My Twins' Birthday

February 13th is the birthday of my twin daughters, Carrin and Margie.
At the end of last year I got the flu so severely that it caused my heart to begin to go into congestive failure. This is something I was healed of years ago. However, it frightened me and I got rather maudlin. What could I leave behind for my kids?
Last summer my mom found an old crystal necklace that her Aunt Livvy gave me when I graduated from high school in 1963. It was broken but still had many crystals. I thought it would be special to make necklaces for the twins from it somehow even though I had never made one before.
Then in the fall, Mary Pat gave me a crystal necklace from her mom. Hers were all the same size and smaller. I thought that they would be perfect spacers. Last weekend Ray went to Hobby Lobby to pick up the thread and tools and met a really nice lady named Vicki who guided him through the process.
When he came home he was pumped. He said just tell me what you want.
The twins are not identical. So I wanted them similar, but different. So I laid out the design and without hesitation, he began adding the clasp, crimping the end the way Vicki showed him and stringing. He dropped the first necklace THREE times, but just got down on his knees, regathered the beads and calmly began again. There was much rejoicing when he finished. I fell in love all over again.
My hero!
Then he began on the next one. After that was completed, he made earrings. He didn't like the first pair. So he did it again plus there were enough beads left to make me a pair.
I sent a picture of the necklaces to my sister, Karen, and told her my congestive heart failure story and her response was to keep finding things you need to finish first. Besides there's no hurry anyway.
So Happy Birthday, Carrin and Margie!
I am going to find another memory to share with another. Your gift made me a rich woman.

The Hole in My Heart Is Healing

Today is my oldest daughter's birthday. What a beautiful woman, wife and mother she has become in spite of the fact that as an infant I never even held her or saw her sweet face. Instead adoption papers were signed and I went home with empty arms.
For months I had talked to her in utero and shared what I thought were important life secrets and told her repeatedly how much I loved her. Yet I never knew if she heard me. I never saw her first tooth, her first steps, her first day at school or graduations, wedding or the births of her own children.

In that dismal home for unwed mothers, we were repeatedly told that we had no rights, that we could never interfere and all the other protocol of that generation. So I left New Orleans with a hole in my heart.

It would be over 30 years before we reunited through a series of what I call miracles. She was the one with the tenacity to find me. It's been over 10 years, but I will never forget the anticipation of her coming to Dallas. What a beauty she is. I constantly stole glances.

A lot has happened in the past ten years. I have been to Africa and back and nearly died of some heart complications. For whatever reason, we have had only three short visits.

Today while talking to a co-worker, I mentioned how I was trying to find all of those "hope deferred" places, so I could release them to the Father. Wham! Tears sprang to my eyes. This date was another "hope deferred" place.

Later another friend stopped by to check on me and when I told her with tears brimming that this was a hard date for me, she firlmly, lovingly said, "That is ungodly grief. It's time to let it go."

That was hard to hear, but I know by doing it that hole in my heart will begin to heal for ungodly grief keeps it open. Also, that ungodly grief puts distance between my daughter and myself, because she can never feel that hole. Only God's love can.

Over 40 years ago, I gave her away to faceless strangers who loved her and gave her the best they had to give. Today I release her a loving Father who has our best in His heart and is just waiting for us to put down our encumbrances and receive it.

Happy Birthday, Sweet One.

Diane

A Cookie Exchange

Next Saturday I am hosting a Cookie Exchange. Today a precious friend gave me beautiful linens. Now I am old school and whether it is hot tea or hot chocolate with decadent cookies, it just taste better with real dishes and linens. It doesn't have to be fancy, but there something that makes you immediately feel like a lady when you put a damask napkin across your lap.
This is especially important if you had little ones spitting up on you all week and have barely gotten out of your sweats. It is good for our spirits to relax with friends and be pampered with those little touches.
The older I get, the more I recognize the importance of taking some "me" time so I can better a better woman in the "we" time. Admittedly when raising children, those moments may have to be arranged or even stolen from your to do list, but it is important.

A merry heart doeth good like a medicine. But a broken spirit drieth up the bones. Proverbs 17:22

If your spirit is broken, perhaps it is time to make your heart merry.
When I was a single mom with three children, we used to play "HaHa."
Everyone laid on the floor with their head on someone else's stomach. The first person said, "Ha." The second one said, "Ha, ha."
Each person would add a ha until we were giggling together. Yes, it was absolutely fake in the beginning, but the more ha's we added, the more our defenses dissolved and we began to laugh together.
How did I get so caught up in surviving that I forgot how to laugh? Perhaps the key is surviving isn't really living. Surviving is a desperate attempt to do the mechanics. It doesn't rely on the Lord and usually doesn't trust anyone else either.
I remember I was once told, "You can't count on anyone but yourself and you can't count on her all of the time either."
What a lie! What a breeding ground for fear and doubt!

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine understanding. Proverbs 3:5

I so understand trials. Looking back now I can see that is through some of those trials that He has given me many heart "surgeries." Some of those trials were caused by my willful disobedience, insisting on doing it my way. As I repent for the mess, confess, He is so faithful to create a new heart within me. I want to know Him more. I want my heart to be like His. My present trial may not end on MY timetable, but when I release it to Him, He can calm the raging seas of life.
I think that "Peace, be still" is a good word not only for the storm, but my heart.
Diane