Memory Lane

Annapolis Maryland

Pss. 23:3 “He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.”

The Path Down Memory Lane

Last week was one long stroll down memory lane. I understand we’re not to live in the past but to move forward, but something about the season of fall makes me want to stroll down that path, at least once a year to revisit the good and bad that I left behind.

I don’t wallow in the mire; I never cling to the dust, I just reminisce then brush it off like an over neglected attic. Sweep the lint, brush away the good and bad crud, filter what goes out and comes back in. Yeah, that’s the best way to deal with an unsavory past.

When people see me now they think, ‘oh it couldn’t have been all that bad, look how well she turned out.’ This statement might be true from your perspective, on the outside looking in, but from my perspective, life was not good in any way shape or form.  

I started writing my blog in 2005 but didn’t start taking the writing and expression of my thoughts seriously until 2008. In the very beginning the blog was just about my thoughts, most of which I deleted but by 2008 I turned the blog into helping writers and the craft of writing. 

I’ve been writing poetry all of my life and really didn’t get into writing fiction until about 2004 when WVU (Writers Village University) came into my life and changed my path forever. I was so excited with the new turn in my life, I shared it with my family who as always, never for one second encouraged me and didn’t really care about my writing unless I was famous and making tons of money. 

As years passed by my love of writing grew and my blog has been an important avenue of healing because it is here where I bare my soul and that’s why the name changed a few years back, I was healing and moving away from the painful past and moving into a new leg of the journey that God had carved out for me in my path to the future. 

My journey is not about making money, my journey is about healing and this is what you read, a sinner on the path of healing. I write from my heart and if my family read anything I wrote they would, I’m certain, be ashamed of not having more to do with me or they’d be angry and finger pointing but such as it is, they will only look for my writing AFTER my death.

Job 30:13 “They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no help.”

I have written my mother and father poems since I was very young. I can honestly say I can’t remember the last time I bought a Hallmark card for them, I’ve always written my own. Maybe not Hallmark quality but it spoke to them and how much I cherished them in my life. My sister was always jealous of my ability to convey meaning to my parents via poems and she has tried writing a poem once but her one try in life came off as forced emotion; whereas my father adored my poems and looked forward to them with every Christmas, birthday and father’s day.

This is what started the stroll down memory lane last week when my mother was reading the poems I wrote to my dad and she told me that she cried with reading each one. She also said that my dad had kept a lot of them in his drawer, I guess so he could read them and feel somewhat close to me as I, his baby, was so far away from home. Then she said something that unknowingly hurt, she said my father read one and looked at her and said, “We’re never going to see her again, are we.” It hurt because he never had a chance to see me again or to hear the last poem I wrote him. (Thanks to my sister, he never got to hear it read. Bitter? YES! Admittedly so!)

While everyone is ranting and raging about politics, I’m taking a stroll, one that has me thinking selfishly about my healing, my growth and myself. Is that selfish? I don’t think so, I’m reminded of a childhood that was, I reminisce of the pain-filled life I left behind, and I look to a brighter future with my Lord by my side and Him whispering to me saying, “he (my father) heard the last poem you wrote, as did I, I am well pleased.”

Yes, He always talks to me like that. Always has and always will! The stroll down memory lane will end for now as I head into my future with my Lord and I walking hand-in-hand. 

Pss. 16:11 “Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.”

The Year Ends

1 Thess. 5:4-6  But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.

Well another year has come and gone. I posted more this year than last year but less than the year before. Just in case you were interested. Has my year been great? Not really, it’s been about the same as the other years.

I am happy to report that my son graduated high school this year and that was a highlight I’ll not soon forget! The rest of this year whooshed by so quick I can’t remember too much excitement. But I’m okay with that, I’m a quiet gal that doesn’t like the outside world barging into my life, and I’m okay with that too.

While many people are out making resolutions before the New Year begins, I save my new beginnings for the reflective Lenten season that *I* celebrate that culminates in MY New Year.

I know you’re thinking that I reflect a lot and you’re right. You can’t expect God to move you to change if you don’t reflect on what might need changing now, can you? I’m still enjoying the Essay course that I’m taking and I’m still enjoying my position at WVU as a handy-dandy-help mate.

The next couple of months I’ll be reflecting on life, truth and me. Not some truth that man begs for or a truth that man tries shoving down my throat but truth and what it means to me. I’m not going to seek out this truth online or in some storage place that man has formed for himself and wants others to believe in his opinion. No, truth cannot be found in some book of the month. Yes I read the Bible but my faith is not based on just the bible or anything some scientist throws at me as fact. My faith is based on Him and Him who dwells within ME.

Mark 8:18 Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not remember?

I understand opinions are like eyeballs, everybody has them but not everyone uses them (and some can’t) but I like to use my inner eyes for my opinions, not a man made opinion accepted because that’s the flavor the month. Nope, my inner eyes are solely my opinions and rarely accepted or believed as anything BUT my opinion.

I’m very vocal with my opinion because I like to write, so I write my opinion down. I understand that people are human and that they base their opinions on what they SEE and read, can touch and feel but my opinion comes from something greater than what I see with my naked eye. My opinion is grounded in faith and what I FEEL. Maybe this is what God meant with the sleeping man will wake. Maybe he’ll begin seeing with his inner eyes instead of clinging to all the false opinions (not facts) of what others say or write.

Rom. 13:11 And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.

Imagine a world where people are not so opinionated because of something they read whether in a book, in the news, the entertainment section, on some website, social or otherwise. We would need our inner eyes to see what was right in front of us. Our opinions would then be based on a reality of all we see with our inner eyes manifested into the physical world. I know I’m a rarity and I know this could never happen to ALL men. We just have to all hold on and wait for the day we’re called off this planet into a realm unknown to us. Our opinions won’t matter, all that we read won’t matter and all our human ways won’t be a part of what we become.

Maybe my New Year will be looking inside towards Heaven, because God knows, there is no Heaven here on earth. Earth is but a place for opinions to be formed not a place to shape a soul. A soul can only be formed from the INSIDE.

So while you’re here basking in all the prosperity, in all that you acquired or didn’t acquire, running barefoot and blind through the fields of life, remember it will all be gone in an instant and all you have to hold onto is your soul!

1 Cor. 15: 51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,