Gramma’s Gone Green (for reals)

August’s birthstone is Peridot and in honor of all of you who have birthday’s this month (Diane B!), I have gone green.  Can’t say it is exactly Peridot but hey, a girl has to make do with whatever is out in the marketplace so PRETEND it is Peridot green, for my sake.

I also styled my hair in my own creation which is a mix of ocean wave and…..well, whatever.  Not sure if it will start any new trends but I’m rockin’ it today (at least in my own mind….where, if I think of it…I tend to rock a lot of things but not everyone seems to see it that way….hmmmm)

So what do you think?  Anyone who knows me knows that I am not easily offended so tell the truth.  This is the first time ever for me to have totally green hair and I think I like it!

For anyone who cares, I used Directions dye in Spring Green over freshly bleached hair.

Off now to stop some traffic….oh,wait, I guess green is “GO”…hope no one gets hurt by confusing me with a traffic light….cause we are both tall and slender…(in my world, I am, so don’t rain on my parade!)

Love from The Green Queen

Lesson from the Honeybees

In my morning reading today, I came across a story on how Honeybees work to make sure that not only their generation will succeed but that their colonies will survive for generations to come. They devote their little bee lives (they only live six weeks because they work themselves to death) to the protection of the next generation. During the growing season, their are FIVE generations of Honeybees active in the hive.

So what did I learn from this, you ask?

The writer of the page (Ben Cooper) says, “Bees’ strong work ethic that spans generations reminds me of the foundational efforts my own grandparents and great-grandparents made-raising their children in a godly way paid it forward for my parents and for me and my children. Just like the honeybees, they didn’t necessarily get to see the reward of their labor, but they carried out their calling faithfully.”

It made me wonder if there were folks in my ancestry who prayed for me as a grandchild or great grand, or great-great-grand, etc. and today I am reaping the blessing of those prayers?

I think we often forget, especially the folks who have grown up in the Internet age where every thing you want to know is practically instantaneous, that not everything we do or pray for, will be shown to us in this life. I think my generation (Baby Boomer) is that last generation where we understood patience on a whole. I am sure that we even struggle nowadays with wanting to see everything happen NOW. But God does not work like that always. That is where FAITH comes in. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 11-1)

So take hope my friends, that those things you have been praying for may still come to pass but maybe not in your lifetime. Never stop praying for the salvation of loved ones no matter what is going on with them. Our prayers are being heard and He who has the power to act on them will do so when His timing is PERFECT. Someone had been praying for me but it took 28 years for it to be His PERFECT timing for my life. He kept me safe and alive (Oh, the stories I could tell…) so I could meet Him at age 28 and make the choice to follow Him instead of my own way (which was on a collision course with HELL).

I love how God can use anything in His creation to teach us humans lessons and I will keep posting what I learn and I hope it makes you think and will bless you as it blesses me!

Robyn

ARE THE WINDOWS OF YOUR HEART CLEAN OR DIRTY?

I was reading today in a devotional about a woman who was procrastinating about cleaning the windows on one side of her home because getting to them was a hassle for there were overgrown tree limbs and bushes that blocked them. It had been easier just to let them be dirty than to do the work to clean them. Then the quarantine of 2020 hit and she could not stand the thought of being in her home and having to look through those dirty windows 24/7 for who knew how long so she put in the work and got them spanking clean. She was amazed at how much brighter her living room looked now that the sun could pour in unhindered. It became a place of joy, peace and refuge.

That got me thinking about my heart and how in the past few years I had allowed the dirt and grime of the issues facing the world to accumulate over it. How could goodness and joy come in (and more importantly flow OUT) if it was blocked by the garbage that I had allowed in?

To clean my heart I knew would take work and to keep it free from dirt would mean giving up my news sources. To stop obsessively checking Twitter and Truth Social and YouTube for the latest atrocities happening in my state and country and across the entire world. I was like a vacuum, sucking up all the media pollution and not cleaning my filters or changing my bags.

I am always so surprised and grateful when my Father shows me the error of my ways in a manner that speaks straight to my soul.

I will be doing some spiritual spring cleaning so I can see clearer and be able to open the windows of my heart to let the SON shine in!

Have you cleaned your heart windows lately? If so, I would love to hear all about it.

May your heart shine today so brightly that those that are witness to it need sunglasses!!!!

With love,

Robyn

ARE WE ON A SINKING SHIP?

This morning before getting out of bed, I was praying about our leadership, here in the USA, and how every single day, it comes up with (in MY opinion) more evil and wicked things to shove down our throats and I was lamenting to the Lord about it. Suddenly, I “heard” in my mind, His “voice” asking me, “DO YOU BELIVE THAT WORLD EVENTS ARE UNDER MY CONTROL, AND THAT I PUT KINGS (RULERS) ON THEIR THRONES AND I REMOVE THEM?”

In a space of a second or two, my thoughts of government of the past two years, flashed like a strobe light in my mind’s eye. DID I BELIEVE THAT OR NOT? It was like I was standing before Him and my heart had been opened up and out poured all the anger, the hate, the horrid thoughts, the lamenting “WHYS?” and the “HOW CAN YOU NOT MOVE TO REMOVE THIS WICKED GOVERNMENT?” My intellect knew that He was in charge as I have read it in the Bible many times, in both the Old and New Testament and I believe if it is written in the Bible it is true but my HEART and SOUL had not been willing to accept it because in my humanity, I wanted “righteousness” to prevail and the wrongs of the past years to be unveiled and naked for everyone to see and to the wrongs be righted. I wanted JUSTICE.

Funny how your head knows something to be true and yet, our hearts fight for what we want. We who study God’s Word KNOW how the end of the age of the Church (not the buildings/denominations/religions but the true Christians whom have accepted the gift of Jesus’s sacrifice for our sins at the cross and have asked Him to be the Lord of our lives and have turned from our sinful ways, tho we fall short everyday…not one human is perfect in their walk with Christ…when we stumble, we get up and brush it off, ask for forgiveness and for help overcoming that sin….it is a daily occurrence for most of us.) is going to happen and it sure appears to be very close on the horizon and what we are seeing has already been predicted since the fall of Adam and Eve…..6000 plus years ago. And EVERY prophecy and prediction has come true….EVERY SINGLE ONE….up until this age…..so we can depend on the few that are yet unfulfilled WILL BE in the times to come. So I should not be surprised at what is taking place in 2023…..

I then got up, grabbed my cup of coffee and sat down to read some daily devotionals and the first one I picked up, I had read the page for the 24th of the month and had highlighted a few sentences and since I have a “5 second rule” memory, I reread it and was so struck at the correlation between the words I heard in bed and by what I had underlined more than a week ago.

A woman was writing about a trip she took with her husband on a sail boat and even though they planned everything, a storm came up and it was very frightening and while she was hanging on to her mini fridge down below, she suddenly understood the disciples’ fear during the storms at sea. The circumstances frightened them but their fear was compounded because they doubted Jesus’s intent toward them.

Was I not doing the same thing in my fear of the coming storm….where our country may be at war with each other? The hatred seen for folks who have opposite opinions is something I have NEVER seen in all my 68 years. I see one group calling for violence against another group. I see my government infringing on my Constitutional Rights….to have Free Speech….the right to disagree….the right to be SAFE while disagreeing….the right to a VOTE that will be counted FOR MY CHOICE….and so many other things that make my blood run cold.

What I underlined was this: Jesus cares deeply for us. He knew when he was in the boat with the disciples that a storm was coming so he got IN WITH THEM and feel asleep. But they did not know his intent…they lost their trust in Him when their ship was being tossed about and still he slept….they could see him and yet they feared…..

Friends, He’s already in our boats. Sooner or later the winds will rise and the waves will rock us, but remember, HE IS WITH US. His intent is not that we panic but that we experience His POWER and His PEACE. He KNOWS what He is doing….we just need to TRUST HIM WITH IT.

(Grace Fox was the author of the story in Mornings With Jesus and the artist of the painting below is “Skellige Storm by Anna Podedworna from Reddit)

2023 AND I AM BACK MADDER THAN EVER!

I cannot believe I have not written on my blog since Dec. of 2019! I have so missed writing. I am not sure which of my passions are greater….writing or painting. Perhaps I can do both and share my artistic journey here with you all…..

So much has changed since I last wrote….the world went crazy and continues to spiral downward toward God only knows (okay, if you are a student of the Bible, you, too, know) where we are headed; I changed hair colors and styles countless times; lost loved ones; got three new dogs and said Goodbye to Madd Maxx and Molly; kept the old husband (am too old to train in a new, younger one!!); closed my little shop during the lockdowns and never reopened it; reunited with old friends and lost touch with others; but most importantly, grew in my faith.

As I ease back into blogging, I will be taking you to the innermost parts of my brain (better buckle up kids, it will be a ride unlike any other you have been on and there may be puking so keep that bucket handy!). I will be talking about everything including the “no~no’s” and I hope we can have some lively debates if you are willing to do so. I believe what I believe and you believe what you believe and I think there is room for both of us here on planet Earth. So feel free to comment when you either agree with me or have some other views…..I WILL NOT ARGUE over things….what does that ever solve except to make you and I stand firmer in our own beliefs…..

Things have changed in the cyberworld also, and I was never very good at technology so I have no idea what I am doing and there will be much trail and error when it comes to adding pictures and such. Oy vey….I need a teenager to guide me on this cyberpath…..

So with all that said, I will leave you with a photo (if I can figure out how to do it) of my latest hair colors and the new love of my life….Nelson Defarge….and I will be back later this week with a new post….please come visit me here if you enjoy my rantings……

Queen Robyn

WHAT IS A NUMBER ANYWAY?

Today I turn 65. 65. Sixty~five. LXV. Three score and five. 6.5 decades.

I can’t believe it.

It just does not seem possible.

Where did my life go?

How does time go more quickly each passing year?

When did I get to be “old”?

When I look in the mirror, I see me. Not an “elderly” person. I see a few wrinkles around my eyes and some lines that were never there before.

But I do not see old.

I do not think old.

I do not act old.

I do not dress old.

My body sometimes feels old. Things don’t work like they used to. But I can still walk, dance, use my hands….my body can still get me to where I need to go without much effort.

But I am old on paper.

This is the last birthday I am going to celebrate. I do not need to know after today, how old I am.

If I can forget how old I am, will I stay young?

Can my mind trick my body into thinking it is decades younger or is my body on a different time line than my mind?

If I can truly forget how old I am, then when the effects of aging start for real, can I still think they will go away as they used to do?

Can I still hear the word elderly and think it does not pertain to me?

I wish my mind was on the same wave~length as my body for I think it would be easier for me if I thought “old”.

If my mind felt 65.

65…..65….it can not be real.

If you are reading this and you are 65 or older, are you also experiencing this shock and bewilderedness at not being just in your early 30’s?

How do/did you cope?

Age is just a number but unless you have short~term memory loss, no matter how hard you try, you are always going to know how old you are and with that knowledge comes the fear of growing old….to start losing parts of yourself….parts of your independence….parts of your physical beauty….parts of your mobility….parts of your memory….parts of your past…..to grow weaker in areas….to not be what you “used to” be….and perhaps the worst part….to start losing friends, neighbors and loved ones and to begin to wonder if tomorrow might be your last day.

Will I be here next Holiday season? Will my grands remember me or are they too young to fully remember me?

I think turning 65 is opening the door to a new and scary chapter toward the end of our life book. The beginning of the Winter of our life season.

It just seems unbelievable that I am here…..already.

I don’t think I am ready for this.

I feel like I am in an episode of the old Twilight Zone….a woman who goes to bed young and wakes up old.

I feel discombobulated.

I sure would like to hear how you are coping with this revelation of being classified as OLD while in your mind you are still like 33.

Did it hit you like a ton of bricks?

How are you coping?

Please comment as I need some encouragement or words of wisdom! As I am really knocked for a loop! (Another one of the sayings I grew up hearing but now makes no literal sense!)

Your Dowager Queen

Reason #1 why I hate Halloween

Today is six days after Halloween. I would assume all Halloween parties are over. Stores have their Christmas decorations out so Fall/Halloween is officially kaput.

So are you thinking it is the history of All Hallow’s Eve that bothers me….yes, but it is not #1.

Is it the official end of Autumn that bothers me? Ya, but since our Autumn’s are so stinkin’ short, I expect it anytime after the first week of October.

Could it be I hate that the stores all have pushed Christmas up into October….nope.

My #1 reason I hate Halloween is this:

I live in fear that someone is going to ask me if I know Halloween is over in a snarky, mean~spirited tone because of how I am dressed!

Today I had a Chamber of Commerce meeting and I am “the new kid” and have not attended that many meetings but each time I do, I have totally different hair and usually a “I am not a wallflower” outfit on. To say I really stick out like a sore thumb is an understatement and I don’t know but two people there so I often feel very uncomfortable even on my most normal~looking (for me) day.

Today I decided to go with my new velvet calf~length duster with the long bell sleeves….very hippie chick….and a wrap around sari silk skirt….my flower~embroidered UGGS and for the heck of it since I was not quite unusual looking enough, I threw a beaded scarf into the dread mix….oh and two different earrings….but color~coordinated….I am not totally without class, ya’ll.

I have to admit, I was not quite sure about all of this going on….at the same time…..on the same person…..but heck. Is or is not my business called, The Lumberjack & The GYPSY….and was I not going to a sort of business meeting? Plus I was running late and I really had to decide if I was “in for a penny, in for a pound” or to just throw in the towel and stay home.

I figured that they had seen me enough times to know that I am not your typical, small town gal so off I flew……

Because I was late and really did not want to have everyone look at me as I slunk in….I was driving the speed limit or a bit above (I normally drive under 60 to conserve gas (not because I am ecologically minded but because a ” penny saved is a penny I can spend on art supplies!”) and I was finding my self using inappropriate language at the vehicles that were slowing me down, all the while having a conversation in my head as to if I should remove the beaded scarf before I got to the meeting (as if that was my biggest fashion faux pas).

I have extensive conversations with myself most of the day (that is why I am phoneaphobic….I am all talked out even though I have not spoken out loud all day) and so I asked myself, “WHY do you dress the way you do?” “Because it makes me happy”, I shot back. Then the irony of what just transpired in my brain struck me.

Here I was, driving like a mad women (okay, anyone else would have been driving normally but for me and my cheap little heart, I WAS driving like a mad woman…burning through my painting money in wasted gas mileage) and thinking bad thoughts about my fellow drivers and worried about what people might say about me…..but was I HAPPY? Heck no. So I mentally slapped myself upside the head and in my best Cher (in Moonstruck) voice, I yelled, “Snap out of it”. IS THIS ME OR IS THIS NOT ME? DO I REALLY CARE IF PEOPLE THINK I AM IN COSTUME AND DIDN’T I KNOW THAT HALLOWEEN WAS OVER? IF I DIED TOMORROW, WOULDN’T I BE SAD THAT I DID NOT DRESS LIKE I WANTED TO ON MY LAST DAY ON EARTH?

So I took a deep breath, grabbed my funky beaded purse and marched into the meeting like a gladiator going into the arena. Lord I wish I could have read the minds of those people. I really do.

Nobody said a word about Halloween but I did have a hysterical moment when during the speaker’s presentation she showed photos of the Halloween party that the facility hosted for the company that does adult respite care and there was a client in the photo who had on a Rastafarian hat with long fake dreadlocks!!!!! All I could think was: YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME……SERIOUSLY? WHAT THE HECK ARE THE CHANCES THAT OUT OF ALL THE FOLKS DRESSED UP, THEY WOULD HAVE THAT PHOTO? AND HOW MANY OF THE CHAMBER MEMBERS WERE THINKING, YUP…..SHE IS IN COSTUME AFTER-ALL.

I wish I could say that this is an isolated incident but stuff like this happens to me ALL THE DANG TIME……it’s like God is humbling me when I spend too much time thinking about myself and my appearance…..even if the thoughts are negative!

So I think I will stay inside the week before Halloween and the week after so I don’t have to worry if people think my fashion choices are really costumes!!!!

It is not easy being me……

The Queen of the weird get~ups (when is the last time you heard that word, eh?)

THE MAGIC OF FACEBOOK

Say what you will about FaceBook, but sometimes it brings wonderful surprises into our lives.

I just had one of those surprises!

Last week I had posted a group of pictures that I had taken from another FB group I am in of a unique and brilliantly colored wedding….very non~traditional but being who I am and loving colors the way I do, it so spoke to me and so I wanted to share it with my peeps in my newsfeed (or whatever it is called when you share stuff…I am old…do not judge me for my lack of technology terms!!!!) and I had commented in the original post group how I had thought it was the most beautiful wedding I had ever seen.

Yesterday, I see that someone I did not know, posted a comment to the photos I had shared from my timeline (?) saying that they did not know me but had to say they loved my love of colors and I had a new friend request from this person.

Now, we all get those random friend requests and usually just delete them but since she had gone to the trouble of commenting on the photos I had posted, I thought I would check her out (I think it is called, “creeping”) by going to her timeline (?) and seeing if she was real and/or a weirdo!!!! (Okay, that is the pot calling the kettle black as who is a bigger weirdo than me….but still….)

So I am looking at the posts she had posted to her peeps and her profile picture and her big picture (I cannot remember what our big pictures on our timelines are called) and I thought, “Wait a minute…..these people look like they could be related to my dad’s side of the family” and as I was scrolling down her posts, I see that she has a photo of someone with MY family’s last name!!!! We do not have a common last name so I commented on that photo that I, too, was a Van Wave….and did she know that?

Well shut my mouth and call me a biscuit (that may or may not be the right saying….I am getting more and more like my mom and can mix up stuff with the best of them), it turns out that she is my second cousin!!!!!!! Her dad and my dad were cousins! And no, she had no idea that I was related to her…..I saw that we had one mutual friend listed but I could not click that on to see who was her friends that was my friend, but after tons of texts on Messenger, it so happens that her friend and my friend is MY cousin also!!!!!

Talk about serendipity…..and sadly enough, she and three of her brothers were JUST here last week to spread the ashes of her older brother and her mom and had met with our cousins and she was staying just miles away from my shop!!!!!!!

She is from Texas (her family had to move when the steel mill in Morgan Park closed) and my family was not a traveling kind so we lost touch with the cousins who moved to find work across the US in the remaining mills.

I do not believe in coincidences. I lost a second cousin last week and he was laid to rest on Saturday and Sunday I find a “new” second cousin. You want to call that coincidence you go ahead, I call it the mercy of God. Of course, the loss of my young second cousin is not replaced with the finding of my older second cousin but what a blessing to me and to my sister and mom when I tell them, that there is a new connection made with my dad’s side of the fam.

I sort of pity my new found cousin…..cause if you know me at all, you know how I HATE talking on the phone but how I can go on and on and on in my writing texts and emails, etc. Because I always post stuff from my iPad and have an attached regular laptop sized keyboard, I forget that most everyone else is hunting and pecking from their phones!!!!

So FaceBook, thank you for doing what you were intended to do way back in the beginning of your function….to connect people and families……I am forever grateful for this communication tool.

Welcome to my world, Cousin Gale….hold on to your chaps, honey, cause I am a wild ride!!!!!!

Why Funerals Are For The Living…..

The older I get, the wiser I become.

When I was young and foolish, I was of the opinion that funerals and wakes only made the intense grief of the families last longer. I thought they were cruel.

Yesterday, I was once again reminded that instead of being cruel, they can be a like a healing salve gently placed over a wound.

I was at the memorial service of a young man who died suddenly and unnecessarily because of a series of medical missteps. He was 25. He was my cousin’s first~born son.

We all believe that no parent, no matter how old, should have to outlive their children. It is not natural in the course of life. But we also know that life can be unbearably cruel.

I think I can speak for all my cousins and their parents when I say that we were all so heavy~hearted knowing the pain our cousin and her family were in and how there was truly nothing we could do to lessen their pain. I am also sure had there been a way to take some of the grief and carry it for awhile, we would have all stepped up and gotten our portion….because that is what families do.

Kyler is the name of my cousin’s son. He was an employee of the Department of Corrections for the state of Minnesota. He worked with his dad and still lived at home, happily, one of the rare breed of young people who actually like their parents and want to spend time with them. So at the service there was a large contingent of officers in uniform as befitting the falling of one of their own.

When you see the respect and loyalty that these people show someone they may never even have met but because they were one of their own, they show up to honor their brother and his family. I was so impressed.

The woman who was officiating the service did not know Kyler personally but had spent time with his family getting to know him through their stories about him. She did a fantastic job retelling some of the stories so those of us that did not know him well, got a better look into the kind of person he was. That takes a special kind of compassion and gifting….not all who officiate funerals can do that.

Kyler’s two aunties (my cousins’s sisters) got up and spoke about him and even though their voices shook with so much emotion, we got to hear how much Kyler meant to them and their kids.

Kyler’s family each picked a song that meant something to them in regards to him and they were not your typical “funeral” songs….some made us cry while others made us smile.

But the part of the service that had the most impact on us all, was when they played a recording of the person who calls out to the officers when it is their watch time. Her voice called out his name twice and when there was no response, she said his watch was over and that he would be watching over all of them and the whole time this was being played, his father….his best friend…his co~worker….was overcome with emotion and the rest of us rode that wave of pain with him.

Because I am older and wiser, I understand the need for this time of grieving…..to cry with those who are also mourning the loss…to absorb the grief and then to release it….not fully of course, but enough that when you leave, the boulder hanging onto your heart has shrunk to a more manageable stone.

And to be able to gather afterward with family and to tell stories and to reminisce about childhood memories and other’s who have gone and to (in our case) pass around a bottle of a favorite adult beverage in remembrance of the one who loved it. It is all part of how we begin to heal after such a terrible tragedy.

Those we have gone before us are never truly forgotten as long as there is one person who still remembers them and shares their story…..

Kyler Lee Greene…..you will live forever in the hearts and minds of those who gathered yesterday and those that will think of you and speak of you in the years to come. You are away but always near in our hearts…..

Are We Propagating Hate Unintentionally?

My brain works like a computer…..many open tabs…all running at the same time….(okay, I have no idea what I just said….I have seen memes like these on FB….but I am not sure what a “tab” is and if many can run at one time….back in MY day, tab was a diet drink and a key on a typewriter….I know…I am old…)

I was listening to a worship music site on Pandora and a children’s song came on and one of the lines said something to the effect that we can be a little light and they can be a little light in this world and my brain went here:

I “saw” from space (no, I do not astroproject…it was just in my mind’s eye) what one tiny little light added to other little lights can be. So bright they can be seen from space…..just your little light and my little light….added together….

Then my mind jumped to hate…(ya, I know…it is exhausting being me) and I had the thought of all of the political stuff I see on FB….from my friends…..I have friends on all sides of the political spectrum (can spectrums have sides? I should ask Siri but she already thinks I am stupid….) and when one side posts something, sometimes in the comments ugliness spurts from the “other” side….doesn’t matter which side is posting….we all have such passion for “our” side.

Then my brain (I think it was God this time) went to this thought:

COULD WE BE SPREADING HATE BY POSTING NEGATIVE STUFF ABOUT THE “OTHER” SIDE?

I was shocked at the answer I got.

YES. WE ARE.

Let me tell you why I think this…..

When I or someone else on my friend list, posts something good about our President (for example), all my friends see it and if they are on the opposing side of what is posted, they in their passion for their “truth” to be heard, reply with nastiness or an attitude of “what are you? Some kind of _______” and an ugliness permeates the post.

The same thing happens when my friends on the “opposite” side of whatever they feel passionate about post and my friends who disagree with them, post comments deriding them and their side, more ugliness……

So you see…..we are part of the problem in this world….and we never even knew it! ALL OF US….no matter what side of world issues you are on.

What if we were to STOP POSTING controversial stuff on our timelines (or whatever they are called) and only sent our strong opinion posts to our friends whom we KNOW believe the same way we do? Can we do that? Can we die to self and not feel we have a “right” to our opinions and the right to post them on our page…..because unless you have 100% of friends who think like you, you are causing someone else to have bad thoughts or to post a disagreeing opinion and there we go…..

I think we all know what “buttons” push our friends in the other camps.

Let’s try to practice “Loving your neighbor as yourself”….even atheists can get behind this….it is the ultimate goal to having a peaceful, loving planet….is it not?

Please think about this. Truly. If you want to be a little light that stands with other little lights that make a light so bright it shines into outer space, stand with me on this and tell your friends to stand and their friends to stand and maybe, just maybe, we will be the start of a whole new world…..

One person CAN change the world…..

In love and peace,

Robyn

How Longing For The Past Robbed Me Of The Present….

This is not going to be one of my funny stories. This one is more of a warning to others to not do as I have done. I am going to get real and expose my self here for the purpose of sharing how I was delivered from the depths of the despair I had allowed myself to fall into.

I hardly know where to start…..

Perhaps it started the day I was standing by my kitchen sink and started to cry thinking about how much I had enjoyed when my daughter and my nephews were young and how the boys would come up to the farm to spend a night and now they were all teens and no longer were interested in playing outside making forts in trees or riding on the tractor, etc. and those days would never come again.

I could not look at photos of when the kids were little and watching home videos would send me into great wracking sobs.

I longed for those days with a ache so strong, I felt it in my soul. I felt the best time in my life was over…..I was 46.

As the years passed, the ache subsided somewhat but was like a part of my heart had died and an emptiness had moved in.

It got so much worse when my daughter got married and left our home to begin her life with her husband. I was not prepared at all for the changes that took place in our relationship with her. She now had a different priority in her life (as she well should have) but I had been under the delusion that nothing would change except we would now have a son in OUR life. Things went from bad to worse and it was all because I did not want to “let go” of the way things had been.

We had been an extremely close three~person family. We home educated our daughter and she was happy living at home even after she graduated and got a job and marriage had never been a big desire in her heart but when she met her husband, all that changed. I was blindsided by it.

I want to make sure now, you understand that it was totally MY unwillingness to let go that caused all the problems in our relationship. I just did not see it until a few years later when God revealed to me that I had made my daughter my “idol”. My world revolved around her…..my husband was just a moon that was in my universe.

Looking back now, with a clearer mind and a healed heart, I see so much pain I was the cause of…..not on purpose….but because I wanted to keep living in the past.

And the numbness and emptiness in my heart grew until it was barely beating. I saw no reason to keep on living and would pray to be taken up into Heaven. I was drowning in a vast sea of blackness and I could not find a light to dog paddle to.

I spent at least 18 years in this ocean of despair. I become more and more recluse. My body tormented me every waking hour with pain and to~the~bone fatigue. I could not find any joy in my being even though I was blessed with four wonderful grandchildren and a restored relationship with my daughter and a new understanding of my place in her and her family’s life and I saw that it was a good place to be.

But I still in my heart, longed for the past…..to where she was young….like my grands.

Sometimes God allows you to go through a “trial by fire” to refine you to be the person He made you to be. I believe I went through that to burn away all my wrong thinking and ideas and my strong, strong will of rebellion. I had to be melted down to nothing so He could mold me into the person I am today…..July 30, 2019 (which ironically is my daughter’s 37th birthday!!!).

Today I feel joy and happiness and contentment and peace and hope and no longer am stuck in the past. I see today and that is all I need to see. I feel like I have come up out of the grave of hopelessness into the sunshine of LIFE. I feel alive again. I had to choose to make that first step but God put those stairs in front of me and I finally had the will and the wisdom to step on that first one and then He took my hand and lead me up the rest. He was there with me in the dark black waters but I was too self~involved to take His hand then. Man, that can be another serious post!

Today I was reading in the Bible in Ecclesiastes 6:10 {“Don’t long for “the good old days” for you don’t know whether they were any better than these'”} and I knew it was a confirmation of my “”rebirth” if you will, and that I needed to share my story for someone who is in the same sea as I was.

To that person, let me encourage you that you just need to lay your will down and admit that you cannot fix/change whatever your circumstances are and that you are now WILLING to give it all over to God and you WILL trust Him to take care of you NO MATTER WHAT THE FUTURE BRINGS. No more looking at the past. The past is gone. It shaped your present and now let God shape your future. I promise that you, too, will feel the sunshine and the joy and the peace and the security that He has given me. Going through the fire of refinement is not easy, not by any means. It hurts like nothing you have ever experienced before but when it is over, the new vessel you are is beyond anything you can imagine. God is good ALL the time…..today, tomorrow, forever…..

If you want to discuss this with me, please email me at: robynbelsvik@gmail.com and I would be so blessed to share more with you of my journey in the furnace or what my first step was…..I am an open book (much to the chagrin of my family!!!)

With love and joy and peace,

Your new Queen