Friendship

I'm blessed to have a quiet house for several hours today, thanks to some wonderful momma friends taking my children to Classical Conversations and to the gym in Arab for fun and jumping and tumbling. My children were so looking forward to it. So was I. :)

I've taken advantage of the quiet time to put my feet up and write some long overdue thank you notes to people who have shown me grace, love, and generosity in the past few weeks. It's overwhelming how many people I have needed to thank. I am blessed with so many amazing friends and family members! Brian and I sometimes marvel at how many great people God has placed in our lives. No way have we deserved it. The only reason I can find is His unrelenting grace.

It's gotten me thinking about people He has placed in my life at different times and places who have been just what I needed to get through that season. In His providence He has given me people who have challenged me, inspired me, encouraged me. Who have provided for me in physical, emotional, and spiritual ways. There have been friends who have taught me about life. Friends who have shown me who I was and who I wanted to be. Friends who have picked me up when I was down. Friends who have supported my dreams. Friends who have not forgotten me even when I have been too busy for them. Friends who have not given up on me. Friends who have reprimanded me when I needed it. Friends who have seen something in me I couldn't see. Friends who taught me new things. Friends who introduced new concepts and ideas to me, broadened my horizons. Friends who have made me laugh. Friends who have invited me over again and again, who have insisted on being there for me, who have stuck tenaciously to my side. To each of these, I am indebted for life. Thank you, friends. I am overwhelmed with gratitude for you.  I hope you have benefited from knowing me just a tenth of how much I have benefited from knowing you.

It's a few days late, but what I can offer you today are some lovely thoughts that have contributed greatly to my life. Take what encourages you today:

"Love you, as you are this day. Love you, as you were the day before. But, above all, love who you will have become by this time tomorrow." -written in an email to me by Kelly Cain, May 2003.

"As Grannie often used to say, 'This, too, shall pass.' You WILL be the strong, mistress of your household once again, and it will seem very quick when the time comes." -written in an email to me by my mother, yesterday. :)

"Try to cut yourself some slack. You're growing a baby. Every aspect of your life is consumed by that process! You're working hard even when you're sleeping! And do not think about your weight. Be the woman you want your girls to aspire to. . . Don't let them be consumed with the aesthetics; show them the beauty in simply growing a baby." -written in a text by Jessica, January 2013.

"I know this is so hard to take in and you are tired of this clot and veins but God has you right where He wants you today. He is holding you and sweet Bethany in His hands. . . He is writing your story and Bethany's story and it is going to be great!" -written in a text by Jamie, February 2013

"It's a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet, and what is sand." -Madeleine L'Engle

"Remind yourself often: All thoughts create. Then decide what it is you want to make." -Lee Jampolsky

"For a long time it had seemed to me that lie was about to begin- real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life." -Alfred D. Souza

*I have said this one to Brian often- "The world, except for you, is filled with little men." -Cleopatra*

"To be nobody-but-yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else- means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight, and never stop fighting." -e.e. cummings

"True wisdom lies in gathering the precious things out of each day as it goes by." -E.S. Bouton

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in others.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day. For poise, walk with the knowledge that you will never walk alone.

"Though you may think you have a handle on life right now and you don't want to let go for fear it'll get screwed up again, guess what? Life STAYS screwed up one way or another. That's the beauty of it. It's thinly veiled chaos that we shall never ever have a handle on." -also in an email from Kelly Cain, May 2003.

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and go do that. . . because what the world really needs is people who have come alive." -Howard Thurman

"There shall be an eternal summer in the grateful heart." -Celia Thaxter

"Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return." -Mary Jean Iron

"Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own house. Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor. . . Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting." -Mother Theresa

"Well", said Pooh, "what I like best. . . "and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were actually eating it, but he didn't know what it was called. -Winnie the Pooh

"Poetry and Hums aren't things which you get, they're things which get you. And all you can do is go where they can find you." -Winnie the Pooh

"When you first get up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?" "What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say, Piglet?" "I say, 'I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet. Pooh nodded thoughtfully. "It's the same thing," he said.
-Winnie the Pooh

"Interest in the changing seasons is a much happier state of mind than being hopelessly in love with spring." -George Santana

"I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble." -Helen Keller

"If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep the streets even a Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well.'" -Martin Luther King

"There are always two choices. Two paths to take. One is easy. And it's only reward is that it's easy." -Anonymous

"Now that it's all over, what did you really do yesterday that's worth mentioning?" -Coleman Cox

"I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that." -Lauren Bacall

"If we are not happy and joyous at this season, for what other season shall we wait and for what other time shall we look?" -Abdul-Baha

". . . playtime was over, the medication had run out, and LIFE had reared its ugly head. . . "from Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons.

The Many Crises That Conspire Against Anyone With the Temerity to be Alive and Breathing- a chapter from Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons.

"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love, to work, to play, and to look up at the stars." -Henry Van Dyke