answers always arrive

Learn to see the unseen. That’s where the beginnings are.

Start anew.

it is sometimes very hard to be sensitive, isn’t it?

Are you sensitive? How do you manage your gift?

Always remember your special uniqueness as a sensitive person. The world will try to stop you if you don’t remain strong in this.
Being sensitive means you are a strong enough to see, to hear, to think, and to feel.

Remember you are not weak. You are strong.

Stay balanced.

the topside may not quite reflect what is below the surface

Hang in there!

Another box FULL of thimbles from my wonderful friend and colleague named Lynne who lives in Michigan. She sent me her family’s thimble collection which they started in the 1950′s. There were over 100 in all.

There are crystal thimbles, sterling silver thimbles, a leather thimble (laying on the table in the front row of the picture), a little wicker “basket” thimble holder, a Princess Diana thimble, and a BIG SET of porcelain china thimbles with my beloved birds painted on them. There are brass, enamel, plastic, cloissone, wooden, and pewter ones, too, as well as some that have no “top” on them — these are just used by pushing the needle through fabric using the SIDE of the thimble.

thimbles are symbols of a happy home

AND there is actually a thimble included with a WINDMILL on it. Imagine that.

The thimbles are all different and unique — some are very utilitarian while others are quite ornate and detailed, like delicate works of art. Some are decorative souvenirs while others are actual thimbles used by seamstresses and tailors. All of them tell a story and make me wonder what Lynne and her family were doing when they spotted each one and took it home with them. Were some of them gifts? Some collected on travels? Some found in trinket and antique shops?

via sewing and mending thimbles convey love

It is also fun to wonder and muse about how many of these thimbles once belonged to a woman who used them to either make something creative for her home or to sew or mend clothes for her family. As such the thimble is a symbol of a happy home.

But did you know that to receive a thimble as a gift is to symbolically receive a “kiss?” (Think Wendy and Peter Pan.) So — 100-plus thimbles. Wow, I feel really loved!

This experience made my day and uplifted my spirit SO MUCH. It reminded me of how the world IS full of goodness and good things happen to us ALL THE TIME. It’s easy to get down about all the bad things around us, especially with all the media saturation we face daily, but these little thimbles were an excellent reminder to me of the simple pleasures of daily life and of the goodness in the world that DOES exist.

Remember: Life is good.

Thimbles also represent a kiss

And so here is a thimble (a kiss, love, a wish for a happy home) for YOU.

don’t give up

It’s our choice.

Don’t give up.

photo by Oriana Green

But sometimes that approach can make you feel desperately alone and despairing.
I understand.

Sending you Big Love.

a big heart is a gift to the world

Happy Valentine’s Day from my Big Heart to your Big Heart.

don’t despair – light is shining everywhere

Keep believing.

your heart is strong enough

Take 100% responsbility for your own well-being, your own thoughts, your own emotional fortitude. This is the only way.

It all comes down to you.

It was not so much that I was afraid of doing the task because I have become accustomed to pushing through difficult times. It was moreso that I wanted to be measured and calm. I wanted to be dignified and I wanted to be gracious. I wanted to have the right amount of appropriate compassion. But the worry of how it would actually go was ripping me apart and tearing me up both inside and out. That is how I felt.

To help me manage times like these I often think of the darkest hour I ever experienced in my life. Yes, it was literally an hour. Just sixty minutes. In that hour many years ago I birthed my first son knowing he was already dead. Such a dreadful, sad, despairing occasion. And I tell myself that I if I could get through that particular 60 minutes pretty much intact and whole, if I could get to the other side of that nightmare with a healthy outlook on life and my future, well, then I could get through pretty much anything else to come.  So that is what I thought about to help me through that task last year a few weeks before Christmas.

So the moment of getting through the task at hand came and went. My thoughtful preparation served me well and I hope it also well served the many people affected by the outcome, too.  Finally, the task was done and over with. I felt relief as well as piles of sadness.

Just then the doorbell rang – literally only a few minutes after I was finished. There was another package on my front porch — this time it was a rather large box and I saw that it was from my brother who lives in Texas who would be visiting for Christmas later that month. I thought to myself he must’ve shipped some holiday gifts ahead of his arrival and because I needed to move on to some other things I left the box in my foyer unopened.  I thought I would open the box later that evening and arrange the gifts under the tree then when I had more time.

But something kept nudging at me to open the box as I attempted to carry on with my schedule. I was feeling pretty beat up and bedraggled by then and I thought the Christmas presents could cheer me up. So I went back to the foyer.

Antique Sewing Kits from Betty’s Care Package

Imagine my surprise when I opened the box and found instead a treasure trove of my late sister-in-law’s BEAUTIFUL antique sewing items. Nothing was wrapped in Christmas gift paper. Instead everything was packed in white tissue and newsprint ready to be examined immediately. There were antique leather sewing kits that ladies would keep in their purses. There were bobbins, knitting needles, spool holders, darning accessories, cloth tape measures, antique silver scissors, seam rippers, and even a wood sewing case filled with wooden spools of thread, sewing tools, needle kits, antique button cards, thimbles, and more. And there were antique sewing instruction books and patterns, too. The box of items was simply exquisite.

My sister-in-law, Betty, died several years ago after a long illness while she was still quite young. Her passing left a huge void in my heart. She was the first person to leave us in our family and in my own personal life. We met when I was four-years-old when she met and married my oldest brother and so I grew up with her and she became my confidante and mentor.

Me and Betty ~ 1966

To receive these beautiful women’s things that she had collected — and cherished — at precisely a very challenging moment in my life made me feel that she had visited me somehow at the exact time I needed to feel cared about and emboldened. All those feelings of being “ripped apart” and “torn up” inside melted away because, you see, with all of Betty’s sewing items surrounding me there in my foyer I felt suddenly “mended.”

In that moment a feather could have knocked me over because the reality is I don’t sew and never knew how. I have never used any of these types of things that were in this box for me. And Betty knew that about me. Still she made sure she “sent” them. To me. At a time when I needed mending that only one of her sewing items could provide.

Love is the salve that cures all ills. Love heals every wound and calms every anxiety. Love restores and love embraces. I know my sister-in-law loved me very much. Then during her vibrant life. And now in the ever after.

I once read that it is threads, hundreds of tiny threads, that sew people together over a lifetime.

I think my sister-in-law would agree, don’t you?

Feel the love that surrounds you. It is there.