Tag: faith

Not Quite in the Plan

~ Lisa Ancona-Roach ~ 15 Comments

calendarI hope you had a wonderful Easter brunch or dinner with your family yesterday. For me, I ate hospital cafeteria food.

This was not quite in the plan.

No, the plan was that I was hosting Easter dinner for my extended family. Instead, I was reminded that my plan has nothing to do with THE plan.

Throughout my life, as I trust it is with you, too, I have experiences that remind me that I am not in control. And since I am a teensy bit of a control freak, that is a tough one to admit.

For me, I believe God is in control, yet he lets free will exist. My take on it (simpleton that I am, and no, I’m not looking for any theological debate, I’m just sharing my point of view, so don’t get your knickers in a knot and just see what I have to say) is that God is not interested in a bunch of robotic forms following him, but rather people who could choose to have faith in him. Or not. So we have lots of choices. And those choices result in an intricate tapestry of effects. And like getting cancer from secondhand smoke, the effects don’t have to be a direct result of a choice someone has made. That muddies the water of simplicity a bit, doesn’t it? Bad things happen to good people and vice versa.

And no matter how much I plan, life interferes. Time and again, I am reminded that the world doesn’t spin according to my desires.

This past week was just such a reminder.

While my plan for the week had been to see to it that my kid had some fun on Spring Break while I managed to get work done as well as prepare for a family Easter celebration at our home, the reality was that my mom became quite ill and needed to be hospitalized…where she is still and where she will be for a while, and where I’m writing this post as I keep her company while she rests.

This was not cleared with us before it was implemented. There was no meeting to consult and decide what worked with our calendars. Nope. Just whammo. No one checked with my mom to see if this was a good time to have the rug pulled out from under her. Or me or my sister. Or anyone else who was directly affected by the turn of events.

My Easter plan was tossed on its head, and I relearned for the umpteen millionth time that I can plan to my little heart’s content, but…hello…it may or may not be a part of THE plan.

Even more important, this is yet another experience that reinforces that what really matters isn’t that which I spend too much of my time consumed with. What really matters is that when we go through tough and challenging situations, there are those who love us (including the One in control) who help us get through it. And for that, I am grateful.

I will always be a planner, but when it all falls apart, I thank God that I have people in my life who help me pick up the pieces. And that, I’m pretty sure, is quite the plan after all.

What If God Wrote You a Letter?

~ Lisa Ancona-Roach ~ 2 Comments
writing-with-penPersonal letters are a real treat anymore, aren’t they? We cringe at a full email inbox because most of it is work to do or stuff to delete after wasting a precious moment of our lives. But to get a “real” letter in the mail (or, heck, even a truly thoughtful email!) is like a cool spring morning that you just want to breathe in deeply and enjoy.

 

In the blogging world, it is not uncommon to come across letters that parents write to their children as a way for the kids to be able to remember a time in their lives and to know that they are loved. I know I still have the few letters my parents wrote to me in college. Little prose snapshots of a time gone by for me to cherish. And I have numerous fits and starts of letters to my own child…something that I should really be better about.

 

Years ago Ellen DeGeneres did a hilarious bit about calling God and getting the runaround. But…what if God wrote you a personal letter? What do you think he might say to you?

 

In my own musings (NOT to presuppose God…yeesh…don’t get your knickers in a knot), I would hope that–like the typical “parent letter”–there would be a chunk in there about how much he loves me. I’m pretty sure that might even make the first paragraph. Maybe he would say that even though he sees me stumble every day, he hopes I know that his hand is right there ready to help me up. And that even though I mess up all the time, he loves me just the same. And that even though I don’t understand all about him, he’s patiently waiting for me to journey on. I’m thinking he might even say, “Don’t worry, I’ve got the patience of a saint” and draw a little smiley face next to it. Because my God has a sense of humor. Looking at my life, I just know this to be true.

 

Would he then take some time to tell me some of the things he sees in me that he likes? Maybe that would be a short paragraph. Maybe not. Words that I would like to see him use include compassionate, loving, kind, loyal, supportive, forgiving…maybe he’d put an asterisk next to a few saying *you’re improving, but…still needs work! Keep trying!  This portion of the letter is so hard…I am such an imperfect work in progress there might not be anything for him to write about. Maybe he would be reduced to having to write something trivial just to cover this base like, “Your personal grooming habits are impeccable. And have I mentioned what a nice, thick head of hair you have?”

 

Perhaps he would then offer me some loving encouragement about all the ways I need to grow up. That would be a long paragraph. Included there would be things like I need to be better at loving the people around me, have more patience, grow a thicker skin, tear down my carefully built walls, and take better care of myself. He’d find a Godly way to say “Get your ass in gear, Lisa,” so that I press on toward the goal to which I am called. Of course, being God and all, he’d know just the right words to use so that I’d still feel his love after he read me the riot act. After all, the whole omniscience thing is his gig.

 

Just thinking through this imaginary letter has been an interesting exercise for me. I encourage you to explore this idea, too. What if God wrote you a letter? What might he want your heart to know? Well, here’s one thing I do KNOW: he would definitely sign it, LOVE, God.

 

Fra GEE lay

~ Lisa Ancona-Roach ~ 6 Comments

Thanks to A Christmas Story, I can never see the word “fragile” without pronouncing it fraGEElay in my head. And on this Christmas Eve, things can indeed be fragile…huge ToDo lists…family gatherings…full schedules…exhausted parents trying to provide the “perfect”  Christmas for their kids…It can get messy and broken pretty quickly. So as you would with fragile things, be gentle. Continue reading “Fra GEE lay” →

Making Non-Sense

~ Lisa Ancona-Roach ~ 3 Comments

Though The Juggle Struggle aims to be a generally lighthearted and hopefully humorous blog, I just can’t bring it today.

Often what we juggle as people isn’t the least bit lighthearted. Charlotte, Daniel, Rachel, Olivia, Josephine, Ana, Dylan, Dawn, Madeleine, Catherine, Chase, Jesse, James, Grace, Anne Marie, Emilie, Jack, Noah, Caroline, Jessica, Avielle, Lauren, Mary, Victoria, Benjamin, and Allison aren’t here anymore. Their lives—so many of them only just beginning—snuffed out by one person’s unfathomable actions. And their families and loved ones are dealing with devastating losses that have forever changed them. I, like the rest of the world, am struggling to deal with the recent horrific tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

I struggle with my feelings of both deep sorrow and fierce anger.

I struggle with what to tell my child about such an abominable event, knowing I can’t protect him completely from the harsh and bitter realities that life sometimes presents.

I struggle with what this all means in our world, and what we need to do to make it harder for another lost soul to wreak such havoc.

I struggle with feelings of helplessness.

And I struggle with the guilt of knowing my life will absorb this blow a lot differently than the parents of the 20 children who watched all the other families get reunited with their kids while they waited…and waited…and then were told that their little one was dead. My heart breaks over and over again as I try to put myself in their shoes.

The families of the heroic adult victims, too, are also dealing with such painful loss.

So where do we go from here?

I’m not really sure, but I know that in today’s rabid hyper media attention of such tragedies, I am thankful that one of the aspects they are reporting on is that the Newtown area is steeped in faith. And though faith won’t “explain away” such horror, I believe it is what sustains us and is the foundation to rebuilding broken lives. And hearing our president, as he offered his sympathies, quote Psalm 147—reminding us that God “heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds”—was something I needed to hear in that moment.

Though I don’t fancy myself to have “the” answers, I do know that we need to be better to one another. We need to love and listen. We need to give and support. We need to forgive and remember. We need to work together to provide a safer world for all of us.

And we need to remember that life is a gift and not a guarantee.