Gifts......

My preciousness.

It has been quite a week........and as much as I am keeping up

with the many activities of the season, my heart is heavy

and thoughts reeling with the events of the last week.

First, our mall shooting in Oregon - just on the other 

side of our beloved Portland.....innocent victims

doing what I had done earlier in the day, shopping

for Christmas presents for loved ones.

Then, the unthinkable events in Connecticut just the 

morning after our k-8 grade school's Christmas program.

My mom and I had admired our school's first graders

in their holiday finest as they sang all the familiar 

Christmas songs at the top of their sweet little lungs.

To think of what happened to children of that same

age, so young and innocent the very next morning

across our country is hard to take.  My girl's are 10 and 14

but have had lots of questions that I do not quite have

answers for.  I hugged my big girl extra tight when

she asked me, "mom, how could that killer

look at those sweet faces that were probably so scared and 

pull the trigger?"  What do you say to that?

On Saturday we travelled to Bend, Oregon to

attend a memorial service that was a 

celebration of a life well lived, for a man who focused 

his life on the important

 - family, faith and friends.  It was a fitting

service with those who loved him most.

Being a glass-is-half-full kind of girl, I am trying to 

find the good in how the bad may be affecting us.

Today, I saw the good in strangers who met

my eyes with a smile, the gentleman who held the 

door open for me at the post office, the

friendly faces on holiday cards in today's mail, the cute

elderly gentleman on the treadmill next to me at the

gym who struggled to get himself on the machine but 

once up and 'running' he walked slow and steady.

I'm thinking his pace was perfect.....slow and steady.