Notes from Nicole

I know that most of you that are reading this are living in the state of Illinois and as of 5pm this evening on Saturday, March 21, 2020 there is a "shelter in place" ordered by the Governor of Illinois. I watched this news conference and the feeling of angst that I already had in the pit of my stomach began to grow. I have been practicing Faith over Fear and trying to fully rely on God during this pandemic, but I am only human and sometimes those human feelings of doubt and despair get the better of me. The hardest part for me during this time is not being able to see my close friends and some of my family members during this time. I also have three adult children; two of whom work in the healthcare field and one who works with the public, so I do fear for their health and safety at times. Once I heard the Governor say those words though, "shelter in place" I just couldn't get that phrase out of my head. I went to bed thinking about it and I woke up think...

Most nights when I crawl into bed I expect to get a full nights sleep. Don't we all? Well, let's just say that what I am expecting to receive and what I am actually receiving are two very different things. Lately, I feel like my sleeping pattern, or the lack thereof could become a book with the title of one of my favorite books, "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens. Only my title would be slightly different, "Great Expectations....peaceful slumber or periods of pondering?" You see I can't seem to turn my thoughts off at night. It isn't that I worry about things beyond my control....most of the time. It isn't that I am trying to reconstruct how I will have my classroom set up for this school year....most of the time. And it isn't that I am going over my list of "to dos" for the next day, week , month, etc....most of the time. You see, it is a culmination of them all! I pray that I will be blessed with a good night's...

In the bible there are 47 verses about seeds and 46 verses about plants and 28 verses about gardens. (https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Gardens) I live in the Midwest, Central Illinois to be exact and we love our gardens and our farmers! This year we have had enormous amounts of rain. So much rain, in fact that some farmers are not even going to be able to plant their crops this year! I usually plant a garden, but again because of the weather and work I had not done so yet. Yesterday I decided to "git 'er done!" As I was doing some weeding-well, if I am honest it was a garden of weeds that had to be pulled before I could even attempt to plant anything in that same space. I was pulling and sweating and I was very dirty and then when I finished I still had to plant the vegetables! Once I was done, however, I stood there watering my garden and thinking about the work I had done in my garden and how my life has felt a lot like my pre-weeded garden lately. Negl...

Sometimes I wake up with ideas in my head of things to write about. There have been times when I have gotten busy doing other tasks of the day or I have ignored those thoughts completely, but I don't do that anymore. I have come to acknowledge that this is one of the ways God speaks to me. Now I know that some of you doubt that God speaks to people today, or maybe you have a hard time grasping the concept that God can speak to us through different forms of communication. But I am telling you that I feel this is how God speaks to me most of the time. Sometimes I question these thoughts, like the one I woke up with this morning. Mary Poppins is like Jesus. No, I am not joking. I woke up with the song "A Spoonful of Sugar" running through my head and then as I lay there I started thinking about the character Mary Poppins and the similarities between her and Jesus. Ok, for those of you still reading (because I know this isn't very theological) just stick with it ...

Consolation prize, participation award, a "thank you for coming" card, whatever name you give these types of "awards", let's be honest-they all stink! If you have ever been in the competitive arena for sports or other activities did you go into it with the mindset of, "Wow, I hope I can earn that participation award again this year!" No!! If you are like just about every other human being that competes for anything your goal is to win, and not just win, but to be FIRST! That may seem like a callous way to look at competing for some of you and there are probably a handful of people who do compete to check something off their bucket list or they do it for the pure joy of proving something to themselves, but I think those folks are in the minority. Let's face it, being first feels good. No one wants to come in last in a game. What about the game of life? Not the actual board game, but the life that you and I are living right now? Do you ever ...

There are two kinds of people in this world; the rule followers and the rule breakers. Right? What causes someone to want to break the rules when another person may be perfectly content with following the rules? Don't we all want to be law abiding citizens and contribute to our community in a positive way? Sorry, a lot of questions. But right now my head is swimming with all of these questions. I have always been the type of person to see the good in someone before I see the bad....my mom calls it being "naive." I call it being positive. Sometimes that mindset has gotten me into trouble and has caused me heartache, but for the most part I would say that it has helped me be more compassionate to those whose circumstances are different from my own. A couple of weeks ago we had a sermon in church on a passage from Romans 7;14-20. I like to call it the "do-do" passage-it's kind of funny to hear your own minister say the word "do-do." Yes, I ...

I live in the Midwest; where the summers are hot and the winters are unpredictable! That being said I was driving to work one January morning from one small mid-western town to another on country roads and it was so incredibly foggy that my visibility was very limited. I couldn't see oncoming traffic until they were almost right next to me! As I was driving I began thinking about how that morning's weather was such a metaphor of my life at that time. The fog was my life, thick and full of the unknown with limited visibility into the future. Going through the "fog" of life thinking to myself, "This has got to let up soon, right?" Fog, to me, is much more hazardous to drive in than any other weather condition. I think it is because you can't see what is up ahead. You just don't know if you are going too fast because there may be vehicles in front of you with their breaks on, or there may be vehicles behind you coming up quickly. Doesn't l...