Love

Featured

A Change of Seasons

/ Loretta Goddard / Leave a comment

Summer’s End

Sometimes summer seems like a sandwich between the bread slices of Memorial and Labor days; between last day of school and first day of school; between peonies and mums.  It’s the liminal space of spontaneous play set amid long scheduled work periods.  It’s a time for rest, but also a time of extra season-dependent work: tilling, planting, harvesting, mowing, painting, repairing.  It’s time for vacation.  A time to “vacate”… evacuate.  And a time to host those evacuating towards you—a time for hospitality.  It’s graduations, family reunions, anniversaries and weddings.

We participated in all the above this summer.  It began with our daughter Julianne’s graduation from her PhD program.  Then had a long visit to see our daughter Sarah, and son-in-law, my sister, niece, and her husband in Oregon.  We had spontaneous play with grandkids and family around a new backyard swimming pool and old trampoline.  We traveled for a family reunion cojoined with my mother’s 90th birthday celebration. We went to a rodeo and had some restful, lazy weeks at the beach.  We had multiple occasions of guests stopping by for brief visits as they passed through the Wilmore area.  We had a semblance of a garden…. ragged at the edges, but with some produce.  I power-washed, painted a little, re-did my chicken run, and installed a solar door on the coop. We enjoyed early morning foggy sunrises, late evening colorful sunsets and wild, windy thunderstorms in between.  We had campfires with s’mores and a bit of tent camping.  We held a Grandma and Papa Summer Bible Camp with our two grandchildren, Hazel and Jude, and had a little funeral ceremony and burial for their pet bird. I had glorious days of mowing the paths through the emerging flowering woods and fields—from spring’s Trillium and Larkspur to summer’s Yarrow to Queen Anne’s Lace to Purple Coneflowers and Black-Eyed Susans to Partridge Peas and Ironweed.  I now await the Goldenrod then Frost Flowers of the next seasons.

We also celebrated our 48th wedding anniversary this summer.  It’s easy to let the unstructured doings of the season take away a time to soak in…to consider…to remember and learn and reflect.  On our anniversary I sat down to journal.  Marriage is also a passing of seasons:  the Spring of dating and wedding; the Summer of setting up home and career, and for some, parenting little ones; the Fall of empty nesting and reworking a new rhythm; and, if we are fortunate enough to both reach it together, the winter of deep, quiet love and friendship, and helping one another through to the end.  Today, going through my journal to remember what this season held before I pass on to the next season, I came across what I wrote.  Below I share it with you.

 

Hule & Loretta June 1978

To My 18-year-old Self[i] and to Anybody Else Who Might Listen

Love your spouse well—second only to loving God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Your spouse will be your closest “neighbor”.

Work to respect, honor, and cherish your spouse above all other human beings or beasts.

Love your spouse more than your things, more than your work more than your friends.  Love as you love your own self.

Bring your best self, your most patient and gracious self, your most creative and giving self, your “A Game”, to the home, to your marriage, to your spouse.

Listen to your spouse always and let them listen to your deep heart.  Look one another in the eyes.  Put your phone, book, computer, remote down.  Let it soak in and let it change your ways and your being.

Identify 10 or more things that delight your spouse and do at least one of these daily.  Let your reward be to see their delight.

Success begins at home—not at the office, not among other friends, not in your possessions or fame.

Bring joy and foster fun with your spouse.

Say “I’m sorry” freely, ask for forgiveness, then change your ways.

Forgive quickly and completely.

Be trustworthy.  Don’t lie or deceive.  Be careful with your words.  Do what you say you will do, no reminders needed. Take responsibility.

If, or more likely, when there is difficulty in your marriage, be humble enough, pro-active enough, to get outside counsel, help.  Hurry to it.  Don’t put it off.

Remember your wedding vows.

“Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.” Prov. 11-14 KJV

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:36-40 NIV

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:13

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.  This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you must love his wife as he loves himself and the wife must respect her husband.” Eph.5:31-33 NIV

“I am my beloved’s and his desire is for me.” Song of Solomon 7:10


“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

A time to be born and a time to die,

A time to kill and a time to heal,

A time to tear down and a time to build,

A time to weep and a time to laugh,

A time to mourn and a time to dance,

A time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

A time to search and a time to give up,

A time to keep and a time to throw away,

A time to tear and a time to mend,

A time to be silent and a time to speak,

A time to love and a time to hate,

A time for war and a time for peace.”

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 NIV

 

Now comes a time to live up to my own advice….

Hoping all your transitions into the coming season will be graceful!

Loretta

[i] Yes, I was 18 when I married but had already been to 2 full years of college away from home.  Hule was a month away from 23.

National Daughter’s Day

/ Loretta Goddard / 2 Comments

I saw on Facebook yesterday that it was National Daughter’s Day. I missed it :-/. But I will post belatedly today.

I can’t easily say with words how much I love and respect my daughters, but I will try. They are both loving, kind, brave, courageous, persistent, intelligent, capable, insightful, beautiful, caring…. I could go on and on. They have been one of life’s greatest blessings.

It’s such a mystery that when Hule and I found each other and married, and “made” these two humans together—joining our DNA and histories, nature and nurture, that made the possibility for them to exist. Without that specific equation, they would not exist.

We are not always created from happy, blessed unions—and if we’re not, it does not diminish our value. Every human’s value is in the ONE Who formed us from earth’s dust and rib, created our DNA, made us in His image, and breathed His life into us. God, is our ultimate Parent—we are His daughters and sons.

Life is a Miracle. Family is God’s original plan—Edenic hope.

Sarah Jo and Julianne Kay, you bring grace and joy to this world and to your Momma and Daddy’s hearts and souls! Today we celebrate you.

Featured

Fearless Love

/ Loretta Goddard / Leave a comment

Today, on Valentine’s Day, I picked up an old “Magnolia Journal” which I have carried around in my book bag for nearly a year without taking the time to read. A big quote page drew me in. It asked: “If fear wasn’t part of the equation, how would your life look different?” The article, a short half page, was written by Chip Gaines. It’s no surprise that he would be encouraging the world to risk failure. In his funny antics he does it on most every episode of Fixer Upper—jumping off of precipices, bursting through walls, trying for the impossible basketball shot or attempting to pick up too-heavy objects. He lets his failures be fun and entertaining.

For me living from the “fear triad” of the Enneagram, “Failure” is a terrifying word—something to be avoided at all costs.  Something primal in me tells me, though I wouldn’t usually acknowledge it, that if I fail in an attempt, I am the failure.  Of course, I know that isn’t correct, but it is my default modus operandi as I approach life.

“Fear-less”[i] is the name of Chip’s article and, as a wordsmith, I love the twist of turning an adjective into a verb-adverb and thus to receive a subtle shift in paradigm.  This is exemplified again in Chip’s statement: “The courage to take your shot is half the battle.  The other half?  Viewing failure as a teacher and not an enemy.”

Risk, courage, and potential failure arise continually.  Valentine’s Day is a day of risk:

Sending a Valentine

Asking for a date

Saying “Yes” to an invitation to a date

Saying no to an invite

Getting married

Not getting married

Loving anyone

Not loving anyone

Setting Boundaries

Holding on

Letting go

Initiating a Friendship

Watching the winter Olympics I’m always amazed at the number of courageous athletes.  Really what they’re doing over and over and over is risking failure.  Of all the competitors, what are the odds of getting the gold?  And even for the medal winners, they are up on the podium only because they’ve allowed failure to teach them through multiple previous failed attempts at their sport.

Now my rational mind immediately can bring up exceptions to fearlessness such as when the consequences of failure are grave.  As mathematician and theologian Blaise Pascal pointed out in his “wager” that it is staggeringly more risky not to believe in God than to believe in him: “I would have far more fear of being mistaken and of finding that the Christian religion was true, than of not being mistaken in believing it true.”[ii]  This is not the kind of fearlessness I choose to embrace.

On the other hand, yearly, monthly, daily I make decisions not to risk.  I choose “safe” often over living life to the fullest, over fearing the possibility of failure, and in doing so I miss opportunities, adventure, and even life lessons.  I know that:

            The sun still shines—after I fail.

            People still love me—after I fail.

            I love myself—after I fail.

            God loves me—after I fail.

I really like the book of Proverbs of the Bible.  I’m re-reading it now in The Message[iii] and seeing passages with new eyes, hearing with new ears.  Proverbs comes right up to us and tells us to Fear!  “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom….” (Proverbs 9:10, NIV) The Message puts it this way: “Skilled living gets its start in the Fear-of-God….”  But the same book of Proverbs also tells us to be bold and risk everything to find wisdom.  “Sell everything and buy Wisdom.  Forage for Understanding…Above all and before all, do this: Get Wisdom!”  As Blaise Pascal alluded to—there is big risk in not choosing God.  The God of love, peace, grace, and mercy gives us a choice.  Fear of God or Denial of God.  “Lady Wisdom” asks to be our filter—our first filter on whether to risk or what to risk.  The fear-of-God need be our main fear— “bowing down to God”; “paying attention” to God: “Lady Wisdom will be your close friend, and Brother Knowledge your pleasant companion.  Good Sense will scout ahead for danger.  Insight will keep an eye out for you.  They’ll keep you from making wrong turns….”  They’ll keep you from risking what shouldn’t be risked.  “Carelessness kills; complacency is murder.  First pay attention to me, and then relax.  Now you can take it easy—you’re in good hands.”[iv] 

For some of us predisposed to fear, we hear the first part of that verse but forget the 2nd.  We—I—forget the part about, “then relax.  Now you can take it easy—you’re in good hands.”

Living life is taking risks. Living, abiding in, dwelling in safety by choosing to climb up into the lap, the embrace, the love of God, frees us to relax–frees us to walk forward fearlessly toward joy and peace, beauty, fun and adventure, and yes, even walk forward through failure and loss—because we can choose not to ever risk letting go of the One who is Love and the Love will not let go of us.[v]

[i] Magnolia Journal, A Look at Risk, Summer 2021, page 116-117

[ii] Blaise Pascal, Pensées, 241

[iii] God, Eugene Peterson, The Message, translation of The Bible

[iv] Excerpts from The Message, Proverbs

[v] Romans 8:35-39

Featured

A Frost Flower Bouquet

/ Loretta Goddard / 6 Comments

My husband often brings me flowers from his walks back to our pasture.  I don’t expect much from his winter walks, but the other day he surprised me with a bouquet of flowers…not in a vase, but on his iPhone.  They were frost flowers.

Before we moved to our farm I had never seen or heard of frost flowers.  The first winter we walked the land and saw these ice formations dotting the ground.  Since then we’ve learned that they come only with certain plant species and just at particular times of the year–when the unfrozen ground meets the freezing atmosphere and the capillary action of freezing water creates these fleeting frosty blossoms.

It’s kind of a miraculous sight–easy to miss.  If we didn’t walk by those particular flowers at that certain hour on that certain day, we would never see the icy display.  And as soon as it comes it is gone.  Like with the ephemeral trilliums that fill our woods in the spring, we must seize the day…carpe the big fat diem, as I might say…in order to behold this bouquet of icy petals.

So much of life is ephemeral…transitory: a newborn’s first days; the burst of a sunrise; a newlyweds’ honeymoon; a meteor shower; a blustery summer thunderstorm; a glorious sunset.  But because it is short-lived we do not reject it, but cherish it all the more.

At this Christmas season I’m thinking of the sudden short-lived sights that the shepherds saw on their walk back on the pasture land that night–a blaze of heavenly light, a talking angel, a multitude of the heavenly host, a young virgin mother and her husband, a newborn King in a feeding trough.  This was their ephemeral bouquet on that night.

And so at this wintery, frosty season when busyness could take my attention away from the miraculous sights and insights in front of me, I want to be open-eyed, open-handed,  open-hearted, to receive what will only be offered in this fleeting time we have on earth.

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”  Luke 2:14 ESV