Miss Ann Says

thoughts from everyday life
Miss Ann Says
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  • Tag: following Jesus

    • a very productive day

      Posted at 7:14 pm by missannsays, on May 17, 2012

      It was a very productive day today.  Not that I really did anything but things related to me got accomplished. YES, I can cross things off of the list.  Lists are part of who I am. I still make lists on paper because physically crossing it off is more fun than deleting it from your smart phone.  I have a dry erase board that contains the “big list”. Usually meaning it needs someone other than me to do it. There is big satisfaction in crossing those items off. And yes, I add things that weren’t on the original list that were completed because then at least something “got done”.  Such as the flag pole – that was a “write in”.

      So exactly what was accomplished today. Well, my house was cleaned. I didn’t do that. My two wonderful friends and cleaning people did that. The laundry got washed and dried (but not folded). I did do that and plan on completing that task later. New garage doors were installed but I didn’t do that either. One of the bi-vocational pastors from church did that. I made some phone calls and sent some emails. I talked to my daughter and mother and texted my sister.

      And the flag pole was repaired. I didn’t do that either but I did help a little with that project. Last Winter, I realized the string for the flag pole in my front yard was broken. So I haven’t been able to fly the flag. With Memorial Day rapidly approaching, I wanted to get it fixed but who fixes flag pole strings. I figured you would need a bucket truck or something similar to get the hook that was snagged in the pulley down. The other day my neighbor was outside and I asked him “who would I ask about fixing this and how could it even be done without costing mega bucks?” He said “I will work on it”. And he did. He came up with a plan. And today he and his wife with very little help from me fixed my flag pole. The tools involved were a new rope, a ladder, a fishing pole, knowledge of knots and duct tape. Amazing!! And you know what he said after the first attempt was not to his satisfaction and he redid it. “I want to make Bruce proud”.

      After my neighbor and his wife left, I set on my porch swing and thought about that statement “I want to make Bruce proud”.  I realized many things I have done over the past 10 years have been for that very reason “I want to make Bruce proud”.  But even more importantly I want to make my Heavenly Father proud – I want to hear “well done, good and faithful servant”

      Posted in daily life | 0 Comments | Tagged following Jesus, little things, September 11
    • Just look at me

      Posted at 11:13 am by missannsays, on April 25, 2012

      “Just look at me” or “Just watch me” are two phrases I have said many times while teaching little girls ballet.  That was my career path for 35 years – I taught little girls ballet, tap, jazz, lyrical and even a little gymnastics. It was great fun and very rewarding but there were times that it could be frustrating. One of things that I taught my dancers to do was how to turn without getting dizzy. Little kids don’t mind getting dizzy but if you want to be able to perform a combination or routine you can’t be dizzy after your turns. The technique is called “spotting” or “snapping your head”.  The technique involves focusing your eyes on one spot and then turning your head quickly so all your eyes see is that one focal point. It takes concentration and practice.

      The annual recital is the main event of the year.  It is the icing on the cake. It is one performance that involves the months of training and weeks of rehearsal to learn a “dance”.  As I used to tell my high schoolers or “big kids” as they are known, the littlest ballerinas or babies can just walk on stage in their pink tutus and the audience loves them.  You however as “the big kids” have to really know what you are doing. The hardest group to get to understand this is the early elementary age – the 6 & 7 years old.

      A few years ago I had a class of beginner ballet students that really knew their dance. They were a great fun group of kids. There are classes that you think “oh, my. I am so glad their costume is cute and the music is good because they have no clue.” That wasn’t this group. They knew what they were doing. Well, they knew what they were doing until dress rehearsal and then they fell apart. They couldn’t get it to together at all.  I mean at all.  They were so distracted that I finally had to close the curtain and let them do the dance with no one watching.  I kept pointing to my chest and saying “Just look at me. If you just look at me, you will be fine”  It was so frustrating.  The next day while I was driving to the recital I thought about the whole bizarre incident and why it was so hard for them to do the easiest thing of looking at me.  The Lord reminded me that He tells me that all the time “just look at me”.

      Today my very personal God reminded me again. My devotional reading from Jesus Calling states: “MAKE ME YOUR LOCAL FOCAL POINT as you move through this day. Just as a spinning ballerina must keep returning her eyes to a given point to maintain her balance, so you must keep returning your focus to Me.  Circumstances are in flux, and the world seems to be whirling around you. The only way to keep your balance is to fix your eyes on Me, the One who never changes. If you gaze too long at your circumstances, you will become dizzy and confused.  Look at Me, refreshing yourself in My Presence, and your steps will be steady and sure.”

      Just what I needed to hear today and in a way that spoke to me. I am grateful for the reminder.

      Posted in faith, kid stuff | 1 Comment | Tagged following Jesus, little things, telling the next generation
    • not an ordinary week

      Posted at 8:13 pm by missannsays, on April 20, 2012

      On Friday April 13, I had to call to see if I had jury duty. The recorded message stated that I had to report to the Orange County Courthouse in Goshen on Monday morning at 10am. Great I should know by Monday afternoon if I am picked for a jury and then I can plan the rest of my week. I had basically left my week open. I figured I may need to “tweak” the timing of errands with my mom or Wacky Wednesdays with the kids at church but no problem. Piece of cake.

      The phone rang and I looked at the clock radio – 1:00 am. The voice on the phone asked for Ray and I said you have the wrong number. I got back in bed and my cell phone rang. I stumbled down the hall to answer it and the caller id said Northern Los Angeles,CA – weird but I answered. “This is dispatcher # whatever with Life Alert. May I speak to A.V.H” “Speaking” ” We have had a Life ALert activation from M.C. and have dispatched paramedics to her location” I call my mother and the police answer. My mom has fallen and they were transporting her to the hospital. I get dressed, wash my face, brush my teeth, shove the jury summons in my purse and drive the almost 30 miles to my childhood home. A phone call from my mom’s neighbor informs me she is at the emergency room with her. I thank her for being there and say I will be there in a few moments. I walk into the ER at around 2am.

      My mom doesn’t know how she fell. Okay that is troublesome. “Mommy, why were you downstairs in the middle of the night.” She doesn’t know. Not good. After x-rays and a CAT scan, it is determined that she has broken her arm. The ER doctor wants her to be admitted for observation since she has a bump on her head and is confused. I am relieved that it is not worse. I am watching the clock because I have jury duty. I am not a big fan of hospitals. I never feel comfortable. I am always sure that I haven’t asked the right questions, or been concerned enough or seemed capable enough. It is like I am in a foreign country and I don’t know the language or the customs. I feel the same way about the court system so knowing I have jury duty is not helping. I leave the hospital around 5:30am so I can go home, take a shower, call my sister, and figure how am I going to get out of jury duty.

      I don’t want to be a “no-show”. I realize I have a civic duty and I am mindful that they could issue a bench warrant for not showing up. Plus my sister is a judge and she is running for a new position and it would look bad in the newspaper if I am a “no-show”. This is how my brain works probably from watching too many courtroom dramas and a vivid imagination. Long story short – I am excused from jury duty because of my family emergency. They will postpone my service. My sister is impressed that I went. She comments “that most people would have been no shows” I share my bench warrant fear – not likely she says. I mention about not wanting to do anything that would look bad in the newspaper she thanks me and chuckles.

      I learned a few of things during my “not an ordinary week”:

      • God is always in control. A friend emails me that she thought she saw me driving over the mountain around 6am as she was driving to work. She figured that wasn’t good so she prayed for me, my mom and my dad (he is in a nursing home).
      • The sweetest sound in the hospital are the chimes signaling a baby has been born.
      • Telling someone your name and offering to open their water bottle one day may lead to the privilege of praying for them the next day.
      • Saying thank you to the people who are caring for your loved one makes you grateful and them smile.
      • A china tea-cup,a beanie baby, a wash cloth and towel can make someone feel safe and cared for.
      • Just being there is the most important thing.

      My mom spent 4 days in the hospital. She is now at a sub acute rehab facility. The problem is she walks with a walker and now has one useable arm. Next week will probably not be an ordinary week either and that’s okay because this week I heard the chimes of new life, I was humbled to pray with an elderly woman and I was reminded of God’s faithfulness.

      Posted in faith, relationships | 1 Comment | Tagged following Jesus, little things
    • K.I.D.S. club

      Posted at 2:54 pm by missannsays, on April 7, 2012

      “So the next generation would know, and all the generations to come -Know the truth and tell the stories so their children can trust in God.” I have the privilege and awesome responsibility of teaching K.I.D.S. Club on Wednesday evenings at Warwick Valley Church of the Nazarene. K=kids, I=investigating, D=discovering, S = Scripture, Club = fun & friends.  K.I.D.S. Club is also known as Bible Quizzing. I have included a brief explanation of Bible Quizzing but I really want to share is some “kid answers”. First the explanation, the Bible Quizzing program for the Church of the Nazarene is a 6 year curriculum for first through sixth graders. Year 1 is Genesis, year 2 is Exodus, year 3 is Joshua, Judges &Ruth, year 4 is I & II Samuel,  year 5 is Matthew, year 6 is Acts. The program is Bible study and then quizzing – multiple choice questions with quiz boxes.  The children are competing against a level (bronze, silver, gold) not against each other. Every child receives a ribbon and treat bag. At WVCN we meet once a week for our Bible study and then 3 times in the year we meet with other churches to quiz.”Hiding God’s word in your heart” is the emphasis.  Since last September we have been studying the book of Matthew.

      This past week I decided it was important to review the events of Holy Week since it is Holy Week. Our review didn’t make it through Holy Week. I read the scripture in Matthew 21 about Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.  We discussed the donkey and what is a colt and how kings ride into cities. Then I asked “why do you think the people laid the branches on the ground for the donkey to walk on?” Eager hands go up, waving back and forth. I picked a child to answer and he says “because it was Palm Sunday”.  I make eye contact with my friend and fellow teacher and we smile. Another one of those great kid answers that you need to take and steer in the right direction towards the correct answer.  I spend a lot of time on Wednesday nights steering answers towards the correct answer. I spend a lot of time answering questions that have a very loose connection to the subject manner.

      Sometimes I don’t think we cover a 1/4 of the lesson but it isn’t really about a specific lesson. It is about life lessons.  It is teaching my “students” that God loves them unconditionally – there is nothing they can do to make Him love them more or less. This was week it was naming each one of them individually and saying Jesus died for you. It is teaching that not everything can be explained and that God is big enough for their questions. Teaching that God can be trusted, that He is good and teaching that if you could understand everything about God He won’t be God. It is teaching them that they will have to decide who they will follow as their example of the way to live.

      Recently when we were “studying” the events in Matthew 14 (John’s beheading), I said “what can you tell me about John?”. Many eager hands  and smiling faces – “he was Jesus’ cousin”, “he wore camel-hair clothes” “he ate weird stuff” and “he was a Baptist”.  Good answer but he wasn’t a Baptist, he was the Baptist.  That kid answer makes me laugh and what I wanted to say but didn’t was ” Right, John was a Baptist and Jesus is a Nazarene” 🙂

      Dr Wes Stafford in his book Too Small to Ignore- Why Children are the Next Big Thing tells the following story. “Late one evening D.L. Moody, the premier American evangelist of the 1800s, arrived home from speaking at a meeting.  Emma, his wife, was already asleep.  As her exhausted husband climbed into bed, she rolled over and murmured, “So how did it go tonight?”  “Pretty well,” he replied. “Two and a half converts.” His wife lay silently for a moment pondering this response, then finally smiled. “That’s sweet,” she replied. “How old was the child?” “No, no, no,” Moody answered. “It was two children and one adult! The children have their whole lives in front of them. The adult’s life is already half-gone.”

      Posted in faith, kid stuff | 0 Comments | Tagged following Jesus, telling the next generation
    • it’s the little things

      Posted at 4:08 pm by missannsays, on March 24, 2012

      It is the little things that God does in my life that make me smile and reminds me of His infinite love for me. Don’t get me wrong, He has taken care of some really “big” things in my life and I am humbled and awed. But for some reason that doesn’t surprise me because He is God.  He is able to do immeasurably more than I ask or imagine but it is when He does those little seemly unimportant things that I am reminded how very much He loves me. Today for example, I have plans this evening to meet with friends for pizza.  A few days ago, I had asked my friend what could I bring this evening and she had replied “chocolate.  A little chocolate is always nice.”  That is easy.  I have to be in the city on Friday so I will run in the chocolate store at the World Financial Center and pick up a few little goodies. Not!! The WFC is being remodeled and the chocolate store is closed.  Not to worry, I will come up with plan B. As a side note, there isn’t a grocery store in my town.  I have to drive 10 miles to the grocery store.  Well, I just didn’t feel like running out this morning so I thought there must be something I can make or worse comes to worse I will run in the grocery store when I head to the pizza gathering. So since I didn’t actually have anything that was “happening” today and wanted to be lazy I was still in my pajamas when the phone rang.  “Oh good you are home we are a few minutes away and want to stop by” This is a rare event because my house is not on the way to anywhere.  You can’t get there from here or get here from there – no seriously in the 28 years I have lived here “no one is just in the neighborhood”. I had a lovely visit with friends who I have been thinking about a lot lately but hadn’t had the opportunity to connect with.  Wow, so glad I was home. What a treat!  Speaking of treats I still needed a chocolate treat to bring this evening.  So I look on the internet for something chocolate that I can make with the supplies that I have on hand.  I don’t have the most well stocked pantry but this is where I got to see God’s provision.  I realized I had Nutella and I found a recipe that I thought maybe I would have all the ingredients for and I did.  It was amazing. I was struck by the realization that the creator of the universe is such a personal God that He cares about the smallest of details in my life. I am learning more and more that every single day God wants to reveal more of who He is to me and I need to slow down and let Him.

      FYI: I made Nutella bites – yummy.

      Recipe can be found at:http://stopnsmellthechocolates.blogspot.com/2009/10/would-you-like-chocolate-with-that_30.html

      Posted in faith, relationships | 1 Comment | Tagged following Jesus, friendship, little things
    • an unexpected blessing

      Posted at 12:18 am by missannsays, on March 4, 2012

      When I opened that large manila envelope six and half years ago and read about an opportunity to volunteer with the September 11 Family Association as a docent, I had no idea what a blessing lay before me. I had no idea that six  years later I would have completed 250 public tours for the Tribute Center, numerous tours for family and friends and that Tribute Center tour would now be the official walking tour of the National September 11 Memorial. To be honest I had to look the word docent up in the dictionary.  Then I thought I am not even a member of the September 11 Family Association. I hadn’t joined any groups in the months and years after September 11.  I remember calling and saying I was interested in finding out more about these walking tours at the “site”.  I traveled into NYC for the first interview with Rachel and I was so nervous.  I knew nothing about lower Manhattan.  I knew nothing about the World Trade Center.  I had only been there twice in my whole life.  I barely knew the facts of September 11.   The “stomping ” ground of my youth  had always been from the Port Authority to Columbus Circle for auditions and dance classes. Or Greenwich Village for acting lessons.  But all of that was a lifetime ago. In recent years my trips into NYC had been to take my girls to the Rockefeller Center tree lighting or a Broadway show or the Bronx Zoo. This traveling into lower Manhattan was new and scary.   What was I thinking?

      Actually I know exactly what I was thinking.  The Tribute Center’s mission was “person to person” history and I knew I could do that.  I could tell my story/ Bruce’s story.  I had already told “our” story many times but that was in churches or at ladies groups. This was a whole new thing but I knew I had to try.  So I went to the training. I felt like I was going to throw up the whole time I was driving there.  I was sure I was in way over my head.  When I walked into the training Bruce’s captain was there.  Wow!! Thank you, Lord.  A nod from God. The training was going along nicely and then it was mentioned that you shouldn’t get political. Well, that was fine I am not political. And then a fellow trainee commented “you shouldn’t get too religious either”. Oh no, now I am going to have to say something.  I cautiously raised my hand and said that if we weren’t allowed to mention God I would respect that but if they wanted me to tell my story I had to mention God because God was my story. And I was told that if God was part of my story I could mention God.  Wow!!  A big nod from God.

      And now six and half years later, I tell my story. I say “That there are two things have gotten me through the last 10 years.  The first thing is my faith. God has gotten me through. And the second is the fact that my husband was a New York City firefighter. It was his job to go into those buildings. A job that he loved.”  I also say “That when I started doing tours, I only had my story and that was enough but now I know the story of my fellow docents –  other family members, survivors, fire responders, and rescue workers, who saw things no one should ever see. Downtown residents who couldn’t go home for weeks and even months. I believe the story of September 11 is a mosaic. That the stories are like little pieces of glass that lay next to each other to make the picture of what happened on September 11, 2001 –  hundreds of thousands of stories that come together to tell the story.”

      Being a docent has been an unexpected blessing for me and I love giving tours and I am awed by my fellow docents and everyone at Tribute – what an amazing group of people.  So on Monday I will talk to two school groups, lead the 1pm tour and then support 3 pm tour or to quote one of my fellow docents ” I will get my volunteer on”.  By the way, if you are ever in Manhattan stop by the Tribute Center,120 Liberty St and you may get unexpected blessing, too.

      Posted in memories, relationships, September 11 | 1 Comment | Tagged following Jesus, September 11, telling the next generation
    • mind your own business

      Posted at 8:30 pm by missannsays, on March 2, 2012

      Just mind your own business.  Unfortunately this isn’t a new area of growth for me.  I have been learning or not learning this lesson for years.  Yes, I am in the remedial class of following Jesus. The problem is I like to be in control and I like to fix things and problem solve and  I furiously love my family and friends. So bring it on – I can come up with a plan or at least a few ideas. But that is the problem. Sometimes (probably most of the time) I am not the one who should fix it. I may be the one to come alongside to encourage or listen or pray but I am not supposed to be the “great fixer”.

      In Everything Belongs by Richard Rohr, he states: “We give answers too quickly, take away pain too easily, and quickly stimulate…In terms of soul work, we dare not get rid of the pain before we have learned what it has to teach us…These dark periods are good teachers. Religious energy is in the dark questions, seldom in the answers.  Answers are the way out, but that is not what we are here for. But when we look at the questions, we look for the opening to transformation. Fixing something doesn’t usually transform us.  We try to change events in order to avoid changing ourselves.  We must learn to stay with the pain of life, without answers, without conclusions and some days without meaning. That is the path, the perilous path of true prayer.”

      Years ago I worked as a kindergarten aide at a Christian School. As you may or may not  know tattling is a big annoyance to teachers of young children. The Kindergarten teacher was a wonderful woman of prayer and is a dear friend.  One day she announced that her pastor had spoken on the quintessential verse for kindergarteners. I Thessalonians 4:11 – “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands.”  Through the years I have quoted this verse to children at camp, church and even my own.  I preface it with “Did you know the Bible says to mind your own business”  Well, this week the Lord said it back to me. As my mind was whirling with possible solutions to a  “few different issues”,  I Thessalonians 4:11  had come to mind and then my daily reading from Jesus Calling was based on John 21:22.  The 21 chapter of the book of John is one of my favorites – Jesus makes breakfast for his disciples and the reinstatement of Peter – great stuff.  So I was so excited as I opened my Bible to this all familiar and loved story. And then I read verse 22   “Jesus answers, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.” That was the 2 by 4 to my head.  God has a sense of humor.  He wants to make sure I got it so today the same message via Richard Rohr’s book.

      “Stay calm; mind your own business; do your own job. You’ve heard all this from us before, but a reminder never hurts.”  The Message

      Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment | Tagged following Jesus
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