We’ve been on Christmas Vacation. My daughter got off the week before me, my husband’s vacation started on Christmas Eve but now they are back to school and work today and I have another seven days off. I smartly or stupidly, I can’t decide which, scheduled a lot of health appointments and check ups for this week. Right now as I’m looking at the schedule I’m leaning toward stupidly, but I did try to make time to meet up with a friend or two here or there, so we’ll see how that turns out.

Since my last post we’ve had sweet Emily’s memorial service. My daughter sang at the funeral Mass and I wonder how she found the courage to sing, I wasn’t asked, but I’m not sure I could have even if I was. She sang well. It was a lovely service for a beautiful lady. I’ve always found comfort in the funeral Mass, probably because I’m Roman Catholic and the service is familiar, giving room to the grieving to do just that, grieve, while reminding us, Emily is not far or absent, just part of the “invisible”. That’s not always great comfort at 2:00AM when you wake up missing someone or anticipating a loss, but in the moment it provides a space to think about your own mortality, what kind of life you want to live and the ultimate goal, heaven.

I have so many people now to reunite with in heaven. Our Lauren Rose of course, my baby sister Tracy, my Dad and, now almost all his brothers and sisters, good friends, like Hector who we lost last year, Great-Grandma’s Doris and Lana(who Laina is named for) and, Great-Grandpa Floyd, my own grandparents, one who I only know by pictures and the other who I vaguely remember, but the memory is not a happy one, the list is growing. I had a friend who said her Grandmother once told her, if you live to be old enough you will know more people one day in heaven than on earth. I think her Grandma is right and I don’t always like it.

It’s been a rough Fall and, I have found myself holding onto God’s promises tightly, even while my brain fights me, especially it seems around 2:00AM. Maybe a believer isn’t supposed to admit they struggle at times but I do and I think Jesus knew we would or he wouldn’t have put all His promises in writing and surrounded us with people whose faith at times is stronger than our own.

Still, in the midst of all the sad, we have life to look forward to I suppose. Track season is coming up and I love to watch our daughter run fast, she’s pretty good at it and has found more success in track than cross country. I’ve always thought running provides us with the opportunity to train our minds to be mentally tough and theoretically that should help with life, though it doesn’t always. I was glad when she decided she would try out a track group called the Flyers when she was in 6th grade and she enjoyed it, so we stuck with track and it’s been fun to watch her set goals and most of the time achieve them. God has surrounded her with many good coaches who love Him and as my goal for our daughter has always been heaven and not a career or things, I’ve been pleased and thankful with the adults God has placed in her life.

The second semester of the school year will start Monday for me and I hope to see all my students back safe and sound. I hope they’ve had a restful vacation and I hope they are ready to learn some more Chemistry. We’ll see, quite often it seems I’m the most excited one in the room. It makes me wonder if Jesus ever felt like I do sometimes. I kind of don’t think so because He is Jesus, but I feel badly if He did! Some days I’m really excited to share a lesson or something I found out or learned with the kids and they are NOT as excited as I am. In fact, they are clearly elsewhere, listening to music with their ear pods hidden under their hair or cap or sneaking peaks at their phone every time it buzzes and as a teacher you can get to feeling pretty ignored. I wonder if Jesus ever felt or feels ignored, like I do in class some days. It’s a lonely sad feeling, so I hope not. We can look to the bible to find out if Jesus every felt like I do sometimes. When Jesus was about to die on the cross before he died he called out, in a loud voice, “Eli Eli lama sabachtani” translated, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

When I googled the word forsaken, AI said forsaken means, “to be abandoned, deserted, or left completely alone. To be deprived of another person or let down when you are in need.” If Jesus felt forsaken on the cross, maybe I’m wrong and He does know exactly how it feels to be ignored by a class full of teenagers or when I’m awake at 2AM pondering a future only He can see? Yeah, I’m wrong, but it doesn’t always feel like I’m wrong. So I love that Jesus left us His book, with all its stories that point to Him and with his teachings to remind us of His love.

A friend told me my words sounded heavy. Another friend recently told me I seemed weary and I am. The weight of my responsibilities sits heavily upon me some days and I am weary of all the sad, so tired. Deaths, illnesses, now these fires in LA, for some reason, ever since Covid, at least for me, it seems a constant stream of loss or tragedy after another, but as Peter said, “to where will I go, you have the words of everlasting life.” I’m holding on tight to those promises and I think of JJ Hellers song, Your Hands.

“I have unanswered prayers, I have trouble wish wasn’t there, and I have asked a thousand ways that you would take my pain away.

I am trying to understand
How to walk this weary land
Make straight the paths that crooked lie, Oh Lord, before these feet of mine, Oh Lord, before these feet of mine.

When my world is shaking, heaven stands
When my heart is breaking
I never leave your hands”

So my vacation is over in three days and I’ll be back to shining my light best I can. Break was filled with it all this year, sad, happy, regretful, anxious, weary, heavy thoughts. The waves seem to be crashing all around me, like the day we went for a drive to our favorite beach and they were wild and so tall, ready to sweep away anyone who wasn’t paying attention, but…

“What can make me whole again? Nothing by the blood of Jesus.”

For me there’s no other answer, there’s no other place to go, but Jesus and so today…

for Jesus, my brother, God, my Father and the Holy Spirit, my counselor…I Give Thanks!

We ran the Jingle Bell Run during break and our long run is back down to 4miles currently, due to a few reasons, that’s my update on that, we are planning on doing a 5K in a week that I’ve never run before so hopefully that will be fun. KOR