The Weekly Mercies of Pam Ellis: Episode 1

 

Happy New Year! Welcome to a secret project I've been working on: a serialized story for my blog! I'm excited to introduce you to Pam and her fight to regain hope and joy after a hard year. Check back every Monday for new episodes.

3. 2. 1.

Happy New Year.

Instead of cheers and clapping, I sank to the floor and criedas if I had lost everything.

And considering the last year, it almost felt that way. Ididn’t usually stay up to see the new year, but I wanted to make sure thedreaded year had left.

In the space of the last year I had watched my parents growapart, my best friend had told me we couldn’t be friends anymore, the man I hadsecretly loved for years had moved to be part of a church plant far away. Itwas the year I had clung so fiercely to my faith, and yet had left me beggingGod for something anything good.

It had been the worst year of my life. Now, it was gone. I wishedI felt more relief. No, what I wanted was to feel hope.

I pulled myself into my desk chair and glanced toward mybible and then at my laptop. Neither option seemed like it would offer muchrelief from the pain inside of me. However, I opened the laptop. I opened mybrowser and scrolled on social media. It was a bad habit I had acquired butwasn’t sure I wanted to fight it.

I paused when I saw a perky, flat-stomached girl holding upa sign with a title. “This year is full of hope.”

It wasn’t a page I followed but I took the bait.

We all need hope for the new year, am I right?

Well, let’s make our own hope!

This year, I am choosing to make time for ME a priority.I will be doing one thing each week to be creative and fun. I’m bringing backsome of the fun of my childhood by finally treating myself to Disney Land I’vealways wanted but was denied. Will you join me in making hope?

I rolled my eyes and continued scrolling. What a shallow emptykind of hope. If hope wasn’t bigger then me, it wasn’t much hope.

That’s when I saw it. On a green background with goldishlettering, she saw His Mercy is More. Oh! Carol posted it. She had followedCarol’s account for years, but she hadn’t posted much in the last few months. Iread the caption.

Hey friends,

I have missed all of you. The community I have hereonline is precious to me.

This has been a rough few months for me and I wasn’t surehow to share about it online because it felt so sensitive.

When I got married four years ago, I fully expected to be a mom within a year. I suppose, technically, I am a mother, but none of mybabies have lived past the seven-week mark in my womb. We’ve sought medicaladvice and no one has a clue what’s going on.

There’s some other stress going on in my life with myfamily, but it isn’t mine to share. Like I said, this hasn’t been an easy fewmonths, but I keep coming back to the phrase from the song I love so much

His mercy is more.

As I enter the new year, I’m determined to keep a recordof God’s mercies each day to remind myself of all He is to me and all He hasdone. I also plan to do something every day to slow myself down and enjoy thebeauty God has created around me.

Will you join me? I’m calling in the weekly mercieschallenge

I stared at the post. Tears filled my eyes. I had no ideathis woman was struggling to have children or had miscarriages. She was one ofthe accounts I hated because I saw her and her husband happy and adorable whilethe person I still loved was far away and had probably forgotten about me.

I opened up the comments and took a deep breath. I saw manyothers were signing their names like they were signing a contract. I decided todo the same. I needed this. I needed to change. I needed this year to be betterthan the last.

My fingers hovered above the keyboard for a moment and thenI typed: I, Pam Ellis, am taking the weekly mercies challenge.

I let out a long breath, this was going to be hard. It wouldbe challenging. However, I would start…right after I slept.

Working retail during the holidays was nutty, but Januaryfelt like a respite. I glanced around the storefront and let out a happy sigh.Not many people got to work at a book and tea store. My Weekend Is Booked to aTea was located in a strip shopping center, right between a pizza place and a video game store. Not the kind of place one would expect a cute little storefull of tea, Christian fiction, and classic books, but here we were.

I walked over and grabbed a Lavender Vanilla tea bag andplucked it in my travel mug and poured steaming water over it. I was so gratefulI was allowed to help myself to two or three bags of tea a day as an employee.

I took a deep breath of one of my favorite teas. I adoredlavender. I loved that it was calming as well as had a floral feel.

“Pam! The new notebooks just arrived!” My boss called.

Setting my tea down. I turned toward the back room. Lacy stoodamid several boxes with a box cutter in hand. This woman and her husband Jaredco-owed this place. Somehow, they made it when other bookstores were failing.

“Too bad these didn’t arrive for the Christmas season.” Iopened a box and saw the beautiful watercolor cover with a verse printed on thefront. I could have sold all of these in November and December.

“God has other plans for these notebooks.”

I didn’t understand how Lacy could always be so confident inwhat God had for her. But she was.

“And the discount we got after these came in late will allowus to sell them for less. So, I would say, it should be good for business.”

I opened another box and stopped.  A wood background with lavender sprigs greetedme. In a scrolling letter, the cover read:

His Mercies were New Every Morning.

I had found the notebook to record the mercies I found eachday. I would start with my job, lavender tea, and finding this notebook.

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How has this last year been for you? Share in the comments and I'll leave a prayer for you for your coming year.