Alison Hodgson

Expert on the etiquette of perilous times.

Archives for April 2008

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Late last night Lydia had an appendectomy.  

She’s doing great.
As I write she’s watching a movie, surrounded by the flowers and balloons and clutching the stuffed horse her father bought her.  She’s thrilled to be missing school.
I spent a very short night’s sleep on a little chair bed beside her and am having a little trouble typing and spelling.  
This has been a surreal time.  24 hours ago she was fine and now, thank God, she is fine again.  She is our middle child, between an older brother with special needs and a much younger sister.  Hers is a challenging position.  Paul and I are praying that God uses this experience to communicate to Lydia, in the depths of her spirit, that she is a cherished member of our family, that she is beloved, because she is.

https://alisonhodgson.com/2008/04/466/

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Paul had dinner with colleagues last night at a very nice restaurant and brought home most of his creme brulee.  He offered it to me but I declined as I wasn’t hungry.  Today though, getting things ready for dinner, the small container beckoned me.  I took it out and examined its contents.

The caramelized sugar was soft, of course, but there were very firm and attractive looking berries peaking through the custard.  
“Alison, you are better than day old creme brulee,” I told myself, as I reached for a spoon.
Well, I was wrong.

https://alisonhodgson.com/2008/04/467/

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It’s shaping to be a busy week, but good.

Last week was hard.  The black dog was biting me and I’m not referring to Jackie Boy, but the black dog of depression.  Actual dogs can be put in kennels.  This black dog settles over me like a shroud.  
One day I was having a seriously rough time and wrote an e-mail to a group of friends.  I let them know how I was, which was pretty bleak.  My tendency is to try and work things out alone or to confide in Paul and my siblings, especially Torey, but I decided to let this group know that I was struggling.  At the end of the e-mail I said I was going to  go find Eden and dance with her since I know that praising God is a way out of the darkness.  I put the e-mail in my draft folder because I didn’t know if I really wanted to send it, then I did a little work on the computer.
I don’t know how long it took me to notice that Eden had come to me and was stretched out at the foot of my bed.  She lay in the sun, a foot propped up on her other knee and she was singing. She sang the song that she and Lydia danced to on Easter morning.  She didn’t know all the lyrics, but her voice was soft and sweet.  “The Godhead three in one…the beginning and the end, the beginning and the end.  How great is our God, how great is our God.  Sing with me.  How great, how GREAT is our God!”
I set my computer aside and embraced Eden and kissed her face.  I thanked her for singing and told her that she comforted me, that she helped carry me to God.
“It’s all thanks to Miss Jeannie,”  she said, referring to her dance teacher, “she taught me how to worship God and now I can teach other people.”
I work so hard to be a good provider for my children and yet I am becoming more and more aware that they are God’s provision for me.

https://alisonhodgson.com/2008/04/468/

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Tonight Eden and I were reading a story wherein the two characters were pumpkin farmers.  Skunk was saving his pumpkins to make pie,  but Badger planned to sell his.  “I like money better than pie,”  he said.

“I like pie better than money,”  Eden said without missing a beat, “because pie is yummy.”
That’s my girl.

https://alisonhodgson.com/2008/04/470/