sometimes it is through scripture, sometimes through nature, sometimes through music, or a book, through journaling or art or any number of ways that are unique to you.  God knows what speaks to you because He knows you, He created you and every one of us is different.



where I found something special on my walk at the retreat

 Anyways, I was reminded today of something I found on a walk during that retreat, that I believe is connected somehow to the other event that I thought about this week.  That event was one of my first assignments for a Leadership Development Course that I am in which meets monthly.  I started that course in October of 2011, another scary step for me!  The assignment was based on a book by Joyce Rupp called "Praying Your Goodbyes".  We were to reflect and write on an exercise of praying a goodbye.  She writes about new hellos being found in the goodbyes.  I won't share here what 'goodbye' God led me to, but as I reread what I had written, I realized that something God put on my heart in that time was being answered a year later...or at least I think it is being answered.  Following are excerpts from my assignment/reflection that month.  I was 'praying my goodbye' at a special place that is not far from our home near an orchard.

"…I stood in the quiet and you could hear the distant sounds of traffic and 'life' but here it felt lonely and removed from everything.  I looked at the orchards surrounding me and there too was a loneliness or sadness as the leaves were dying, the apples were mostly gone and snow was just beginning to fall very lightly and quietly.  The sky was dark with clouds and fog.  Definitely a feeling of goodbye and endings.  Then I noticed birds flitting around and chirping...Those birds seemed like a sign of life in the middle of dying.  A hello in the midst of goodbye.  They were cheerful and moving and gave me a sense of hope, of new things maybe.  I felt like it was time to move on and went to walk through a row of the orchard.  As I came by some dead weeds, out popped more birds that I did not know were there.  Kind of cool.  Are there new things or people that will come out of unexpected places?  As I walked down the row, my attention was drawn to one small red apple that was still on the branch amidst dead and dying leaves. More life amidst the dying. Another picture of a hello in the goodbye?  It was small, but it was red and inviting, so I picked it.  That apple also symbolized the hope of new hellos.  I don't know when or how long, but I have to believe that they will come."

Just in this last week alone I see the hope of new hellos and my heart is glad.  I had almost given up hope of seeing them.

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This post is also a new hello to a blog that I have not written in since before Henry's stroke.  So much has happened and changed in our lives since that day in February of 2012.  Too much to write about now.  Maybe one day...