Roses in December

Today I gathered around a table with women I dearly love. During the year we meet each week to study, to ponder and to help each other live out the teachings of Jesus. They are my "go to gals when life gets tough" as my North Carolinian friend puts it.

We are moms, singles, aunts, grandmas, and great grandmas. We come from different faith traditions. We love a good discussion. We like to use our minds as well as our hearts. We love to laugh. We love to welcome a newcomer.

Twice a year we gather to celebrate with feasting and gift giving.

The gifts we bring are simple but come from our hearts. Today, one brought a poem. Another a dramatic reading of a lost sheep and his shepherd. One shared a picture of her father who passed away this year. Another brought chocolate croissants.

And another gifted each of us with a fragrant rose and an herb bouquet from her winter garden.

Gifts of love. Gifts of friendship. Gifts to enjoy today.

The roses were fragrant and vibrant. I imagine it was a sacrifice to cut them from her garden at this time of year and share them with all of us. Yes, I live in a climate that has roses in the winter. But this will be the last of their blooms until spring. The roses must have looked stunning in her garden. But instead of keeping them for herself, she cut them and brought them to share.

My rose is in a vase on my dresser. I can smell its sweet scent as I write. It is with a deep appreciation that I enjoy its beauty because it came at a time when a garden rose is a rare gift.

I wonder how often I am given gifts but don't fully appreciate them because they seem common place or ordinary. And yet when given out of season or in a season of pain or grief, they become a lifeline. They become God's gifts of grace at just the right time.

My dad died on December 4, 2004. When we came home from the hospital after his passing, four long stemmed red roses sat in a vase on the kitchen table. My dad had given them to my mom just a few days before his tragic accident. There were four of us who entered the empty house. My mom, brother, husband and I. It was as if he was saying one last time to each of us, "I love you."

On the first anniversary of his death, I bought four roses to put in my home as a way to honor my dad. I now do that each year on December 4. I love that the red roses are part of my holiday tradition. They remind me to focus on what really matters during the holidays. I need that reminder as I can quickly feel overwhelmed by all I think I need to do. I need this reminder all year long!

I was given more than a rose today. I was given a gift of grace. 

For my dear friends who are in a season of waiting or grieving and who are struggling during the holidays, I pray that they too will receive the gift of a winter rose.  The gift of a hug, a phone call, a meal, a note, a prayer. Something that will remind them that they are loved.

Linking up with Tuesdays Unwrapped  

Gratitude - Selah

To learn more about this series, please visit SELAH.

I bought fuji apples today. I buy apples twice a week. My kids love them. I love them. But today was different. I cut open my apple and found MITSU, the honey spot in a fuji apple. I just stared at it. My daughter had no idea why I was grinning. I said, "Mitsu! Mitsu in my apple. I can't believe it!"

For those who follow my blog, you know I wrote about mitsu a few days ago. I haven't seen it in an apple for years. I was so excited! Mitsu always reminds me of Japan.

Today, all these memories from Japan came rushing back to me. But the one that stood out was my first Sunday in Japan after arriving from the States. I was 23 years old. After attending the worship service at Sakai International Bible Chapel (a city outside of Osaka) where I would go every Sunday for next two years, the ladies gathered in the small kitchen to prepare green tea and snacks. Today was special because someone had brought a box of 16 big beautiful fuji apples each individually wrapped in a protective holder. One apple probably cost the equivalent of five U.S. dollars or more. (That was two decades ago!) It was November and the perfect time to celebrate the gift of these beautiful apples with everyone.

I was asked to help prepare the apples. When I cut the first one open, I noticed some darker color inside and began to remove it and then throw it in the wastebasket. All of a sudden, several women were talking in animated voices and telling me something in Japanese. I now know they were probably saying, "MITSU DESU!" One of the women then said in English, "This is apple's honey. It is the sweetest part! Don't put in gomi (garbage)."

I thought about this memory today. It was my first taste of culture shock with many more to come over the next four years I lived in Japan. But what struck me today as I remembered that event was how I didn't recognize the mitsu. I had to be in another culture to even discover that it existed and then recognize that it was the best part.

Yesterday, I wrote about waiting. About how I had to learn to live in gratitude while I waited. This memory in Japan is a picture to me of that journey. Sometimes I miss what is beautiful in my life because I can't see it. Sometimes I need to be shown where to look.

Gratitude is also a spiritual discipline. Some people write out a short gratitude list every evening. I don't do that, but I do like to write a list regularly in my journal. I do it because I find that gratitude helps me to live one day at a time. I can't be thankful for something tomorrow. It hasn't happened yet. I can only be grateful for what is here today.

Today I want to pause and really live in gratitude....For the things I can't buy or collect or obtain by my own effort. Today, the mitsu in my apple at lunch is at the top of my list. I may share my list tomorrow.

How do you practice gratitude?

(We just found our second mitsu of the day! So fun!)

Waiting

When I was a college student, I worked as a staff counselor at a summer camp in Sebastopol, California. I vividly remember Steve, the lead staff counselor, gathering a group of counselors together at the base of a hiking trail for a training session. We were getting ready to work together with high school students in an intensive two-week camp and needed to be able to rely on each other.

Goat Rock at the Sonoma Coast

Steve loved to challenge us physically so that we couldn't do things on our own but had to work together. Trust each other. Listen to each other. The week prior it was a hike up Goat Rock at the beach so named on the Sonoma coastline. I dreaded these training times. I never realized until that summer that I didn't like being pushed out of my comfort zone physically. I liked to play it safe. I had fear of heights. Steve loved to get us up high!

On this particular day we were divided into groups of three. Two of us were blindfolded while the third was the leader. We were to hike up a narrow trail with our leader guiding us. The trail was steep, narrow, missing steps with rebar (steel bar) jutting out. I joined my group of three, put on my blindfold, and listened to our leader as he asked us to hold hands. His voice then guided us where to place our left, then right foot, as we made our way up the trail.

At one point in the journey, our leader stopped us on the trail and said, "Kim, you'll have to wait here. I can't lead you both at the same time. Wait until I come back to get you."  I stopped and waited while he led my friend on up the trail. I waited and waited. I knew this trail. Just last week I had been with the team rebuilding steps. I thought, "I can go forward by myself". With my blindfold on, I bent down and started to use my hands to feel the steps. They were missing. I had no idea what was up ahead. I only tried for a few seconds and decided that I needed to wait until I could be guided by someone who could actually see.

What struck me about this moment was that I even considered going forward at all. Why couldn't I just stand there and wait? Why did I hate waiting so much? Why was I so determined to move forward even though our leader promised he'd come back for me?

I have come back to that experience many times in my life when I have had to wait. I know a lot about waiting. I waited month after month in hopes of a pregnancy. Those months turned into years. I waited for doctors to tell me if the procedure was successful for a pregnancy. I waited for paperwork to be approved for the adoption process. I waited for the pain to lesson from a failed adoption. I waited for the courage to try again. I waited for the phone call that said we'd been chosen. I waited for the baby to arrive and be placed in my arms. I waited for the adoption to be finalized. And then I did the adoption process all over again a second time.

I know waiting. Waiting that is filled with wishing and longing. Some days I waited with hope. Some days with fear. Some days with surrender. Some days I waited in tears.

During my years of infertility, I asked God for a miracle. I wept. I pleaded. I waited. I wrestled with God and asked him why he didn't give us a miracle. When I looked to the Biblical narrative, I found many times when God's people had to wait. But I struggled as I looked for comfort and only read of barren women who all got their miracle -- a pregnancy.

But there was a place that gave me comfort. It was a place that surprised me. It came from what was not written. I was drawn to the silent years of Jesus' life. The Gospels give an account of Jesus' birth, of an event when he was a young boy, and then when he began his ministry when he was around 30 years old. He then began to reveal himself and do miracles. But Jesus lived for years in Nazareth before anyone knew who he was. He must have known people he had grown up with who were sick, dying, hurting. And yet, he had to wait. It wasn't his time to reveal himself. He didn't heal them even though his heart must have longed to do so. He had to wait until it was His time. Even Jesus had to wait for God's timing. This gave me profound comfort in the midst of my waiting.

God's timing is a mystery.

Sometimes the journey of waiting presses in on how I see God. Is he truly loving and good all the time? Sometimes it pushed in more than I thought I could bear. God's timing is a mystery. And somewhere along the way, I began to live in the mystery.

That doesn't mean that I ignored my grief and pain. But I had to learn how to live in the midst of the waiting. For me that meant living one day at a time. I had to choose to stop living in "if only I had a baby, I will be happy."  Slowly, I found I could do one day at a time. When I looked at tomorrow, it was too scary. Some days I did that better than others. Some days I needed to be gentle with myself when my empty arms were too heavy with grief. But slowly, I began to choose to start looking for the things that were good and beautiful in my life in the midst of the pain...one day at a time.

I have friends who are waiting. For a baby. For a job. For a spouse. For an end to chronic pain. For an adoption to be finalized. For a family member to choose recovery. I wish I could tell them how long they will have to wait. I wish I could tell them that they will get what they are waiting for. But I can't. And I don't know what they need. But I can ask. I can listen. I can wait with them and pray with them and let them share their pain. I can walk with them.

I still don't like waiting. I still want to rush through it and try to find a way out. Steve knew what he was doing that summer in 1989. He knew that we needed each other to help us up the trail. We can't get very far when we try to do it on our own. We don't have to wait alone.