Beyond the Garden Gate

Sunday was Mother's Day, oh what a complicated day.  So many women experience an incredible amount of emotions on that one day... the loss of a child, infertility, loss of a mother, oh so many things and triggers that can come up in this one day. My prayers go out to all women on this day, I've known the pain of infertility, of miscarriage, and of not having my own mother on this day. It can also bring up the attack society places on moms. The feeling of not enough, of seing motherhood as a waste of your talents, time, and the saddest one it being a burden.  But it is not, How magnificent it is that as women we get the gift to work hand in hand with God in creating and raising inmortal souls! As a mother your body has at some point held two souls inside of it at one time (or 3 if you had twins!) What a gift! Knowing that and how God gave you those little souls because He thinks you are the best person to raise them, with your shortcomings and flaws, with your gifts, and how we...

I don't know about you but I love the smell of Lilacs. They are a welcomed sight because it's the first signs of Summer. Living in the gray rainy cold Pacific North West the bright blooms and the sweet floral smell are like a little piece of Heaven reminding me dreary winter will not last forever. Although I have made peace with winter and now look forward to all the cozy it brings but more on that another day. This year with all the emotional Rollercoaster I've been in I decided it's better to put my little flower shop on pause until my brain catches up. Yet as most, if not all, people know I cannot live without flowers. I find flowers to be very healing, we are made for beauty and we crave beauty, there is something about the beauty of flowers that speak to our souls. If you don't beleive me get some even if it is at the grocery store and set them where you will see them often and you will see what I mean. Needless to say I may not be arranging flowers...

Oh May... for me, the month of roses... After the craziness of April ending with the loss of my mom in quite an unexpected way, I have found myself not only facing Mother's day this weekend but also getting over the most horrible stomach bug that hit our family in years, it took us all out for almost a week. So, I found myself trying to keep my rose colored sunglasses, to look for the beauty in every day, the wimsical, the lovely. And when I can't find it, I make it my challenge to create it, because life is too short to live in survival mode, blah, and frankly there is so much yuck out in the world now. We need a reprieve, we need beauty, little pockets of whimsy, to be able to take a deep restful mental and emotional breath... it is so needed for our souls. I firmly beleive as humans we were made for beauty, we crave beauty, it speaks to our souls!  So that's what I did this week... when I felt like life was just missery and we were all fiscally and emotionally down I pul...