My, How Time Flies!

October 4th.  Fully a month-and-a-half has passed since last I put pencil to paper (or fingertips to keyboard) and wrote about Jim, my fearless friend, now in Heaven.  "I'm back!" has become too much of a refrain for the seeming on-again off-again announcements I make when I return to blogging.   Admittedly, writing blogs accounts for my current sanity and remaining sensibilities.  Four years ago, blogging saved my life.  It held back the oblivion toward which my life was careening (yes, oblivion is absolute), and bequeathed peace, uneasy though it was, in its stead.  

"When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea-billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul."

That kind of peace.

Though I believed peace was not to be expected and possibly was unreachable,  the Holy Spirit intervened and taught me a "need-to-know" truth. He knew.  The Comforter came and brought what I'd need before I was formed in my mother's womb.  A favorite hymn telegraphs volumes.  "I don't know about tomorrow, I just live from day to day, I don't borrow from its sunshine, For its skies may turn to gray.   I don't worry o'er the future, For I know what Jesus said, And today I'll walk beside Him, for He knows what's up ahead."  

When my darling Courtney died suddenly, of course, any semblance of peace dissolved like smoke wafting from a campfire.  I didn't have an inkling, much less a clue, of what I needed! I did not know, nor did I care.  I only knew grief and loss.  To open my eyes and face a brand new day taxed every reservoir of energy I may have stored up.  

Enter my dear friend, Shero Sherry,  who must have intuited more than she understood that Saturday night in April when she asked me what I was going to do about writing.  She recognized a writing gene for which I legitimately could make no claim.  

"Have you ever thought about blogging?"

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"Too froo-froo frilly."

"Oh."  Sherry let it go.

Courtney died the next day, Sunday, as she was being wheeled into a hospital's emergency department.

Sometime later, as days moved resolutely around the sun (but who's counting?), the doorbell pealed.  There stood Sherry, looking like she was on a mission as she moved directly up the stairs and into my office.  By the time I entered, she'd pulled a chair from the closet, situated it next to the desk chair, and announced, "Have a seat.  You're going to learn how to blog today.  What you do with it after I leave is up to you!"

Hmm.  "Slow Learner" that I was,  that day Sherry's perseverance earned her stars in an invisible crown.  She tirelessly drilled me on the ins and outs of blogging!  I've no idea how long it took to pen my first blog; it didn't happen overnight; that's for sure! However, I'd been writing prose, poetry, and proposals for years and can't remember when I'd first intoned, "Alright, Holy Spirit, You write and I'll type" as a preamble.

Truthfully, I did not know the Holy Spirit.  I really didn't know Him!  Nor do I remember who the "someone" was (a teacher?) who first identified the writing gift.  I don't remember the first time I said it in my head and then aloud, "Alright, Holy Spirit; You write and I'll type!"  I blurted it out and words flowed forth.  That's how it's happened ever since.  God, You write and I'll type.

I didn't know the Holy Spirit back in the day, and that was alright. He knew me first, and that was perfect.  He loved me first, which is how I learned to love.  His gifts sustain my life in all its permutations.  Our journey continues.  I've described my transformation from a collegiate pseudo-agnostic in previous blogs and will continue, but not now.  Now, I embrace, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." 

I will admit that on two other occasions the languor of grief sentenced me to an eight-day hospital stay, followed months later by a prolonged, spiritual paralysis. I'm back to writing today as I recover from grief's third debilitating assault.  I don't fret, however rocky the terrain becomes.  Weekly, my grief counselor and I continue to tackle the stupor my losses have produced.  In the Name of Jesus.