Cathy's Heart

A Case for Love and Grace I am not a political person. This is not a political post!    I hate conflict, quarreling, and controversy. This is not a invitation to fight!    This post is way outside my comfort zone, especially in light of current events.    However, as a Christian woman who appreciates and has a presence (albeit small) on social media, when I prayed about how to respond to the SCOTUS Same-Sex Marriage Ruling, the Lord reminded me of the people He has brought into my life who are gay. People who I love and care about deeply.    Those precious friendships, I can write about. Their stories, I can tell.   Allow me to start at the beginning. I was eleven. Halfway through sixth grade, I found myself uprooted from the shelter of a small town elementary school and thrust into the reality of a big city junior high. Thankfully, I found myself fast friends with a neighbor girl, my age and grade in school. She taught me the ropes of changi...

Rings, Bling, & Blessings "So, what are your treasured possessions?"   I don't remember how the conversation started. But, I clearly recall the question my husband asked me, on our Colorado road trip, as we crossed the majestically beautiful  Continental Divide .   It's a question the Lord keeps bringing up in my life, in the most random places. Like a few weeks later, when a homeless man bumped into me on a metro train in Los Angeles. I apologized for taking up two seats with my faux "Brighton" suitcase and computer backpack. His beaming smile caught me off guard, as he then apologized to me, "No, no! It's all my fault for not watching where I was going."   He settled himself in the seat across from me, carefully placing a large plastic bag between his legs, and hugging a tote bag close to his chest. He carried nothing but his bags filled with empty bottles and cans, an old cell phone, and a tattered paperback novel. After he was situated,...

Looking Back - A Few Things This Mama Wished She'd Done a Little Differently A small wooden magnet clung to my refrigerator, many years ago, with these words, "Lord, Grant Me the Patience to Endure my Blessings."   One day, as I unloaded my four small children from our big grey Suburban, and herded them to swim lessons, I watched the other mothers with their children. For some reason, I thought of that magnet holding up art work on my refrigerator door. Sadly, I realized the words on that little piece of wood described exactly what most of us moms do most of the time, simply "endure" our blessings.   That afternoon, with tummy's filled and my water-babies down for a nap, I grabbed the magnet and a black Sharpie. Then, I sat at the kitchen table, where I crossed out the word endure, and, above it, I carefully wrote, "ENJOY!" And, that became my prayer, for myself and other moms too.    Now, looking back 25 years, my children grown with families of t...

How My Heroes Overcome Adversity Last week, I went to visit family in Arizona. My dad was scheduled for surgery, and I wanted to keep him and my mom company during their hospital stay and home recovery.   As we walked through the hospital doors, I felt completely comfortable. The corridors, procedures, and people were all very familiar to me, even though I am a non-medical type person.   I escorted my parents through the admissions process, then to pre-op. After we prayed for my dad, and kissed him goodbye, my mom and I waited in the post-op lounge. The hours passed slowly, while memories of other hospital visits filled my mind.   I remembered a phone call 5 years earlier. Our world was rocked with the devastating news that  our 17 year old niece , Kelsey, had a brain tumor. (Click the link to read more). Surgery was scheduled for the next day. We rejoiced when we learned the tumor was benign. Still, after her recovery, our precious brown-eyed, brown-haired...

God's Opportunity to Grow Up Twenty-five years ago my husband and I began the greatest adventure of our lives.    With a moving van chock-full of every possession we owned, and our four small children snuggly buckled into our Chevy Suburban, we caravanned across the Arizona desert to our new home in beautiful Southern California.   Certainly, God was in this! He had moved upon our hearts and opened every door to pave the way for this new chapter to begin.    April, May, June, July and August of 1990, we settled into our new home. Easily, our family fell-in-love with the rolling green hills, the majestic ocean blue, and the beach style life.    By summer's end, however, the grand adventure became a great challenge. That's when my husband began law school. Each morning he would leave for work by 7. Not to return home until later, after classes, around 10 every night.   For me, life in a new place, with four little ones under the age of 6, suddenly b...

The Mess that Leads to Beauty Are you a fan of home makeover shows? I am. My favorite was Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. I loved to watch Ty Pennington and his team transform an unsuitable home into an intentionally thought-out, strategically orchestrated, meticulously redesigned, and perfectly-suited model home for a well-deserving family.    Well, a couple of years ago, God let me know it was time for an extreme makeover in my own life. One day, He allowed a life-time of  deep, buried pain  to erupt within me with the force of a volcano. In the midst of the agonizing sobs which followed, the Lord whispered to my soul,  "I am going to remodel you."    Instantly an image from a movie, Home Alone 2, came to mind. Lost in New York City, Macaulay Culkin locates the house of an aunt and uncle. He discovers it is vacant, in the throws of a major renovation. Suddenly I knew, things would get worse before they got better.    Ironically, since then,...