Her Words to Me

Yesterday marked 1 year since my mother went to be with Jesus, but Saturday marked the day of our last conversation.

It was the day before my 47th birthday. At some point during the day we had a private conversation and I made some promises to her and we said, what turned out to be, our goodbyes.

Before she got sick, I had shared with her a story I was writing. I’ve been writing stories for about 30 years now, there’s a blue suitcase full of them under my bed. Some of my shorter stories, I had given Mom copies of and she keep a folder of them all. Back to that last story…..she had gone through and helped me doing some editing and then gave it back. We discussed what needed to happen next…lots of research.

That last conversation with her was about that book. She asked me to finish it and try to get it published…that story and any others I had floating around in my head. I promised her I would.

Then she told me “Don’t be afraid to dream and go after those dreams.”

This past year I’ve been thinking on those words. I wondered what my mother saw in my life that said I wasn’t living out my dreams. Then I realized….I stopped dreaming a long time ago. I have lived a life of reactions…reacting to circumstances and situations that were happening to me or around me. I believe what my mom was trying to tell was I needed to set some goals, make some plans, do some work, and make things happen…instead of waiting for things to happen.

Psalm 37:4-5 says Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.

This past year I’ve been focusing on the desires of my heart….I’ve been dreaming. I’ve had a year of mourning and inward focus and now it’s time to do something. It’s time to work on those dreams and desires. It will take an effort on my part…more than I’ve put into it before.

I don’t want to forget her words to me, her encouragement….so…I got inked!

It is on the underside of my arm, so when I am working, I see it as a constant reminder of my mother’s wisdom…there is more to life than just surviving…there are dreams to be chased and brought to fulfillment.

You’ll notice there are a couple of other words along with my mom’s…choose joy.

The blogging world was blessed by the presence of Sara. She was such a great writer, encourager, friend. She was limited by her illness to interact with life as most people do, so she interacted through social networks and touched too many lives to count. In September of 2011, her illness was cured…like Mom’s…when she met Jesus face to face. All over the blogworld, her life’s mantra spread…choose joy.  I’ve always liked her definition of joy.

Joy: the unwavering trust that God knows what He’s doing and has blessed me with the opportunity to be a part of it… not despite what’s happening in my life but because of it. When everything earthly feels heavy He gives me an internal lightness that can’t be touched.

During my grief journey, God brought those two words up to me on a constant basis….choose joy.  It was my choice to feel anger, bitterness…or joy.  I never wanted to forget that either.

It was at a DotMom event that I went to in September, that I heard the news that Sara had died.  While I was seeing “choose joy” everywhere in blog posts, some were getting a tattoo to honor Sara.  During the event, Melissa Green sang this Jody’s Song and I knew….I was suppose to get a tattoo.

So now, I have a constant reminder of how to live….what my attitude should be…what to go after….choose joy & dream!

My daughter went with me yesterday, she’s done this before (gotten a tattoo), but she too wanted my mom’s word of encouragement.

Jody’s Song

Thank you, to Heather, at Lotus Tattoos for making this a fairly painless experience!  She took the design that Sally had created and now I have Sally’s art and my mom’s words forever with me!

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