First knight…

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I think a lot about whether a person needs to give up or a person needs to fight. I have often thought that one of my favorite scenes in any movie is in First Knight when Sean Connery looks so defeated. He looks so beaten; he kneels and says words of surrender, concession, defeat. Then suddenly King Arthur rises up. He raises his sword to the sky, and he encourages his people to “Fight! Fight! and never surrender.” Oh, that Sean Connery moment, that beautiful Scottish accent on King Arthur (by the way, I love that.) I subconsciously believe that was the way to live—- never say die. Never surrender. For much of life that is true. Having perseverance in the face of disaster, illness, hard times— all of this is important. We cannot be sitting around giving up all the time, but there’s something deeper that I know I missed in that process.

Giving up has sounded dramatic to me at times, as if it ought to come with a great tearing loose, decisive release, a brave and shining moment of laying down everything… But most of the time, for me, it has not looked like that at all. Most of the time, surrender has looked small. It has looked reluctant. It has looked like loss. It has looked like circling the same hard thought again and again until finally, I’m tired of carrying it. It has looked nothing like triumph and more like loosening my grip by degrees.

Lately I have been seeing that one of the hardest things for me to surrender has not just been my deep sorrow itself, but my argument with God about it. If God did not do the thing I begged him to do, then somewhere in me, I decided I would not thank him for anything else either. I would not call anything mercy. I would not even give him credit when something gentle or good arrived at my door. It feels too much like letting go of my case against him. It feels disloyal to my grief. That is hard to admit, but it is true.

And that bitterness, too, is something I need to lay down. I need to lay down my refusal to notice mercy. I need to lay down my fear that gratitude will betray my grief. I don’t need to understand everything before I can receive anything good.

I am not saying everything makes sense to me. It does not. I am not saying I have tied suffering up neatly and called it resolved. I have not. I am only beginning to see that sorrow and gratitude may not be enemies after all. That what seems like unanswered prayer is real, and so is what looks like a small mercy. That love can still be true, even when answers are not.

Maybe surrender is not saying I understand. Maybe it is only saying I am willing to stop clutching what I cannot solve. Maybe it is holy ground to grieve what was not given and still give thanks for what was. It may be that part of surrender is learning to receive small mercies without feeling disloyal to my sorrow.

Dear Lord,

I lay down my refusal to notice mercy. I lay down my fear that gratitude will betray my grief. I lay down my need to understand everything before I can receive anything good. Teach me to receive small mercies without feeling disloyal to my sorrow, and please teach me that love can still be true even when answers are not.

Amen.

A quilt that folded time

I have been working on a quilt project, but it feels like more than a project. It feels like I’m touching time.  This was an autograph quilt from 1932, signed by women in my family and community, plus one man: my grandfather, George Gerald Miller, Senior. When those women and my granddad signed it, many were young—- about the age of some of our granddaughters. When I knew these wonderful women, they were the older ones of my childhood, the ones I loved, the ones whose names were familiar in our kitchens and our churches and all of our family talks. The quilt was created by our grandmother, Ma, Iona Marguerite Miller.

And now I am about the age that they were then; that’s hard to take; that’s impossible to believe, but I am. That is what moves me so much. It feels as if time has folded, like fabric, until the very corners of it touch.

My cousin Susan inherited this quilt when our grandmother passed away in 1976. Susan had kept it tucked away in a trunk for years, and she finally decided it was time to bring it out and share it. She said something profound that stayed with me: sometimes the parts are greater than the whole.

The first crunch of scissors in fabric hurt my heart a little; there was something powerful about the quilt as one piece. But she was right, too. Hidden away in a trunk, it was not being seen.. Shared out, it might begin to live again.

So we cut it apart.

Wow. That sounds harsher than it felt; it was not destruction. It was a way of giving the quilt back to the family in pieces so that it could be framed, displayed, remembered, and cherished. I think that was a wonderfully unselfish thing for my cousin Susan to do.

Our very most important core family blocks were divided with care. Susan kept our grandmother Iona‘s block, which was especially fitting since her daughter was named after Ma. Susan‘s mother, Opal, had made two blocks, so Susan kept one and gave one to her other daughter. Paula’s mother, Elizabeth, had also made two, and Paula gave those to her daughters. When we divided the remainder, Amanda Miller’s block landed in my stack, but Paula will soon have that block so that she has one to keep for herself. I kept the block signed by my grandfather George Gerald Miller, Senior. He was the only man on that quilt. Since my father was George Gerald Miller, Junior, that one felt especially right in my hands. Now these pieces are framed and beautiful, no longer folded away in the darkness. They are out where they can speak. Paula and Susan both made gorgeous quilt pictures for their daughters. We have given a few blocks away to  a few cousins and friends.

And this is not quite the end of the story. Soon these quilt blocks that are left, I hope, will be wrapped in tissue, accompanied by a poem or a short note, and tucked into cherry-printed mailers that look as though they were made for quilt scraps and family history. Some blocks already know where they belong. Others await investigation on the Internet, on family sites, on Find a Grave, or on many other sources. I designated a pretty butterfly- themed journal to this quest. Other blocks may have to be claimed. I like that thought – that after all these years, the names may still find their way home.

What stays with me most is this feeling that time is not always a straight line. Sometimes it folds like fabric; sometimes the corners touch. Sometimes a young woman signing her name in 1932 feels suddenly near to that older woman I once loved, and she seems impossibly close to the woman I am now.

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All that from a quilt. A little cloth. A handful of names. And almost a century folded into one pair of hands.Thank you, Susan..

Standing in the moonlight

If you are here traveling with me from my old blog, Oatmeal and Whimsy, welcome. I loved that blog and that old life. I just now must travel a different path with all of you. It may get chilly by moonlight, so grab a sweater and a cup of something warm. 

I need to find an authentic definition of myself. I mean, who am I April 2026 forward? Everything in my life that I was prepared for is actually mostly gone now. Only what I gave to others feels valid. The easiest identity to grab has always been usefulness ... be the one who gives, who helps, who does a little, who listens, who carries, who fixes. However, although real attributes, they're not really my deepest name. I have often defined myself by what I do for others, and my worth rises and falls on whether I was needed today. I sometimes look at the emptiness I feel, and I rush to fill it with service, or maybe a little money, or caretaking, or patience, or extra availability ---or even endurance. I also use my identity to minimize what is inward, quiet, and unseen: my perception, my enthusiasm, my tenderness. I need to think not: "What can I still do?" but: "I am One who sees, feels, notices, blesses others, makes meaningful connections, and restores light." When I try to see myself this way, it opens up a lot to do in a day. This new way of life has to be true of us in our quiet, quiet rooms, even after irrecoverable loss, especially when old assignments are over. 

  Affirmations

I am still becoming, even after the life I expected has ended. 

I am loved by God in my being not merely in my service.

I am a woman who has shaped the light that still circles around me, not only by my work, my labor, and by my service, but by my spirit. 

 I am a keeper of atmosphere and memory and mercy. 

 I have value even in the moments, hours, even in the days when I'm not useful. 

 I am not just a worker bee or a provider or a doer. I am a presence. 

…….

 And so I consider these questions here on Sunday evening April 12, 2026: 

When I cannot help, fix, give, host or rescue (although I still often want and need to do those things) what is a life that is still deeply me? 

What qualities do I think people have loved in me that had zero to do with service or fixing?

What do I bring into a room that cannot be bought, measured or repaid?

My most painful question: what has suffering refined in me that success never could?

What if this new season of my life is not erasing me, but actually uncovering me?

What if God is not asking me, “What do you provide for your people?”  Maybe He is saying, “Daughter, will you let me tell you who you are?”

…..

Sometimes after a person has honestly believed she should strive to build a life around duty, her new identity is in Christ, and it has to be rebuilt not around assignments, but around essence. Maybe my life moving forward is not meant to spend reminiscing and searching and preparing for a role that no longer exists. Maybe I should ponder if I could I become a woman standing in God's truth?

After the old roles have fallen away …or even been stripped away, can I be other than empty as I feel today? —-not left over, not diminished or destroyed, but revealed.

Dear Lord,

I have known how to be needed.

              I have tried to learn how to give. 

                       I have known how to work to fill a place in this world with all the care that I could give ——some money, maybe attention, steadiness, and love … but now I need you to teach me who in this world I am when I'm not trying to prove my worth that way. 

                                 Show me the self that is permanent, sacred,  fully alive. 

                                        Tell me who I am in your eyes, 

                                                who I am beyond usefulness,

                                                 beneath carrying this profound grief, 

                                                    beneath those old habits that want to continue, 

                                                            beneath all I used to constantly try to prepare for. 

                    Help me meet this woman who remains. 

                                                    Amen.