Little Bites & E-Mail by Bobbi Junior

Writing in the midst of certain seasons of life can be overwhelming.

Writing about life-changing events can be overwhelming. 

Writing when you have a busy family, a full time job, and ongoing demands on your time can be... .  

Well, you get the picture.

Several years ago our daughter was disabled in a car accident. Lately I’ve felt the need to document the story, but the story is huge. In prayer, I asked the Lord for direction, and a simple thought came to mind. Little bites. Little bites? I gave it a try. That morning I quickly described one scene midway through her hospitalization. It filled half a page. It brought tears to my eyes. I named it, dated it, and saved it in a folder called ‘Draya’s Story’. Since then, I’ve added several more vignettes. Documenting one will often trigger another as I let stream of consciousness take over. Bit by bit I’m creating the skeleton of my daughter’s story, bones that will be ready for a season when God gives me time to flesh it out.

I also have a file called, ‘Mom’. In addition to working full time, I am part of the Sandwich Generation of caregivers, with an independent daughter who is disabled, and an increasingly dependent mother who has dementia. As my mother's story unfolds, I don’t want to lose the pieces of this part of her journey: hospitalization, working with the health care system, entry to the nursing home, her reactions, my reactions.

How do I keep track of a story that’s evolving day by day?  Again, I prayed in frustration, and received another nudge from the Lord. As I whipped off an e-mail to my friend, describing Mom’s latest catastrophe, I realized I’d just told the story. In writing. A quick copy-and-paste and the e-mail was saved in my ‘Mom’ file. Today I have several pages of e-mails detailing events as they occur. Once again, when the season is right, I’ll have all I need to tell this part of my mother’s journey, and my learning as I walk alongside her.

Small bites in the form of vignettes, and saving e-mail updates are two simple ways to be assured you’ll have what you need to tell the full story, when the time is right. 

www.bobbijunior.com

InScribers Review: Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World

Review by Sharon Espeseth

Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World: Finding Intimacy with God in the Busyness of Life 

by Joanna Weaver

In the spring of 2003, I was headed to my sister Joan's place for a retreat. The busyness of life and the nemesis of clinical depression was catching up with me for a second time, even though I hadn't fully realized it. It seemed everybody else and everything in my life was tilted like a cap askew on my head. Being somewhat of a perfectionist, I wanted things to get back in order.

On the way to Joan's I stopped at a Christian bookstore to use a gift certificate getting dogeared in my purse. The book I wanted wasn't available, but a red sale sign for this Mary and Martha book almost poked me in the eye. The sign and title piqued my attention. Reading a few clips, I chuckled to myself.

How's this for openers? "Have you ever tried to do it all? I have, I do, and I probably always will. It's not only in my nature; it's also in my job description--and yours too. Being a woman requires more stamina, more creativity, and more wisdom than I ever dreamed as a young girl." The author sounded like my best friend having a chat with me.

Everyone is aware of the Mary/Martha dichotomy and sometimes we even take sides. Weaver points out that, although we may giggle about being a Mary or Martha, most of us would like to worship like Mary, to read our Bibles and pray, but it seems like just another item on our list. Instead we listen to the Martha who keeps bossing us around, telling us we need to do the laundry, clean the toilets, cook supper, help the kids with homework, bring sandwiches to the funeral. As they say, "A woman's work is never done."

Throughout the book, Joanna (We're on first name basis now!) shares her foibles, which seem amazingly like my own. Although I have been a perfectionist for most of my life, I am far from perfect. I want to learn from someone who has struggles similar to mine.

Joanna explains how Satan gets at us through distraction (i.e. busyness), discouragement, and doubt. In the tenth chapter of Luke, the doctor records that Martha was distracted "by all the preparations that had to be made." Then as now, the Martha in us thinks so many things "have to" be done, and done well. Joanna talks about weariness overpowering us. Then discouragement "breaks down our perspective and defenses." We say and do the wrong things. We feel "useless, hopeless, and abandoned." This was certainly where I was at that day in June ten years ago.

You will get a kick out of Ms. Weaver's description of Martha making the perfect meal. This wasn't any hash thrown together. Then Martha asked Jesus, "Don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?" We can't help feel that Jesus may have been hard on Martha and that Mary should have been helping.

The writer points out that neither of these women was perfect, but Jesus loved them both as they were. Still he loved them too much to leave them that way. Joanna talks about worry, fear, control issues, perfectionism, taking on too many jobs, all of the things we so innocently do. Through her personal stories, humour, scripture passages, and page-turning writing, we discover that the kingdom of God is a paradox. "While the world applauds achievement, God desires companionship," she says. "The world clamors, 'Do more! Be all that you can be!'" But our Father whispers, "Be still and know that I am God."

By following two other short clips about Mary and Martha later in the gospels, Weaver shows that these two completely different woman underwent a holy makeover. As she says, "It is impossible to be in the presence of Jesus and not be changed." I believe that God spoke to me through this book and gave me grace to change. Although I still fall back on my old ways, I believe it is hard to read this book without making changes in your life.

Sharon E. Espeseth lives in Barrhead with her husband Hank. She is a mother of three adult children and two sons-in-law and Nana to six grandchildren. Sharon currently serves as the Liaison for InScribe Satellite Groups.

Silent Night, Holy Night - Karen Toews

Every December members from our church go carolling to seniors: "shut-ins" who either live in their own homes or in assisted living facilities. The carollers meet at the church where they divide into groups, are given a list of 4 or 5 stops, then fan out into the community.

Most years I join in and I had this year's date marked in my daytimer well in advance.

But on that particular Wednesday, the afternoon's agenda went off the rails. My Christmas baking project took much longer than anticipated, I couldn't get into the flow for a work proposal, and a couple necessary phone calls all disrupted my rhythm and production.

Maybe you should forget about carolling tonight and get caught up on your work.

I tossed the thought to and fro; decided I needed those hours at home and emailed one of the organizers to express my regrets.

You can't give a small gift of your time to share the music of this season...to share Me?

The pointed question pricked me through. What was I thinking, beyond my own selfishness? I needed to go.

Our group was a Mom and her 9-year-old son, our driver and her friend, and myself. Our hosts were delighted and generous with their thanks and their sweet treats. Two of the ladies, pretty much house-bound with health issues, sang along with their carol request: Silent Night. I think (older) women, especially, have an intrinsic affinity for this simple sacred melody of the first Christmas night. It was my Mom's favourite too. Now, six years since her last Christmas, I couldn't stop the tears from welling up, so aware of the gulf between us and our perspectives of "Son of God, love's pure light."

Almost all of the people we sang for were senior women. They were sitting waiting for us to come and they were sitting when they left. Those in senior homes didn't have baking or decorating or cleaning yet to do that night - with a full agenda planned for the next day too. It's safe to guess that at one point in their life that was so - and that they'd now say, "where did the years go?"

All the carollers met up back at the church for cocoa and cookies and this particular caroller went home to a kitchen spilling over with dirty dishes. No elves or fairies had showed up to sweep through the house with their magic. But a miracle of sorts had materialized.

My sense of peace in spite of a list with too few tasks ticked off. Surprise for how much I'd received in exchange for my small effort. The contentment knowing the priority projects would get done.

Christmas has come, we have celebrated "Christ the Saviour is born." And because of this "....dawn of redeeming grace", I can experience "all is calm, all is bright."

Thou Shalt Take a Holiday – Ramona Heikel

I’m grateful for holidays. It occurred to me this week that I hadn’t seen my sons for a while. We’ve all been busy and only talking on the phone and in electronic messages. And if Thanksgiving wasn’t coming up this weekend, how much longer would it be until we were face to face, close enough to hug? That’s when I started feeling thankful to whoever set up holidays.

It amazes me when I stop to think of the power that holidays have to bring people together when schedules and distance would otherwise keep them apart. I’m surprised that holidays are still sacred in a society that puts so much of a priority on productivity and busyness.

Look how the governments of countries all over the world lock certain holidays into their calendars, and how businesses acknowledge holidays by granting days off. You could even say that some employees are “forced” to take a holiday, and even if you want to work, the company declares it such a special day that it is willing to pay you one-and-a-half of your regular earnings. I don’t think we should take it for granted that CEO’s pay us for a day of unproductive kicking-back, and not once, but several times a year.

How nice that countries unite around a holiday! If Alberta declared Thanksgiving a holiday, but Saskatchewan didn’t, it wouldn’t be so easy to go visit your Saskatchewan relatives on Thanksgiving, and look at what you would miss. Oh, I know there are lots of sneers these days about how miserable family gatherings can be—there seem to be more and more movies springing up that try to convince us that holidays are something to dread and tolerate. But go through your photo collections and see how many of the scenes were taken during a holiday gathering, and how many of those bring a smile to your lips and your heart.

Holidays are celebrated for various reasons, and even if we don’t spend a lot of time thinking about them and incorporating the origins into the celebration, they serve as yearly cues to adjust our near-sightedness. We have an opportunity to take a step back from the endless tasks that seem so important in the small picture, and refocus on things worth remembering. Re-celebrating a country’s hard-won victory in obtaining independence, remembering national heroes, offering a tribute to the fathers of our faith, rejoicing in the beginning of a new calendar year, honouring families and relatives, and showing our gratitude to God—all these invigorate our outlook on life and help order our priorities.

Whose idea was it to have holidays, anyway? Local and national governments establish specific holidays for their unique population, but the idea of a holiday seems to have been around ever since the Lord included days of celebration, dancing, feasting and rest for His people in his set of laws. Yes, laws, not suggestions! “Thou shalt take the day off and have a good time.” This too would be amazing to some people, because the popular view of God is probably one of a judge. But what if people stopped and considered that this particular judge required them to regularly take time to have fun and reconnect with the most important people in your life? What a revelation that would be of the true nature of God.

Posted by Ramona

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