Forgiveness

An Escape Artist Tells Her Story.

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Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover, 2018, published by Random House, available in a number of formats.Also visit the author’s website at tarawestover.com.

Hi folks! I’m finally back to the blog after five weeks off. My last post was written on May 14, three days before we departed on our big trip to France. My intentions were good about writing some posts from the road, but that never happened. I think I started one post early on and never came back to it; after that I just let it slide. When we got home I had tons of ideas I wanted to write about, but they weren’t the kind of thing that lends itself to an article. Rather, I’m working on a short book, tentatively titled “The Intentional Traveler: An Insanely Detailed and Practical Guide” or some such. Originally I thought of it as a Kindle single and a downloadable PDF, thinking that I’d shoot for about 10,000 words. Well, I’ve written only two sections and am already well over that mark. There’s just so much about traveling, just as there is about life in general, that never gets discussed. Well, I’m your person on the spot for that. I always want to know that backstory, the details, the procedure. If you’ve ever read one of my recipes you’ll know that my notes are sometimes as long as the recipe itself. I want you to know all about how to make it!

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Forgiveness Growing out of the Sandy Hook Tragedy.

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Book cover for An Unseen Angel: A Mother's Story of Faith, Hope, and Healing after Sandy Hook, by Alissa ParkerAn Unseen Angel: A Mother’s Story of Faith, Hope and Healing after Sandy Hook by Alissa Parker, published by Shadow Mountain Publishers, 2017.  Available through many sources; cover image is from Deseret Book, the only website that allowed me to copy it. Visit the book website at An Unseen Angel.

I had this cute post I was going to write today, about how Wednesday at noon is the start of my “work at home” section of the week, and that I’d decided to institute a little treat to mark that point since I can then spray on some perfume. We’re asked not to wear “strong” fragrances to Bible Study Fellowship meetings, on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, and we are absolutely forbidden to wear any fragrances to Chorale rehearsals. Once I get home on Wednesdays, though, I can do what I want. Gretchen Rubin talks a lot about how we need to give ourselves treats, little indulgences that can add to our happiness but which won’t cause us more problems than they’re worth. (So my Reese’s peanut-butter cups don’t fit into this category.)

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Are You Bearing an Unnecessary Forgiveness Burden?

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Cow struggling to pull a cart loaded with sacks For some reason I’ve been thinking lately about the whole concept of forgiveness, and I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s a lot of inaccurate info out there on it. (Astounding, I know.) How does this apply to happiness, you ask? Forgiveness, rightly understood, is a key component. It is impossible to be happy if you’re walking around stewing about something somebody did to you.

You also can’t be happy if you’re carrying around load of guilt because you’re trying to forgive a wrong in the wrong way.

So let’s take a look at three correctives to these forgiveness mistakes:

 1. You can’t forgive on the behalf of someone else.

Remember way, way back when the “Access Hollywood” tapes surfaced, with a ten-years-younger Donald Trump bragging about assaulting women?

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Layers of Adversity Overcome

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Cover of Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand, available in several formats through many outlets. Visit the author’s website at laurahillenbrandbooks.com/.

I mentioned this book earlier this summer in a post about John McCain, but I don’t see that I’ve ever featured it in a blog post of its own. If I have, so be it–it’s worth another one. I’m not much of a crier, but I broke down and sobbed at the climax, which isn’t what you’d think.

First a little bit about Laura Hillenbrand, whom I believe I discussed very briefly in my own book. She should have a book all to herself; her article in The New Yorker Magazine, “A Sudden Illness,” tells the story of how she has struggled for years with a disorder apparently brought on by a severe case of food poisoning.

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What Are Your Limits?

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At 9:00 last night I told Jim that I was going to take a look at a documentary that was airing on our PBS station but that I thought I probably wouldn’t watch much of it, as it sounded pretty depressing.  The title of the film was “The Overnighters” and was described as telling the story of a Lutheran pastor in a small North Dakota oil-boom town who opens up his church to let men sleep there who have come to find work and have nowhere else to go.  Usually these films in the series “POV” are an hour long, but it was clear at 10:00 that we had a ways to go, and I was fading fast.  When I turned off the TV last night I figured that I knew pretty much what was going to happen to Jay Reinke and his program; today I went online to watch the remainder and found out the rest of the story.

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Don’t Fuss at Yourself!

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The first sentence of the introduction to my book says, “I just got back from a wonderful women’s retreat.”  Well, guess what?  I just got back from another one.  Really, really great.  Food, conversations, speaker, the whole ball of wax and enchilada.  But remember how I kind of spoiled things for myself recently because I was so worried that no one was going to show up at a book signing I attended?  Well, I just did the same thing this past weekend:  I fussed at myself for some very minor missteps.  Why wasn’t my packing more organized? 

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It is more blessed to give . . .

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. . . so be willing to do some receiving!

[The original picture for this post was of yet another cross-stitch kit in my possession.] I’ve said that I have enough cross-stitching to last me till the nursing home, but my sister-in-law and I went to a needlework shop yesterday and I just fell in love with this one.  “Oh, I don’t need to get this,” I said, and left it on the rack.  But when I looked again, it was gone–and in my s-in-l’s hands.  “Let me get this for you,” she said.  “You spoil us rotten when we visit.  I’d love to give it to you.”  I hesitated.  The tendency is always to demur when someone wants to do something for you.  But then I remembered how pleased people are to give a gift.  “Okay.”  Her face lit up.  Am I pleased with this item?  Indeed I am.  But you know who was even more pleased?  She was.

Later I was asking Carol if it was okay for me to tell this story on my blog, and not only did she say that it was, she also told a similar story about herself.  She was 14 and possessed of very little self-esteem, as she puts it.  Her aunt wanted to buy her a Minnesota t-shirt with a funny slogan.  Carol kept refusing, until her aunt said, “A gift can please the giver as much as it does the receiver.”  How true!  Carol accepted the gift (and still has the t-shirt).  So I hope that yesterday as you opened your presents that you  didn’t utter the fatal words, “Oh, you shouldn’t have!” and instead just said “thank you.”  If you did say those words or have that attitude, resolve that you will STOP IT RIGHT NOW.  As the author of The Surrendered Wife says, your motto should be, “Receive, receive, receive.”