Wednesday Wonder: How Living by the Water Deepens My Faith

 

Hello Friends and Happy Wednesday to you 💙

It's a stormy one here today and I'm not mad about it. There's something so cozy about a rainy day. I'm actually sipping my warm mint tea - I was in the mood for it. Makes me want to curl up and read too. Do you love the rain & storms? Or prefer the bright sunny days? I think I love them equally. 

Speaking of rainy days - this leads to my thoughts about water and its sacredness. I thought today I would share some reflections about living on a bay and sharing a lake kind of life. Especially the ways it speaks to my soul in a very spiritual sense. I love the water so much! 

I grew up living very close to Lake Superior. And I have been living on a bay that feeds directly into Lake Superior for 18 years now.  We often pontoon on this large Great Lake. 

A little trivia time out: Did you know Lake Superior is the largest fresh water lake in the world by surface area? (and the 3rd largest by volume) She is a big lake! Also deep and cold with a max depth of over 1,300 feet, and an average temperature throughout the year of 43 degrees. Brrrr

And I also grew up visiting Lake George in Rhinelander, WI most of my life. It's where my Dad grew up and we would visit my Grandma (my Grandpa died when I was young) and my many aunts, uncles and cousins. I learned to swim, ice skate, and fish on that lake. :) 

The last lake I love is Ten Mile Lake... which is where Matt's lake property is located. That lake is over 5,000 acres in size and has a max depth of over 200 feet. 

So I have been around and loved water my whole life. I was doing some prayer and devotional time the other day and thinking about the ways the Lord uses water in scripture. And I was thinking of the ways I have always felt a sacredness related to water. In obvious ways: like baptism. But in many other ways too.

Here are some pictures of my Grandma's former home in Rhinelander, WI. After around 60 years of being in our family's life it had to be sold and now belongs to someone else. It was difficult to let it go, but times and lives change. I'm so grateful I had the gift of that amazing place growing up... and that my own kids got to enjoy the property and the lake and how special it was there. 

My brother was married on that property. My Aunt had her wedding reception there. And another Aunt's ashes were scattered in that lake. It will forever be sacred ground in my heart and in my memories. 

I also love the wild life, flowers, and birds that share the water on our properties. What I see and feel in those moments is how amazing God is! Such an artist in all He has created. 

Healing of the Water

19 The people of the city said to Elisha, “Look, our lord, this town is well situated, as you can see, but the water is bad and the land is unproductive.”

20 “Bring me a new bowl,” he said, “and put salt in it.” So they brought it to him.

21 Then he went out to the spring and threw the salt into it, saying, “This is what the Lord says: ‘I have healed this water. Never again will it cause death or make the land unproductive.’” 22 And the water has remained pure to this day, according to the word Elisha had spoken.

Matt and I both often say how blessed we are to have both grown up on the water and have a mutual love for it. In every season: 

I often like to do my journaling and devotional time outside by the water, because I find such peace and connection when I look out at it. I always feel such a closeness with our Creator...much the same as I do at church. 

And I think that's also why Matt & I chose to be married next to the water. 😉❤️

Five on Friday: Facts You May Not Know About Me

 

Hello Friends! 

Happy weekend to you. ☀️🍁🧡

Thank you so much for your kind words on a recent post where I shared what I did in a day and it included my time I work at the hospice house. I mentioned being a social worker and I realized I probably hadn't mentioned that in the past. So I thought I'd just do a post of fun facts you may not know about me. 

And I hadn't finished this yesterday, so it's getting posted today. So it's 5 on Fri on a Sat. 😉

ONE

I attended a local private Catholic college called the College of St. Scholastica. There are Benedictine nuns still living and working on the campus. That building is one of the main buildings on the campus and it's called Tower Hall. I always loved it looks like a castle. 

The school was known for its medical programs, especially nursing. And that is actually what I initially majored in. I have Aunts that are nurse practitioners and I wanted to be them. :) Plus, I always loved the sciences. I even had anatomy and physiology classes, in college, that included cadaver labs. I did a whole year of studying that and I did very well. But I got into clinicals that included helping living people with colostomy bags and basically interesting smells, blood etc and realized it was not the area for me. Lol 

So I went into medical social work instead and ended up on the 5 year plan at college. But it was the right decision and I loved my social work jobs. 

TWO

I did social work for close to a decade - until Aaron was about 4. I was working part time then because I wanted to be home with Aaron too. My case load kept growing (& stress) and by then the businesses my ex (that I was also a part of behind the scenes at times) were doing well enough that I we could afford me to be a SAHM. So I then changed to full-time Mommy life with both of my kiddos. And it turned out to be a blessing as my MIL developed Alzheimers and I was needed as a caregiver for her.

When my MIL progressed to a point where she had to go into a facility and my kids were getting older, I wanted something spiritually for myself. I had dealt with a lot of grief work and death and dying as a medical social worker in a long-term care setting. So hospice volunteering just felt like a calling to me. As you saw in my "day in the life post" about what I do in hospice: some days I scrapbook obits, or I bake or help in the kitchen, or I visit with dying patients and their families. I do it all in the name of service. 

I have often sat with a dying patient that has no one - putting lotion on their hands. Praying over them. Singing to them. And I feel like a part of my soul knows it's doing what it was meant to be doing on this earth. I get way more out of serving the Lord in this way than I give. I guess that's the definition of a calling. :) 🙏🏻💗

THREE

For how much I loved social work. And I feel so honored and blessed to have been a SAHM. A part of me feels if I could go back in time I would have been a French teacher. I have always loved the language. I had 4 years of it in school. And I would have loved to travel to France every couple of years (& have had summers off!) 

FOUR

And speaking of the French teacher thing brings me a bit to my 4th fun fact. French always came easy to me as a lot of their words have articles before them and they change based on masculine and feminine. And I have always seen letters, words and numbers as such. Masculine or feminine. It's a form of synesthesia. 

Synesthesia is when your brain routes sensory information through multiple unrelated senses, causing you to experience more than one sense simultaneously. Some examples include tasting words or linking colors to numbers and letters.

What can I say - I'm weird. Lol 😁

FIVE

And the last thing I thought I would share is that I know many of you know I love scrapbooking as a hobby. And I have made many little decorated albums as gifts for others through the years. But I have through the years seriously thought about doing an Etsy shop or something related involving scrapbooking. I never took the plunge in the past - though I have come very close. But now I feel almost a calling related to that too. I would want it to involve "legacy" books for others. 

For example:

This is a recipe "cookbook" that I'm working on. This could be a project for someone to add their favorite recipes to for themselves. Or to give as a gift - adding in a legacy of family holiday recipes through the years. 

Aren't these the cutest holiday recipe cards? 

But I would also love to maybe work on completely different kinds of albums... spiritual ones. Where folks could make a legacy album related to their dying loved one. As a legacy to them. Or to continue a mission of theirs or their story. If that makes sense? 

So stay tuned. It may turn into something over time. It's something I work on and pray about where I want to put my focus and energy. No matter what I'll continue my work in hospice too. 

Thanks for going on this little journey with me and some things you may not have known about my background. I just know a FAVORITE FACT is how much I love blogging and sharing with such a fellowship of amazing women!! My love and blessings to you all. 

xoxo

Wordless Wednesday

 

 

Happy Sunday - let it be

LET IT BE...

I love that song from the Beatles.  It just speaks to me - but especially when Paul McCartney talks about times of trouble and how Mary speaks words of wisdom to him, and those words being 'let it be'. 

I found it interesting that when Paul McCartney was interviewed about that song he actually said he was inspired by his mother (Mary). She died of cancer when he was a teenager but he said she visited him in a dream and told him all would be okay and that he needed to 'let it be'.  However, he also said in the interview that he knew a lot of Catholics would interpret it from the bible when Holy Mother Mary says 'let it be' in a prayer in response to the Angel Gabriel in the Annunciation.  And in the interview Paul went on to say that he thinks each individual should interpret the song how they would like or in whichever way it speaks to them.

I am of the Catholic faith, but I think anything that speaks to a person spiritually, or grounds them on another level is a wonderful thing. Whether it's meditation, your religion, philosophy, nature....if it benefits you in a positive way and gives you the connection you need that's truly great.  Especially in the world today and all of the troubling times.

 

The reason I bring this all up is that Mother Mary speaks to my heart and is someone I look to in prayer more now since I've been an adult and a mother myself. I have this planter of her on my dresser in our bedroom and I like to decorate it for each season. I look at it in the morning when I get up and get ready and it makes me smile, sets the tone for my day, and reminds me to "let it be"...

And in other news our priest let us know at mass that there's now an "app for that"! I always find it funny when folks joke about an app for everything, but maybe there really is!! There's an app for the Catholic faith called myparish app and it's free and when you have it you put in the zip code of your church and it should pop up and when you click on it  - it will give you mass times, readings, homilies, church bulletin information etc. We live in some pretty technological times!

Happy Sunday and Blessings to All and thank you for letting me share.