Still Here

I’ve missed you.

I briefly considered moving this blog to another platform, such as Substack or Medium, but I couldn’t quite get the technical details sorted out. So for now, I’m still here. 

Monday was my birthday, and what a year it has been.

We’re mostly settled into our new state of Georgia, and life feels more contented here. It’s not really about the state itself; it’s about proximity. Being closer to family and friends. Finding my people. That makes all the difference.

Notes From My Daughter - Rushing Won't Make You Ready

Occasional notes from my second daughter. I never know what to expect when she writes but I am always blown away. Did this child come from me? Read on!

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Hi friends. Welcome back to my random contributions on my mom's blog. Earlier this week I found an old notebook from 3rd grade and might I say it was the best laugh I've had in a while. In honor of my 6-year-old writing dreams I've decided to make a list of 5 things I've learned (because 23 and  2+3=5) this past year that can be applied to any reader.

1. Rushing won't make you ready: Matter of fact, rushing leads to repeating. Because most of my life has been accelerated outside of my control (i.e: being 6 years old in the 3rd grade) my goals have often been informed by what I thought others expected of me and not necessarily what I wanted for myself. For me the golden age of which I should have had my life together was 22 (6 years after graduating high school), so when my birthday came last year and I realized my life was not what I expected it to be, plus the overwhelming nothingness that occurs after graduating college, I went into a bit of a depression. While a lot of people met me with support, many people wanted to rush me through this process. I understood their intentions but I had to protect myself by being present. I could not, and still can't rush the timeline of my growth if I wish for that growth to be sustainable.


2. God's voice overrides any sound advice: This one is self-explanatory but I'm reinforcing it for anyone who struggles with courage. Second-guessing is the first step to confusion. Never stop seeking God's voice; it is the clearest guide for your entire life. If His instructions are repeated, follow them. If his answers are unclear, ask more questions. But a hunger for an abundant God should never be fed by anyone else but God. I've had to question this year, "Do I really care what God wants for my life?" When I'm unsure, I think about my commitment to Him and His to me. It's not enough to be a "good person" who does "good things". It's best to be God's, no matter where He has you.


3. 75% of the people you dislike love God and God loves 100% of them back: My mom and I had a conversation yesterday in which I talked about driving in LA. "I'm a good driver, it's just annoying that I constantly have to be a good driver in the midst of terrible ones." Life isn't linear, it doesn't happen in a vacuum of pure joy, and it surely doesn't occur in the midst of perfect people. Just because challenges arise doesn't mean that all the growth you've experienced has been thrown out the window. Quite frankly everyone's obsession with being a "healthy" person these days is kind of funny to me because their endurance can be so low (mine included). Yes, remove toxic people from your life but don't expect the people you're left with to be perfect. Don't expect the new healthy circle you attained to exist without challenges. Idealism is not healthy. Also, it's ok to address your own toxicity which leads me to the next point.


4. You can't run away from yourself: God is Alpha and Omega, here from beginning to end. He's is eternal. You are not (yet), but for as long as you are here, you will always be with you, from your beginning to your end. God is growing you and in that growth, you must be an active participant. The partnership of God's being and your being is a progressive one. Every time you run away from Him you stop the process, just as every time you run away from yourself. There is some solace in knowing that God would never run away from you; that His covenant and His choice are one in the same, but we cannot just settle for this. It's a beautiful thing to face yourself in order to see just who God is in your life.


5. Celebration is more than praise: Humans forget. Laughing at my old journal this week was wonderful because it showed I've been consistently Gabrielle Nicole Miller all of my life, even when I forgot who I was. The previous point was about mindfulness, this one is about remembering. All celebration and gratitude really are, is choosing to focus on memories of goodness. Goodness has happened over a series of time and will happen again in seasons to come. It's our mental incentive to keep going. It reminds us that there is more. More than we can imagine even though we try to imagine accurately every day. It's a reminder of how small life is and how incredible life is. Celebrating yourself, others, accomplishments, God, etc. is key to building a lifestyle that has no need to rush because you understand that every season brings it's fruits even if you don't see them yet.


I hope you all enjoyed my reflections. If you can relate please comment below and let me know which point really stuck with you. Lastly, thank you all for being on this journey of growth with me. I've been writing on my mom's blog for at least 4 years now and the community here is always a blessing :) And thank you, mom, for bringing me into this world on this day 23 years ago.

Notes From My Daughter - A Valuable Thing in a Desolate Place; A Lost and Found Story

Occasional notes from my 22-year-old daughter. I never know what to expect when she writes, but it's usually a pleasant surprise.  Read on!

My Daughter

"Weird" things happen to me all the time and to be quite honest, it's no coincidence. I'm not surprised that God has intersected my normal day-to-day living with his reality because this is what God has always done and I've learned to just be present during the lesson so I can fully learn how God has used a moment to teach me some everlasting truth.

In 2015 one of those moments happened to come on the weekend I was celebrating my birthday. For me, my birthday is the new year (sounds egotistic but I don't care), and leading up to it I pray for vision, clarity and set new goals. To be honest, I wasn't that thrilled about turning 22. In high school, I truly believed that by 22 everything would come together. But here I was 6 years later, a "graduate" of USC who still had 1 class to complete, no direction, no church, no vision and I was so lost as to how it all got to this point. "Why isn't my life together?" I thought, and then I didn't want to think about it anymore, which goes to say I didn't want to talk about it, which led me to stop praying about it and eventually praying sporadically in general. Because how can I address God about a life I'm living halfheartedly and how could He understand?

But like I said, I didn't stop praying in total. My birthday is something I always prayed about and as I was asking God what I should do I kept seeing a desert. So I looked up national parks and my heart got stuck on going to Joshua Tree National Park, a huge desert 2 hours away from Los Angeles.

My friends were surprisingly up for it, which is a shocker because I don't have nature loving friends who like to explore desert landscapes just for the heck of it. Everything was planned and on Saturday, October 31,2015 we headed towards our destination with expectant hearts.

All the fun was had! We rock climbed, had a photo-shoot, had a devotion at the top of a mountain, picnicked and watched the sun set. We even prayed that God would show us a shooting star (ask and you shall receive) which He did! It was great, and then,at the end of the day, I realized I lost my phone.

As soon as I realized my phone was really gone the parable of the woman and her lost coin in Luke 15 came to mind. Specifically, the portion that read:

"8 Doesn't she light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?"

To which my first response was, "I'm not going to search the pitch black cold desert for a phone; next idea Lord." And once I gained a little more patience I added, "We have to drive back to LA and I don't want to come back here. I don't want to give up hope, but having hope about something so insignificant doesn't make sense." Regardless of how I tried to justify my position, the need to believe my phone could be found nudged at me the whole 2-hour ride back to LA. I dropped my friends off and we prayed with one another, after doing a thorough search of my car; then I proceeded on my way home.

Suddenly as I put my car in drive, it hit me how valuable my phone was: all my songs were on there in my voice memos, all my poetry in the notes section, all the things I hid and worked at on my own were on my phone.

Source

I cried relentlessly as I realized the value of the things I had lost and the thought of never being able to recover them. While driving I began to pray and at the end of my prayer I looked up and to my surprise I saw another shooting star in the sky. I took it as a sign that somehow I would find peace at the end of this and God was with me.

God gave me a desire to work for what I saw as valuable and believe that it can be completed even when everything else seemed bleak. So the next morning I called the lost and found at Joshua Tree National park; I put my iPhone on "lost mode" from my iCloud account; I prayed and I went to church. My father took me to the AT&T store to find out what my options were for a new phone and what it would cost. I exhausted the options available to me for trying to find my phone and I was equally settled in trusting God, yet anxious to know what trusting God would lead to.

Later that day would you believe someone called my house from my iPhone to notify us that in this desert they found my iPhone! And they would be willing to help us get it back. According to the wonderful person who found my phone they were walking along an unusual route trying to find cell phone service when they looked down in a ditch and found my phone. Oh, and they don't even live in California they just happened to be doing a weekend trip with their outdoors group.

This particular moment of my perpendicular experience with God and my earthly life gave me a very important lesson: God values our diligence. I personally admire Nehemiah in the Bible, because he is the epitome of a diligent worker, but I've always felt like my personality is too different from his. I could not lead the building of a temple in 52 days but I'm glad God inspired someone to. But what work really boils down to is a series of intentional acts of obedience. Knowing what God has called you to do, you decide to systematically put in the effort, gradually progressing toward the point of completion, exhausted by every effort, because what He has said is overwhelmingly valuable in your life. Even if it seems impossible, do all that you can. God values your willingness to use your life to do His will.

And since God has allowed me to narrate these experiences I might as well let you in on a secret: I'm no one special, and what happened in this story could happen to anyone who is learning to trust God daily. I'm simply the person by which this story came and I hope it encourages you to trust God MORE each day.

In the comment section, I'd be interested to see what other lessons you readers may have found in my story and what those lessons mean to you. I hope you all have many moments like this in the new year. :)

This is 46

I'm a Christmas baby, so I have double the reasons to love this time of year.

me and hubby

Yesterday, I made no plans, and was thoroughly surprised by my family.

You know what I think of birthdays - they're special, and the person born on that day was special. The world would be a lot less without you being here. I like to acknowledge birthdays, because some people just don't know how special they are until you tell and show them.  Making them feel good makes you feel good. Wives and mothers sometimes feel unacknowledged for all the good that they do. A birthday is the perfect opportunity to show just how much this important woman matters - and yesterday they delivered. A surprise visit to a spa, gifts, and dinner later.

On my birthday, I also strangely thought about my brother who passed away. I don't know why, but I did. Some how I could hear his voice in my head reading Psalms 19. I sometimes wonder what it's like to be in heaven, but I don't get too far since I really can't comprehend the magnitude and magnificence of heaven.

This blog is called Life....after death, because the death of my brother gave greater perspective to the things in life that we sometimes take for granted. I have a sibling that lives really close to me geographically, but we are so far apart relationally. It wasn't always that way, but its the way it is now. She's lonely and really does not look forward to the holidays. She blames Los Angeles, for most of this, but it's bigger than that - it's rather complicated. In any event, I passed by today, since she called my parents who live in NY and they then called me to tell me she was not doing well (I told you it was complicated). I hope I was able to cheer her up.

I'm rambling; but I'm glad I made it to another year. I have no shame in saying my age since apparently I don't look it, but even if I did it wouldn't matter; I'm grateful for my husband (though sometimes our communication styles could drive a sane person crazy); I'm grateful for my children; for my small church family; for Christmas time and Christmas music and for salvation.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. Luke 2:11 
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” Luke 2:14 


Happy Birthday Jesus! 

Home: Coming and Going

I called this blog, "Life...After Death of A Brother" because two years ago on March 5th , my oldest brother died of a chronic autoimmune illness - scleroderma.  His homegoing service took place a week later to a packed house.  It was a sad yet happy time.  A happy time because my brother was no longer suffering with all of the effects of this disease. A happy time because he blessed so many with his words and life in spite of his illness.

Twenty two years ago, I birthed my first child, a boy and brought him home.  He was a good baby - quiet, even temperament, smart and loving.

Every year on March 5th, I'm reminded of life and death - the birth of my son and the death of my brother. Birthing a child is an experience that defies words - it feels like you're taking part in a miracle.  Having someone close to you die (even if expected) also defies words.  I still remember the thud in my chest when I got the phone call that he had moved on from this world .

In my brother's short time here on earth he was a living example of what it means to be a believer, even when our circumstances aren't favorable.  His example also had an impact on my son who struggled in dealing with his uncle's death.  As my son is at the cusp of his manhood, I hope and pray that he is a Godly influence to all he interacts with.  Death reminds us of the brevity of life - no one knows when he will take his last breath.  With this in mind, I hope we live in a way that acknowledges a Holy God and that He is in charge of our lives.  It doesn't mean that we can't enjoy life, but that we live with purpose and not reckless abandonment.
I'm sure my brother echoed the sentiments in Philippians 1:23 - For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better.


I checked in with my mom to make sure that she was OK and she was.  She knows her son is finally resting. One other lingering thought - as a parent you never know the impact others will have on your children's lives. We weren't close geographically, and I don't remember any major moments when we got together.  But apparently something about the way my brother handled himself, had an impact on my children.

Every year on March 5th, these are some of the things that run through my mind.  I'm not too sad on this day - I know my brother is in heaven and I'm always hoping and praying my son (all my children) will live Godly lives and that they - Walk worthy of the vocation of which you are called.....Ephesians 4:1


Who has had an impact on your life?  If they are still alive, tell them.