Five Minute Friday – Barefoot Lily Lady

Anniversary Morning Coffee

Every morning, as I sit bleary-eyed in front of the bathroom mirror getting ready for my day, my kind-hearted husband brings me my first cup of coffee. That little gesture is a sweet reminder that Wayne loves, honors, and cherishes me as his wife—49 years today, in fact. How grateful I am for this man’s faithful love and care for me.

Another sip of coffee as I glance in the mirror, then I pick up my hairbrush and begin smoothing the tangles away. I smile as I think about how I was 15 years old when I met Wayne. He was a sailor stationed at a naval air station in Hawaii. We had been writing to one another for a few months but met for the first time in person at church when he was home on leave.

As I got to know him better in those few weeks, I found myself wanting to do things that pleased him—like growing my pageboy hairstyle longer because Wayne said he liked long hair.

He still likes my long hair, so not much has changed about my hairstyle since the 70’s, except that the gray hairs now outnumber the brunette hairs. I have tried to cover those gray hairs in years past but now consider them a badge of honor. As I look at my reflection in the mirror today, those gray hairs framing my time-worn face remind me that God has blessed me.

The years of marriage that lie ahead are surely fewer than the ones behind, but we have every confidence they will continue to be blessed. Even if our golden years together are sprinkled with hardship and painful loss, we have assurance of His faithfulness. The Lord promises, “Even to your old age and gray hairs, I am he, I am he who will sustain you” (Isaiah 46:4).

Linking up with Kate and friends at Five Minute Friday. This week’s FMF writing prompt is: FACE. For instructions on how to join the link-up, click here.

How Big is this Problem?

Every Friday a lovely lady named Kate hosts a community of bloggers for Five Minute Friday. One word prompt, set your timer for five minutes, and write (and resist the urge to edit).

This week’s word prompt is … left.

Sometimes I feel pretty lost and helpless when it comes to helping my brother navigate life’s road in his frail body. His life has taken a couple of medical detours: cancer, complications of diabetes, and vascular dementia, resulting in living a life confined to a wheelchair in a nursing home.

Work – Five Minute Friday

Take your everyday, ordinary life–your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life–and place it before God as an offering.

A one word prompt sent to a community of writers. Five minutes to write about it. Unedited. Don’t think too hard…just write. The Five Minute Friday word prompt this week is WORK. Ready, set, go!

I have a favorite Bible. It’s filled with sermon notes jotted in the extra-wide margins, prayers I’ve written out, and insights I have gleaned in my studies. It’s held together in a few places by tape.

Funny thing about this Bible, though, is that it seems to be shrinking. I can’t quite make out the words anymore. Tongue in cheek, as you might have guessed; it is my eyesight that has changed.

Thankfully, I have two large-print Bibles. The first is a brand new ESV version that my friend Tom recently passed along to me because he didn’t quite care for its tab feature. I can tell that this Bible will soon become my everyday study Bible. The other is The Message, self-described within the flyleaf as “a contemporary rendering of the Bible from the original languages, crafted to present its tone, rhythm, events, and ideas in everyday language.” I keep this second Bible on my nightstand. It’s the Bible I reach for first thing in the morning.

I love how Eugene Peterson, the translator of The Message, writes in such a way as to help me see a familiar passage through a fresh pair of eyes, so to speak. The Holy Spirit used this rendering of Romans 12:1-2 to prepare my heart before heading off to work today. Here’s what I read:

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life–your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life–and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God bring the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
Romans 12:1-2 (MSG)

Five Minute Friday — Have

Sharing this post with the Five Minute Friday writing community – today’s word prompt is HAVE.

Coffee in hand, I have been sitting in my favorite chair taking a break from today’s gardening endeavors. The knees of my blue jeans are wet and a bit muddied because I should have made an extra trip to the garage to retrieve my knee cushion (but didn’t). My cushion is an old seat cushion from my brother’s wheelchair and has served me well for several years now. It’s nice and cushy for my aging knees, and big enough to provide a dry place for me to sit when the grass is wet with morning dew. [I am making a mental note to grab it when I go back outside in a few minutes.]

I chose the east side of my house as my focus for today’s weeding and cleanup endeavors. In years past, it has been the side of the house which few people see. However, this year we took down two unhealthy spruce trees in our front yard, giving passersby an unobstructed view of a flowerbed which had previously been fairly well hidden. I have decided to put a little extra effort into this garden space and see if I can make something special out of it–something which my neighbors can enjoy.

But now, at this moment, it’s overgrown with lamium (a noxious weed disguised as a plant), and many weeds and over-wintered, water-soaked hosta leaves. As I pull my hand rake through the tangled bed of yuck, the green shoots of this year’s floral promise are slowly uncovered.

There, under last season’s detritus, are the green tips of an emerging hosta, alongside the peony my dad dug for me from his garden a few decades ago.

As I cleared away last year’s fallen leaves, I found this lovely patch of pulmonaria bedazzled with pink and blue little bells. Even when the flowering finishes, I just love the fuzzy, bespeckled leaves. [Take a gander here if you’d like more photos and info about the pros and cons of this lovely plant.]

April weather is absolutely crazy in Wisconsin. Spring? Summer? Winter? It can’t make up its mind! One day I’m working barefoot in my garden–the next day snow squalls are springing up here and there, or hail is pelting the house. Our crazy weather reminds me that life is unpredictably subject to change without advance notice. In this earthly body, I have this moment and this breath–and have no guarantee of the next. This thought encourages me to make every moment and every breath that I can a beautiful one and to make sure my heart is ready for that first breath of heaven.

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. ~ 2 Cor. 5:1 (ESV)

Books: Access to Knowledge

One story my mom told of her childhood sticks out in my mind today, but is a bit fuzzy around the edges — how I wish I had paid closer attention and written down the details while I had the chance.

Mom told of an aunt and uncle who owned a restaurant. When mom would visit, this auntie would let mom explore the former bookstore on the other side of the building she owned. When her aunt unlocked that door, mom had personal access to all of the books that were still nestled on each shelf of that now abandoned bookstore. A whole new world opened up to her as she fingered the pages of each book that she read. It is no wonder that mom carried the love of reading with her throughout life, until Alzheimer’s would overshadow her ability to read in her last year of life.

In 1964, a new branch of the Milwaukee public library opened up on Capitol Drive, in a neighborhood very familiar to my parents. Just a handful of years earlier, I had been born in the Capitol Drive hospital (where mom was a nurse) just a few miles east down the road, and my parents had lived in the house just behind that hospital for the first years of my life. Looking back, it’s no wonder my mom would be one of this library’s early patrons, or that some of my earliest memories are of her helping me choose books from its shelves. What a wonderful feeling it was when, a few years down the road, I received my very own library card, giving me my very own access to countless adventures in books, plus the resources I would need for school research down the road a few years.

Yours truly in kindergarten, the year my adventure in reading would begin. Note: mom was much better at helping me choose books to read than she was at cutting my hair.

Fast forward to 1969 when another library opened up to me. This library of just 66 books was contained within one greater volume. Yes, the Bible. It was during the 12th year of my life when I, by faith, met the Author of this book. In the very moment that I placed my trust in Christ, His Spirit came to dwell within me, unlocking and giving me full access to the truths within the pages of my Bible.

I learned a verse during that year which helped me understand the importance of this Book of all books in my new life as a believer and why it continues to speak to my heart and change me from within each and every time I spend time within its pages.

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 (ESV)

Laugh – Five Minute Friday

One word prompt sent to a community of bloggers. Five minutes to write about it. Unedited. Don’t think too hard…just write. The Five Minute Friday word prompt this week is LAUGH. Ready, set, go!

I heard my dad laugh this week. It took me by great surprise, because dad went to his heavenly home in 2008. But, there it was – that familiar laugh. It started with an under the breath “heh-heh-heh” that morphed to a jolly, tummy-jiggling chuckle, and ended with a loud, throw your head back, “Ha!”

It happened when I was paying my brother a visit in the nursing home where he resides. I usually stop by after work and bring him a home-baked cookie and his favorite peach ice-tea. He doesn’t talk much, but he’s always glad to see me.

There’s a nice comfy chair in the corner of Brad’s room right next to his bed. I plop my work-weary self in the chair, kick off my shoes and prop my feet up on the edge of his bed, then sit with him for a few minutes to watch whatever he’s watching on the television. It’s usually an episode of Blue Bloods, but on this day it was a funny movie. It was during that tv-watching moment when I distinctly heard my dad laugh.

Dad taking a ‘selfie’ long before it was a thing.

My brother laughs just like dad!

Discovering a Secret Garden

Alas, today’s snow flurries and nippy temperatures are just a foretaste of what is yet to come. My gardening checklist has quite a few tasks yet to complete in order to finish preparing my flowerbeds for winter’s sleep. How can it be mid-November already? It seems only yesterday that I was happily plodding barefoot through my gardens, planting this, transplanting that, and digging out weeds, and muttering under my breath at the voracious bunnies who happily brought their family and friends to my flowerbed buffet.

It also seems that not long ago I took a ~~wrong~~ ~~turn~~ detour and found myself driving down a street on which I had never traveled and found myself in an older section of town in what appeared to be an industrial park. Upon making a Y-turn to head back to the known route, I spied a sign to a public garden tucked in a messy-but-pretty flowerbed between what looked like two warehouses.

It was a beautiful summer afternoon, so I parked my car at the curb and accepted the sign’s invitation to wander down a footpath toward what looked like the garden’s entrance. Native plants seemed to hum with busy bees and butterflies. Flowers criss-crossed and lapped over the edges of the ungroomed pathway. The busy bees didn’t seem to mind my presence, so I carefully ventured further down the winding path, and there I found a hidden slice of peaceful beauty to explore.

I invite you to wander its pathways with me, courtesy of a few photos I snapped as I walked and explored.

Upon crossing this rustic footbridge, I entered the most enchanting prairie.

Flowers lured me in to wander pathways, and God’s creation beckoned me to praise Him.

I’ll be back…

I am joining (last minute on a Thursday) the Five Minute Friday writing community for a little writing adventure hosted by Kate Motaung. This week’s writing prompt is, “Wander.”

Blessed to Bake

I am truly blessed by God’s gift of being able to bake for my friends. While they will likely never recover from their illnesses and memory loss (on this side of Glory), I hope that my desserts and treats will help them recover a special lost memory of a yesterday and bring a little splash of momentary joy to their day.

I am blessed to spend three mornings every week baking for my friends. Each of these dear ones lives at BeeHive Assisted Living and Memory Care home due to some type of memory loss.

I am blessed to see my friends smile and wave at me as I measure my ingredients into my big mixing bowl. I love hearing the buzz as they talk amongst themselves about what I’m doing — guessing what will come out of the oven.

I am blessed to hear the ladies reminisce about how they used to bake for their families, or how their mom used to make what I am baking for them.

I am blessed when the aroma of something sweet baking in the oven wafts through the building and a dear one stops by the kitchen to ask, “What are we baking today?”

I am blessed when one gentleman scoots his wheelchair through the door and sits in the kitchen chatting in a language I cannot speak. My friend doesn’t eat sugary treats, but he likes to keep me company and watch me bake for awhile, then nods off in a little middle-of-the doorway nap. I hope his dreams are sweet.

I am blessed when one special lady-friend giggles and says (several times a day), “Since you started baking here, it’s getting hard for me to button my pants!” Just the smell of something baking in the oven has a way of making my friends smile and helps them anticipate their next meal.

I am blessed when I serve another friend her dessert before her meal – allowing her to start her meal with dessert means she will likely keep eating the rest of her meal. Her dainty little smile on her face as she savors her dessert blesses me.

I am blessed when I am able to take a little break from my baking to help one of my friends find her room (or her purse, or her keys). This friend is special to me because she shares my mom’s first name and reminds me of her in so many ways. I love it when this tiny little lady takes my hand in hers and draws it to her lips for a little kiss and says, “I will never forget your kindness.”

This post is part of the Five Minute Friday blog link-up where I join up with Kate Motaung and a community of writers and bloggers of all ages and stages who gather on Fridays around a single word prompt to free-write for five minutes. Kate’s word prompt for this week is {recover}.

Henry in the Middle

A little heartwarming story about a boy I love named Henry.

God filled my grandma cup with three incredibly sweet granddaughters – Violet, Mia, and Noelle. Life was filled with tea parties, princesses and fairies, Barbie dolls, and glitter adorned fairy wings and princess dresses. Then God took my decidedly glittery pink and purple cup of joy and filled it to overflowing by adding three grandsons – Charlie, Henry, and George. My grand-girl fun was by no means over, but my toy arsenal now included marble-eating plastic dinosaurs, toy cars and trucks, and lots of dirt and bugs.

A Garden Memory to Savor

Our local weatherman says we’re in for a few days of chilly temps, so I decided to take advantage of today’s fleeting afternoon warmth to rake leaves out of the flowerbed on the east side of our home. This flowerbed has never been a show-stopping focal point of our landscape and few people actually see it, so it’s usually the last flowerbed to garner any attention whatsoever from me. With a little more effort, I mused, I could create something eye-catching and special in this particular garden space.

I thought about that as I gingerly pulled the rake through the bed, gently coaxing last year’s leaves and debris toward the edge of the bed. Moving more slowly than usual because of a grumpy shoulder, I raked very carefully, slowly uncovering the new beginnings of unfurling leaves and flowers yet to bloom. Among them, a dozen or more clumps of hosta push their spikey heads above the earth; a Siberian iris and a daylily send leafy blades skyward; and a huge clump of sedum I wish I had divided long ago.

But there, in the far corner of this plot of earth was the plant I treasure very much. A few gentle pulls of the rake uncovered the red tips of one of my dad’s peonies inching their way out of the warming earth. A twinge of pain reminded me to take a little break, so I pulled my garden stool into the corner next to dad’s peony and surveyed the work I had accomplished thus far. It was looking good.

A brisk breeze tossed my hair in my eyes. Closing my eyes for a moment, I just listened to the nearby windchime’s frenzied melody and the sweet call of the cardinal in a neighboring magnolia tree. Opening my eyes again, I focused on carefully weeding around dad’s peony. As I pinched and pried, I thought about my dad and how much he nurtured and enjoyed his peonies. Few things brought him greater joy than snipping a few for the passersby who stopped to admire their beauty. That memory of him made me smile.

The wind was growing colder and a niggling of pain suggested it was time to gather my tools and call it a day. It’s hard to give thanks for the painful things in life, but I found myself offering a prayer of thanks to God for slowing me down enough so that I could savor the quietude of memories and the simple beauty of an emerging garden.

One word. Five minutes to write about it. This is the idea behind the Five Minute Friday community. Today’s free-writing word prompt: SAVOR