Grace

Lately, I've been a little like Dorothy looking out of my house as I spin around in a tornado.  Work (paperwork is not my friend), home (still good and bad days), my dad (he needs surgery) have all been pulling me in so many directions, that it was hard focusing on any one of them to feel as though I was doing a really good job with either of them.  Then, this weekend I got sick (I rarely get sick) and am still recovering but feel a lot better that I did on Sunday.  So, of course I'm two days behind where I want to be but, I'm not stressing about it. It is what it is.

In the back of my mind has remained my 'pilgrimage'.  I really wanted to exorcise those old ghosts.  During those moments when I had time to just be quiet and think, I tried to plot out a route to take.  On that route I would stop and maybe lay a flower, or take a picture and then burn it and spread the ashes, or just sit and say a little prayer.  I was trying to figure out how best to put those bad memories to rest. 

Then, one morning I was taking a shower (always my best place to think) and the thought came to me to change my thinking.  It came to me that I don't have to physically go through all of that if I don't want to.  The change has to come in the way I'm viewing those places.  So the question popped into my head, "Do I see those places as a time where she was drunk or do I see those places as a time that the Grace of God covered the situation making it one that could have been horrible, but instead, each time some little miracle happened that allowed the situation to pass without anyone getting hurt, or arrested or dying?"  My thought was not to see those places as reminders of all of the negative, but as places where God stepped in and, 'saved the day.'    Once I considered that thought, it was like a weight had been lifted from my whole being.  I think I may have even taken a deep breath, like the breath you take when you open the window in the spring on the first nice day and smell all of those sweet, fresh fragrances.  The fresh fragrance of clearer thinking.

Here is one of those miracles that really is not so little.  She was to run an errand for the place that she worked for on campus.  During the middle of a test I was giving, she called the phone in my room.  I could tell by her speech that something wasn't right.  Just at that moment, my principal walked into the room.  I'm not sure if I had a look on my face or what, but she asked me if there was a problem and I said, yes.  She asked if it was family.  I said yes (she knows nothing about my family). She then asked me if I needed to leave. I said only for a few minutes.  She told me to go, that she would administer the test for me (that never happens). So out the door I ran. I called my daughter on the way and found her sitting in the snow on the curb right as you enter campus.  To all others, it looked as though she had fallen.  I pulled over, helped her up, and took her home.  All in 45 minutes which is another amazing feat.  No one was hurt, no one knew, and I got back to work and all was 'fine.' 

That was just one of the insanities that occurred during those early years when I was trying to understand what this was all about. 

So, there in the shower, I had my pilgrimage. I decided to shift the focus of my thinking to the blessing not the curse, so to speak, and that heaviness in my heart, lifted.  Though I haven't had the time to drive past those places, yet, I know it will be different.  It is different already, here, at home, with the memories that have accumulated, here.  A lot of negative went on (still goes on) here, though I don't dread being here, anymore.  It's different, now. My view is different.  I was putting up Christmas decorations and the phrase, 'There by the Grace of God go I,' came into my mind. I have said it on occasion, with no real commitment to what it means.  I completely understand what it means, now.  They aren't just words to me anymore.  They are a declaration.

Merry Christmas and bountiful blessings in the New Year.