my whole world could shatter

(Autumn / Julie Cook / 2018)

I had another post written for today but there was a nagging urge to put it on hold.
I kept trying to push through the writing, trying hard to ignore the unseen force
moving me in a different direction, but I couldn’t push it down,
keeping it from consuming my thoughts.
So somewhat reluctantly, I put the post on hold and started writing what seemed to be
pouring from my heart and thoughts.

Groovy Kind Of Love…
It was a song that I first remembered hearing back in 1988…
although it had first been a hit in 1965.

The lyrics were written by Toni Wine and Carole Bayer Sager, both teens at the time.
It was first recorded by Diane and Annita then later by The Mindbenders.
Eventually, it was covered by The Turtles and finally Phil Collins

And it was Phil Collins’ rendition that left the most lasting impression on my heart.

My mom had died in 1986 at the ripe ol age of 53.
It was lung cancer…
and whether it was just odd or rather just an odd blessing, the entire ordeal only lasted
from July 25th until September 6th.
However, I suspect Mother had been sick much longer than any of us had realized.

In hindsight, I was very much crushed and even broken.
I was 26.
I had been teaching for 3 years plus I had been married for 3 years.
And if the truth be told, it was not the smoothest sailing marriage.
And now I suddenly found myself having to care for my distraught and very inept father
who lived in another city over an hour away.

My plate was now overtly full while my heart was undeniably broken.
And I was very much alone.

When I first heard Phil Collins sing the song in 1988–with that near hypnotic rhythmic
tempatic resonance, I would always catch myself singing softly along.
And every time I got to the line, “my whole world could shatter…”
the words would catch in my throat like a choking rock…
for despite it now having been two years since my mom had died,
my world was still shattered…yet no one knew it but me…
and even I didn’t actually realize how broken I truly was.

The song reminded me of my loss.

My world was shattered…

But…
I knew that I still loved my mom and she, despite being gone, still loved me.
Although it was now in a different dimension with a love that transcended time.
A thing I suppose I now felt was, as the song said, a groovy kind of love.

And so all these many years later…that song has come flooding once again to mind.
Not because I’ve recently heard it playing but rather because the Spirit brings
it to my mind.

So now as I look down upon this tiny granddaughter… I am reminded that
yes, a world could shatter, just as a rock still catches in my throat…
but there will always be that groovy kind of love that transcends time…

When I’m feeling blue, all I have to do
Is take a look at you, then I’m not so blue
When you’re close to me, I can feel your heart beat
I can hear you breathing near my ear
Wouldn’t you agree, baby you and me got a groovy kind of love

Anytime you want to you can turn me onto
Anything you want to, anytime at all
When I kiss your lips, ooh I start to shiver
Can’t control the quivering inside
Wouldn’t you agree, baby you and me got a groovy kind of love, oh

When I’m feeling blue, all I have to do
Is take a look at you, then I’m not so blue
When I’m in your arms, nothing seems to matter
My whole world could shatter, I don’t care
Wouldn’t you agree, baby you and me got a groovy kind of love
We got a groovy kind of love
We got a groovy kind of love, oh
We got a groovy kind of love

hanging on by a thread

Oh, I am not redeemed by corruptible things
Not by silver, not by gold and not by aimless tradition
But by the blood of Gods sacred son Jesus
Oh, You alone are my living hope and my inheritance is incorruptible
Watermark, Incorruptible lyrics

God has ordained that Satan have a long leash with God holding on to the leash
because he knows that when we walk in and out of those temptations,
struggling with both the physical effects that they bring and the moral effects that they bring,
more of God’s glory will shine.
John Piper

(Georgia box turtle ambling across the driveway that has nothing to do with today’s post, I just like him / Julie Cook / 2016)

I am tired.
spent,
worn out,
frazzled
and frayed.

I don’t think I’ve even realized how stressed I’ve been until just recently.

It really started to ramp up with Dad and my stepmother over a year ago…
Their failing bodies, minds and health…
Caregivers coming and going, nurses leaving,
frantic calls, frantic racing to the rescue….

We added my father-n-law to the mix..
Then came his sudden death.
And now a wealth of woe comes with attempting to settle his affairs…
A legal nightmare really.

There’s been the worries parents still have over their grown children…

There’s the business and the agony of retail…

There’s all of that and even so much more….

It’s as if an all out assault has been coming in on all sides…
a blitzkrieg of attacks.

Nerves raw, emotions reeling…as one works to hold it all together…

Take care of yourself they say—
Well, that’s all fine and good but the main person charged with all the caring can’t
just runaway…
however there are days that such a thought is more than just a little appealing…

I think I’ve lamented the fact before…
I spend more time these day’s in a five mile radius of where I grew up
than I do here at home in my own community.
I’ll also be the first person to tell you—DON’T move to Atlanta…
or any other major metropolitan city for that matter—they are just too blasted big…
chalked full of people and their cars that they cannot drive.

There was a time when I loved Atlanta.
I missed it when I was away at college.
I missed it when I was away working during the summers at camp.
I mourned it when I graduated college and moved away taking my first job.
After I married, I finally said good-bye to that hidden thought of one day returning…
to live….

Silly me.

I now neither miss it nor mourn it.
In fact, I now loath it.
As it is no longer the city I knew growing up.
Sadly I believe they call that growth and progress…
I call it a mess.

Dad still lives in the same house they bought when I was 3, way back in 1962.
The area around it however, the neighborhoods and that small community feel, is shrinking.
It’s as if the walls are closing in, but rather than walls, it is entire neighborhoods.

Entire homes are now either demolished and rebuilt into those so called “mcmansions” or they have been entirely obliterated, making room for mega office towers or shopping complexes, along with the resulting urban sprawl.

At the top of the main street, a main artery that Dad’s little street runs into, there once was a condominium complex. It had been there since I was in high school–a good 45 years ago.
Many of the unmarried teachers who worked at my high school actually called it home.
Not that the complex was pretty or particularly nice–but it was low rising, only two stories and the site was lush and wooded, offering a secluded feel in the midst of the city.

Over the years the clientele has changed, as has the whole area.
And once again progress steps in.
A couple of months back, the entire complex was totally demolished as the massive corner of rolling acres was clear cut, graded and leveled.
A new live, work, shopping community is going up.
All this about a mile up the road from Dads.

As I was heading back home this afternoon from Dads, I noted the hive of construction now taking place.
There was a gigantic crane lifting sheets of concrete high up into the air so effortlessly that the massive concrete slab being fit into the massive parking deck like a puzzle piece, appeared suspended like a mere piece of paper swaying gently in the breeze.

Here was a multi ton slab hanging in the air by a single thin cable…dangling from a huge crane.
The construction workers below, donning their hard hats, watched as the crane operator easily maneuvered both crane and slab, angling the concrete sections into place on the ever growing massive parking deck.
Piece of engineering cake.

Yet I knew that with one snap of that cable, all those men below would be crushed out of site.

“Such faith” I heard myself muttering to no one in particular.

It was amazing really.

Those men had such a trusting faith in that crane operator and more importantly in that single thin cable…

A cable of faith…

Much like the same sort of cable that holds me…
As I am suspended between this life and an omnipotent God.
A cable that links me to an unconditional Love.
A faith that holds all that I am, extended from all that He is.

It is knowing that He is holding on, not letting go and that I am tethered…
Attached to something so much bigger and so much greater…
That cable of faith, linking both created and Creator, is my unbroken connection
to the one true Hope
It is knowing that nothing on this earth escapes Him…
His knowledge, His vision, His Love..
That I am His and He is mine…

And just like the construction workers working beneath the crushing slabs of concrete, I too can go about my business with the weight of the world hanging over my head knowing that everything is going to be ok because He is totally in charge and will not allow me to be crushed….

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
Luke 12:6-7

there must be something in the water…

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
I am haunted by waters.”
― Norman Maclean,

(a thriving viola / Julie Cook / 2016)

Somedays we write our posts laced with happiness and smiles,
As other days we find our posts derived from the midsts of infectious laughter.

Some posts are written when deep in thought…
While others are written briefly, gliding across the screen…
with the lightness of a feather,
caught innocently on a Spring morning’s breeze.

There are reflective posts written as mirrors of the times…
While others are written in anticipation of our promised tomorrows.
As still there are those posts written forlornly…
remembering all that has ever been…

Some days posts are written through eyes filled with tears,
with tear streaked cheeks and the ache of breaking hearts.

They are written through the frustration of helplessness…
and at times, through the desperation of hopelessness….

Some days they are written selfishly for ourselves…
While other days they are written without our conscious knowledge,
only intended for those “others” out there in need…

Today is no different…

A post is composed.

Today it comes from the heaviness of a battered heart.
The tears have somewhat dried,
yet the wet streaked tracks remain etched on cheeks hiding a set jaw of clenched teeth.

A call, a text, is often all it takes to change the day.
As ongoing battles loom out of reach and out of control.

The story is the same, merely growing longer.
Harder to smooth out.

Lives long gone are keenly missed as their empty presence cuts through both space and time…
Their losses suddenly feeling as fresh today as they did so very long ago..
like a searing knife falling through cold butter.
Effortlessly the hurt floods back.

Having been left alone to deal with it all seems, today, almost monumental.
Resentment for all that was comes crashing to the forefront.

Choices made, always the choices made, effect more than ourselves,
Yet at the time, who thinks of others or future others affected?
Our choices are selfishly seen as our own…

Born a fixer,
I fix things.
It’s what I do.
Yet as life will always have its way,
we each quickly discover that fixing is not always possible…

So we, the fixer and the observers, are relegated to helplessly and hopelessly watching…

Expendable is what we quickly become when the lost look to holding on to what they have.
Desperation and panic trumps rationality and ties that bind.

It’s like the song that gets stuck in one’s head.
Over and over it plays, seemingly without any end.
Never seeming able to string all of the verses together…
in order for it to end.

And just when you think you are broken, be it for the day or for life,
dropped to your knees with the tears freely flowing,
A word, maybe two, maybe several…suddenly surface from somewhere deep within your head…

“couldn’t fight back the tears so I fell on my knees…
Saying, “God if you’re there, come and rescue me….”

“Something In The Water”
By Carrie Underwood

He said, “I’ve been where you’ve been before.
Down every hallway’s a slamming door.
No way out, no one to come and save me.
Wasting a life that the Good Lord gave me.

Then somebody said what I’m saying to you,
Opened my eyes and told me the truth.”
They said, “Just a little faith, it’ll all get better.”
So I followed that preacher man down to the river and now I’m changed
And now I’m stronger

There must’ve been something in the water
Oh, there must’ve been something in the water

Well, I heard what he said and I went on my way
Didn’t think about it for a couple of days
Then it hit me like a lightning late one night
I was all out of hope and all out of fight

Couldn’t fight back the tears so I fell on my knees
Saying, “God, if you’re there come and rescue me.”
Felt love pouring down from above
Got washed in the water, washed in the blood and now I’m changed
And now I’m stronger

There must be something in the water
Oh, there must be something in the water

And now I’m singing along to amazing grace
Can’t nobody wipe this smile off my face
Got joy in my heart, angels on my side
Thank God almighty, I saw the light
Gonna look ahead, no turning back
Live every day, give it all that I have
Trust in someone bigger than me
Ever since the day that I believed I am changed
And now I’m stronger

There must be something in the water (amazing grace)
Oh, there must be something in the water (how sweet the sound)
Oh, there must be something in the water (that saved a wretch)
Oh, there must be something in the water (like me)
Oh, yeah

I am changed (I once was lost)
Stronger (but now I’m found)
(was blind but now I see)

(Carrie Underwood, The Grand Ole Opry / Julie Cook / 2015)