Lori's Rambling

As I sit here thinking back on 2020 during the last few hours of the year, there are lots of things that come to mind.  Clearly this has been an unusual year to say the least with lots of uncertainties and huge national and world changes.  A lot of things seem to be a holding pattern pending control of COVID and a return to normalcy.  Yet when I look back I see a lot of growth and positives things coming out of this year.  Challenges have a way of forcing us to grow and change our way of thinking.   We added Piper to our family in May.  I had been telling Jaelyn for a couple of years that we weren’t getting another dog and if/when we did, I wanted one that didn’t shed as much as Trip and was a fairly quiet low-key dog.  But in the midst of quarantine and seeing the effects of this on Jaelyn and myself, those thoughts began to change.  When I saw Piper’s picture and information on a rescue site, I scrolled past and kept coming back to her picture.  Jaelyn likes to remind me that Piper

8 years.  There are days that it seems like we have lived a lifetime since Scott died. . . .and there are days that it feels like just yesterday and I find myself reliving the moment I found out and reliving the phone calls to tell family and friends.  Reliving the planning of his funeral and figuring out how life was going to work without him in it.  All of it a blur and yet so crystal clear at the same time - parts I will never forget the details and other parts that I don’t remember the details but others do. Days where I remember feeling split in two over grieving the loss and trying to help Jaelyn in her grief as well.   Anniversaries take me back to those moments and raw emotions. I remember faces that stand out and words that stand out from those first days and months — a hug from someone who had walked the same path a few years before and no words were necessary, a friend simply handing me a tissue box and telling me it was okay to cry when I told her that I couldn’t stop cryin

This is the 7th annual presentation of the Scott Bradley Adventurous Life scholarship.  Normally this would be presented during our youth Sunday honoring our graduates.  As this year has been anything but normal, things have been done differently this year and the scholarship was presented at the Senior picnic on June 17th, 2020.  There were two winners this year:  Juliette Forry and Kyle Myer.  Congratulations to both of you! This is what I shared with the winners of this year's scholarship.   Normally I would have the chance to share with you and your fellow graduates face to face some of the thoughts laid on my heart by God.  But as you have already realized this year is anything but normal.  There are many memes, cartoons, and shirts floating out there declaring this class the Quarantine class.  And certainly the way this year has gone will affect the way you see and think about things for years to come.   But my hope for you is that you do not take that as your identity or h

Anyone who knew Scott, knew that he was passionate about kayaking.  One of his favorite experiences kayaking was at the beach when he was in the ocean and had dolphins jumping around him.  Scott was most at home in his kayak and always said that he felt closest to God when he was kayaking. I have held onto Scott’s kayak since his death almost 8 years ago as it was his most treasured possession.  A few years ago I had decided to sell it, but was unable to find anyone interested and able to handle it comfortably as Scott’s kayak is a hybrid kayak not designed for a beginner.   Getting back to kayaking has been a journey for me that started a few years ago with getting Jaelyn her first adult kayak.  When we bought Jaelyn’s kayak, Scott’s kayak was moved under our back porch.  This week when we were relocating all our kayaks to hang under our porch together, Jaelyn asked if she could use her dad’s kayak so her best friend, Cheyenne, could use Jaelyn’s kayak.  I told her that I wou