Tag Archives: hope

The Christmas Dog

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Christmas Eve, 1988.  I was in a funk.  I couldn’t see that I was making much progress in my life.  My teaching career seemed to be frozen, and I was beginning to think my husband and I would never own our own home or have children. The world seemed a very bleak and unhappy place to me.  No matter how many batches of fudge I whipped up or how many times I heard Bing Crosby sing “White Christmas,” I couldn’t seem to find the Christmas spirit.

I was washing the breakfast dishes, thinking my unhappy thoughts, when I heard gunshots coming from the pasture behind our house.  I thought it was the neighbor boys shooting at the seagulls again and, all full of teacherly harrumph, decided to take it upon myself to go out and “have a word with them.”

But after I’d marched outside I realized that it wasn’t the neighbor boys at all.  John, the dairy farmer who lived on the adjoining property, was walking away with a rifle, and an animal (a calf, I thought) was struggling to get up in the field behind our house.  Every time it would push up on its legs it would immediately collapse back to the ground.

I wondered if maybe John had made a mistake and accidentally shot the animal, so I ran out to investigate and found that the animal was a dog.  It had foam and blood around its muzzle.  She was vulnerable and helpless – had just been shot, after all – but instead of lashing out at me or growling as I’d expect an injured animal to do, she was looking up at me with an expression of trust and seemed to be expecting me to take care of her.

“John!”  I yelled, running after the farmer.  He turned around, surprised to see me.  “John, what happened?” I asked, pointing back towards the dog.

A look of remorse came into his eyes.  “Oh, I’m sorry you saw that, Karen. The dog is a stray and it’s been chasing my cows.  I had to kill it.”

“But John, it’s not dead yet.”

John looked back at the dog and grimaced.  “Oh man,” he said.  “I’m really sorry. I’ll go finish the job.  Put it out of its misery.”

By this time another dog had joined the dog that had been shot.  It was running around its friend, barking encouragement, trying to get its buddy to rise up and escape.  The sight of the one dog trying to help his comrade broke my heart.  I made a quick decision. “Let me and my husband take care of it.”

“Are you sure?”

I nodded and he agreed to let me do what I could for the animal.

Unbeknownst to me, as soon as I ran out of the house my husband, knowing that something was wrong, had gotten out his binoculars and was watching my progress in the field.  He saw the look on my face as I ran back.  By the time I reached our house he was ready to do whatever he needed to do to help me.  I explained the situation to him, we put together a box full of towels, and he called the vet.

As we drove his truck around to where the dog lay in the field, I noticed that, while the dog’s canine companion had finally left the scene (never to be seen again), John had gone to the dog and was kneeling down next to her.  He was petting her, using soothing words to comfort her, and the dog was looking up at John with that look of trust she’d given me.  John helped my husband load her in the back of the truck and we began our drive to the vet’s.

I rode in the back of the truck with the dog as my husband drove, and sang hymns to her.  As I sang words from one of my favorite hymns from the Christian Science Hymnal– “Everlasting arms of Love are beneathe, around, above” – the dog leaned against my shoulder and looked up at me with an expression of pure love in her blue eyes.

Once we reached the animal clinic, the veterinarian came out to take a look at her.  After checking her over he told us that apparently a bullet had gone through her head, that he’d take care of her over the holiday weekend – keep her warm and hydrated – but that he wasn’t going to give her any medical treatment.  I got the distinct impression that he didn’t think the dog was going to make it.

My husband and I went to my parents’ home for the Christmas weekend, both of us praying that the dog would still be alive when we returned.  For me, praying for her really meant trying to see the dog as God sees her.  I tried to realize the wholeness and completeness of her as an expression of God, an idea of God.  I reasoned that all the dog could experience was the goodness of God – all she could feel is what Love feels, all she could know is what Truth knows, all she could be is the perfect reflection of God.  I tried to recognize the reality of these things for me, too, and for all of God’s creation.

She made it through the weekend, but when we went to pick her up the vet told us that she wasn’t “out of the woods, yet.”    He told us that if she couldn’t eat, drink, or walk on her own in the next few days, we’d need to bring her back and he’d need to put her to sleep.

We brought her home and put her in a big box in our living room, with a bowl of water and soft dog food by her side.  I continued to pray.  In the middle of the night I got up and went out to where she lay in her box.  Impulsively, I bent down and scooped some water from the dish into her mouth.  She swallowed it, and then leaned over and drank a little from the bowl.  I was elated!  Inspired by her reaction to the water, I bent over and grabbed a glob of dog food and threw a little onto her tongue.  She smacked her mouth together, swallowed the food, and leaned over to eat a bit more.  Now I was beyond elated!  She’d accomplished two of the three requirements the vet had made for her!

The next day I took her out for a walk.  She’d take a few steps and then lean against me.  Then she’d take a few more steps and lean.  But she was walking!  We would not be taking her back to the veterinarian.

In the next two weeks her progress was amazing.  By the end of that period she was not only walking, but running and jumping and chasing balls.  Her appetite was healthy.  She was having no problems drinking or eating.

But one of the most amazing parts of this whole Christmas blessing was the relationship that developed between this dog and the man who had shot her.  They became good friends.  The dog, in fact, became the neighborhood mascot.  (And she never again chased anyone’s cows.)

What the dog brought to me, who had, if you recall, been in a deep funk when she entered our lives, was a sense of the true spirit of Christmas – the Christly spirit of forgiveness, hope, faith, love.  She brought me the recognition that nothing, absolutely nothing, is impossible to God.

We named our new dog Christmas because that is what she brought us that year.

Within a few years all those things that I had wondered if I would ever have as part of my life came to me – a teaching job, children, and a home of our own.  It is my belief that our Christmas Dog prepared my heart to be ready for all of those things to enter my life.

(The story of our Christmas dog was first published in the Christian Science Sentinel [“Christmas Is Alive and Well“] in December 1999, and retold in Blessings: Adventures of a Madcap Christian Scientist in 2005. It was later included in The Madcap Christian Scientist’s Christmas Book in 2014. It was also included on the Christian Science Sentinel radio program in December 2000.)

Hope From My Fellow Travelers

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Scott and I are in that back-and-forth serpentining line to get through security at the airport. I have a smile on my face. I’m trying to maintain this as my default face. Sometimes, as people wind past me, they respond with their own smiles to my smile. I love when that happens. Connections!

One man – maybe our eldest son’s age – glances up and sees my smile and smiles this sweet smile that contains joy and humor and kindness. A healing smile. When we pass each other again, I point out to him that we’ll be passing each other again soon, and we’ll get to smile more smiles. He starts laughing. The next time we wind past each other I tell him that this looks like it will be our last smile-exchange. He grins and says, “It’s been a pleasure!”

We meet again at that place where we need to load our stuff into bins. There is a shortage of bins, so my smile partner and I go and find bins to give to the people behind us. When we get through the people-scanner machine and the baggage-scanner machine, we meet again on the other side of security. We introduce ourselves – he says his name is “Kareem” and I (who have now mastered the comedic timing of presenting my name just right), pause before saying, “Karen.” He starts laughing. He says he’s bound for Michigan, and I tell him we’re on our way to Pittsburgh, and we wish each other safe travels before parting.

When Scott and I get seated on the plane, we discover that there’s an empty seat on the other side of us. This is sort of miraculous – our plane is completely full, except for that one seat. When it comes time for the flight attendant to do the safety presentation, she sees the empty seat and uses it as her staging area. She is fun. She and Scott, who’s sitting in the middle seat, banter cheerfully for a bit, before the safety presentation starts. For the first time in years probably, I am glued to the safety presentation. Every so often she looks over at me and sees my rapt attention, and starts grinning. When she finishes I tell her she did a FANTASTIC job! “I should have videotaped it!” I say, and she starts laughing.

The flight is uneventful. As I look down on the earth 30,000′ below, I send out love to all the humanity passing below us. I feel the plane embraced in Love. I see all the people in it are expressions of Love. We are in a bubble of Love.

When we land, we need to take the underground train to get to our rental car. As we load into the train, a sweet brown-skinned woman of about my age gestures to the pole she’s holding onto, and invites me to share it with her. Kindness. Everyone taking care of each other.

I have found hope for the world in my fellow travelers.

Journey Through Clinical Depression

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My contribution to Mental Health Awareness Month:

In 2007 I began my journey through a massive clinical depression. At the time I was going through the depression I didn’t see an end to it – I was afraid I was going to spend the rest of my life in the darkness. I felt hopeless, helpless, and full of guilt and fear. I contemplated ending my life, lost my appetite, and felt like I’d lost myself, too. In desperation, I turned to God, to the power of Love, to guide me through the darkness.

I learned a lot during this time. I learned not to battle the waves, but to surf on top of them. I learned that if I could love I had a reason to live. I learned I could be happy even when I was sad. I learned to focus on now and move from moment-to-moment, step-by-step. At some point I recognized that the mortal mind posing as me wasn’t really any part of me – my real Mind was God, Love. Being able to separate the counterfeit mind from my real Mind was hugely helpful to me. How could I lose my mind when my Mind was God?

And when, in a year, I came out the other side into the light, I recognized my own strength, and the tender love God has for me, and for all Her creation. I came out of the depression with a fearlessness that I hadn’t had going into it. I felt reborn.

I think I needed that experience in my life – it helped prepare me for the challenges my world is facing right now. At the time it seemed like the worst thing I’d ever experienced. Now, looking back, I realize what a wonderful blessing it was to me.

I’m so glad I didn’t end my life all those years ago. Look at all the things I would have missed! – all the sunrises and sunsets and new friends and adventures and daughters-in-law and a grandbaby!

If you’re going through what I went through 17 years ago, please know there IS a way through. The light DOES come again. Please know that you matter. You are important to this world. We need all the love you have to give. We need your kindness. Know you can be happy even when you’re sad. Know you are loved.

To Lighten My Load

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I went in search of joy –
trusting Love to lead me
to treasure beyond compare.
I found birds – cormorants,
ducks, swans, and geese –
calmly doing what birds do
and it brought me peace.
Joy!

I passed by places where
I’d spent time with loved ones
and happy memories filled
my soul and made me smile.
I remembered the love
and found the love was with me still.
Joy!

I passed a woman with a bag
of belongings on her back
and asked her if she needed a ride.
She pushed her bag in my car
and got into the passenger seat.
I asked her if she was hungry
and we went to the espresso stand
to find her something to eat.
The barista understood what we
were doing and gave my new friend
extra crackers and we smiled
conspiratorial kindness at each other.
Joy!

And as I drove my passenger to her
next destination she told me that God
had sent her on her journey today
with a message she’d had to deliver
to someone up the road.
And it came to me then that she’d
been a message delivered by Love
to ME today to help lighten my load.
Joy!

– Karen Molenaar Terrell

There Was Another Time When I Was Terrified

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There was another time – almost exactly eight years ago now – when I was terrified and felt like I was facing challenges impossible to overcome. Both my parents were in the hospital – Mom on one floor, Dad on the floor above her. I’d just learned that Mom was not going to be allowed to return to her retirement community apartment because they couldn’t provide the medical care she’d need. I had made calls to assisted living places and to offices that provided in-home nursing care and learned that the cost of my mom’s care – combined with care for Dad – would cost $8000 or more a month. Their savings might buy them a couple months, but then I might need to get into my own retirement savings to care for them.

And beyond the money terror, I was feeling a deep grief. Mom was dying. My sweet mama was dying. No one would ever love me like Mom loved me, or know me as she had known me. I remember sobbing with hopelessness.

I talked with my husband about our options, and he supported me in my decision to have Mom brought to our home. He agreed to help me care for her. The social workers at the hospital were concerned for me – they kept asking me if this is what I really wanted to do, and I said yes. I didn’t know how we were going to do this – my husband and I were both working full-time then, and I wasn’t sure when we were going to actually be able to sleep. But I knew it was the right thing to do. I felt Love leading me to make this decision for Mom.

Mom was brought by ambulance to my home on President’s Day eight years ago. A hospice nurse from Hospice Northwest came to show Scott and me how to care for Mom. We weren’t sure how long we’d have with her – I think we were told she wasn’t expected to live more than six months – but… I picked up on the signs from the hospice nurse as she examined Mom that we probably didn’t have that long.

Mom and I spent the whole afternoon telling each other how much we loved each other. Mom – who’d always been one of the bravest people I’d ever known – was scared. I can’t remember any other time when I’d seen her scared. She asked me, “What happens when I die? Will I see you again?” And I told her that nothing could separate us from the love we have for each other. Love doesn’t die. I assured her we’d meet again. She nodded her head and seemed to accept my words as the truth. Later, as it got hard for her to speak, I asked her one more time if she loved me – I was greedy. And she looked at me with such intensity – her eyes on mine filled with love – and nodded her head. I will never forget that look in her eyes. I carry it with me still, and it reassures me.

That night I slept on the couch by her hospital bed. I had this beautiful dream full of butterflies and green fields and felt this sense of joy and peace and love brush by me. When I woke from this dream I realized Mom wasn’t struggling to breathe and I thought, “Oh, she’s okay. I don’t need to give her any medication right now.” And I closed my eyes to go back to sleep, and then I realized… I got out of bed and felt my mama, and she was cool. I went upstairs to tell Scott I thought she had passed, but I wasn’t sure. Scott came downstairs and felt her pulse, and said, “Moz is gone, Sweetie.”

The hospice nurse came and walked us through what we needed to do. I’ll always be grateful for our hospice nurses.

But now my thoughts turned to Dad – he was soon to be released from the hospital and I still didn’t know how we were going to give him the care he needed. He was 98 then and suffering from a kind of dementia – and I didn’t feel equipped with the skills to help him. I prayed. I prayed desperate prayers, and I went for a walk to try to find some peace. As I was walking, a rainbow suddenly arched over the field I was passing, and I felt Mom with me.

The social workers at the hospital asked me if I’d ever looked into adult family homes, and gave me a pamphlet with phone numbers. On the second call I felt I’d found the right place for Dad and when my brother and I stopped by to check it out we saw bird feeders and dogs and cats – and we knew Mom would have loved the woman who answered the door. Again, I felt Mom’s presence with us. We’d found the right place for Dad – and within his budget, too!

I learned something from that experience. The answers are always there – even when things seem impossible. I hadn’t know that adult family home even existed the day before – and now here it was! Just waiting for Dad! Love had this place waiting for him!

Dad lived another three years and the people in his adult family home became like family to us. They are still very dear to me.

And I still feel Mom and Dad with me. We’ve never been separated. Nothing can separate us from Love. We’re connected by Love, forever and ever. Amen.

“I’m Right Here.”

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I woke up at 2:00 in the morning, feeling scared for the world. I went downstairs to commune with the Cosmos and the cats. Sparky cat settled onto the sofa next to me, and blinked his reassurance. I heard Love say, “I’m right here.”

I went back to bed to sleep a little more, and when I got up I drove up to Fairhaven for my walk on the boardwalk. I haven’t been there for a week and I’ve really missed it. But it seemed empty when I got there – almost like a ghost town. I wondered if maybe the cold was keeping people away, or maybe we aren’t getting as many Canadian visitors as we normally do. It was kind of weird. But then a young woman carrying a cup of coffee smiled at me, and I heard Love say to me, “I’m right here with you.”

I took the boardwalk down to the coffee shop in Boulevard Park and ordered a mocha. I sat on my favorite high chair and swung my legs back and forth while I sipped my drink and toodled around on my phone and watched people. When I left the shop, the baristas called out, “Have a good day!” I thanked them, and then called back, “You, too!” They laughed and nodded their heads. And Love said, “I’m still here.”

Going back on the boardwalk towards Fairhaven was warmer – my back was against the wind. I saw a man coming my direction turn around and walk backwards, and I smiled at him and said, “That’s better, isn’t it?” He grinned and nodded and said it was great exercise to walk backwards, and it was also a lot warmer.

A sweet pup named Remi approached me for a scratch behind the ears. He looked like he was hobbling a little and his human explained that he’d just been through two surgeries – one for his hip and another for his back. She said he’d been paralyzed at some point. But here he was – walking! I told Remi’s human that I was glad he had her, and she said she was glad she had him.

And Love said, “I’m right here.”

I had already decided I was going to treat myself to a breakfast at the Colophon. I hoped I’d get my favorite seat in the corner – but I’d take whatever I was offered. I also hoped Taryn would be there – she always makes me smile.

The hostess recognized me and welcomed me in. She asked me if I’d like my favorite seat in the corner! Then Taryn appeared – she was going to be my server! And THEN – when I got situated in my corner seat, the Four Tops came on the background music channel, singing, “I’ll be there…” and I started cracking up.

I love when the Cosmos has fun with me.

There Will Be Rainbows

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There’s no promise that it will be easy. There’s no guarantee there won’t be challenges. But I know this – there will be joy, too. There will be beauty and kindness and laughter. There will be new friends and new paths and new books and rainbows. We’ll find we can be happy even when we’re sad. And we’ll find we have more courage than we knew. We’ve got this. We were made for this.
(Rainbow photos by Karen Molenaar Terrell.)

You’ve Made a Difference

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Dear ones,
I’m not sure you realize how powerful and important your kindness has been to me, and this world. Trust me. You’ve made a difference.
Karen

The Christmas Dog

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Christmas Eve, 1988.  I was in a funk.  I couldn’t see that I was making much progress in my life.  My teaching career seemed to be frozen, and I was beginning to think my husband and I would never own our own home or have children. The world seemed a very bleak and unhappy place to me.  No matter how many batches of fudge I whipped up or how many times I heard Bing Crosby sing “White Christmas,” I couldn’t seem to find the Christmas spirit.

I was washing the breakfast dishes, thinking my unhappy thoughts, when I heard gunshots coming from the pasture behind our house.  I thought it was the neighbor boys shooting at the seagulls again and, all full of teacherly harrumph, decided to take it upon myself to go out and “have a word with them.”

But after I’d marched outside I realized that it wasn’t the neighbor boys at all.  John, the dairy farmer who lived on the adjoining property, was walking away with a rifle, and an animal (a calf, I thought) was struggling to get up in the field behind our house.  Every time it would push up on its legs it would immediately collapse back to the ground.

I wondered if maybe John had made a mistake and accidentally shot the animal, so I ran out to investigate and found that the animal was a dog.  It had foam and blood around its muzzle.  She was vulnerable and helpless – had just been shot, after all – but instead of lashing out at me or growling as I’d expect an injured animal to do, she was looking up at me with an expression of trust and seemed to be expecting me to take care of her.

“John!”  I yelled, running after the farmer.  He turned around, surprised to see me.  “John, what happened?” I asked, pointing back towards the dog.

A look of remorse came into his eyes.  “Oh, I’m sorry you saw that, Karen. The dog is a stray and it’s been chasing my cows.  I had to kill it.”

“But John, it’s not dead yet.”

John looked back at the dog and grimaced.  “Oh man,” he said.  “I’m really sorry. I’ll go finish the job.  Put it out of its misery.”

By this time another dog had joined the dog that had been shot.  It was running around its friend, barking encouragement, trying to get its buddy to rise up and escape.  The sight of the one dog trying to help his comrade broke my heart.  I made a quick decision. “Let me and my husband take care of it.”

“Are you sure?”

I nodded and he agreed to let me do what I could for the animal.

Unbeknownst to me, as soon as I ran out of the house my husband, knowing that something was wrong, had gotten out his binoculars and was watching my progress in the field.  He saw the look on my face as I ran back.  By the time I reached our house he was ready to do whatever he needed to do to help me.  I explained the situation to him, we put together a box full of towels, and he called the vet.

As we drove his truck around to where the dog lay in the field, I noticed that, while the dog’s canine companion had finally left the scene (never to be seen again), John had gone to the dog and was kneeling down next to her.  He was petting her, using soothing words to comfort her, and the dog was looking up at John with that look of trust she’d given me.  John helped my husband load her in the back of the truck and we began our drive to the vet’s.

I rode in the back of the truck with the dog as my husband drove, and sang hymns to her.  As I sang words from one of my favorite hymns from the Christian Science Hymnal– “Everlasting arms of Love are beneathe, around, above” – the dog leaned against my shoulder and looked up at me with an expression of pure love in her blue eyes.

Once we reached the animal clinic, the veterinarian came out to take a look at her.  After checking her over he told us that apparently a bullet had gone through her head, that he’d take care of her over the holiday weekend – keep her warm and hydrated – but that he wasn’t going to give her any medical treatment.  I got the distinct impression that he didn’t think the dog was going to make it.

My husband and I went to my parents’ home for the Christmas weekend, both of us praying that the dog would still be alive when we returned.  For me, praying for her really meant trying to see the dog as God sees her.  I tried to realize the wholeness and completeness of her as an expression of God, an idea of God.  I reasoned that all the dog could experience was the goodness of God – all she could feel is what Love feels, all she could know is what Truth knows, all she could be is the perfect reflection of God.  I tried to recognize the reality of these things for me, too, and for all of God’s creation.

She made it through the weekend, but when we went to pick her up the vet told us that she wasn’t “out of the woods, yet.”    He told us that if she couldn’t eat, drink, or walk on her own in the next few days, we’d need to bring her back and he’d need to put her to sleep.

We brought her home and put her in a big box in our living room, with a bowl of water and soft dog food by her side.  I continued to pray.  In the middle of the night I got up and went out to where she lay in her box.  Impulsively, I bent down and scooped some water from the dish into her mouth.  She swallowed it, and then leaned over and drank a little from the bowl.  I was elated!  Inspired by her reaction to the water, I bent over and grabbed a glob of dog food and threw a little onto her tongue.  She smacked her mouth together, swallowed the food, and leaned over to eat a bit more.  Now I was beyond elated!  She’d accomplished two of the three requirements the vet had made for her!

The next day I took her out for a walk.  She’d take a few steps and then lean against me.  Then she’d take a few more steps and lean.  But she was walking!  We would not be taking her back to the veterinarian.

In the next two weeks her progress was amazing.  By the end of that period she was not only walking, but running and jumping and chasing balls.  Her appetite was healthy.  She was having no problems drinking or eating.

But one of the most amazing parts of this whole Christmas blessing was the relationship that developed between this dog and the man who had shot her.  They became good friends.  The dog, in fact, became the neighborhood mascot.  (And she never again chased anyone’s cows.)

What the dog brought to me, who had, if you recall, been in a deep funk when she entered our lives, was a sense of the true spirit of Christmas – the Christly spirit of forgiveness, hope, faith, love.  She brought me the recognition that nothing, absolutely nothing, is impossible to God.

We named our new dog Christmas because that is what she brought us that year.

Within a few years all those things that I had wondered if I would ever have as part of my life came to me – a teaching job, children, and a home of our own.  It is my belief that our Christmas Dog prepared my heart to be ready for all of those things to enter my life.

(The story of our Christmas dog was first published in the Christian Science Sentinel [“Christmas Is Alive and Well“] in December 1999, and retold in Blessings: Adventures of a Madcap Christian Scientist in 2005. It was later included in The Madcap Christian Scientist’s Christmas Book in 2014. It was also included on the Christian Science Sentinel radio program in December 2000.)

Let Every Hour Be Your Finest Hour

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My dear Humoristians –

Go out there and live this day like this is the last day you have to live. Show kindness with wild abandon. Look for every opportunity to express Love. Share laughter with people in desperate need of a good laugh. Lift hearts. Bring joy. Give hope. Let every hour be your finest hour. Treasure every moment you’ve been given.

Go out there and work your magic!

Karen