Anne Shirley, BFF’s and why girlfriends matter…

Image by the green gal via Flickr

Here is something I wrote for my friend and writing mentor, Heidi McLaughlin, for inclusion in her new book, ‘Sand to Pearls’. You can pick up your copy online at Amazon.ca, Barnes and Noble, from Heidi McLaughlin, or at your local Christian Bookstore.

This morning I had the opportunity to sit with a vibrant young girlfriend of mine over a cup of ‘Americano’. We sat on stools at the coffee shop window, and talked about stuff like relationships and jobs and the economy.  An hour later we hadn’t come to any conclusions.  Yet, as I headed out the door to my day, I felt something shift — a hopeful kind of energy had begun to percolate inside me.

My life is full of these type of girlfriend encounters.  God has splashed the canvas of my life with a colourful collection of women who overwhelm me with their unique beauty. They widen my understanding of friendship with their hilarious and serious, gracious and goofy, energetic and organized, wise and spiritual, artistic and technical, youthful and experienced selves in my blessed life.  From my type ‘A’ friends to more reserved ones, the ones I see often, to those who I know only virtually, my life is rich and fun and livable because they are all my friends.  I would be lost without them.

When I was a little girl I had dreams.  And, like other little girls, I dreamed that I would someday become a teacher, an artist, a veterinarian, even a heroine in a fantastic story.  I also dreamed of having a best friend — another human being who understood me completely.  Like Anne Shirley and Diana Barry, I longed for ‘a bosom friend’ with whom I could share life, through thick and through thin.

This notion of having one special friend that was ‘closer than a brother’ effected many relationship decisions I made. I tried, trusted, and then mistrusted females in my life who didn’t fulfill my vision perfectly. And I experienced broken relationships, including ones where I did the breaking. A lot of pain in my life was caused by this childish fantasy of finding one ultimately fulfilling relationship.

Mid point in my life, I’ve finally come to realize that God never planned for me to place a  ‘BFF’ on the pedestal of my life. No girlfriend or husband or child is meant to be there. That place is reserved for God alone.   God wants to be my best friend forever.  So I’m trying to lean into that truth, and remove the pressure of my needs on my human friends. How could I have been so blind for so long?

With God in his rightful place, I can see that he has given me exceedingly more than the realization of my dreams.  God has collected a wonderful plethora of female friends and said to me, “Here, these are for you… these unique, timely, divinely assigned friends are for you, just as you are for them.”  My God given girlfriends custom blend of humour, grace, wisdom, soul wrenching honesty, and spiritual connectivity, are just what I need, at precisely the time I need, for whatever God needs me to learn, change, grow in or go through.

So I thank God for each one of them, and for the way that he uses them to plant tiny seeds of hope in me. And when he brings along someone new, I get quite giddy dreaming of the possibilities of how God will work through this girlfriend-in-waiting. I trust that he’s got that all figured out, just like everything else.

Thankful…Lesley-Anne

Poetry Friday034

Image by Franco Folini via Flickr

In passing

“I wish I had a house too,” she said, as I walked past her on the narrow city sidewalk.
Her young son, looking into her face as she spoke, pricked something in me.

Are they homeless, or renters?
They don’t look homeless, and
why should I care, it’s
not my problem.
Same sun shining down on all of us
Social umbrella wide open for rainy days, and it’s
not raining now.

So I kept walking.

I took the elevator up to my second floor desk,
overlooking upscale condos with private terraces,
trendy loft apartments, and ground floor commercial.

There,
just outside my
glass curtain

wall,

the street below me (below my superior sight lines)
existed only in traffic sounds now, and the hum of
the lawn maintenance crew lulled me with the familiar.

She walked away.
She did.
Not just me.

Seed of Samaritan squelched, I returned to my work – pursuing purpose.

She’s still walking.
Son at her side,
sun on her shoulders,

walking.

September 2010

Related Articles

• Poetry in the Shelters (improbableoptimisms.blogspot.com)
• Tom Waits Combines Homelessness and Poetry in First Book ‘Hard Ground” (spinner.com)
• Tom Waits Releases Poetry Book for Charity (pitchfork.com)

The ‘discipline’ of first things first.

Image by klynslis via Flickr

I first wrote this piece in 2006, but it came to my mind this morning as I was facing yet another kitchen full of the aftermath of getting the family up and out the door to school. There were so many things I would rather do than clean up. Yet, as I reflected on the fact that putting my house in order is my ‘job’, well, I just did it. And I stood back and admired the tidy kitchen before I sat down at my computer to work on some other needful things. Better than facing the dirty kitchen later in my morning, when feelings of resentment would probably accompany my tidying efforts.

In any case, here’s what I wrote, which still rings true in my life today.

I had to apologize to my children yesterday after school.  I have been home ‘sick’ for the past few days, and after my energy level began to pick up I found myself cleaning and tidying like I haven’t done in some time.  And the only reason I can think of for the renewed interest in cleaning, is that I’m actually AT HOME.

My life as a homemaker is usually quite busy, and I don’t enjoy all of the chores that come with my job description.  Many of my tasks are outside the home too, and most of those are more enjoyable.  So, my days usually include a variety of things, from walking my dog, to helping in the classroom, to grocery shopping, to errands, and even the occasional coffee with friends.  I have tried a number of different ways to accomplish my tasks in the home, both scheduled and non-scheduled.  The scheduled approach is best for me, so that on Monday I know it’s laundry day.  There isn’t any doubt that its laundry day, it just is.  I don’t have to justify, rationalize or wonder, It’s just laundry on Monday.

Problem is, on Mondays I’m not always home for the day.  And our laundry piles are pretty prolific.  So, making it laundry day doesn’t get it done.  Only being at home and working through it systematically gets it done.

So, this week, being at home and sick, reminded me that I haven’t been home enough.  As my husband kindly reminds me from time to time, it’s all about balance.  And when the scales are full of dirty clothes on one side and no clean ones on the other side, then that’s definitely not balance.

When I was home I saw other indications of unbalance in the form of cobwebs, burnt out light bulbs, grubby bathroom taps etc.  And I felt badly for two reasons.  One, that the job that I’ve been entrusted with isn’t being done to the best of my abilities, and two, that I’m setting a less than excellent example to my kids.  How can I, with good conscience, tell them off for not making their beds, when I haven’t made mine.

So, my apology to my kids was for both of these reasons.  I want them to know that I blow it some times, and that I’m human.  But I also want them to know that our family values include doing our best, keeping our commitments, and meeting our responsibilities, even when it’s not fun stuff.  Would I rather be out grocery shopping than scrubbing toilets – absolutely!  Does the thought of 10 loads of laundry fill me with joy?  Not really, but I do feel joy when the job is complete.  Even if the hamper stays empty for only a few hours, I feel a certain sense of accomplishment at a job well done, at having given my best to the task, and at having been true to my commitment to care for my family.

Because I love words and the impact they have on me – they stick – I thought of a little line of words that I could think about when the lure of e-mail is greater than  the messy kitchen.  It’s simply this, “The discipline of first things first”.

The word discipline might not sit well with you.  It’s received a bad rap, I think, as we immediately consider the negative connotations of disciplining our children, or the stern teacher disciplining students.  But discipline has another side to it.  It’s about choosing to do what you have already committed to.  It’s about meeting priorities, even when they are not pleasant.  It’s about choosing the important things over the needful things of the moment.  It’s about lining up my behaviour with my values.

My spiritual life requires discipline.  It’s so much easier to call up a friend for emotional support than to pray to my heavenly father.  It’s easier to keep on doing chores and running errands than stop for a quiet time of reading, meditation, and praise.  It’s so tempting to sleep in on Sunday morning rather than joining together with God’s people for worship and teaching.  You may think that choosing the latter in each case sounds like legalism, but for me anyway, the discipline combined with the desire allows me to make better choices.  Better choices for me anyway.  You will have to decide what’s ‘first’ in your own life.

Today was a good day.  I chose to read my devotional before I started my day’s work. I chose to clean the kitchen before I answered personal e-mails.  I chose to finish what I had started, before beginning a new project.  Not martyrdom, simply honouring my priorities.  Everyone’s will be different.  But everyone has them.  It’s a matter of sticking to them, and that does take discipline.

Trying to be faithful in the little things,

LA