August | 2020 | PIECES

Ecclesiastes 3 has helped many to navigate the ups and downs of life. I’ve pondered its verses today, this whole last few days, as mom’s 90th was today, 8/15. She’s gone but still I wanted to celebrate this day, honor her life once again, and remember…

I grow silent and pensive during times of grief, when my heart is troubled , and I’m pondering much, yet internally , there are many words, thoughts coursing through my mind, and songs too. If y’all could hear it, you’d ask me to be quiet. 😂

I’ve learned that I need to be silent in order to grow, to become, to learn, for God’s Spirit to transform and heal me. It may not be that way with you. We are all made differently. My hope is that my silence is never misunderstood, though I suppose it probably often has been, is, and will continue to be , by some who don’t take the time to actually know who I am.

I pray that I will always be a person who takes the time to know others in the depths of who they are, that I will listen to others when they speak as well as in their silences. I pray I will allow others to be who they are and to simply love them , if given the opportunity to do so.

My heart is heavy for many reasons tonight; however, missing my mom today seems like the most important reason for the weight of my grief , for today, for this week, not for always, though, yes, her passing changed me forever. That change is real but not bad, just like the grief is real but not bad.

I pray for you, whomever you may be, in your heart heaviness , whatever is causing you to grieve. May you feel okay about grieving and allow yourself to experience it however you need to do so, and may you feel God at work transforming you in the midst of it.

Its helped me to look through pictures again these last couple days. Being in WV, our family’s home state, has also helped ( how I miss it here…been singing Country Roads internally for about 36 hours now …”all my memories gather round her; miner’s lady, stranger to blue water …Mountain Momma, take me home”). I don’t know that I’ll do this every year, but this year, it’s exactly what I needed, and I share some more pictures here to finish this birthday celebration of my sweet momma’s life …

I have this last post about our trip out West. I realize I’ve spent all of July talking about this trip in some fashion or another, but some things must be shared, especially in this time of our lives. I’ve tried to soak up and reflect on every moment we had on our trip, and I would be remiss if I didn’t share it with others.

One thing I haven’t done in these posts, yet, is philosophize and pontificate, share my deepest spiritual thoughts with you. The primary reason I haven’t is because I’m still pondering on all of that. My soul was impacted deeply on this trip, so deeply that at one point I actually prayed to God that I didn’t know if I could take any more in….but that night we went to the hot springs in Emigrant, MT, and we soaked for a couple hours, then slept like babies in our little cabin, and the next day….well, the next day was Yellowstone, and you better believe my soul had much more to welcome into it, and yes, there was room….

The beauty we experienced on our trip was a healing salve for my spirit, so wounded by months of strangeness and violence in our world. I would highly recommend it to you if you’re feeling bruised and battered, sad and mournful, after these last six months of life that has happened around us. If you can’t get away to the West, or the coast, or somewhere immersed in God’s creation, then purpose yourself to go looking for beauty wherever you can find it around you.

I know that I’ve had to do this in the last couple weeks since our return from our trip. SW Ohio seems really rather blah after seeing what we saw, but there is still beauty and joy to be found all around us, whether in the city or suburbs or country, we just have to intentionally look for it, ask God for it (He loves to give us these good gifts), seek and you will find….

So, the Snake River seemed to be everywhere we went out in Idaho, et al. Even the river we rafted, the North Fork of the Payette, is a tributary of the Snake. I was comforted by the end of the trip when we once again crossed the Snake and I got to say farewell to it. lol I would go back again just to travel along it’s winding trek. Thanks to the Tracht’s for sharing all this beauty with us!

I took so many pictures of water, as we drove past in our van and when we stopped purposefully. I deleted many of them because they were blurry or just didn’t do it justice. I share here a few of those that seemed to be worthy of the grandeur I experienced along the Snake…