New Beginnings

A New Chapter

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“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland……” Isaiah 43:19

Just over 10 years ago, lots of people thought we were crazy to buy a manufactured home in a retirement community. But sometimes doing the crazy thing can be right. Living here close to the Superstition mountains gave me an experience I never could have gotten any other way. This place taught me to listen to the desert and what it whispers in the wild. It gave me my blog and it gave a voice to my writing. I will always be grateful for that.

At this phase of life, most people might be easing into retirement. Maybe settling into the home where they will finish out their years on this planet, winding down. We are doing the opposite, uprooting ourselves to start over yet again. Sounds crazy doesn’t it? But I firmly believe that God rewards crazy if the motive is love. In fact, I know He does. I can find example after example in the Bible where God did this.

Not long ago a statement was made to someone else that “People just don’t move back to California!” My answer is the same as his, with an addition “Yes I can, I can do whatever I want to do.” My very important addition to that statement is that I believe in a big God of impossibilities who loves it when we believe Him enough to step out in obedience and do something out of their comfort zone for the right reasons.

And I can’t wait to see what He will do. He has never let us down. He has always provided for our needs, and He isn’t about to stop now.

So today the for sale sign went up. I always wondered how I would feel when it finally happened, but I think I have cried all my tears already. We will leave good friends and great neighbors and how many times can you say that anymore? But I know that God has a great plan and that it is coming together already.

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And we will be back to visit. I never did like goodbyes, in fact, I hate them. I think I am looking forward to Heaven most of all for that reason alone. No more goodbyes….ever.

So as I have said before, this magical place by the mountain has changed me for the good. It’s carved out a place in my heart that will stay. And a Grand adventure awaits. We are going back to where we started, and to family who will love having us there.

I have a good feeling.

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Of leaving home and going home

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Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” Matthew 8:20

Anyone can leave a house, but leaving a home takes grit, guts, determination and the knowledge that you are leaving a place for the right reasons. It’s the kind of soul-searching that doesn’t come easy, kind of like raking a plow over your heart. And even when it’s for good reasons which it is, it’s still tough.

Yesterday we packed the patio and when I saw the umbrella folded up in my car I flashed back to 10 years of morning coffee and watching the sun come up over the Superstition mountains. Ten years of dinners by the fire-pit and hanging out with neighbors on both sides of us. I confess I had to hide behind the corner and cry.

We are leaving a place that’s been really good to us. We’re leaving a community of people; a way of life that’s easy and neighbors who know each other……watch out for one another. How often do you find that anymore? We have 10 years of memories which we will take with us and hold in our hearts forever.

We have seen decline and the death of some of our neighbors too. Living in a retirement community, that comes with the territory. The man who used to be up with the chickens walking his dog and singing loud now hardly leaves his house. They are taking a different kind of leave. Preparing for another kind of exit.

Two cats have gone over the rainbow bridge here, the stray we brought along when we came here, and Sydney who was my baby. His ashes will go along with us and for that I am glad.

But we are on an adventure, friends. And I would like to take you along if you would like to come. This blog has been birthed here over times of prayer in the little shop since 2009. I can hardly believe where the time has gone. And in three weeks I will be back living in the hometown I left in 1992.

This desert is a place I will come back to from time to time, I hope. It’s left its mark and its a good one. It’s carved out a place in my heart that will remain there forever. And I will do my best to keep you all posted here.

Until then, I have packing to do. And to steal a line from one of my favorite poets. Miles to go before I sleep.

 

Thankful

 

 

 

Letting God

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“My little story, which was like a fairy-tale, has turned into a prayer.” St. Therese

It’s nine thirty and by now I should be fully immersed in the business of life and ticking things off my to-do list. Nothing on my mental or physical list is done, unless you count morning prayer and devotion time and you can’t really check that off as a task. The whole point of prayer seems to be to never, ever have it completed. It’s an impossible task anyway, for I find that no sooner do I get off my knees, either figuratively or literally, that my next breath becomes a prayer again. Lately, it seems I need it to move from one thing to the next.

I ask God for the thousandth time to direct my path. Right now I am a stubborn leaf clinging to a rock in a fast flowing current. This home has been my monastery, my hermitage…….my refuge and place of peace for the past 10 or so years and part of me is fighting leaving. I look around and see everything placed just so, I see all the work, all the love, all the things we’ve done to make it home. So much life is in these walls. So many battles, joys, heartaches, sorrows, and always at the end of the day a sweet place of light and welcome.

It’s been a place to wipe the grime of the world off our feet and leave it behind on the other side of the threshold.

Each time I think of packing, taking anything down off the walls a little voice of rebellion screams, no. It’s change, and change is what I have always fought. At my job I was forced into it, and it was good for me. And I know change is necessary and healthy. Do I have the strength to start new?

I sit quiet, acutely aware of every little sound, not wanting to leave the peace of this moment. I hear the scratch of the pen, Briggs soft snore, Pandora filtering David Nevue’s piano as my backdrop. I hold my breath and it feels Holy.

My tears fall as I read once more from The Cloister Walk, a favorite I read long ago. This little home has been my Cloister like no other home has ever been. Do I have the courage to leave? Do I have what it takes to beat back the fear of the unknown?

I think of that little leaf, I see it as red somehow, scarlet against the gray stone. Something about it is fierce and brave and I admire it, I want to tell it to hold on and yet I know the current is part of the big picture and it has its place in the universe too.

Maybe, when it all comes down to it, this is why writers write, painters paint, restorers restore. It’s all about freezing time and a process of letting go again and again. We push words out like breath in order to keep from being overwhelmed and pulled under the current.

It’s a way of saying “this little moment is important” and the moment that comes after is just as important.

To God, time doesn’t matter. To us, it is everything. It’s all we have, right here and right now. It’s what we are guaranteed. There are really only two things in life that are guaranteed.

The here and now. And eternity. 

And I understand more the older I get that those two things are what Jesus meant when He said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” By His coming, He made the here and now collide with Heaven. And ultimately, it’s why I can step forward even with trembling knees and shaky feet.

It’s why I can step into the future and whatever it holds with hope. Because after all, “Letting Go” is only one letter away from “Letting God.”

What they don’t tell you

My walk in the woods

There’s an opportune time to do things, a right time for everything on the earth…….Ecclesiastes 3:1

Here is what no one tells you about retirement, or semi-retirement whichever the case may be. It’s a little bit like marriage, first comes the honeymoon stage. Everything is exhilarating and exciting with a little bit of disbelief at your good fortune thrown in. Then comes the next phase where reality sets in. Things are still good, mind you, they are just more real. You realize that it takes a certain amount of work.

You realize that with most things, freedom (or bliss) isn’t free. With any kind of happiness, there is a responsibility thrown in with it.

I am finding that in many ways, retirement comes with its own kind of responsibility and that in some ways, working was easier. I didn’t say better, I just said easier. When you are under the “umbrella” of the corporate giant, pretty much everything is taken care of. The devil is in the details and you don’t have to think about them.

All of a sudden someone has just thrown you the reins to the stagecoach, or rather, you took the reins willingly and that can be scary as hell. It reminds me of how I used to feel on a stretch of Highway 87 on the way up to Payson, Arizona. There is a vista that opens up as you round the bend and it used to take my breath away just for a second. I think I’m a little bit Agoraphobic, (that’s the fear of open spaces.)

You have to be okay with owning your own destiny and taking care of all those little details you didn’t have to worry about before. You learn things about yourself. Now I am learning how to appreciate and navigate the open spaces.

I am learning that I don’t do well without a plan. My tendency is to drift. A little bit of that is okay. But then the time comes to get a rhythm going, to pick up the pace. Get the ball rolling. Like right now. I was going to wash the car and it’s already past 10. Soon it will be too hot. My list is sitting where I can see it. Blogging wasn’t on it.

And yesterday, I was in a kind of black hole. My prayer was short right before I sent myself off to sleep, “Jesus, I’m in a real fix here.” Because even though I know that He gave me the definite answer I needed when I was making the big decision, now I feel like I have to make it all work. In short, I put myself on the throne again.

Today is a new day, thankfully. And I am figuring this retirement thing out. I am still oh so very grateful and I know that I know that I know, it was the right decision. And I also know that my prayer life is more important than ever. That won’t change. Now I can start everyday with prayer and that is a great thing.

And this morning, I awoke in a good mood, a hopeful mood. I am thankful for every little thing. I know that I didn’t lift myself out of the funk, it was His grace that did. And that is cause for praise.

He’s here, and He has a plan. It’s working out.

I Stand Amazed

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Trust God from the bottom of your heart;
    don’t try to figure out everything on your own.
Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go;
   he’s the one who will keep you on track.

Proverbs 3:6, The Message 

As I write this, a bit of the disbelief and wonder still surrounds me at the circumstances which brought about my sudden retirement from the company where I had spent the last 20 years. If you would have told me a month ago I would be sitting here writing this with my career at Intel behind me, I would have said you were crazy. I had been thinking about it, praying about it, wrestling with it seriously over for the past year, and had even set a date for December or January of this year. I just didn’t think it would be this soon.

And so many times, I had held this verse in my heart and tried to live it, asking God for a definitive Yes or No, Yea or Nay, some kind of deciding factor that would push me one way or another and let me have the confidence I wanted to know I had made the right decision. And then, this……

We had all heard rumors about the layoffs and cuts at Intel, but of course we had weathered all these before. Yet this time, soon after the announcement was made, the roll-out was swift. Suddenly, people we had worked with for years were gone. Everyone was a bit shell-shocked. And then I got the enhanced retirement offer and I knew it was what I had been praying for just a month before. And it was more than I could have hoped for.

And I stand amazed at how good God is. And not because it worked out for me, but because God is always good. Yet sometimes, He does something that so flat-out astounds you with His timing and how perfect it is you know without a doubt it came from Him. I want to stress that it’s nothing I did. There is no formula ever, to guarantee things will fall in line with how we pray. I don’t believe in that kind of gospel.

What I do believe is that sometimes God rewards the one who clings to His word and hangs on for dear life even when there is no evidence whatsoever that an answer lies just beyond the bend.

Here is what I wrote in my prayer journal today:

Thank you God. You fill me with wonder. You became a flesh and blood God well acquainted with suffering and grief and tears and yet still vast and unknowable and full of mystery; able to create this whole universe with a word. I stand amazed that you died because you wanted to save my life and you thought that maybe if you did that, we could have a chance to be together forever. You removed the intimidation factor that might have kept us apart and you brought me near at the foot of the cross. You confounded the minds of the best and the brightest in your short time on earth and shattered their hearts because when they came face to face with you, they knew what they lacked was not intelligence or religion but love. You made them see that all their efforts were worthless because they were blinded by the pride that didn’t let them see you for who you were. Forgive me Lord for those times when love gets left out of my own actions. You have led me with patience and love and picked me up when I could go no further so many times. Thank you for loving me even in my great weakness and failure and for your grace that is greater than all my sin. I stand amazed.

So now I am on this different path and it’s scary at times, but I know He’s got us. It’s a new chapter and I find comfort in the fact that He will be in this next one as well. He was gracious enough to let me make my personal goal of 20 years with the company and reward me at the end.

I stand amazed.