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Introspective Sojourner

The journey inward following Christ’s path to that person I was uniquely created to be.

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My Father’s Daughter

I miss being my father’s daughter.  Dad has been gone two years and days over six months.  Most times I love to talk about him.  Some memories still bring tears.  Sweet tears.

I miss calling him.  Though anyone who knows me just laughed.  I’d rather chew off an arm than talk on the phone.  Nonetheless I miss his voice; his corny jokes even his pointed questions.  I miss making him proud.  I didn’t do that enough.

All that to point out how amazing it is to be a daughter.  Even when you could be closer, it’s a privilege.  One we take for granted until we no longer are our fathers daughter.  One we search for when that relationship is failed.  One we long for as a child from a broken home.  Daddy’s girl is no joke.  It’s a thing we girls covet.  It’s a thing many treasure and some miss.

Its so important that we make fun of it, as if that could possibly make it less important.  It does not.  We know.

As I think about missing my own father, I look at my daughter and my husband and my oldest son and his daughters, and I know how amazing being loved like that is.      My husband and son have done a better job.  Perhaps they have better daughters.

But I am still a daughter.  Though my own dad is gone and perhaps let me down in life as perhaps I did him.  I have the ultimate father, Abba Father.

I don’t call Him enough either.  I take Him for granted too.  But he doesn’t disappoint me and He isn’t disappointed in me. Satan may try to tell me different.  Satan may have loved that I got separated from my own dad from time to time in my life.  Separated emotionally as well as by miles.  Satan can only lie and hope I’ll fall for his lies when it comes to my Abba Father.

Christ understood the importance of that relationship.  He uses that name when the woman touches his cloak.  You may not know this story.  It’s in Mark Chapter 5.  They had just crossed the water after sending demons into a herd of pigs.  This was so amazing and scary that the people sent Him away.  They could not handle this person who is Christ.  There were crowds around when a ruler Jairus comes running in and begs Christ to come.  Begs for his daughter who was near death. She’s just 12 years old.  Still a child but in those days, almost not.  She’s still his baby girl.  He ran to beg for Jesus to come and heal her.  He’s a man of faith.  A leader in the synagogue.

And Jesus gets up to go.  The crowd pushing in on all sides just to get a glimpse.  So much so that when the woman reaches out and touches his cloak, the disciples completely dismiss Jesus when he asks who touched me.  Completely dismiss the notion that they could even determine who did.

But Christ knows power has gone out of him, healing.  The woman has been ill for 12 years, every year Jairus’ daughter has been alive.  She’s got a bleeding disease.  Technically that makes her unclean in Jewish culture and anyone who she touches or touches her is defiled by her touch.  Except Christ.  She is healed and made clean by His touch.  It goes the other direction there.  Instead of Him being made unclean she is made whole!  She knows it instantly too.  You can’t be sick, probably horribly anemic for 12 years, and when you are healed entirely, not know.  She knows and drops to His feet, afraid.  She’s been called out, Jesus knows.  No getting out of this now.  She had previously spent all of her money on doctors to no avail.  She’s desperate enough, yet has a tiny amount of faith.  She thought if I could just touch His cloak… but now she’s exposed.  And just like the defilement could not touch Him, and only good flowed out, He does not judge or cause her any shame.  Instead He calls her “Daughter”. The most precious word in the world.  She’s no longer an outsider and an outcast but wholly accepted by Him.

Abba Father means the same to His other daughters.  He’s not ashamed of us.  Though we may deserve that.  He does not label us outcasts, outsiders or unworthy.  He should.  He calls us not only child, but daughter.  Such a precious gift to be His daughter.  We are made whole, He is not made low by us.

Jairus’ daughter passes away it takes so long to get there.  Christ is rebuked by the family for saying otherwise.  He kicks everyone but her parents out.  Her dad is there but Christ knows she’s His daughter too. He heals her as well.  She was that ripe kind of dead too.  Jesus makes her whole.  No one questioned she was dead until Jesus says she’s just sleeping.  Why do they never believe Him?

Not only does He heal her returning her to her family, and to her dad.   Maybe to prove she isn’t a ghost or something, He tells them to feed her!  He cares for her health in multiple ways.  There before her dad.  Christ got how important it is to be the daughter.  How loved and special that title is.

Our Abba Father understands our need for that kind of care and love.  That kind of status of being adored.  He adores us.  Just as we are.  He heals us, makes us clean without shame.  Instead He adores us.  We must NOT listen to Satan.  Good flows out of Christ, evil does not touch Him.  Though we should never take this love for granted either.  Unlike my dad,  Christ will never leave us or forsake us. He will never let me down.  The perfect family umbrella.

Christ calls me daughter.  How sweet the sound of that word.  How amazing to be whole and clean.  Nothing I could do will drive Him away nor make Him love me anymore!  I am cherished.  Daddy’s girl.  No love can surpass this one.

Still I really should call to Him more…

 

Miss you Dad!

By Vicki L Pugliese

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What’s Wrong with Anticipation?

The act of anticipation keeps us from living our present fully.  We look forward to going to school, turning 16, graduating High School or turning 21.  We long for finding that special someone, having children.  Once we have children, we can’t wait until the crawl or walk or talk.  We look forward to them going to school finally.

We get excited about the stages of their life that are in the near future for them.  We dream about the kind of people they will become.  We invest our thoughts in a new job or promotion and how that would affect our lives.  We day dream about getting new cars or a new house.  We even get caught up in holidays.  We anticipate how the holiday will be with family and presents and what food we will eat.  We think about the conversations we will have.  Sometimes down to what we will say if we are asked an uncomfortable question, that we don’t really want to answer.  We know exactly what the other person is supposed to respond, don’t we?!  They never do respond that way though.

We fantasize about what retirement will be like, or winning the lottery even.  We yearn for “empty nest-er” days.  We worry about every little detail that “could” happen.  We refuse to believe something good actually is coming our way until there is no other way for the other shoe to drop.  We are cynical in nature some of us, believing the worst probably will happen.  Meanwhile our thoughts may give us hope but keep us from really enjoying exactly where we are now.

We don’t have any reference when we are children, but we spend less time truly thinking “What if”, when we are kids.  As adults we can spend a significant amount of time, thinking about it, day dreaming or worrying about it.  We get dissatisfied with the here and now, as we propel ourselves into the future in our thoughts.  We pray and long for God to assist us in accomplishing our dreams and hopes.  We ask if He could just help us with this one thing that we are worrying about.  We can even pray fervently for a positive outcome that will occur in the future.

Now there is nothing wrong with those prayers.  We are told to stand before Him and ask, even to ask fervently, and to be persistent.  The issue I have with all of this anticipation, with all of this day dreaming is that, at least for myself, it pulls me out of the here and now.  Sometimes that’s what I think I want.  Things get hard and I would rather dream about how it will be.  That dream is often a lot like those conversations where we give someone else their lines.  Our dream view of the future leaves out all of the things that will make that less than ideal.  We leave out all the bills that come with that great house that we want or having to work harder to earn the mortgage.  We pray, “Could I just win the lottery this once?”  We all know the math behind the lottery.  They wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t tilted heavily in their favor.  Your chances of accidental death are most likely better than your chances of winning.

What is a problem in this, even in the Christian version where you pray fervently for an outcome or to be rescued from some issue, expecting great things from God?  We forget to focus on being grateful for what you have.  Now I have been in places in my life that felt like there was no way I could be grateful for anything, it was so overwhelming.  We are instructed in the Bible to pray fervently as well, to knock on the door until it is opened.  We are told to expect great things from a God who loves us dearly.

But we forget that little part where we ask God, not my will but thine.  I think I’m not a big fan of that concept, but God has shown me over and over that his plan is better than mine.  It may be more painful in some ways but when I look back in hindsight, I can easily see where His plan far surpasses my own.

Trusting in Him is hard.  Occasionally those periods of time in my life that are extremely difficult produce blessings that later are some of the best in my life. I have been blessed by the friends I found during times of struggle; the characteristics in my personality that changed dramatically, the goals I obtained to remove myself from a situation.  All of those are blessings in disguise, where God used a struggle to produce great outcomes.  I would not have chosen that for myself but I’m glad I am who I have become.

Perhaps today, I could anticipate tomorrow a little less and just enjoy today.  I will choose to focus on the many blessings in my life instead of the strife.  I will remember they often happen in tandem.  Even some of the most memorable stories in the Bible show that struggle and blessings may occur in tandem.  He is good.  He is able.  Today though, what He has already given me is enough.  I will worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.

 

By Vicki L. Pugliese

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Unabandoned

She ignored the words of others,

Accepting abandoned lots, abandoned lives.

She saw beyond what others saw, what most could see.

She tended, pruned, cared for, and loved with all that she had, with her own two hands.

She took something wild, and weedy, and full of thorns.

She gently, and slowly transformed them.

With a master gardener’s sight, she watched and waited.

She patiently oversaw tiny growth that others missed.

And now what once was fallow, no longer is.

Both gardens and lives, quite plain to see.

Vibrantly blooming beyond all promise, all we believed.

A sweet fragrance of love from her own two hands.

Now and forever Unabandoned they stand.

 

by Vicki L. Pugliese

 

 

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Grampa, Her World

“You’re not Papa!” she exclaimed, melting down into a heap on the floor. A not quite two year old’s favorite person in the world is no joking matter.  I’m not chopped liver but today she had been waiting for him to arrive home for what seemed like a very long time, and everyone that walked through that door except Grampa was getting the same treatment.

“Sorry.”, her mom said with a half a smile, as she retrieved the tiny distraught body from the ground, heading back out to the kitchen. “It’s been a hard day.”

Even her own father had gotten the “Not the Papa” treatment today. We were all used to it actually.

There was a special bond between them. We had encouraged my son and his family to move back to California after my own Dad had passed away.  Perhaps we all could have done things in a better, more planned way.  My guess is that they would still be “planning” on moving out “someday” if we had.  Our grandchildren were growing up too fast and there was too much country between us.  Life was too short and precious.  This little girl, not quite two years old now, had only been two months old when they arrived.  She was so tiny and fragile then.  She is full of life and her own opinions now!

They had packed up all they had left after garage sales and Craig’s List ads and packed anything that would fit in and around their three children and two large dogs into just two cars. They made that enormous trek across the country in just four days.  After all, they had cooped up two large dogs, and three kids, one of which was an infant.  We anxiously waited on the other end of the country, for them to arrive.  Dani had been so very little and cuddly.  Our older grandchildren had spent years apart from us. We had some catching up to do.

That was a year and a half ago. A bad economy and horrible renters market in our area, coupled with their difficult requirements of such a large family and two large dogs had been grossly underestimated by all of us.  We had underestimated the extent of the bad economy in this area and how long it would take to find work, although he found work almost immediately.  We underestimated how hard it would be to find an apartment or home to rent in their budget that would take such a large family and dogs.  Time passed.

Over the months this little bond had grown. Grampa didn’t go against Mom’s and Dad’s wishes, per se.  Grampa was good at misdirection and offering different choices that sound much less like a “no” than what other people offer her.  She much prefers his methods to my method of, “Your mom said, No”.   I really don’t mind.  I don’t mince words and for that, I’m not her favorite.  It’s ok, I love seeing their bond.

When Grampa walks through that door, her face lights up like a noonday sunshine, warm and bright.   Her arms fly straight up in to the air, and as fast as her little feet can take her she runs to the door.  He obliges immediately by picking her up before he has even put his things down.  He listens to her not quite two year old babble about who knows what.  He and her mom catch several words here and there. Smiles fill the room.  She has the ability to brighten everyone’s day. She is captivating already.

It’s a beautiful thing to watch. We love all of our four grandchildren.  They all have their personality niche and their close relationships.  The older two are very close to their maternal grandmother.  But this not quite two year old has a new baby brother now, and I could be in the running to be his favorite person, only time will tell.  I may get bumped down a rung or two on “the favorite person in the world” ladder when he  realizes I back Mom up, but that’s how I roll.  This bond between our not quite two year old and Grampa, though, is beyond heartwarming.  It’s why they moved west.  It’s why we all work to get along with so many people and pets in one house.  Family matters.  Family matters to all of us. It is the best part of all that life has to offer.

These relationships and memories will remain long after Grampa and I are gone. This one little almost two year old will remember Papa, her favorite person in the whole world and this special time in her life.  It will shape who she becomes because she was loved so much, because someone always dropped everything just for her.  We may not be the best grandparents, but to a nearly two year old, Papa is the world.

 

By Vicki L. Pugliese

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Don’t Judge My Snapshots

“You’re so pulled together! I need to be more like that.”  This young girl said to me at a Weight Watchers meeting after I had just destroyed my week.  I had completely gone rogue to the point of having cookies for dinner.  In that exact moment, I was executing a plan for my upcoming anniversary.  It’s a great plan actually.  It’s thoughtful and seems wise to this young unmarried girl.  She longs for married life even though she is in a long term relationship that is probably headed in that direction.  The uncertainty is ruining it for her, as is her biological clock.

In that exact moment, I seemed like someone to follow.  She planned on stealing my idea.  I encouraged her to do so.  The irony of the previous week was just too much for me.  I told her how my week started off badly, and then plummeted into terrible.  She didn’t care.  She was looking at the snapshot of the moment, the cover and she was impressed.

I had been at a work conference where I had no control over what food I was being served.  I could bring some snacks with me, and did after the first day. I found myself irritable for reasons I could not explain.  I was more irritable than my normal lovable self.  Then the second day, in the first session, I walked into a room I recognized, sadly.  I found myself in the room where two years previously I had received the call that it was “time to come home”.  My father was ill and was going to pass away.  Just a couple of weeks later, in a hospital room, while other family members and I were at his side, he left this world to be with our Savior.

While I know he is no longer in pain and, for the most part, I grieved conventionally.  I still miss him terribly from time to time.  This moment at the conference, as the memories flooded back, I realized why I did not want to be in this building at all and certainly not in this room.  My emotions overwhelmed me.  I handled my emotions fairly well that day, during the day.  I went directly to a Weight Watchers to pick up snacks for the next day on my way home. Then I went to a Starbucks and my week took a wrong turn.  I brought several Weight Watcher choices for snacks for the next day to keep away from all of the bad choices that the conference provided.  Instead of picking from the choices I brought, I ate them all.  The third day I brought less snacks, learning my lesson.  I had an event that evening and had very little time for dinner.  I had cookies for dinner.  Nothing else in the grocery store looked good.  I had given up by now.  I was experiencing a melting down. We went out to dinner on Thursday, I ate somewhat lightly, but had dessert.  By weigh in, if I had not already paid for three months, I might have high tailed it and not showed up to face the music at all.  The wonderful check in lady hugged me.  I had only gained half a pound.  I COULD actually come back from that.  I can pick myself up, dust myself off and shake off that week.

Here comes this sweet young girl watching me in this moment.  She didn’t see the video of my complete mess of a week.  She readily forgives me for my half a pound.  “You’ll do better this week.”  She’s really super sweet.  I love this kid.

I’m thinking to myself, how many times have I seen a friend or coworker or even a stranger in a moment and longed to be them?  How many times have I watched a couple that seem to have it all together and wished our relationship could be like that?  How many woman have I gotten just a glimpse of them all put together in the best moments and wished I was more like them?  How many Facebook posts have I seen and thought… I need to do that or be like that or start doing that?  I fall for all of those things immortalizing a moment.  I fall for all of those things showing the cover of a story but not the whole story.  I’m just falling for the marketing.  I know my whole story.  I know all of my ups, and all of my deep dark downs.  I’m very familiar with them.  Actually I quickly forget my successes.

I once read that being proud of yourself was like being proud of an organ functioning.  That resonated with me.  Let me explain.  I was born in this country to a decent family that valued education, a relationship with the Lord, family ties and a hard work ethic.  All of those things added to who I am.  I can’t take credit for them.  I can’t look at myself compared to you, not knowing your journey, and assume that those things didn’t impact that journey.  I would be looking at the cover, not the whole story.  I can’t even look at my siblings and make that assumption because I don’t know all of the things that have happened in their lives.  I wouldn’t be excited that my pancreas is functioning.  It just does.  Yay pancreas!!!  I assume it will function.  I would not be happy if it didn’t, that’s for sure.  I’m sure that would be a problem.  I can’t take credit that it does.  I can’t take credit that I’m hard working, have a value on my education and family ties and love the Lord.  Those are parts of my story that just were.  I can’t be proud of that.  I am not superior to someone who did not get that leg up in life.  I am not more worthy or less worthy.  I am just who I am.

I am enough, just as I am.  I don’t need to make more money or dress better or have better friends.  I might possibly need to be more responsible with my resources but that’s another blog.  I am enough just as I am.  Stop looking at my moments, my snapshots, and think you know anything about me.  I am going to try to do the same when I see your moments.  I’m going to try to remember at least once that someone thought I was all put together and had my act figured out, when the truth is I still don’t have a solid game plan.  I’m not even sure I know what game we’re playing.

I do know if you sit on the sidelines that they aren’t sidelines and life will come along and knock you on your butt.  I have figured some things out.  I am enough, not on my own but because I know the owner, the big guy, the man upstairs.  He took my broken pieces and made a masterpiece.  Yay pancreas!  Thank you Jesus.  Thank you mom and dad for introducing me to Him!  I am enough because I found Him.  No matter what my snapshots look like, my book ends with my name written in His Book.  He knows my name.  Therefore I am a winner. I am enough.  John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believed in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

 

By Vicki L. Pugliese

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A Log and Bifocals

God has been working on my heart through the verses Matthew 7:3-5 “Why do you look at the splinter in your brother’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye?” When I was younger I was adept at getting splinters out of my children’s hands and feet! Any child of mine who says differently, well, that was always my whiny kid anyway. But as I have aged, especially now that my eyes are requiring bifocals, no one is handing me a needle and asking for my services to get splinters out of their extremities. Actually my husband, who doesn’t heal very quickly decided to just let one fester instead of allowing me to attempt what I used to be very proficient at! So this verse is taking on a new depth for me.

There has been a plethora of posts and discussions lately in my life that have been disparaging while possibly attempting to assist others in their inferior discernment skill sets. For those of you who reread that sentence, they are being a little judgey! Looking back, it would appear the posts and remarks were all from one side aparently. But It’s really hard to call people out for being judgmental because you are then, in fact, being judgmental, while you are pointing out that others are being judgmental; even if you are pointing out a truth. It is a true Catch 22!

I am going to use my sister as an example; I love my sister and care very deeply for her. You know, those sisters that finish each others sentences, totally think alike, are best friends and are like two pieces of one cloth? That is not my sister and I. I tried to follow her everywhere when we were little kids. I waited for her at the window until the bus arrived each day, in a tiny stalker fashion. Our mom made her take me wherever she went, like all moms’ do. She hated it. Her best friend was very good to me. I may have followed my sister to get to hang out with her best friend.

As we grew up, I realized that even though we were raised in the same environment even though we both went through significantly difficult financial seasons in our adulthood, we ended up with very different points of view on the things that people argue over the most. Both of us are very smart women. I would never suggest that my sister is not a smart woman. We just evaluated our life situations and the information differently. We both had access to similar data. I know because we frequently send each other posts on Facebook but neither of us believes or are swayed by the other’s data, nor do we trust the other’s sources.

As a teenager I could easily be swayed to either side of a controversial topic. I could empathize with both sides depending on how well someone argued for that side. That’s why the topics are controversial! I hated that about myself. It takes me much longer to process, to pray and to ensure that I trust sources than it does most other people. I am skeptical the minute it gets controversial. I stick my feet in the mud and slow down, weighing my choices. I don’t want my decisions to be set in stone. I expect people to present their side of the topic in a light that only shows their best interests. In other words, I expect them to omit stuff that I don’t want to know about that might affect my decision. I want more time to think about it. But don’t necessarily not want to make a decision. I want to make several decisions and try them on to see how they fit. I want to test to see how your words fit your actions.

So all of those people, making all of those judgmental posts in my life, from all of those people that I love so very much, on both sides of this controversial topic you are a lot like my sister and I. My sister and I are both very smart people but we view politics and social issues and religion even, from different angles. We can find common ground easily enough, for instance we both have a heart for the homeless and want to help people. We may just go about that assistance in a different method.  We may want to solve poverty and pollution differently.

The same goes for those people who want to assist others with their faulty discernment skills. They are pointing out the splinters in each other’s eyes (and in mine I suppose) without seeing the log in their own.  For twenty years that I have known them, they have all been friends. They have had a common mission then a few issues found them divided. Actually I’m not sure those issues divided them as much as how to solve those issues.  Like my sister and I, they have more common ground than they want to acknowledge.

But there are so many stray needles in the hands of people trying to get splinters out of someone else’s eye, who have logs in their own eyes and many of them may need bifocals and a lot of good people are getting wounded.  “You aren’t following this Bible verse or this Bible verse… But please don’t bring up this Bible verse.”  And we all forgot the ones about longsuffering and forgiveness. There’s a lot of bleeding.

It’s really heartbreaking to pick a side or discern where the truth really lies on either side, if there is any at all. Because there isn’t much grace that I can discern. Between these people who loved each other just a few months ago, and for years before that. These are people who really, if they stopped and thought about it, care so much for each other and took vows to look out for each other and each others spiritual well-being. There’s just a whole lot of “we’re right” going on. And a whole lot more bleeding from those stray needles and good intentions.  The splinters are just going to have to fester their way out, I guess.

I have some praying and some healing to do. I got a little judgey myself and maybe that’s my log.  Maybe I need to use my words.  Maybe I need to use my words, down on my knees to the Great Healer because there are so many wounded.  I can best be used on His side praying for wholeness of all those people that I love and who love each other so much, that they just forgot.  I need to pray for those people on both sides and who haven’t picked a side.   Instead I’ll use my words to pray for His healing, His mission, His people, His timing… May He be glorified through our weakness.

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Just for a Moment

Like a wave washes over an unsuspecting child,

emptiness fills my heart.

Pain and loss rush in like a gust of wind,

taking over my moment without warning.

For just a second, I lose my breath,

I am overwhelmed and surprised by it all.

My life has mostly returned to normal,

moments like these come less often.

People around me no longer suspect,

that these moments even occur.

A single tear spills out over my cheek.

For just a moment I let myself feel.

For just a moment I let myself miss you.

For just a moment I let myself grieve.

For just a moment I am lost.

And then life moves on again

without warning, like the breeze moving on.

I go back to the list of normal things I must do,

do the laundry, get the groceries, go to the bank.

The kids still need baths and naps and watching,

the house still needs my attention.

But you are not here in this normalness,

I miss that you are not here for this.

But life moves me back out of this moment,

the children make me smile and laugh again.

The tear and moment forgotten as quickly as they appeared.

But just for a moment I was a little lost without you.

[In remembrance of the fathers who have gone before us]

Vicki L. Pugliese

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