THANKSGIVING

I can't believe that another year is almost gone. Not much difference from 2020 except that I've got  more accustomed to certain practices: mask wearing , social distancing, queuing up for vaccines, more handwashing, avoiding crowds and generally just being careful.

This year is slightly better as we managed to travel beyond our county and visited some very lovely places. Wicklow National Park is stunning. The coast of Kerry is magical. Beehive huts and standing stones are my passion. Not forgetting lighthouses which always strike a chord within me. I would say Malin head is the tops.

 

I've also managed to enrol for art classes and I took to them like a duck to water. I've always liked drawing and everything else that my fingers do. 

Then just recently a group of us ladies from Clare completed a quilt for charity, showcasing 60 landmarks in Clare. The quilt will be hung at Shannon Airport Departure lounge soon.

If I were to summarise the year in just one word, it would be being THANKFUL.  Just last Tuesday, I woke up with a terrible pain in my stomach at 4 am. Having had gastritis before during my office days, I thought it would pass. But boy, was I wrong. The pain was relentless. Wave after wave of excruciating agony. I threw up 5 times and tossed and turned in bed to get the 'right' position to lessen the pain, all to no avail.

 

As a last resort, we went to the Limerick Hospital. Somehow the journey seemed never ending and I threw up again in the car.   

 

Praise God there were not many people there and almost immediately I was wheeled in on a trolley bed. The Pakistani lady doctor was extremely kind and attentive. In fact she was happy to tell me she had visited Malaysia before and loved it. The nurses too were reassuring and there was not one cross word heard. 

I knew I was in fine hands.   

                                                                                  

So as I lay on the bed waiting for this and that test to be done, every decade of my life flashed before me. Good times, sad times. There was one common denominator though. 

GOD. 

 

In every decade He was there - the 7 year old child with very simple faith, the university student questioning God because suddenly she was overwhelmed by the worlds of  Yeats, Kafka and Thomas Hardy, the mother in anguish over her young children, the associate professor who took to the stage to share her research .

 

And now there I was lying on the trolley bed still needing and trusting God. The only difference was I was ready to meet my Maker. I knew I had lived my life and there was no bucket list.

 

But God had other plans and I was discharged. Because I was still weak, I had to cancel a number of appointments that I had made earlier. One of them was meeting up with my friend Carrie for coffee in Quigleys cafe Nenagh. I texted her and asked whether I could see her on Friday instead.

 

I brought a pumpkin for her from my plot because I knew she would love to make delicious stuff out of it. While we were chatting, a couple approached us and asked where I bought the pumpkin from. I said I planted it in our Killaloe/Ballina community garden. Her accent sounded like American or Canadian.

I know what it is like to miss certain festivals or food from home. I remember Kevin Lim giving me a mooncake shortly after he had returned from Malaysia. It was just a mooncake, but it was more than a mooncake. It tasted like home.

 

So I asked her would she like one, as I still have one more at home. The rest is history and I hope she will bake plenty of yummy pumpkin pies....

 

It was a Kairos moment. A tipping point or a kairos moment is usually discovered behind the scenes of an ordinary day. 

 

I am going to trust God for tomorrow.  

 

For 2022. 

 

For our days ahead for as long as we live, we will rejoice in the faithfulness and the goodness of God.

 

                                                               Have a Blessed Christmas!