Tag: gratitude

Going to the Park as a Blind Mama

The first time I took my daughter to the park was intimidating. I knew she was big enough to start going in the swing, but it wasn’t her I was nervous about. I wasn’t terribly comfortable with the layout of the playground. What if I couldn’t find the baby swings? Would other parents be grabbing me and dragging me around the place if they saw me trying to get oriented? What if all the baby swings were taken? How would I know and wouldn’t it be really awkward if I just stood there close by, listening to determine whether they were occupied? What if the other parents talked to me? Or, what if none of the other parents wanted to talk to me? What if all the children were attracted to Prim and she couldn’t do her job because she was being distracted? 

I know it sounds dramatic, but my heart was racing along with my thoughts as I directed Prim to the gate of the playground and we made our way toward where I thought the swing set would be. As I suspected, parents did immediately notice me and offered help, but it wasn’t in the sort of aggressive way I was expecting. They just greeted me kindly and offered help if I needed it. I had an immediate sense of simultaneous panic and relief, something like, “Oh no! They are talking to me!”, while at once thinking, “Oh thank the Lord, they are talking to me”

One dad let me know that he and his child were using the swing closest to me, but that there was one available right next to them. I was endlessly thankful he had chosen merely to give me useful information about the location of an available swing, rather than seeing me close by and rushing to move himself and his child out of the way, which sometimes happens and always makes me feel terrible. We struck up a friendly conversation for a minute while we pushed our little ones in the swings side by side, and I started to breath. This going to the park thing wasn’t so bad after all.

Every time I have gone since, it has gotten easier and easier, and today was down right delightful. Little Miss thoroughly enjoyed her time in the swing, then walked and crawled about, happily observing the other children at their play, climbing the steps of the jungle gym, and obliging me as I put her on the slide a few times. One mother admired my daughter, remarking, “She’s gorgeous.” and we had a casual back and forth about our little girls, while two other mothers recognized me from a mums and tots group we have taken part in and we chatted amiably the whole time. 

Once a cause for anxiety, trips to the park are becoming more and more a blessing, and the glimpse of possible friendships developing from it is an even more unexpected bonus. Add to that Prim’s great work taking me right to the gate of the playground, and then the baby swings, and the incredible weather… and I’m just feeling really thankful for trips to the park with my two sweet girlies.

Thankful for Virginia

It was the evening after Thanksgiving a few years ago. I went for a walk with my mother and brother in our family’s neighborhood. I listened vaguely to the conversation as we went, but didn’t participate much. I was captivated in the sounds and smells of the post-holiday darkness, and lost in the memories it conjured. 

Virginia has always had a particular smell to me, and so has fall, and that night, it was both combined. There was the stink of marsh mud, mingled with wood smoke and the occasional perfume of pine. A few evening insects still sang to us as we went, and I heard the far off exchange between neighborhood dogs and hunting hounds. I spent a great deal of my childhood here, playing “ship” on the hammock with my brothers, searching for easter eggs in the yard, and hunting down the monsters that hid beneath the piled pine-needles under the old trees that witnessed it all.

But it’s not only that little neighborhood where my mother grew up that I spent happy days.  There were bright summer afternoons where I sat, wind-swept and sparkling with river spray at the front of my Grandad’s boat, or behind a fishing pole on the dock, waiting expectantly for that telltale tug on the line.  I loved the historical field trips we made, to Jamestown, Colonial Williamsburg, Mount Vernon, and several other landmarks. There were also those weekends at theme parks, Busch Gardens or Water Country, filled with music and laughter, and the smells of sunscreen, chlorine, summer-baked pavement, and waffle cones.  There were a thousand bright colors, in flowers and painted rides, and a thousand families exploring and enjoying the parks along with us.  

Those have always been special memories to me with my family.  Waiting in lines for rides was essentially forced quality time with my brothers, the sort of open conversation time that we didn’t necessarily share otherwise, and certain traditions developed, too.  I always went to the Irish-themed section of the park with my Grandmother to see the step-dancing show.  My mom and grandmother always got vanilla soft-serve with strawberries when we visited the ice-cream parlors.  My Dad always laughed at our ridiculous pictures from the rollercoasters and had a special talent for finding live music (although that’s a talent he has everywhere he goes).  My Grandad liked the music too, but was generally a silent observer of it all.

There’s more I could write about Virginia. In more recent times, she was the home of my first job, the place I lived for a couple of summers with a dear sister and mentor, and the place I met another one of my closest sisters in Christ. In every case it has been a place of growth and blessing.

It’s Thanksgiving again, and my fourth Thanksgiving abroad. In thinking of my friends and family far away, I can’t help but think of Virginia, and thank God for all she represents in my life. God is good to give us places, to be, and remember, and treasure. 

Thankful for a Compelling Savior

One thing our culture hates about God is that he is uncompromising.  He demands certain behaviors of us, and condemns others, and there are consequences if we do not respond.  We see that here.  The master of the house invites several people to come in and be a part of his banquet, but each refuses, citing some excuse.  Thus, the master says that none of those who were invited and denied his invitation will taste anything of the feast he has prepared.  So uncompromising? Yes.

But he is also a God who compels.

“16 Jesus replied: “A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests.

17 At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.

18 “But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.”

19 “Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’

20 “Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’

21 “The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.”

22 “‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’

23 “Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full.

24 I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’” (Luke 14:16-24)

Though some refused him, he sends out someone to compel others to attend the feast.  Someone, like Jesus himself.  Yes, God has standards, the highest ones imaginable, but God knows that we are broken, and in his great love for us he does not abandon us to our brokenness.  We are poor.  We have nothing to offer the God of the universe, and yet he does not simply leave us to suffer in our poverty.  We are blind, but we are not condemned to darkness.  We are lame, but we are not resigned to a life of immobility.  Jesus moves us through his sacrifice, which demonstrated his love for us and atoned for our sin.  He compels us through the Holy Spirit, who moves in our hearts that we might be able to hear and respond to the master’s call.

“If today you hear God’s voice, do not harden your hearts.”  If we feel convicted over our sin, we should not be angry that the righteous creator God has called us out.  Instead, we should recognize that such conviction is a mercy.  It’s a call to come in and enjoy the feast of grace that God has prepared for all who are willing to partake.

Thankful for Apple Cider

Y’all, I had no idea apple cider was not a thing in the UK, and as someone considering to go to grad school somewhere in Europe, this very much concerns me!

I am speaking of the non-alcoholic, spiced apple-juice, often served hot during the fall and early winter months, available in powdered mixes to be added to water, or Keurig cups, or sometimes the good fresh kind you get straight from the apple orchard. You’re telling me Britain doesn’t even have the powdered packets??? How can you even enjoy fall!

I’m just saying, I feel really passionate about this, and if and when I travel to Ireland for grad school, I am bringing apple cider with me.  Fear not Europe.  Ye shall know apple cider yet!

Thankful for Accessible Technology

Sometimes, it’s fun to envision what life would have been like a hundred or more years ago.  Imagine a life without digital media, for example, or consider how different transportation was when cars had only just been invented.  What interests me, though, is how life must have been different for the blind.

Some blind people did live independently, had children, and held jobs, like the famous hymn writer Fanny Crosby.  But what was it like?

On the one hand, I’m a bit jealous.  Any society before the invention of cars must have been a great deal more pedestrian friendly, and therefore, blind-friendly, even in the absence of modern infrastructure.  On the other hand, I wonder how blind people managed without ways to independently access printed materials around them, or easily produce them on their own.

I’ve written a few songs in my time—it’s hard to avoid when you live in music city—but Fanny Crosby had over 8000 hymns published!  Then, she would have had to memorize all of her texts and music, written it down in braille and had it transcribed, dictated it to a sighted person to pen them, or penned them herself.  Of course, the only way she could have accessed them again would be through her memory, braille, or a sighted reader.  Evidently, her memory was impeccable.  According to the website I referenced earlier, she memorized five chapters of the Bible a week.

I definitely do not exercise my memory quite that often or to that extent, so perhaps that’s another advantage that antiquity has over modernity for blind folk.  Otherwise, I’m thankful that now a days, accessible technology means that I can easily record music (even as I write it) on my phone, type the lyrics into my computer, review what I have written, and share them with sighted friends, all independently and with very little extra effort on my part.

I am especially thankful for the way assistive tech has made the bible available to the blind in a way it never has been before.  I don’t have to carry volumes and volumes of braille bibles around with me to have constant access to the word of God, nor do I have to have it read to me and memorize five chapters a week, though there’s no doubt that would be a profitable exercise.  But no.  All I have to do is have a charged iPhone with a wifi connection, safari or a bible app, and voila.  The whole word of God is at my fingertips…

“Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” (Psalm 119:18)

He has made his word known to us, and not only known, but accessible for study, teaching, comfort, evangelism, truth.  Accessible technology means I, along with other blind people, get to behold the wondrous things of his law by myself, on my own time, in essentially whatever format I choose, and whichever book or verse I prefer to study.  I do not think there is any more valuable gift.

And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them. (Isaiah 42:16)