Journey Out of Pink

 A few days ago, a dear friend of mine asked me to meet her at the cemetery. She was going to view her dearly departed husband's headstone for the first time since his death in August. I didn't really want to go because my own grief was so heavy. I'd lost my brother in July and hadn't been able to completely process the loss yet. Visiting the military cemetery where my sweet friend's husband was buried was going to be hard for several reasons. My parents were both buried there and my brother could have been buried there too since he'd served in the Army, but his wife had chosen to have him cremated. Without going into detail about that, I'll just say there is a lot of unresolved hurt in our family over the way his death was handled. Anyway, back to my friend's request.  My husband and I drove 2 hours to get to the cemetery. It was important for us to be there to offer moral support to my friend, Janice. We didn't know it at the time, but she had aske...

  Last night, after hubby had gone to bed, I sat in the livingroom enjoying the quiet. Glancing up at the mantle, my eyes fell on the baby Jesus from my nativity scene. It was a modest nativity, handcarved, one I'd purchased from Hobby Lobby a few years back, but I loved its simplicity.  The baby Jesus seemed to be calling to me so I got up and went over to the mantle. Staring into the face of that tiny, carved babe, I could hear a faint whisper, "Be careful not to miss Me this year."  Miss Jesus? How could I possibly do that? Christmas was all about Jesus and I loved celebrating His birth, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was possible to miss Jesus. With all the craziness we've been experiencing this year, our world most certainly could miss Jesus and in a big way. I didn't want that to happen in my family.  This year had already been very different from years past because of Covid. I'd lost several dear friends to the disease and my yo...

One of my all time favorite childhood movies was Dr. Seuss' "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." What a classic! It came out in 1966 and has remained a treasure for many, many years.  The first year that animated movie appeared on TV, my brother, sister, and I sprawled out on our living room floor. In front of our large console TV, we'd lie as close to the screen as Mama would allow and watch intently as Cindy Lou Who sauntered around Whoville.  My heart was filled with emotion as the gentle Who people gathered together in celebration and of course, I felt sorry for sweet little Max, the Grinch's pet dog, as he tried so hard to pull that big overloaded sleigh up and over the hill at the Grinch's command. Of course, we all loathed Mr. Grinch for the first half of the movie but grew to love him as he realized there was so much more to Christmas than all the trappings. As his itty bitty heart began to grow, so did our hope in the goodness of love. When the movie end...