I strive to follow Christ and by sharing personal journal entries, I hope to encourage you to ponder my thoughts as a woman past thirty. Whether that is your age as well, or your minutes since the midnight hour, I am calling these, my ‘way past thirty’ years, these retirement years, my middle age.
Since I know not how long I will live, the middle of my life is up for debate and therefore to be determined at my discretion. Thus, I say “I am middle aged”. In this the middle of my life, I attempt to examine the truth of my own journey. These truths intertwine along vines of thought allowing me to be strengthened while supported by scriptural pillars.
As you read my posts I trust that you will consider your own experiences and how your thoughts relate to principles found in the never changing words of God written in times past.
But before we get started on this journey into my journal, I would like to share a little bit about me. I am retired. No, I didn’t say “tired”, although some days that might be true as well. I am at the beginning of my current career for my retirement years, that of author. I have also been very involved in my current life assignment as nanny for my grandson. He is just beginning his second career; that of moving from infant into toddler-hood. So, I am really having a lot of fun!
After retiring from practice as a nurse practitioner and educator, I spent three years renovating houses with my brothers in New Mexico. Then leaving the physically hard labor to my brothers, I returned to Cincinnati to focus on writing my first book. This book is in memory of my son Nathan, who passed away when he was eight years old. Therefore, the name of my blog is Mars walker.
I have observed that often it is at unexpectedly odd moments, that inspirations are heard. I had awakened a few months after Nathan’s death in June of 1992 to that next November morning, hearing his voice running through my mind. “Mom, remember when I could ride my bike so fast with the wind whistling through my hair? Now I can think myself to Mars! It is now twenty-five years since hearing his voice echoing our last conversation; his voice of excitement, and imaginations of his new “body like Jesus”.
During our road trip to visit my parents the day before his death, Nathan had excitedly shared his joyful hope and anticipation of a future in heaven. Sixteen hours later, due to an unexpected medical complication, Nathan was with his Jesus. Our unforgettable exchange the day before, inspired me to create poetry and letters capturing elements of that conversation, glimpses into so brief a life and our shared foundation of trust in God.
Now I Can Think myself to Mars: A Son’s Final Goodbye, A Mother’s Journal of Renewal, published 2016, collects those and other inspirational writings that bridge our final conversation and the decades following. Readers of this book which I lovingly refer to as ‘Nathan’s Mars book’, will find themselves retracing a mother’s journey of loss and renewal and reliving a boy’s deep and abiding trust in the grace of God.
Now in this my current blog Marswalker, I focus on observations of common experiences of the daily give and take of living. Although my entries are not specific to grief, I find it impossible to separate the me that experienced loss from the me that continues living. Death and grief are common to us all, therefore this blog, contains observations since Nathan’s Mars book and provide the essence of my life . Not limited by or focused on grief, I reflect on the faithfulness of the Lord, hope of the eternal and the depths of our Creator’s love.
I endeavor to follow Christ in the midst of the changing of life. Sometimes stumbling and at other times not putting my best foot forward, yet I strive to balance on both feet. I know that my best, at times, is limited to just being, not always the need to be doing.
I purpose to share some of my personal journal entries which have been influenced by my understanding of Holy scripture. In the light of your own journey, I encourage you to consider scripture and principles which I have found applicable to a woman in the midst of life.
Muse along with me as I share how God’s word continues to be “a lamp to my feet and a light for my path”. Come, join me as I ramble along my wondering journal, as well as sometimes wandering journey of observations.
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