Tag Archives: gratitude

Sep22

Today I Choose

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Because I can…

 

Today I choose gratitude,

because no matter how tough life is, there is always a reason to give thanks.

Today I choose grace, for myself and for others,

because God has shown grace to me.

Today I choose authenticity,

because all I can be is myself, and for those who love and appreciate me, that will be enough.

Today I choose reconciliation,

because in reconciling myself—to others, to my circumstances, to my own conscience—I will find restoration.

Today I choose peace,

because the world outside is filled with conflict.

Because I CAN

Today

I

choose.

 

Dec31

My 2020 Vision

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And so many interpretations of that idea…

I am running out of time.

We all are.

Not to sound nihilistic, but it is a fact.  When a person is born, the meter starts running.  We are given a finite, and unknown to us, number of years/days/seconds in which we are to fulfill our life’s purpose.  Some of us never even determine what that purpose is, much less fulfill it.

I remember when we perched on the cusp of THE YEAR 2000, and Y2K Fever was rampant.  Doomsayers warned us that computer systems would fail, grinding the economy to a violent, albeit temporary, halt.  End-time prophets advised us all to lay in extra supplies of food, water, medicines, and cash, to protect us from the coming mini-apocalypse that the start of The New Millennium would bring.  All that the paranoid pundits feared amounted to a lot of nothing.  I am grateful that the predicted collapse didn’t happen.

That was 20 years ago!  Now we perch on the eve of another year that has a zero on the end of it, and I’ve been thinking about the phrase “20/20 vision”.  Medically, the term refers to perfect eyesight.  I have not enjoyed decent eyesight without correction since I was 9 years old and began wearing glasses.

But I have also been thinking about my vision for the coming year…MY 2020 Vision.  I won’t lie; I have no idea what may be coming.  I know that I should be doing all the things: I need a full-time job, in the most urgent way imaginable, and I need to be looking much harder to find one; I should be writing every single day; I should be seeking out the best books and reading them constantly; I should be exercising my body and my voice daily as well to condition them and keep them supple; I should be intentional in keeping my relationships strong, expressing appreciation for every person who inhabits my family/circle/village/tribe.  And all the things seem to require way more energy than I have.  Every day I know I’m running out of time.

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This time last year my emotions were mixed as I anticipated the end of a job I had held for almost 18 years.  I felt uncertain, but also hopeful, looking forward to a road trip that I christened #OperationTakeAMinute.  I enjoyed that trip, but looking back now, part of me feels like it was a waste of time and resources.  I lost a month of time with my precious dog, #OurBoyRoy, and my husband.  (The photo below is from last New Year’s Eve.  We had to let #OurBoyRoy go to Heaven in July.)

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I spent money I should have saved.  It was an indulgence that felt necessary at the time; now I wonder if it was the right thing to do after all.

Hence I recall another adage about vision and sight:

Hindsight is always 20/20.

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And I’m running out of time.

#My2020Vision

 

Sep13

That Baby I Held That Day

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And a memory of 9/11 I never wrote about…

Everyone remembers September 11, 2001.  Even after 18 years my recollections of the day can still bring tears to my eyes if I linger on them for more than a few minutes.  I have shared bits and pieces of how the day and night unfolded for me…but I have never written down part of the story.

I was working the primetime 4pm-1am shift at the local Fox TV station, and I had been up late the night before.  Jeff and I were still very much in mourning for Mom Cutshaw, who had died in June, but trying to resume business as usual, whatever that means after a parent has died. My cousin Alan rang my phone that morning telling me a plane had hit a building very close to where my brother, Reed, worked, and to get up and turn on my TV.

I did, and we all know what unfolded throughout the next hours.  More planes crashing, more death.  I called my boss, Tom, and told him about Reed, and he asked if I needed to stay home.  I said I’d keep him posted.  I and my family were fortunate; we only had to wait hours to hear that Reed had gotten out of the city and was safe, at least physically.  I know people who didn’t hear about their loved ones for days.

I reported for work, grateful and shaken, to sit behind my console and watch solid, unrelenting coverage of the tragedy…endless replays of the planes crashing, the buildings toppling, people jumping from buildings rather than be burned alive…and commentary from newspeople, pundits, analysts.  My friends and TV brothers that afternoon and night in addition to Tom were Larry and Dan.  I was so grateful for these “boys” who kept me company, gave me bathroom breaks and propped me up, as I hoped I was able to do for them.  We were all overwhelmed, sad, angry, and feeling kind of…lost, I guess.  Late in the afternoon, Dan’s sister came by for a quick visit.  And she brought her little 3-month-old son, Cameron.

Lord, how I do love to shnoogle me a little teeny one, what we in the South sometimes call an “arm baby”.  I asked Meriam if I could hold her little treasure and she obliged with kindness.  I held that sweet new life close to me, humming, with leaky eyes and silent prayers…Lord God, what kind of world is this child going to grow up in?  Protect him.  Protect us all.  Lord, I am so sad…

That baby brought healing to me, more than any words of comfort spoken by ministers, vows of justice sworn by our government officials, tributes offered by the rich and famous.  That baby was born just before Mom Cutshaw died…just before all those people murdered on 9/11 died.  Holding that little, sweet, innocent new life reminded me that life indeed goes on, and that God indeed cares, even when nothing in the world makes sense.

That baby is now 18 years old, old enough to drive a car, vote in elections, serve in our armed forces.  And while I have not seen him in the years since I held him that day, I have often prayed for him.  I have shared the story of how he blessed and comforted me on a day when all of us were left feeling so very lost.  I haven’t seen his Uncle Dan in many years, but I remember him in prayers, too, and their whole family.

I owe them at least that. I owe them a debt of gratitude.  Especially that baby I held that day.

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(The baby’s hand in this photo does not belong to Cameron, but to my great-nephew Forrest, from a chance I had to hold him when he was an “arm baby”.)

Aug28

Catching Dreams

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Or even remembering what mine used to be…

Last year after returning from a vacation trip to Houston for our niece’s wedding, a friend at work asked me, “Didn’t I hear you say something once about collecting feathers?”  I responded that, yes, I indeed collect feathers.  He mumbled something and shuffled to his desk a few seats over from mine.

A moment later he returned with a gift that surprised and warmed me to my core—a Native American dreamcatcher.  I yelled, “Squeeeeeeee!” And hugged him so hard I think it startled him.  He explained that he donates to a mission/orphanage out west somewhere and they had sent him this beautiful dreamcatcher as an appreciation gift for his contributions.  He wanted me to have it.

I was floored, humbled, and touched by his thoughtfulness to share such a beautiful item with me.  This guy has always been a friend to me, but his exterior can be gruff.  He does not like people to get too close to him.  I have often described him as a “cactus with a marshmallow center”!

The legend of the dreamcatcher is that a person is supposed to hang it over their bed at night.  The woven web in the center catches the sleeper’s dreams, trapping the nightmares while allowing the sweet dreams to flow down the strands to the feathers below, allowing them into the mind of the sleeper.

I have always heard tell that my Mamaw’s Grandma Sayne was full-blooded Cherokee.  I have never been able to verify this, although with technology evolving all the time and so many records available online now, it might be possible to do so.  A first cousin I have never met in person reached out to me on social media hoping to learn more about our family, and he might be the person to unravel this branch of our family tree.  Even a tiny portion of Cherokee in my lineage would make sense of a lot of things about me, how I see my world, and the things I value.  Perhaps confirming such a family history would help me to remember the childlike dreams of my past…those days when I thought anything was possible.

As it is, I look at this sweet gift, a reminder of a friendship from a workplace Shinsky and I no longer share, but memories I will value for a lifetime.  I will pray that both of us will conjure and fulfill new, meaningful and happy dreams moving forward.  I will give thanks for his heritage and for mine, for years of shared work and a future that I cannot yet see.

Jul14

Grateful In Spite Of…

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Fill in the blank…

I try to keep this blog positive…but I also try to keep it authentic.  And in the spirit of full disclosure, I am very much wishing for one big “do-over” right now.  My life at age 55 is not where I thought it would be, and certainly not where I would like.

I never imagined that my career would have taken such an abrupt turn.  But companies get bought and sold, and jobs get eliminated.  It happens all the time.  It is called Progress.

In the past couple of months, two friends died sudden, unexpected deaths.  Earthly goodbyes are never easy, but when a death comes so far out of the blue, wrapping our heads around such loss is far more difficult.  There’s no time to prepare, no understanding why, and way more questions than answers.  God is good, and His plans are perfect.  I believe this with my whole being. But trusting God does not mean an absence of pain.  Right now, it hurts.

I am grateful that He is with me in my pain.  Even Jesus cried.  He never promised me that there would not be hard times; He promised me that I would not be alone in them.

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Nov19

Thanks

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Reflections as Thanksgiving approaches

 

 

Gracious God

Lover of my soul

Maker, Sustainer, Redeemer and Friend

I give You

Thanks

 

Thanks that I and mine

we who are so few

have been blessed with so much

while there are so many

who have so little

 

Thanks that we are warm and dry

healthy and fed

and loved

 

Thanks for all those

who have come before us

teaching us how to live

raising us up to know You

before they left us

to go Home

to sit at Your feet

 

Thanks for so great

a cloud of witnesses

who await us there

 

For glimpses of Heaven

here below

 

I give You

Thanks

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Dec5

Happy Birthday, Dear Sweet Pea

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How I won the Husband Jackpot…

It all started in the summer of 1982. I had just graduated from high school and was looking forward to new adventures in the college world in a few months. I had been seeing someone most of my senior year of high school, and we were still dating, although no longer exclusively. He was a nice guy, but we were not well suited for one another. A longtime friend of mine from elementary school, Gary, was working with Jeff, aka Sweet Pea, at Winn-Dixie and suggested to Jeff that he might ask me out. And he did. And the rest is history.

Well, sort of.

I should give a bit of background at this point. Jeff and I were 2 years apart in high school and, while we didn’t really know each other, we knew each other’s faces and were aware of each other’s existence. I actually worked up the courage to ask him to the Y-Teen Formal (Y-Teens was an all-girl club at school and the formal was a girl-ask-guy affair, like Sadie Hawkins dances. He already had a date. I was mortified. I never spoke to him again until he called to ask me out on our first date.) For this reason I call Gary’s fix-up of us not a blind date, but a “nearsighted” one.

I remember our first date vividly. He took me to see “Tron” at the theater and when he took me home, I invited him in for a glass of tea so we could talk some more. He stayed a long time…a REALLY long time. We talked and drank tea and he kissed me goodnight and it was a perfectly lovely evening, one that I hoped would repeat itself many, many times. And it did.

Our courtship was not without its rough patches, and our marriage has had a few of those as well.  Relationships involve flawed people and, as such, are subject to those people’s foibles and mistakes.  I will admit in writing, for all the world to see, that most of the foibles in our relationship have been mine.  He knew I was crazy going into this shootin’ match.

He was born on December 5, 1961.  Mom Cutshaw always said that it took her 16 years of marriage to have 3 children, and it did.  Mom and Pop Cutshaw were married in November, 1945, eloping when he came back from the war.  In June 1950, Jeff’s brother Howard was born, followed by Bridget in January 1955.  Mom Cutshaw joked that she “watched 1960 really close!” , but alas, Jeff came along in December of 1961.  (He graduated from kindergarten as Howard was graduating from high school.)  Mom Cutshaw told me that she knew the morning after they conceived him that they’d made a baby.  I for one am eternally grateful that they did!

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Among all the other reasons that Sweet Pea is special, the most important to me is that after all these years together, he can still make me laugh.  He is, in fact, the funniest person I’ve ever known in my life.  And considering some of the characters in my family, that is indeed saying something!

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He is also generous and tenderhearted.  I’ll never forget the times he has come home after a holiday shopping trip with misty eyes because of some child’s heartbreaking Angel Tree request for warm socks or a winter coat.  I have never been more proud of him than when he learned how to give injections to Mom Cutshaw as she battled cancer.  He is a sweet, decent, caring man, one who married into my family and loved them like his own.  And they loved him just as much, Mama most of all.  It was Mama, in fact, who gently pointed out to me that with Jeff, I seemed to laugh a lot.  I think she knew I would marry him long before I knew it.

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We’ve had a wonderful life together so far, with the good times more than balancing the bad ones.  And now with his birthday once again approaching, I just wanted to take a moment to share why he is so wonderful, why I love him so much, and to say that I am forever grateful for having won the Husband Jackpot when I married him.

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And as I have shared in other places, I have to share my favorite picture of us together, lovingly captured by Howard a number of years ago.  The looks on both of our faces pretty much express the totality of our life together.

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Happiest of Happy Birthdays, my precious Sweet Pea!  It may be your birthday, but I am the one who receives the gift.  Thank you for giving me a life I could never have imagined without you.  I love you with all my heart, for all my life.  ❤