https://www.facebook.com/404435829625300/

Little Dove Spiritual Direction and Counselling Services, Kitchener, ON (2026)

11/28/2025

The Narrow Way to Gratitude

Have you ever noticed how hard it is to truly be thankful? To be content? To be at peace in the present moment?

Have you ever noticed that your thinking mind runs wild over every little thing? Either perseverating on the past with regret or projecting to the future with worry?

It’s fascinating to note that the world’s wisdom teachers, including Jesus of Nazareth, have taught about the importance of being in the present moment. Trusting God here, now, no matter what “now” looks like. We have been taught that our lives are of more value than sparrows, and God cares intimately for the sparrows. Therefore, God cares eternally for us!

So why do we worry? Why aren’t we more easily full of gratitude and inner peace?

It’s the weekend of the American Thanksgiving, and as a person who grew up in the states, I’m always reminded at the end of November again to give thanks. But being thankful is not meant to be something we focus on one weekend of the year. Or one day of the year. It’s meant to be a lifestyle. This is no easy task. It’s amazingly hard to be grateful.

Why is that?

I am not a neuroscientist, but it’s interesting to note that those who are speak about how our brains evolved. From ages ago, our brains were wired for survival. That is still very true, and so our more developed brains still fall into the need to gravitate toward the negative. Toward anticipating problems, catastrophes or “monsters” behind the next bush. I notice my conceptual thinking mind does this all the time. From the moment I open my eyes in the morning I’m constantly looking at what could go wrong, be problematic or fearful. It’s so frustrating! And yet as I learn to observe my mind, I realize I have a choice in the matter of how I go through each day.

Gratitude is a discipline. Plain and simple. It helps to name things, but we are really meant to live in a spirit of gratitude at all times. This can feel like a tall order, until we begin to learn the secret of living in the present moment.

I recently listened to the renowned meditation teacher, Eckhart Tolle who said that the problem with the world today is simply that human beings are unable “to sit quietly in a room.” If we are unable to sit quietly in a room and just observe our thoughts, our thoughts take over and become troublemakers. We can see this in our individual lives, as well as globally and collectively. (Have you watched the news lately?)

So it seems that we are all called to come back to the simple practice of contemplation. Being in the moment. Taking time to look. To breathe. To sit. To observe our thoughts, letting them pass through without passing any judgement or giving them energy. Most of us would call this meditation or the prayer of quiet. Simply being with God, and allowing God to love us in the moment, one breath at a time. In the world in which we live, this is needed now more than ever.

I was reflecting with my husband over coffee on Jesus’ teaching about the wide way that leads to destruction and the narrow way that leads to life, and how “few there are that find it.” I honestly don’t think Jesus was talking about heaven and hell, reward and punishment. I think the metaphor is one of the keys of his principle teachings: To live as children who trust the Divine in the moment. Who are grateful in the moment. Who have learned to be quiet and still in the moment. Who have learned to accept what life hands them knowing that God is with us in all of it.

This is a tall order for sure. One that takes work and practice. Daily. Perhaps that is why it is called the “Narrow” way.

And so while I struggle to be consistently thankful, and to come back to peace, time and again, day in and day out, moment by moment; while I work at learning
to let go of negative thinking or unhelpful thoughts; while I learn that I can choose to think about what is good, hopeful and true, I pray that you also can find ways to practice this.

Maybe together we can learn this narrow way to becoming more thankful, grateful and peaceful people.

09/01/2025

A Cornucopia of Goodness

Since last March I have been sitting with one of the most famous sets of verses in Sacred Scripture, Psalm 23, often called the Shepherd’s Psalm.

This set of verses has almost everything that one would need for every season of life. If we are afraid or in danger, we can hold onto the verse that says: ”Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you are with me. Your rod and your staff they comfort me.”

If we’re walking through a time where we feel we are lacking or even feel envious of what other people have, we can spend time reflecting on the fact that “Because the Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want.”

If we are uncertain or need a sense of guidance, we can remember that ”He guides me along the right paths being true to his name.” If we are tired or languishing, those still waters, and his presence will restore our soul.

Most of what I have concentrated on are the darker side of the verses which bring comfort or help in time of need.

But I hadn’t anticipated the summer of 2025. The summer of the cornucopia of God‘s goodness.

Part of this ancient song of King David has this verse: “You have anointed my head with oil, my cup is overflowing.”

Overflowing!

Can you hear the abundance in the image? It’s like there’s more than you can even absorb or contain. Like a cornucopia filled with the overflow and bounty of fruits and vegetables at the peak of the summer season.

I am writing this reflection in late August, a time in which going to any of the local farmers markets means I come away with so many vegetables and fruits, I hardly know where to begin. It’s more than I can cook and eat. It’s all so fresh and delicious. So nutritious and tasty.

It’s the perfect image of how I feel one year later after our move to New Brunswick. After a long year of adjustment and struggling with the difficulty of change, I feel like things have shifted.

Change is hard for all of us. It puts us in a grey place. We don’t know who we are or where we are. We’re not even sure how to operate. Our nice cosy routine is thrown off. There’s disorganization everywhere we look which causes ongoing stress.

There is grief for what we no longer have. There’s a longing to have it all restored. And yet there’s the knowing that we can never go back to what was.

Then at some point, a page turns. Somehow the grief eases, and we realize that we have been cared for through all of this.

As I consider this, I realize that everything I let go of and left behind is held in the heart of God who loves me. And everything that I truly need continues to be brought my way. Those that I love, I am still in touch with one way or another, and we learn to adapt. People that I had to release and can’t replace are now more integrated into who I am today. I carry them with me.

Provision for things I didn’t even think of have come our way. Generous neighbours have let us come to their cottages or swim in their pools. Friends have visited us and validated how beautiful this new place is thus giving us fresh perspective.

I don’t know when it occurred to me, but somewhere since early August, I realized that I have more than I can eat. More than I can drink. The provision has been as full as the rivers in these valleys. This is the goodness of God for all of us.

Somehow the season of grief does its inner work, and we enter a new space. A space that is open and inviting. A space that no longer feels so much like loss. A space that has potential joy instead of perpetual sadness. It’s such a surprise and such a gift.

Life is not always easy. In fact, it’s often hard. But even in the midst of those challenges, there is always grace and abundance. The invitation is to trust and look for fulness rather than scarcity.

Right now in this time of consolation, I’m grateful for a full heart, a cup that’s overflowing and oil that is running down within me and all around me.

Having written a year ago of how difficult and challenging this move was, I feel like my roots have gone deeper into the soil. They are more relaxed and drawing nourishment from this place on the planet. This specific soil and bit of earth.

These reflections are not just about my journey, but about all our journeys. Whatever time you are in, whether comfort or distress, remember that the Lord is your shepherd. Trust that truly, you shall not want. You shall have everything you need. God will give you everything you need and more. It may not be in the way you want it or the timing you wanted, but it will pure, abundant provision.

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. “

04/19/2025

Scattered Molecules, Pillars of Salt and Ocean Waves

It’s been just over 8 months since we left Ontario and moved to New Brunswick. I still have people ask me what this has been like and how am I settling in. I have pondered many ways to answer this.

As I sit here writing, I am mindful that it is Saturday of Easter weekend, “Holy Saturday,” the “in-between day.” The day of liminal space, the day of waiting in silence with the interweaving of sorrow and joy. I am beginning to understand more and more that Holy Saturday is a spiritual place in which we live most of our humanity and spiritual journeys. It is a place of unknowing and potentially abundant learning.

One of the many lessons I’ve been learning anew in moving across the country in my late 60’s is that everything is temporary. Everything changes. I can hold onto absolutely nothing. All material possessions, places, people, events, involvements, ministries, careers, even loved ones, will slip through my fingers. We are visitors to this planet, for however long or short our lifespan will be.

While the dust is finally beginning to settle, and the house feels more potentially like home now, it is still strange and new. I told a friend recently this whole experience has been a lot like getting pregnant and having a baby. You give birth to something brand new, mysterious and wonderful, and it changes your life entirely. And then you have to get to know this mysterious “other,” and learn how to live a life that is completely upended. We give “birth” many times throughout our lives.

This new season, while being like new birth, is also not unlike the experience of waves washing over me. If you’ve ever played in the ocean, you know what it’s like to feel the power of the watery swells that push and pull your body. One wave comes toward you at the very time an undertow is pulling at your feet. If you’re not careful, you could lose your footing and get knocked flat down or even rolled.

I remember the first time I saw and immersed myself in the ocean. Having grown up landlocked in the southwest desert of the US, I had never seen the ocean until my parents took me at age 11 to LA, to the ocean, and of course, to Disneyland. Of all the fun things we did in that vacation, our time at the ocean was my absolute favorite. I fell in love with the overwhelming, cleansing and embracing power of those massive waters. (My parents had to drag me bodily back to the hotel to get me away from the beach.)

However, there was a potential threat involved in playing in those salty surges. My father kept a watchful eye on me and was out in the water with me constantly. He taught me how to work with the ocean, and how to respect it when you’re swimming near the shore. He schooled me in how to turn sideways and jump right up into the waves, and let them wash past me. Or if they were too big to jump into, to dive under them. He told me to never panic in the ocean. To always find a way to take a breath, assess, and move calmly, not fighting the water. He instilled a great respect for the majestic salt waters of the Earth. The ocean is life. The ocean is our source. The ocean has much to teach us about our journey.

Another image came recently as I was speaking to a friend about this mammoth adjustment. This is a friend who herself has done huge cross-continental moves in the past. She pointed out that it’s a lot like going to the transporter room on the Starship Enterprise and being “beamed” from one place to another.

This dates me of course, but if you watched the original “Star Trek” series when you were young, you will remember that the transporter room somehow magically, or to be more accurate, future-scientifically disassembled your body’s molecules, shipped them through space to another designated planet or place, and reassembled your molecules there so you could explore and carry-on business. It was “fascinating” to put it in Mr. Spock’s language.

I loved the reminder of the old beloved series, and the dispersed molecule image, which made so much sense to me. When we first got here and I wrote about it, I felt confused, scattered, disoriented, and out of sorts for many weeks. I was grieving the loss of many years and many familiar places and faces of four decades. All of this at the very same time that I felt deeply assured about the decision to move, and felt grateful beyond words for abundant provision which had fallen into our laps in order to let us live in this charming area.

Honestly, I still feel the juxtaposition of that Holy Saturday threshold passage. I feel like my body was transported from southern Ontario over to New Brunswick. And somehow though most of my “molecules” are here, it still feels like there are some that haven’t quite come to me. On days when I feel displaced, bewildered or even sad, it’s like I’m just waiting for the rest of my parts set adrift to catch up to where we are. Some days I just want to say, “Beam me up Scotty!” and have ALL my atoms come at once.

I’m also learning about pining for what I “lost.” It’s a normal phenomenon of any grief journey to want things back to how they once were. But looking back and longing for what was doesn’t help very much. Another story that speaks to this is the tale of Lot’s wife. I recently said jokingly to a friend that I’m afraid I’m turning into a pillar of salt like Lot’s wife. In the story from sacred scripture, she and her husband had to quickly flee their familiar city of S***m, and she paused to look back. For some mysterious reason, this act turned her into a “pillar of salt” according to the ancient story. Honestly, I feel for Mrs. Lot! I get that she probably had her favorite hair salons, therapists, shopping centers, restaurants, community involvements, parks, and markets, not to mention long-term friendships. She loved her familiar routine. It’s hard to pick up and leave!

But the parable speaks volumes to what can happen to us if we continue to look back and long for what was rather than being with, and accepting what is. We get stuck and stalemated. Too much salt doesn’t taste very well either. This doesn’t mean however that there won’t be days of adjustment fatigue with whatever change or season we’re going through. This is our humanity after all. So there is an invitation for abundant self-compassion as well as learning to wait.

While I’m still anticipating all my molecules to arrive so that I can feel like I’m “fully here,” I maneuver the waves. The waves of grief that hit. The waves of discouragement or inertia that wash over me. Conversely I’m finding there are waves to surf that hint of limitless possibilities and adventures yet to come. Mostly the waves keep helping me realize that things will never be the same. Ever. And that’s ok.

“Be kind to yourself and give it time. This is still all very new…” said my wise spiritual Director recently. I’m not sure what I expected. Instant happiness? Constant gratitude? Total ease? I should’ve known it would be a process. And that all change requires patience, endurance, surrender, acceptance and trust.

With grace and the presence of Divine Intelligence that lives right within me, I know I can remember to jump up into the waves or dive under them. If I do get knocked over and even rolled, I’ll keep reminding myself to get up and take a breath, assess, try to let all panic go and keep moving forward.

With God’s help, I am learning to offer kindness to my inner “Lot’s Wife” that sometime surfaces as yearning or anxiety. I am learning acceptance of this beautiful gift of new life, while remembering the many blessings of the past life.

Through the enabling strength of the Spirit, I will be patient for the rest of “me” to catch up, re-form and settle more fully.

Looking outside my front window to the exquisite surrounding scenes of river valleys, hills, endless trees and natural beauty helps me remember the mystery and the truth that Julian of Norwich taught: “All shall be well, all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”

For whatever challenges of change, whatever Holy Saturdays you may be living through this Easter and spring season, I wish you that message of peace.

12/28/2024

Advent, Christmas and Wistful longing

Karen Carpenter’s smooth-as-silk voice croons the words of the beautiful Christmas Carol “Merry Christmas Darling” on my stereo. I listen to her sing, “The logs on the fire fill me with desire to see you and to say…that I wish you Merry Christmas…Happy New Year toooo…I’ve just one wish on this Christmas Eve… I wish I were with you… I wish I were with you…darling.”

Advent and Christmas 2024 have come and gone in a flash, and I find myself reflecting on the uniqueness of this time of year. What is it that awakens such a longing and such desire? Perhaps, like Scrooge, the ghosts of Christmas take us back into our past, or make us see what we are missing in the present, or perhaps what we are needing to embrace for the future. Whatever the answer, I never fail to feel it this time of year: wistful longing.

As I spent time with my sweet little family in New Brunswick, I thought about our son Kendall a lot, and missed him as I always do. I try to not let his physical absence take away from what we have. I think he would want us concentrating on what we do have, and I often sense him smiling over us, celebrating that we’re all together. Still….

I think with a full heart about all the Christmases we spent as a young married couple and throughout our marriage, raising two boys in the home in which we lived for over 30 years. So. Many. Memories! It has taken a lot of months and hard work to set up house and begin to feel at home here in our new province. But the sense of being settled is growing and for that we are grateful.

I think of Christmas longer past, my past, with my parents and my family of origin and the traditions we had. The delightful anticipation of goodies and presents. The aromas of delicious food. The bright lights. The warm ambience. Christmas mostly felt safe, sweet and warm for me as a child. I was one of the lucky ones.

But of course, now, my parents have long passed and siblings have grown and long gone their separate ways… The desert home I grew up in, has been long possessed by strangers. The constant change makes me realize those days can never be reclaimed, only remembered and somehow integrated.

And it’s always wistful. There is ever present the juxtaposition of joy and sorrow that is probably everybody’s Christmas to some degree.

Honestly Christmas seems to be MEANT to set our hearts longing. After all, it’s the story of Emmanuel, God coming to us in person to validate our humanity, and embrace it with us fully. It’s that ache we have to know that our lives matter. It’s the longing for incarnation. Not just God’s but our own; sensing our part in God’s life and story. Christmas is invitational.

We all desire to know in our gut that God is with us in the grit, dirt and hummus of our humanity. And God IS with us! That’s the whole point. But sometimes it’s hard to see it or find it because of various frustrations , family dynamics or unfulfilled expectations.

We hope that a conversation will go well, and it’s bumpy or flat out difficult. We hope everyone is well and the youngest child gets strep throat. We hope for snow and it rains, or we hope for clear weather and it snows. We hope to be validated and we are treated with condescension. We hope to have energy and we are tired. All these little, sometimes petty grievances are just part of the deal—being human and ourselves incarnational.

Of all the seasons of the year, Christmas is perhaps the most down-to-earth and human. For all the magic and mystical side of it, when it comes down to it, it is us touching our own human vulnerability with the invitation to experience God, who also came in human frailty and weakness.

Every day has its own little deaths and little resurrections. The key is to find that God is with us in all of it. This is why the wisdom teachers stress the importance of reflecting on our lives, even daily as a spiritual practice.

Into such instances in the past couple of weeks, I’ve had to pause and say with John Lennon, “So this is Christmas….and what have we done?” Here it is again, and this is unique to last year’s. But here are the very real, (mostly) little human struggles.

For some of us the struggles are big; some of my own Christmases have had deaths of loved ones or health issues and greater difficulties. But here we are, and we are given both grace and choice. Do we let the little things or the sad things pull us away from that sense that God is with us, or do we let them lead us to the very fact that God IS with us?

As I work on this and grow in awareness myself, I hope for all of you that you can also enjoy the fact that your life journey is part of THE big story. That your life matters. That your small part in the bigger picture of history is unique and precious.

Let the Christmas invitation and longing work in your heart. If you feel sad or wistful, let it be. Embrace it as part of your present human story and part of this particular Christmas. If you are filled with joy, relish it. It’s all valuable and it all has meaning.

So whether you feel wistful and full of longing, or perhaps quite content (most likely a combination of both), I wish you all the best for this upcoming new year. May you and I both together grow to know that we are valued and loved uniquely, and that for each of us, very particularly, God is truly with us.

09/05/2024

A Whole New Harbour Front

“Leaving Ontario and coming to New Brunswick was like getting on a ship and sailing to a whole new harbor. You pull in to a waterfront that is breathtakingly beautiful and then step off the docks into the 60s.” This quote was from my new massage therapist as she was trying to help my tense muscles relax. She also is a transplant from Ontario to this new province of New Brunswick so we had instant rapport on the journey of change that encompasses a huge move.

What’s it like to leave a home you’ve known for 42 years? To travel across the country to a whole new climate, biosphere and people group? (They speak French here. Did you know that? New Brunswick is the only province in Canada that is considered entirely bilingual. Not even in French speaking Quebec is that true!) Oh, and I don’t speak French, did I mention that?

What’s it like to leave one incredibly good thing that was comfortable, familiar, predictable, convenient, ordered, just as I liked it—for another that is breathtakingly beautiful, stunning, filled with people so friendly I’m constantly taken aback after living with the Ontario “reserve?”

What’s it like to leave friendships so long and deep that you know you could never replace them, nor would you want to, and inhabit a place where almost everyone says, “Welcome to the neighborhood…if there’s anything you need, just let us know…” People with a maritime lilt in their accent, who welcome you with chicken salad sandwiches and freshly baked muffins and offer to let you use their lawnmowers while your possessions are still in storage; people who bring over pots and pans because you have nothing to cook in? People who drop off a full pint of freshly picked blackberries that they picked themselves in the wild for you?

And yet, even as they are so friendly, you realize, these are basically kindhearted strangers being nice. By nature, as an introvert, I select a few friends and go very deep long term. And so as they are being friendly, I miss the ones that I knew so well. The soft places to fall. And I feel my interior reserve being stretched into discomfort.

What’s it all like? I would say my best word is, OVERWHELMING. It’s beyond my ability to even process. It's like being moved in with a stranger and being told you must now fall in love with this mysterious "other." It’s like giving birth the first time to a whole new miraculous bundle of hidden mystery and feeling like all you learned in pre-natal and parenting classes just went out the window. Yes, it feels overwhelming.

At a time when I have so much to be grateful for, far beyond listing, because of the incredible generosity of the loving Divine Intelligence that is guiding our lives…I feel I should be jumping up and down every minute articulating gratuitous acclaim to the heavens. And that kind of response has risen in my heart. Expressions of gratitude that are beyond the best of our language to convey.

And yet there have also been moments when I have sat in this unfamiliar new backyard—it does not have a pond, does not have the two trees my boys planted, does not have the vast perennial flowerbeds of 30 years that I nurtured—a sweet but terribly neglected bit of earth full of weeds and need, need, need; I have sat gazing at it and felt my heart fill up to overflowing with another kind of feeling. To put it in biblical proportions and verbiage, I have more than once “lifted up my voice and wept.” Wept for all that I once had and left behind. Wept for the stripping and assertive cleansing demanded by such colossal change. Wept for all I miss at the very time I have a whole new life filled with possibilities sitting before my eyes.

I’m not sure I’ve ever lived such a juxtaposition of joy and sorrow in exactly the same space.

We are near our kids! I have gone swimming with my granddaughter in the beautiful St. John river nearly a dozen times in the past month, floating in waters so clear and silken, they could hold me up with no effort. I have been here in person for three birthdays while formerly we were far distance. I have watched my grown children help us paint almost every room in our house and assist us with the immense task of setting up house. This is why we came! To be near them!

I have found myself surrounded by outstanding scenery that only poets and artists can portray. I have views to look at every single day that people would give their left arm for. It is such a time of overflowing abundance I almost could feel a false sense of guilt. How did it come to this? How are we so very blessed at this time in our lives? A friend back home told us before we left: “It’s your turn. This is your time. You will go and thrive.” Such words savour of joyous announcements from the heavenly realms.

And yet...it is a time of both grief and joy. Henri Nouwen , a favourite author and spirituality writer often said in his writings: “Every little piece of joy has a little bit of sorrow, and every little bit of sorrow has a little piece of joy. Joy and sorrow embrace in every moment. They are never far from each other.” Wise words from a spiritual leader who served people with all his heart broadly, from teaching at Harvard and Yale to working with handicapped adults at L’arche Daybreak Community in Toronto.

Shortly after we moved, another friend mentioned that I seem to have found my place in coming here in response to viewing my social media posts and pictures. This is true. But as I said to her, each time I’m planting a new plant in my new poorly neglected garden, I feel like I AM the plant plopped into a whole new plot of existence. If the plant could speak, it might express fear, uncertainty, and even shock. But like the flower, I must stay very still and let the sun and rain do its work as my roots gently feel their way down into the new soft soil. And surely in time they will take root and begin to flourish.
I can trust the words of other humans who have experienced the full gamut, and are able to find God in all of it. It’s certainly easy to find God in the scenery, in the verdant natural river valleys and rolling mountain foothills surrounding us. I’m invited to remember through the losses of the past five years--loss of child, several friends, house, home, province and all that is beloved and familiar, I know all too well the resurrection and new life that can only be birthed through such goodbyes.

So as I have disembarked at the new harbor and stepped into this whole new life, I wait like my newly transplanted flowers, sitting at the end of summer facing fall, winter and the great unknown, and I pray. I pray simply for the grace of trust.

05/10/2024

In the last number of months we’ve been discerning a decision. We finally have decided that we are going to move from the home that we know and love, to join our son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren in Atlantic Canada. 30 years we lived here. 42 years in this area.

All of us have had to face changes of some magnitude. I wrote a poem expressing the inner movements of embracing this decision. May you be given grace in your own seasons of change.

Constant Change

In the mornings when I open the curtains
This burgeoning Spring greets me
White pear tree blossoms flutter down, dappling the deck
The daffodil fades even as the forget-me-nots bloom.
New life out of death,
-Constant metamorphosis.

The two trees we planted to replace the old,
Once saplings, now mature into promising shade trees.
Five years ago this month our two sons planted one each,
To replace the two veteran ash that had died.
One tree for each son:
The Kendall tree and the Brandon tree.

And now one son continues here on this beautiful earth
While the other
Soars in the unfathomable world we cannot yet see,
-Constant transition.

For 30 years we have walked this bit of earth we called Home.
We have dug deep,
We’ve sown and reaped; we’ve planted and transplanted.
People have stopped and admired, commenting on the flower gardens.
My mom’s “green thumb” finally took root, even as she watched from heaven.

For 30 years, here we’ve laughed and rejoiced,
We’ve wept and grieved…
Through ice and snow, rain and wind,
Hot summer days in the sun,
Soft days of autumn
As the leaves turned to crimson and gold.

Seasons came.
Seasons passed.
Over and again.
-Constant unfolding.

We remember the people who have come through our open doors.
Friends and soul companions,
Neighbours and coworkers,
Students and clients;
People we loved.
People we lost.

People we laughed with, cried with and played with,
People we sang with, prayed with and celebrated.
Eras now passed.
-Constant impermanence.

Then there’s family.
Our precious ones who grew up and launched,
Then brought their own loves…
All tasting the depths of life around our table.

And oh! Our sweet grandchildren.
Here.
Laughing under our roof.
Running through the sprinklers and playing in our yard…
Incandescent memories,
-Constant renewal.

The “blue house” my grandchildren named it.
The place that we thought we would live out our days…
But the winds of change have other ideas,
And we have sensed the call to go.

And so we sort.
We simplify.
We purge.
We stage.

All the while feeling the wistful memories passing through our hearts.
The times that have slipped through our fingers,
That continue to pour through them like sand.
-Constant releasing.

Some days it feels like our whole lives are being shredded.
Was it all a dream?
Then other days we have energized anticipation and excitement,
For the surprising new that is to come.

Leaving beloved familiarity is a challenge.
And yet… there is an inner knowing…
The time has come again,
To embrace the inevitability of change.
-Constant acceptance.

And so we prepare
And we wait,
To see what will be given us.

We look back to remember,
That we’ve always been cared for and provided for,
Lovingly and even lavishly.
-Constant trust.

So the new will come.
We will let go
To join those who are sweetest and dearest to our heart,
To finish the chapters of our days near them.
We will go to a whole new piece of land and continent.
We will welcome a whole new life for love.

But oh sweet blue house,
How I will miss every blade of grass, every leaf and every sweet flower that we nurtured.
And how I pray that whoever lives here next
Could feel the blessing of this little patch of Earth.
As we embrace the change in hope and love.
-Constant surrender.

Ever remembering the motto of our darling son in heaven,
Who always said that family comes first,
We “keep moving forward.”

Toward that which is not yet seen.
Vulnerable, trembling…
And yet holding on, with
-Constant faith.

—Fontaine Waite
May, 2024

Little Dove Spiritual Direction and Counselling Services

11/28/2025

09/01/2025

04/19/2025

12/28/2024

09/05/2024

05/10/2024

Address

Website

Alerts

Contact The Business

Shortcuts

Share

Category