Yesterday, while putting away something in my china cabinet I ran across something that had been left behind by my grand daughter.  It was a broken ceramic piggy bank she had left one Sunday after visiting.  I hadn't thrown it out, because I knew it was precious to her and wanted to somehow fix it or find her another one just like it.  As I held the broken pieces in my hand I became suddenly reminded of how many times God had held mine...the broken relationships, broken dreams, broken homes, and sometimes my broken children.  He kept me held together though this vessel had cracks so large it almost shattered the very core of God's purpose in me. My God faithfully repaired, reconstructed, and replaced all the sorrow, sadness, sickness, and loss with more then I could ever have imagined.  I may have not gotten back my original pieces shattered everywhere, but what HE gave me is worth so much more.  He gave me a new life, with a new love, and the ability to appreciate every broken vessel I see.  -Brenda

Psalm 147:3 He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.

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GOD MUST HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR

This past Sunday as I was going through the normal ritual of frantically rushing the kids out the door to church, I immediately stopped and thought, "Hmmmm...did I grab the hand sanitizer?" Well you know with all the greet and meet hand shaking and Ebola and stuff...I just wanted to be prepared.  While I am driving to church, I am giving my children a germ and illness prevention speech.  One that my kids hate, and I usually receive an eye-rolling in the back of the head epileptic fit before I ever get the last word out..."No putting fingers in eyes, ears, nose, or mouth! As these are all gateways to infections and disease!!!! Use the hand sanitizer after someone shakes your hand.  Don't eat the donuts, someone probably used bare hands to place on platter, and you don't know if they sneezed in that hand.  Don't hold the bathroom door handles without a paper towel or the sleeve of your shirt, don't turn off water faucets with bare hands, use paper towel, and for goodness sake NEVER use hand to flush toilet, use your foot!"  I know...maybe I've gone a little overboard, but after raising six children, and countless emergency room trips over the course of 29 years, and treating ungodly amounts of vomit spewed through my carpet...as a child can never manage to ever make it to a bathroom to do that!  After nearly 60,000 in medical fees, and strains of the flu never heard of...YES, I AM CAUTIOUS!  NOT PARANOID!  JUST CAUTIOUS!  If I can prevent sickness I will at ALL cost!  Anyhow, back to the Sunday scene.  I remind the children once more as we exit the vehicle to enter church.  I run up to door to open it so they don't have to touch anything.  I quickly use my sanitizer to clean hands.  I make my way across the sanctuary to sit with not one hand shake no need to sanitize... "Whew, I'm safe".  As we prepare for communion a thought popped in my head, "I wonder who placed the bread on the plate, did they use gloves, and shouldn't there be separate pieces instead of everyone handling it and ripping a piece off?"  I hesitated to take communion..really!  I told myself, "This is crazy! Trust that everything is going to be okay and no one in the congregation is suffering from Ebola, Entrovirus, Flu, Strep Throat, Hep A, Hep B, Stomach Bug....etc...  Well, as I bravely approach the table to gather my communion of bread and wine, I courageously eat my bread, and then before I realize it downed the washed-back remains of SOMEONE ELSE'S CUP by mistake!!!!!!  UGHHHHHHHH!  I immediately ran to bathroom and ceremoniously began washing my mouth out, and wiping tongue off with a paper towel as if I had ingested antifreeze!  A church lady came in the bathroom and witnessed my shear panic of it all, and asked what happened.  I hoped to have found some comfort from her as I explained in a gasp, "I accidentally drank from another's cup at the communion table"...sniff...sniff.  She replies, "OOH GROSS!" and steps out of the bathroom quickly, as if I had already contracted a deadly infection.  Here it is four days later and I am still alive.  I didn't contract some awful infection, the only thing I caught was an explosive room of laughter when I told my kids as my teen stated, "Oh wow mom, fail".  She thought it was so humorous she text her entire classroom at school. I am just waiting for her to post some YouTube video of this incident where I will be viral in the virtual world of most paranoid moms!

Platter of Patience Please

ONE PLATTER OF PATIENCE PLEASE?

Have you ever had a day when you felt like no matter how hard you tried to finish a project…something got in the way?  I recently had one of those days.  One morning as I awoke, knew I had much on my plate even before the main course was served.  Between chores, taking precious pooch to Vet, getting teen to school, preparing dinner, answering emails, writing articles, designing lay-out, and marketing, I was already overwhelmed.  Our dear canine was so hesitant to enter the clinic, we were delayed thirty minutes...she had to be picked up and dragged in on hind legs.  I really felt bad for her, I knew she was going to hate me when I picked her up that afternoon. 

Since I was out, decided to stop and eat breakfast with my son, hoping to have a brief but meaningful moment to relax and chat with him.  As we were about to enjoy our feast, a shady scene happened.  

We noticed a suspicious character enter the establishment with a women wearing an unfitting long hair wig.  I noticed the man whisper in his accomplice's ear as he took a guarded glance around the restaurant.  For all I know, he could have been asking her to order him an extra side of bacon or whispering sweet nothings.  She quickly went to the counter, while the male made a mad dash to a far corner.  Who knows?  Maybe he suffered from social anxiety disorder and wanted to be far from other patrons.  I don’t know…all I know is I suddenly felt uncomfortable with their presence.  He was wearing a jacket that said police, but he sure didn't look like police to me. At first I thought, maybe they were there after finishing an undercover stake-out...or maybe they came from a Halloween party, but Halloween still had a bit to go and this was on a work day early a.m.  My son actually said he felt uneasy and wanted to leave. I too had that gut feeling that something was about to go down.  We quickly grabbed our items and left the building.  I thought to myself, I've watched too much CSI or the news.  I must be paranoid.  Yet, my son said, "Mom...if they were undercover then they were doing a bad job of hiding their identity, since her wig was barely holding on her head, and the police jacket looked like something bought at a dollar store".   

Now that breakfast was on the run,I decided I would knock out grocery shopping for the week.  I was thankful to find the parking lot mostly empty at that hour, I'm thinking… “AWESOME!”  We won't have to fight the crowds. We will be able to race through the store in a flash!  Well, tis' not to be.  Problems started the moment we entered the store…I was ecstatic to find a slew of scooters available (I use these often with a botched ankle surgery). Scooters available and charged up are always a challenge.  I quickly hopped on one to get busy shopping to find that it wasn't charged.  I looked down the line of them to find that NON OF THEM WERE EVEN PLUGGED IN!  Oh, this aggravated me so...that some pin-head was too lazy to plug these in for the sake of the others!  Do they not realize how much profit loss they lose when someone cannot shop in one of these?   In my case, I usually leave and shop at their competitor.  I did find one barely working, but managed to get through most of my shopping before it broke down.  Delayed again, had to wait for my son to go find me a working one. 

We had to transfer the items from one basket to the next before finishing the task.  I was irritated.  I don't like delays.  I admit, I'm not the most patient person in the world, but I am learning.  My son always chuckles and says, "You must have prayed for patience this morning"....even he knows that to learn patience, you have to have delays, stand in long lines, listen to long-winded people, wait at a table for over an hour… wondering if your waitress has amnesia as your stomach growls to order. Sometimes it’s the obnoxiously slow turning driver with signal on for a mile who is busy finishing their text.  Patience on the phone with Technical Support is almost unbearable, be prepared to take a Xanax, or maybe a Nitrate to ward off chest pain, with the exacerbation of it all.  

And last but not least the proverbial waiting room of a doctor’s office.  I usually picture my own funeral procession being held in the center of the room while waiting to see my doctor....as my skeletal remains seated upright are still holding a magazine.

Foodforsoulmagazine.com 2014© Cody B. 

Nevertheless, we made it to check out after almost two hours.  I knew I had a construction crew showing up at house and we had to hurry it up.  Oh, I said hurry?  NOT!  I noticed on my receipt that I was overcharged for an item.  My son made his usual sigh, "Mom...can we just go?"... “NO”, I spouted.  I was determined to have this taken care of since this happens too often...this took an additional twenty-five minutes as the checker had to bring a supervisor into it in order to find the $1.25 GOOF…UGH.

'TICK TOCK' I am thinking...I'm losing daylight...I won't get these wasted moments back...I'm aging by the second, I can feel a new wrinkle form on my forehead…the nursing home is scheduling my bath...PLEASE CAN WE GET THE LED OUT????  But no, no one was in a hurry today, not for Brenda Graff. 

I finally make it back home to get my son on his school work to find that his focus was so thrown off it was almost impossible to light a fire under him to get 'er done!  I had to make myself wait patiently as we went over each math problem...as it was taking what seemed like forever to get the answer.  It wasn't because he didn't know it, he just wasn’t interested.  He isn't fond of math.  Well, I decided to give him a break and me too, but my break consisted of trying to do dishes.  As I was doing my least favorite chore....I somehow managed to cause water to stream across my counter and down the side of the cabinets and form a mini pond around my ankles…heading straight to the electrical plugs and near computer!  Ugh…as I rush to stop the stream of doom! 

I vowed I had had enough.  I know I may have felt like I had enough, yet it isn't like I suffered a major crisis today...I just wanted to get some stuff done.  I’m not a procrastinator...and rarely deal with those that are very patiently… “Jesus help me” and I know too easily how I can become distracted if I don't jump on things immediately.  In retrospect, I know that just because I set out to do something, doesn't mean that it was God's plans for my day.  I seem to remember that morning rushing out of the bed without sincerely asking God what he would chose for me to do that day...it is vital that we ask Him what His plans for us are, especially since we are not our own, but we are His to use as He wills.

Are we good stewards of our time?  Did what we spend time on make a difference in the life of someone other than ourselves. Just the other day as I was in the process of writing an article, and in between going over Social Studies with my son, I received a call, and almost let it go to voice mail.  I really didn't want to be interrupted.  I needed to focus.  Yet, I knew this was someone I deeply cared about, and thought it must be important.  I took a deep breath and answered the call.  The first words asked me were, "Are you busy?".... “YES...YES...YES...When am I not?” I wanted to scream!  However, that is not what this person needed to hear.  They needed a listening, caring soul to vent to. 

The Holy Spirit jolted me and said, "Be still!" take the time to listen..."Okay...okay, I will".....and I did for over an hour.  Yes, it was a delay in working on what I had planned, but within the delay it actually gave me more insight to the article I was writing as the very conversation coerced some of my thought processes.  Some delays are good, they have reason, and it is not a cruel act under heaven.  Nor is it Murphy’s Law.  It isn't the unfairness fairy flying around with her magic wand to zap you of ever finishing.  

Sometimes we are delayed in our plans because we may not be prepared to operate in them.  It’s like giving a 15 year old a credit card and sending them in a mega electronics store all ALONE to purchase whatever they want! They don’t care about the limit, nor do they understand the magnitude of theft prevention needed to exit store safely with the overload of items.  

God doesn't work on our time table, but we are to work on His.  If we push a plan or desire before we are ready to handle it, we stand to lose much, get hurt, or fall into traps.  Patience is of virtue…it changes your character. 

James 1:4

But let patience have [her] perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. 

Once we learn to be patient, often God surprises us in a special way with something we didn’t even ask for. 

James 1:4

But let patience have [her] perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

Hebrews 10:36

For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.

We have to learn delay will be regulated by God, otherwise we will be at a constant tug-of-war with the Holy Spirit, and ourselves.

Luke 21:19

In your patience possess ye your souls.

The word (possess) in Hebrew means”

'achaz aw-khaz' - to seize, bar, catch, take, hold back, fasten, handle.

That means get THY SELF under control!

Control yourself before blood pressure begins to boil… as you wait patiently in line at the grocery store so long…. that your milk is curdling, and ice-cream has melted.

Control your tongue when in traffic and you've been driving for nearly 20 miles with blinker on and NO ONE will let you over!

Control when you find that the umpteen loads of laundry you folded have somehow landed on the floor scattered in your child’s room or wadded in drawers within ONE day!

Control when you pick up that empty milk carton in fridge that someone was too lazy to toss.

Control when your dog has eaten a crater size hole through your sofa.

Control when someone in customer service treats you rudely, they may be having a bad day too.

Control when those you love do not reciprocate the same towards you.

We do not own our bodies, life, time, or even money.  God does, and 

Jesus purchased us with the price of His blood.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20

What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?  For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

So why do we go into a tangent when things don’t go as planned?  If we start our days with asking for God’s will, and actually adhere to it…AMAZING…things happen!  We can avoid all the unnecessary stress, heavy sighs, heart palpitations, and embarrassing verbiage scenes when we choose to live as God wills, and let him schedule our calendar. 

When we do this, we grow wings that soar over these situations.  We pick up momentum and accomplish much!

Isaiah 40:31

But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew [their] strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; [and] they shall walk, and not faint.

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Okay, "focus...focus...focus", is what I kept telling myself all morning.  I purposely kept trying to refocus back on the working of the magazine project, yet found myself focusing on finishing laundry, changing out toilet paper dispenser, and picking up used scented dryer sheets off the floor from folding laundry.  I focused on making my super food bone marrow broth for the week, and while looking in fridge for ingredients became side-tracked by the overwhelming sight of a squishy mysterious food item shoved in the back wall of fridge, and my OCD kicked in and began cleaning out fridge.  Then I noticed ingredients that I had purchased at the Farmer's market a few weeks ago that needed to be cooked before they went bad....and I began a cooking frenzy.  So far I have a ginormous pot of snap beans cooking, made ground turkey with chard and bell peppers for tacos later, another crock pot full of broth stewing, and made some guacamole salsa.  In between this I have taken phone calls for the magazine, answered a few emails, order supplies, worked on grammar with my homeschooling son for nearly 3 hours, swept floors, made bed, washed dishes, unloaded dishwasher, handled parakeets for a bit, watched the finches play in their bath, hung up clothes from doorknobs, got Hubby's Voter Registration application set to mail,  balanced checkbook, sanitized my kitchen table, and counters, cut up apples for my birds, orally tested son on his science project of frogs, chased my runaway bandit of birds as they were coasting across the ceramic tile in living room being chased by one of our cats, as the construction crew showed up to work on sealing of our doors, but I did not write, design or work on MAGAZINE!  UGH!  Now understand I have been up since 5:30 a.m. and it is now 2:02 p.m., and I am just now beginning to write on the blog.  I expected it to be a busy day, but I think I put the "busy" in it all alone.  There isn't someone with a bull horn shouting at me cook, clean, or do laundry.  Yet, the voice in my head screams at me with Memorex levels, "Get it done"! "If you don't do it, then it won't be done right, and you will be just as irritated anyway"...See what I mean...the OCD of it all.  It is a time stealer!  Things don't have to always be tidy and neat in perfect place.  It's okay to go a day without making up a bed.  So what if there are a few dishes in the sink unwashed.  The floor is going to get dirty once again after all the afternoon traffic.  And so what if there is a piece food growing legs and arms in my fridge, as long as the door stays shut, no one will get hurt.  So why do I do this to myself?  Is this from my mother's OCD?  Or my perfectionist father?  Am I just insane?  Why can't I live with dust bunnies in the corner, or a picture handing slightly off balance?  Why is it every time I go to the kitchen cabinet to get something, I have the sudden urge to realign every single item in the cabinet even though I know that once my children touch anything in that cabinet it will all be undone within seconds?  This is insanity!  I've got to stop.  I wonder if there is a support group for Mom's who suffer from disorganized anxiety (MWDA)?  There probably is, but Lord knows I wouldn't make it to one meeting, as I would probably get into my vehicle and noticed the torn up styrofoam cup on the passenger floor board from my son, and begin a cleaning spasm inspecting the entire vehicle. Then as I would walk to my trash container to toss the cup... would notice a paper wrapper on the lawn and then make my rounds across the grass inspecting for other objects, then I would stroll over to mail box and gather all the junk mail and start sorting right there by the trashcan.  Before I would realize it, the sun would be rising and the morning alarm would sound just in time for me to do it all over again.  It's no wonder it takes me forever to make it past my bedroom door as I find unsightly items such as dirty socks, muddy shoes, snack wrappers thrown on the floor along with my child's chewed up action figures (the dogs snack), and then there are the extension cords scattered out from my daughter's cell phone marathons where she has to stay charged. "Put them back PLEASE!" Well, tomorrow is another day God-willing and I will just have to bridle my focus and put blinders on and head straight to computer when I get up, no making up beds, no worrying about the floors, and I'll just toss the dishes and buy disposable....there that's the answer...I wonder if they make disposable clothing?  That sure would save me some laundry time.  Tune in tomorrow for more Graffiti.

Hi, my name is Brenda Graff.  I am one of the Editors/Writers for Food For Soul Magazine.  I am fairly new to this blog thing, well sort of. I've been writing most of my life, which is a form of blogging just in different formats.  I knew I would have to jump on the bandwagon of bloggers if I were to ever get my magazine out there.  Plus Hubby will hear one of my stories of the day while cracking up and immediately say, "You have got to get a blog going".  Personally, I see my day to day routines and interruptions as normal living...sometimes overly frustrating at times, but normal.  However, others who know me, beg to differ.  There is just something about the Graff household.  It would be almost impossible to become bored in our atmosphere.  There is always an adventure, or drama going on.  Being a mother of six ages 29-11, and homeschooling the youngest keeps me busy.  I have two grandchildren ages 5 & 7.  Good sleep is not always an option around the tiny home front with no hallways to really separate our space.  We have one bathroom...I know...I know..I can hear the "Whats?", crazy I know!  We fell in love with the house because it backed into a farm and had this whole ranch style look thing going, kind of like a tiny cabin.  It was very private, and had plenty of room for our dogs to run, and the children to play.  Yet, in retrospect...kind of wished we had chosen a two bathroom place.  My youngest daughter is always making comments like, "Why is it every time I'm in the shower, we have to have a family reunion in the bathroom?"  My answer, "Well, dear...we can't hold it for the 45 minutes it takes for you to complete your bathing process". Is she digging a well for water? We truly have to be mindful of bathroom time.  Which is why I occasionally have to remove reading material on days that I know we have to be somewhere, otherwise we would arrive at family celebrations in our pajamas, bedhead hair, and un-brushed teeth!  Chaos of the day started for me bright an early this morning before the roosters crowed...ugh!  My husband has been working for the past 4 weeks at 12 hours a day with only one day off. His schedule greatly affects mine as well, so our nights have been much longer then usual trying to squeeze in some conversation of our day, and morning still comes the same time to race up out of bed and get 'er done!  Well, last night he said that he didn't have to be at work till 10am the next day.  Excited, he said...we'll have time to snuggle and sleep in together.  I hesitated on the glad tidings.  In reality it meant he gets to sleep in.  I still have to get my daughter up at 5:30 a.m. for her school, 6:30 a.m. take to bus, 6:40 a.m. let dogs out, 6:50 feed the cats and let dogs back in, 7 a.m. think about crawling back into bed before our 4 finches start their ritual chirping for an hour..sleep in..are you crazy?  Okay, I thought don't be too pessimistic over it.  I went to bed late, woke up at 4 a.m. to the roaring snores of Hubby in my face, 4:15 a.m. convinced Hubby to roll over PLEASE!  Fell back to sleep at 4:30 a.m. abruptly woke up by alarm at 5:30 a.m. and went through the routine of school, bus, let pets in and out through the ever revolving door, feed pets, birds stayed fairly quiet...I snuck back into bed exasperated trying to quickly get snuggled when our dog with itching allergy came and planted herself by our bed so we could hear the obnoxious scratching of it all.  Poor pooch, she's on allergy med, skin conditioner, and well has scratched much of her hair off!  None the less, her collar with tag kept clinking with every brush of her paw...scratching....scratching...scratching!  UGH!  Hubby finally arose up and led her out of the bedroom shutting door behind him.  We get comfortable back into bed. I swear it wasn't but another 15 minutes before Hubby's phone rang from some employee who didn't realize it was a be at work later in morning kind of work day...UGH!  I am becoming exasperated at this point.  I lay there once again trying to decide do I dare close my eyes?..do I dare fall into REM sleep? I had to...I was tired, after all it had been such a busy month and this was the first time Hubby and I would get to sleep in together.  Well, no such luck!  Hubby's boss calls within minutes...errr!!!!  After Hubby gets off phone with much apologies...he crawls back into bed so we can at least hug for awhile...we actually did fall back to sleep for oh...maybe 30 minutes together.  I was thankful!  Yet, am so groggy now.  I've been trying to work on articles and templates for the November issue of "Food For Soul", but got sidetracked with walking dogs to park and digging through paperwork to find itchy-pooch shot records for her surgery this week to get fixed...still haven't found the papers...err!  I need 48 hours in a day.  12 just isn't enough it seems.  Oh, look at the time I have to go get my daughter from school.  Here's the magazine link for now. Tune in tomorrow for more Graffiti in the Graff house.  http://issuu.com/brendagraff