20
October
2006
by Vasthi Acosta
Recently on another blog site, Charis Connection, there was a flash fiction contest. Entries had to tell a stroy in 250 words. A story that would leave the reader thinking, maybe even create a shift in consciousness, end with a punch.
I decided to try my hand at writing this short piece. I didn’t win. Didn’t probably even hit the top twenty. The winners were fantastic. Go to the blog and check the stories in the archives.
But I wondered, if you’d read my flash fiction and tell me what you think.
Here goes. . .
If it were today
Maria rushed to prepare for Shabbat. Mama depended on her getting everything ready Friday nights. But she needed to get on the computer before sunset. Her best friend, Sara, would be sending the results of her pregnancy test.
Her heart hammered. Sara could not be pregnant.
Oh, please Adonai.
Sara made a mistake.
Please. Please. Spare her.
The wine glasses tipped and the ting of crystal hitting crystal forced Maria to slow down. She glanced at her watch. Two hours left. She’d do her homework on Sunday after the Sabbath.
Temptatiion. The Rabbi warned of it often. Sara ran to it. Both bethrothed to brothers at birth, Sara had found another love.
Maria rushed to the computer and checked her buddy list. Jose was online. Thank you Adonai, for giving me a love for my bethrothed.
Hey. Wad u get on the algebra test?
Don’t ask.
I passed. Want help?
Trouble by Pink announced Sara was online. Maria switched to her.
Tell me!
I’m dead. I’ll be excommunicated. Who’ll want me now?
No! R u?
I have no hope.
Stop. I’ll c u @ temple. Talk then?
Maria clicked her away message.
The room filled with blinding light. She fell on her knees. Peace covered her like a blanket. As if pulled by a string her head raised. She stared in awe at the vision. Fearful. Majestic beauty.
The angel spoke. “Shalom, favored woman. Eloyhim is with you! Do not be afraid Maria, for God has decided to bless you.”
***
So, what do you think?
Written By: Vasthi Acosta
Posted under: Women's Voices . 
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18
October
2006
by Vasthi Acosta
Lately, I have been reading from the book of Jeremiah. This morning, as I turned to a new passage, the headings of several chapters struck me. They read:
Jeremiah’s scroll burned
Jeremiah in prison
Jeremiah thrown in a cistern
Talk about the good life. These passages certainly go against the current popular theology of positive thinking, or feel good Christianity; even against the ‘claim it” or prosperity teachings.
Not that I have anything against positive thinking or feeling good, for that matter. Just that when I look at the life of Jeremiah, Abraham, Moses, David, Esther, Mary, Jonah, Paul (should I go on?), their life was not bread and roses. They knew adversity. Their sense of contentment, well being, or satisfaction didn’t come from their outward circumstances but from their relationship with God.
And, I guess there is the rub. Why do we expect life to be free of trouble? Yes, I know that God gives us the desires of our hearts, even when we are not clear what those are. God is true to his word. And He wants us to live abundantly, free, content. The caveat is that we accomplish this in HIM.
Let me paraphase a popular song, “we must go through the valley, to stand upon the mountain”. And that’s what most of the “feel good” people leave out. God hasn’t promised a life without trouble; actually, He warns us to be ready for them. What He has promised is to be with us through the trouble. To carry us, provide the strength and wisdom needed at the point of need.
And so, I reached the chapter heading in Jeremiah that read:
Jeremiah freed.
Here, take His hand. Walk through this life with Him; through the fire, deep waters, low valley, and on to the mountain top.
Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discourage, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9
And through Him we will soon be free.
Written By: Vasthi Acosta
Posted under: Women's Voices . Email This Post
12
October
2006
by Meredith (and Francine)
I’m sitting at my desk with a new friend I met today. Francine. She’s one of the gals in my neighborhood that I’ve written about before. And we’re having a sleep-over, as she’s in transition to a new, and hopefully more enjoyable life. I thought she should have a chance to tell HER story. So here she is…
I’m a mom with nine kids, ages 12-25. We used to live on an Indian reservation, out in the country. We had raccoons, deer, and eagles in our area. My kids loved playing outside.
My husband and I split up, and he took the kids, and I ended up in Omaha. I started hanging around some people that were into drugs and prostitution, and I guess I just ended up becoming like them. I’ve been on the streets the past two years. It’s scary. You don’t know who you can trust, but you have to take the chance anyway, just to have a place to sleep at night. I’ve spent nights in empty buildings, laundry rooms in apartment buildings, and at the houses of people I know–who usually want a part of me in exchange for a place to sleep.
I got tired of being this way. I want to change. I’ve been clean for five days now. It feels good. I’m not giving my self to anybody any more.
I need people to encourage me, not put me down. Every time I hear someone say something negative about me being this way, it makes me want to go back to the old way–the drugs, etc. I need people to see me as worth something.
My dream is to have my family back. I know it won’t happen right away. But that’s what I want.
I want that for Francine, too. Please pray for her, because she is my sister. She is every woman’s sister. She’s a mom, just like me, just like a lot of you. And she is so very, very valuable and precious.
Please pray for Francine. And please find ways to love her and others in similar situations. We’re all God’s children, and need His grace and protection.
Thanks.
Written By: Meredith Efken
Posted under: On Being a Parent, Women's Voices . Email This Post
11
October
2006
by Gina
Romans 12:2
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.
I used to sit in church and pray that God would just “zap” me and make me the person I really want to be. But after thirty plus years I’m learning that God doesn’t work that way - for most of us.
For years I’ve struggled with certain things, personality flaws so to speak. I’ve blamed it on my Italian New York upbringing, my parents divorce, the critical people in my life, etc. While that may be part of who I am, it’s not the whole me and I don’t have to continue to be the person of my youth.
I’m learning that just because I read a parenting book or go through a 12 week Bible study, doesn’t mean at the end I will be miraculously transformed. I can’t begin to tell you how many books I’ve read on the same subject and I still struggle with the same things.
…be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Renewing. I guess I could break out all the concordances and go back to the original Hebrew or Greek to find out the origin of this word, but to me it means continual. I need to feed my mind continually so my heart will be bathed in the truth and love of Jesus Christ. Reading a book on parenting isn’t going to change me. But when I continue to read books, meditate on scripture and pay attention in church, then my mind will be renewed on a continual basis. Then I will be able to stand against the enemy as he throws his fiery darts my way.
Do I still wish God would just “zap” me and end all my struggles? Sure. But I don’t pray for it as much as I did before. I don’t except to be miraculous transformed, instead I continue to renew my mind and one day “when He appears, we (I) shall be like Him, for we (I) shall see Him as He is. (1 John 3:2)
Gina Conroy is a homeschooling mom of four and founder of Writer…Interrupted. For more musings by this author visit Portrait of a Writer…Interrupted.
Written By: Gina
Posted under: Women's Voices . Email This Post
10
October
2006
by Barbara
I broke his little heart. That hated two-letter word – NO – helped me do it. Two-year-old Isaiah was crushed and let the world around him know it. Gramma had the audacity to look into his big blue eyes and say “No.†To him! How awful!
The grandchildren aren’t used to Gramma saying no. They hear it often enough from Aunties and Uncle and Mamas and Daddy. But, Gramma and Grandpa are the “Yes Parrots.†For the most part.
The older grands have the routine down pat. Each week one of them is treated as King (or Queen) for a Day. We pick them up, take them to the restaurant of their choice for lunch, and then take them with us as we shop for the week’s groceries. Once we have gone through all of the food aisles each child is permitted to go “to Toys†to pick out their choice.
We’ve been doing this now for several years. It started when there were only five. We added the babies as soon as they were able to sit up and be away from Mama for the required period of time.
The youngest girl – now 5 – fell asleep mid-way through the store her first few trips. She still got a toy, though. Grandpa chose the gaudiest, noisiest one he could find – and happily presented it, along with the baby girl, to the not so thrilled parents.
Little Isaiah loves to go with us. He is not able, yet, to understand that his turn only comes around every 7 weeks.
“I coming, Nonny!†“I buckle†(the seatbelt) “Go, bye-bye, Nonny!†were the words we heard on this day. And, oh, the tears when he heard that “no†would melt the coldest of hearts. So I picked him up and gave him a cuddle. I told him his turn would be soon. And then I did the hardest thing in the world. I turned and went to my car to leave. It had been his oldest brother’s turn – we were finished shopping – I was tired and had groceries to put away.
Besides – in just three weeks it would again be his turn. If he has forgiven me by then, that is.
Some people say I have too much of my life wrapped up in my grandchildren. They say it like that’s a bad thing. I don’t think we can ever give a child too much time – or too much love.
Even though Isaiah’s heart was broken at the age of two – soon he will understand that each child gets to spend special time with Grandpa and Nonny (the others call me Nana or Gramma). He, like the rest, will come to treasure that undivided attention received.
And someday – when he, himself, is a Grandpa – he’ll understand that the treasure was all ours.
Written By: barbara
Posted under: On Being a Parent, Women's Voices . Email This Post
9
October
2006
by Pattie
Vasthi’s post about finding her own journals reminded me of something I wrote last year. My writer’s group at the time loved it. Hopefully you’ll enjoy it too!
_____
I met myself the other day.
My fourteen-year-old self, that is.
While preparing a seminar on the benefits of keeping a journal, I was reading my old high school journal notebooks. There are five of them, all Mead spiral notebooks such as I used for my schoolwork. The handwriting is round and loopy, the color of ink varies with mood, and the expressions embarrassingly dated.
I was surprised by fourteen-year-old Pattie. She had self-esteem issues, put entirely too much emphasis on boys, worried about her friends, and stressed about her hair. She spent a lot of time at church and wrestling out her faith on paper.
She was silly, she liked to have a good time, she loved her family. She was incredibly innocent. She wrote about her dreams for the future.
Want to know something? I have fulfilled many of her dreams. I have taught high school English. I am married and have two beautiful girls. It’s good to know that young Pattie would be happy to know this.
There are times at age thirty-five that I feel like I’m nowhere near as grown-up as I should be for the age I am. I still have self-esteem issues, I worry constantly about my friends, and I still hate bad hair days. But reading my own words from twenty-one years away sure makes me realize how much I have grown up and learned and changed.
28 March 2005
Written By: Pattie
Posted under: Women's Voices . Email This Post
8
October
2006
by Meredith Efken
One Sunday a month, I’m supposed to blog on FaithChicks. It’s a hit-or-miss proposition for me, but this month I hit it. So in honor of that achievement, I’m posting the link here. It’s sort of a follow up to my post here last week about the school shootings, as well as another plug for my friend Dream’s blog about praying for our enemies. Read it and then let me know what you think!
Written By: Meredith Efken
Posted under: Women's Voices . Email This Post
6
October
2006
By Barbara
I received it several years ago, but I haven’t opened the box my uncle sent to me before his death in 1993 in a long time. “I want you to have it,” he had told me. And, while I felt honored that he should think so, I didn’t appreciate it as much then as I do tonight.
When I received the box I was in my ‘running away from God’ phase. I knew I was His child, yet I was arrogant and insistent that my way was the only way. I struggled with giving myself over to Him totally. Finally, I gave up the struggle - turned my back on “religion” and walked away into a long, dark night without His light.
During a rough ten-year period of time, I played hard, convinced that I was having a great time. I ran with a rough crowd and began to drink, even though I knew that was the cause of my father’s demise.
And then I made a couple of visits to Arizona to see an aging uncle - brother to my deceased mother. He and their “baby” sister were my last ties to Mom. We shared a love of the written word - both of us were poets of sorts, and we wrote volumes for letters. He encouraged me to keep searching for the barbara I had buried inside of me.
Shortly before he died, he sent me his grandfather’s Bible. I thought of it as a nice gift, precious because it had been the family Bible for over a hundred years at that point. But I set it aside and pretty much forgot about it.
This week my aunt called me and we chatted about some family history. I wondered if the answers to some of her questions were in that box. When I arrived home from work I dug it out.
In doing so - I discovered something. Raised catholic to satisfy my father, I had never known the rich heritage I had in my ancestors. In this well-worn book I found that heritage. A rich family history lies within those pages - births, deaths, marriages have been written in, first, my great-grandfather’s hand, and then in my grandmother’s.
But more than that . . .
LIFE was found in those pages. On a flyleaf is penned: Matt. 1:21 followed by a paragraph hard to read because of badly faded ink and a loopy script. I can make out the words, though: “Jesus saves me every day. Jesus saves me every night. Jesus saves me all the day. In the darkness and the light. Jesus saves! O bless His name. Jesus saves me all the time.”
Dated July 9, 1870 the words are followed by an underlined phrase: “Praise the Lord!”
My heritage is a family that loved Jesus. I am blessed to follow in their footsteps now as I serve that same risen Lord and echo their thoughts . . . O bless His name. Jesus saves me all the time.
Written By: barbara
Posted under: Women's Voices . Email This Post
5
October
2006
by Barbara
I struggle with my loyalties at times. I have an innate loyalty deep in my soul for those in authority above me. I’m sure it has something to do with the fact that I spent twelve years in parochial schools - under the rule of the women in black dresses - and the men in equally black dresses. I was taught to respect authority, to pretty much believe unswervingly whatever I was taught. If it came from the people in those black dresses it must be TRUTH - spelled all in caps, of course.
Now here I sit as a 56-year-old mother of two grown daughters, Gramma to the brightest, most perfect grandchildren that I could have, wife of 37 years - and I’m questioning those loyalties.
I hear people daily who have NO problem lambasting our governing bodies, the very people for whom I was taught abject obeisance. It bothers me greatly that I cannot do the same thing. What is in me that shudders at being disrespectful to the office if not to the man sitting in the office? Why do I find it difficult to speak out against the atrocities of war - or poverty - or the fact that many don’t have enough money this week to purchase groceries OR gasoline?
Why am I unable to rant and rave at the government because of these things?
Do I like war? A hundred times NO! I grew up the daughter of a man who fought the Japanese - in “THE” war itself, and every night in his bed where he was “safe” from them. He fought them by beating my mother.
I grew up a teenager whose high school friends fought in Vietnam and either came home so changed I couldn’t be with them any longer or who didn’t come home at all - outside of a box.
I grew up as an aunt whose nephew went to Desert Storm. Young men and women from my own town went off to the same war. Some came back - thank God my nephew is one of those.
I grew up as a mother - awakened by a phone call from a son-in-law on 9-11 telling me to watch the TV - we were under attack - “make sure the guns are loaded, Mom, we’re next.” I listened for days afterward to the silence in the skies above my house - eerie, total, absolute silence.
I don’t like war - I grew up with it - and I am growing old with it. I long for peace - and yet I know that there can be no peace. That is what we are told by our God. There will be wars and rumors of wars. Men will rise up against their brothers, their fathers, their sons.
And, still I am loyal to the office of the President and pray for him and those around him. And trust in the God of the ages (not the god of the black dresses) and pray that He will hold us safe from harm.
Written By: barbara
Posted under: Women's Voices . Email This Post
4
October
2006
By Vasthi Acosta
Cleaning out the coat closet I found a box. In the box I found old journals. Mine. I’ve been keeeping a journal since high school, now decades ago. I slipped the box to a corner and kept cleaning the closet. But the box called to me.
What had I written?
What were my thoughts, so long ago?
Who was I then?
Had I changed, as I believed, or was I still the same?
Would I recognize myself?
You know I had to find out. You know, I sat with the box, pulled out the notebooks and opened randomly to different entries.
Faced with my past self, I was pleased, embarrassed, amused, stirred and moved.
Pleased that I’d kept this record of my life, even if only, to experience that moment, right then, when I revisited myself.
Embarrassed that I’d had such silly worries, as, did this young man like me or not. I married him.
Amused at some incidents I recounted, ice skating mishaps, extravagant gifts from admirers.
Stirred that I’d often written prayers. Prayers to a God I still love, seek to please and serve.
Moved when I relived painful times, the death of a friend, the failed attempts to conceive, the misunderstandings, fights, even deep hurts.
These entries were a gift from my young self to my older self. A gift I never anticipated, or planned, but received nonetheless.
What I couldn’t even suppose, so many years ago, my loving God knew. He knew this moment would arrive. he knew I’d learn from my younger self. For he knows the end from the beginning. After all, he is the Alpha and Omega.
So today, as you go about your daily routine, remember, every choice you make has an impact on your future. Let God lead. He won’t steer you wrong.
Written By: Vasthi Acosta
Posted under: Women's Voices . Email This Post
