SOS for R&R

I'm war weary. My brother and I both showed up to cheer Mom on at supper, and my battle fatigue was obvious. Mom started packing up all the food she hadn't eaten. My brother's and my reaction was quite different.He said, "sure, Mom, take it back to your room!" In my mind, I saw those stacks of to-go boxes in her room. I remembered her rolls, toast and other bits of food stashes in her chair, her bookcase and, of course, her walker pouch. I was reminded of a conference with the director of her assisted living place, discussing how Mother's stashing of food was a bug and rodent hazard. My reply was, "No, Mom. You CANNOT take it back with you!" She pointed out the bird houses that don't really exist. He turned around and started looking. I whispered, "Remember A BEAUTIFUL MIND?" I really need a vacation. I'm losing perspective, Lord. Give me your eyes to see. May I have time to regain the love her the way you love her.

ALL Things Work Together

I'm in shock. The captain of the cheerleaders from my graduating class has Altzheimers. I'm shocked that something so sad could happen to her. I'm shocked that someone my age has a disease that's associated with the elderly. And, growing up with this girl, whom I'll call Linda Sue, I had thought she would always get her way. In the little girl mind within me, I'm shocked that she can't.

I remember camp the summer after the sixth grade. After arriving by train and being transported with our luggage, we all stood in the central area of the camp. The counselors, one by one, called out the girls who would be in their cabins. Linda Sue was put in the cabin with several of us who were not her best friends. She immediately let them know that this was not to be. In front of everyone, in that campfire area, she threw what could only be described as a tantrum. And it worked. She was put where she wanted to be.

My parents made sure I went to the "best" schools. I did. But that "best" came with a price. The children of high achievers often mimicked the behaviors that brought such success to their parents. Friends were not people. They were a means to an end. They propelled one into the spotlight, into the groups, even on an elementary school level, that would bring influence and power. And so it was with Linda Sue.

What are you saying to me, Lord, in this situation? Are you reminding me that I came to know you in high school? This very attitude of being ignored by those clawing to the top was what called my attention to my desperate need for something.You reached out to me, and I knew that You were my answer. You took away that despair and filled that void. And life has never been the same again.

So, thank you, God, for Linda Sue and all the dozens like her. They provided the inky-black darkness in my soul that made the beam of light from Your lighthouse even brighter. She helped prepare the way in my heart for You. Nothing could be more important, leading me to the rich, full life you have for me, a life where there is no room for bitterness and resentment. As it says in Romans 8:28, it all works for good in your plan for your own.

I am Hoke

Taking care of Mother at the end of her life, is so strange.  Every day I watch her waste away a little more. I spend hours helping a weak, frail woman, who seems more like a stranger than the woman who raised me. She is like my toddler granddaughter with her short attention span and her need to be cleaned by others.

Like Hoke in the final scene of Driving Miss Daisy, I coax her to eat. She takes the bite I have put on her fork, barely making it go into her mouth because her hand doesn't seem to want to turn the fork to fit. Then she stares outside the window.

"Look at those birdhouses in those trees," she says. I turn and look hard. There are no birdhouses. Possibly the shadows among the leaves seem, in her mind, to be shaped like birdhouses. I turn back around and remind her of the food before her.

And so it goes. A bite. Attention gone. Gradual refocus. Another bite. Attention gone. Slowly focus again. Usually, she tries to get me to eat the food.

"Mom, I've already eaten," I reply. "You're the one who needs to get stronger, not me. The more you eat, the stronger you'll be."

I don't know if it does any good or not. I cheer her on. Yesterday, it took her two and a half hours to eat lunch. Today, she eats well. Hopefully she has more of an appetite. The increase in amount could be due to the fact that I keep reloading her fork and drawing her attention to it.

She really needs people around. She always did. Growing up, when she needed us around, I thought it was because she wanted someone to scream at. Now, I see bits and pieces of the one who constantly forced her will on us in anger. Mostly, though, I see a toothless tiger, one who is no longer so angry at the world. I know this is due, in large part, to the antidepressant they give her daily. I thank God for the man who invented the antidepressant.

Mother tries to talk constantly, as is her custom. Her words are garbled and many sound like each other. My granddaughter asks me how I can understand her. I answer that I have spent so much of my life teaching a foreign language, maybe I can put together bits and pieces and make sense of the whole. In love and respect, I nod and give verbal assent, and Mother feels better. Someone is listening.

Lord, I see again Your patience and caring for us. We are weak and helpless. You are strong. You could have easily left us there in our weakness. Instead, You reached into our world and gave us hope. You sent Your Son as a bridge between your beloved creation and yourself. Your made a way for us to ascend Jacob's ladder, so to speak. Because of His sacrifice in my place, you see me as having never done and thought the things that kept me from you.

You helped me when I was helpless. Help me to remember.

To the Least of These

To be honest, I don't want to visit my mother today. For over six weeks, I have attended to her in her apartment, in the hospital and in rehab. She's getting cranky. She snaps back at me. She piles everything she hasn't eaten into a paper napkin after a meal and hands it to me, "So it won't go to waste." It looks like garbage to me, but I take it and ditch it into a garbage can on the way out. She needs help, but won't let me help her because I don't do it like the therapist told her to. But she can't remember how the therapist told her to do it, and we have to call the nurse for help.

I must be just like this to Jesus. He's there constantly, yet I snap at Him, asking why He has allowed this or that in my life. I'm ungrateful for what He has given me. I often treat the gift like garbage. I want to do things my way, not wanting help. Then I end up calling on Him, because I really can't do life myself.

I'll go, and I'll smile, and I'll kiss her wrinkled face. Jesus takes me as I am. Mother is just "one of the least of these," today.

Comfortable Christianity

One of the comforts to which I cling, vacationing in Destin, Florida. 

Last night my attention was riveted by a speaker who talked about American Christianity and why others aren't coming to Christ.  She pointed out that we American Christians will follow Christ as long as we are comfortable. When commitment to Him asks us to give up our things or our pleasures, we back off. 

The result is that others see a "Christ-less Christianity." We don't resemble the one we say we serve, because we serve only to a point. God can't shine His light through us, because we unscrew our light bulbs, so to speak. The circuit is incomplete, and the beauty and winsomeness which is part of the Lord Jesus never gets seen by those who don't know Him.

I thought about this last night as I climbed onto my feather-bed-topped mattress with its soft sheets and down comforter. My husband had just turned off the large flat screen television that faces the bed. The air conditioner blew gently, though it wasn't really hot outside. We just wanted to get the humidity out. He read by an attractive bedside light, while I played "Words with Friends" on my iPhone. 

We are not wealthy at all by American standards. We don't have a house at the lake, though we have many generous friends who do. There are so many things that we could look at and say, "We don't have that!" We have chosen contentment over lavishness in retirement. Despite all this, we are like other Americans, in that we crave our comforts.

What if Jesus is asking us, as He asked the rich, young ruler in Luke 18, to give up that which we hold most dear? The things and the comfort are not wrong in themselves. They are destructive when they get in the way of our relationship with God. They are a rock thrown into the gears of our usefulness to God.. They dim the attractiveness of Jesus in us, when His goal is that we joyfully present Jesus in all His beauty to those who are living desperate lives without Him.We are given the privilege of throwing ropes to those drowning around us, and we sit on the shore under a beach umbrella. 

Lord, I want to give all that I have to you, including those things that make me feel comfortable. I want to be a lighthouse that sends out a life saving beam, not one that turns off its light because it hurts my own eyes. I am so guilty of putting myself before you. I say I love you, but what I practice speaks so much louder. Help me. It's only you who can do this. And as you do, You promise me your joy and your peace. And those other things begin to look like cheap rhinestones next to the brilliant diamond of who you are.

"Mom" Boxes

There are two "Mom" boxes on my sink-dressing area. One is wooden. One is made of mirrored glass. One  has Mother-praising adjectives on its surface. The other has a verse from Proverbs 31. Both seem to serve the same purpose, to honor me as a mother. This makes me very happy. But the first is a symbol of the hardest time in my life as a mother. The second is a symbol of the truth in Psalm 30:5, "...weeping may remain for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning."

The first and the second box, however, are brackets marking either side of an era. The first was given to me on Mothers' Day by my older daughter. I was surprised to get a gift at all from her that year. At that time, she was in rebellion against us. She had chosen her own path, which included dating a handsome, educated man from Jordan. In the two years that they went out, my husband and I saw him only two times. On one of those occasions, we actually got to talk to him. She kept him, and herself away from us.

During this time, she graduated from college and became a flight attendant. She was based at Laguardia in New York City. She mentioned in a phone call that Sex and the City  was a show that described her life. Since she had free flights, we would hear now, and then, that people had seen her, at the airport or having her hair done. We wouldn't even know she was in town.

In the summer of 2001, I finally surrendered her to God, emotionally exhausted with worrying about her. I asked myself what the worst thing that could happen in this situation was. The reply was that she could die in her lifestyle. Would God still be God? Would He be in control? (Psalm 33:8-11) Yes, He would. I felt that she knew Him, and that she would be with Him, if death were where all this would end.

I imagined the second worst thing that could happen. She could marry this young man, whom we didn't even know. Would God still be God?  Yes. Could He handle this situation? Yes. Nothing is impossible with Him (Luke 1:37).

Then came September 11, 2001. A call came from one of her friends, who lived in Washington, DC, wondering if we had heard from her. When we asked what she meant, she told us to turn on the television. As I stood in my living room watching the plane fly into the second building, I thought of her airport, so close by. I asked, "Is this my answer, Lord? Is my daughter on one of those planes?"

Soon afterward, we finally got in touch with her before all communication stopped. She had NOT been working that day, but she was shaken. In Queens, she could smell the smoke that had already drifted over the Hudson River. Jets were circling overhead. And her Sex-and-the-City lifestyle didn't seem glamorous anymore.

As soon as planes were flying again, she came home. On her second night there, she came into our bedroom late at night. She quietly announced that she and her boyfriend had eloped. They were now married.

With a reduction in flights, the airline had to let some flight attendants go. She was one of those who had been hired within the last couple of years, so she lost her job. She and her new husband got an apartment within five minutes of our house about the time she found out she was pregnant.

The next five years were hard ones. The baby was a girl, who is the delight of my heart. About the same time as my daughter discovered she was pregnant for the second time, she also discovered what she had long suspected. Her husband had another life, dominated by alcohol and the behavior that accompanies addictions.

To keep our daughter and granddaughter safe and since they had not been supported financially by her husband, we let them move back in with us. Our grandson was born when his sister was four, just before the divorce. They moved out when the children were nine and five.

Which brings me to the second "Mom" box. The reason our daughter and her children moved out was that God had allowed another man to come into her life. He, too, had made some bad choices, but God called him to Himself. The young man then made the best choice of his life, the choice to follow Jesus. Together they have grown in the Lord as they have grown close to each other.

This is the person who gave me the second "Mom" box to me. The occasion was the rehearsal dinner for their wedding. To me, it is a symbol of the ending of a long time of suffering for us all. Instead of reminding me of the saddest part of my life as a mother, this one reminds me of a faithful God. In His grace He gave my daughter a second chance. He brought her, and me as a mother, joy in the morning.

Mother's Journey

Life moves in stages. One step progresses. Then it is time for it to be over. Another stage begins. And so on. It is all part of God's plan for our lives. God is good and His heart can be trusted. He is there in every stage, working everything for good for those who are His (Romans 8:28).

Mother is in the hospital  with what seems to be the beginning of another stage in her life. Two weeks ago she was getting around on her own with her walker, talking and joking, and taking care of her daily needs. Now she sounds drunk when she talks, has trouble walking, and has to have help for daily functions. A week in bed after a fall seems to have lowered her resistence to symptoms of dementia. Her activity level had been her way of pushing against what was going on in her life. Once she stopped moving around, the symptoms took over like kudzu on a deserted road.

I sit beside her, in the hospital recliner, keeping everything light and trying to make this stage of the journey as enjoyable as it can be. We watch a tv news show, then switch to the channel that has videos of picturesque scenery accompanied by soft, elevator music. She remarks that it looks like there's an old car in the middle of that waterfall. I say that rocks can look like most anything, when I know that the real problem is that she can't really see the detail on the screen. We chat about the flowers in another scene. She wonders where this video was filmed. I remark that I'd like to have the job of going around the world and filming beautiful scenery.

The chatter goes on and on, theme music of a sort for this final stage of a life that started almost 88 years ago. I want to be there as much as possible, cheering her up. It is, after all, part of life.

In the Repair Shop

As if there weren't enough already, the state of Tennessee has a new law. The “Check Engine” light cannot be on, on the dashboard for any reason, ora vehicle will not pass inspection. My cute little white Toyota is now in the shop for the third time, with the mechanics trying to get her up to snuff. Therefore, I have been stuck at home for several days.

Don’t get me wrong. Getting to stay at home is bliss, compared to the years I had to head to school by 7 am, battle students all day, and then drag my weary body back home to grade papers and generate more lesson plans. Throughout my life, however, I have found that when I spend great chunks of time relatively alone, I start to get down.

I start thinking about friends whom I don’t see any more. I wonder what they are doing and if we’re still friends. Scenes of times when I’ve made a fool of myself or really failed at something start filling my mind. If it goes on too long, I start feeling like I’m back in seventh grade with zits on my face and ugliness in my clothing. I feel awkward and lonely all over again. The negativity builds, and I start spiraling down.

But  today it hit me. What a great place to be, because this is where Jesus meets me! When I’m worrying and doubting and lonely and afraid, I realize that I need Him. That’s the meeting place for Him and me, if I cry out to Him, and tell Him the down and dirty about what I’m thinking and where I am. He promises to rescue me!

Psalm 40:1-3 says it:

            I waited patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry.

            He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire.

            He set my feet upon a rock and gave me a place to stand.

            He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.

            Many will see and fear and will trust in the Lord.

This is a time when Satan wants me in his hip pocket, doubting God’s ability to make a difference in my life. He wants to whisper, “See. You don’t have any friends. You’re growing older and overweight. Your being on this planet has influenced no one. You’ve just been deluding yourself.”

Instead, God is shouting loud and clear, “YOU ARE MY BELOVED DAUGHTER! I LOVE YOU BECAUSE I REDEEMED YOU. I WILL NEVER STOP LOVING YOU.  YOUR LIFE MATTERS BECAUSE I AM USING YOU FOR MY GLORY. AS YOU YIELD YOUR LIFE TO ME MORE AND MORE, I WILL DO AMAZING THINGS THAT YOU WON’T BELIEVE. AND, YES, MANY WILL SEE AND FEAR AND WILL TRUST IN ME!”

What a great day this is! How glad I am that my Toyota and I are both in the mechanic’s hands. What a wonderful work the Master Mechanic will do! How grateful I am for the downward spiral, so that I can see His gentle hand on my life!

Miss Morton is 100!

        For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans
        to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope
        and a future.
                                                              Jeremiah 29:11

       

My second grade teacher just turned 100! It seems like a long time ago that I shyly sat in my little chair in that classroom at Avon Elementary School. Miss Morton was strict, very strict. I shivered in my chair in my crinilin petticoats under the dresses girls wore to school then, afraid to do anything wrong.

She must have been a good teacher. I learned a lot, I'm sure. But the thing I remember about second grade was the strictness of my teacher. Through the decades of my own teaching career, I have found that I needed some of what Miss Morton had. Discipline was the hardest element of teaching for me. What could have been look upon as a negative, her unbending strictness, is now a positive in my adult mind. I needed a little of it myself.

God chooses to bring into our lives whom He chooses into our lives for a reason. And He uses every experience for His glory and our ultimate good. It's that fact that I hang on to, with Romans 8:28 as proof, that makes this painting of life so beautiful!

God uses the vivid greens and bright blues of a day like today, with a whole day to myself and the sun warming the white azaelas with blooms bursting like popcorn in their thickness. He blends in the greys of stormy days, swirling those clouds we call problems into the other colors, making them more more rich because of the blend.

So it is with our lives. He takes the positive things: the family days that are so welcome, the friends who share our hearts, the close times with the Lord, the beautiful scenery, and one and on. He swirls in the hard times: the financial struggles, conflicts, misunderstandings, worry, fear, times when we forget Him and regret it, and that list goes on and on too. The resulting painting is stunning, just the way He planned it to be, all parts in perfect harmony, with an over all feeling of peace.

He's not through with the painting either. Like watercolor that hasn't quite dried yet, He will pick up a hue of circumstance and blend it with a tone of grace. What seemed like a tragic circumstance will be shown to be part of a breathtaking addition to our life stories. The awesome result could only have come out that way with the black and grey of suffering blended in.

How I thank Him that He is at work in our lives! I can't wait to see the finished product! Meanwhile, I'll trust Him with His divine paintbrush! 

But we have this treasure in jars of  clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.                                                                                2 Corinthians 4:7

There is an incredible variety in types of containers for everyday use available to us. We have glasses and mugs to drink out of. These can be made of glass, plastic, styrofoam, stone, ceramic or even paper. There are containers to store food from plastic Tupperware to old fashioned glass jars. 

In the era of my grandmothers, the variety was not so great. Our proper "city" grandmother had crystal goblets, with matching plates, in which to serve refreshments to the ladies in her canasta group. On special occasions, she made us coke floats in tall, thin everyday glasses. I have no memory of how left-overs were stored. Maybe this was done on the sly, for appearance's sake.

Our warm, loving "country" grandmother had glasses to drink out of, but for storage of items and especially for canning fruits and vegetables, she used glass jars. (The family name is Ball, and I was an adult before I realized that every family didn't have their name etched on the side of their canning jars!) They were the standard jars, either pint or quart sized, depending on what was to be put into the jar. She would carry the steaming-hot liquid to-be-jelly and pour it into the pint jars on the kitchen table. Larger vegetables, usually cucumbers selected to be transformed into pickles, needed the larger jar.

There is one thing that all these containers had in common. What was really important was what was on the inside of the container.

The lovely etched crystal glasses of our grandmother would never have impressed the ladies with their hats and white gloves, if we had sneaked outside where Jessie the gardener was digging and filled them with mud. (I shudder to think what the consequences of this act would have been!). They were lovely, delicate glasses, but unless filled with well- blended lemonade or the ever-popular drink of their girlhood in the 1890's, ginger ale, they would not have been so beautiful.

Granny's canning jars were plain glass with no frills. There was nothing impressive about them on the outside. When filled with sweet, sticky muskedine jelly, however, they became holders of great treasure.

We humans are all just jars. Some of us look really good on the outside. Some of us look rather plain. The important thing is what is on the inside. There's a lot of dirt and sludge inside us, until we find a source that can make us new inside. Jesus Christ does just that. He fills us with treasure, His treasure of the secret to living life to the full and never stopping!

As the verse at the beginning of this blog says, we are carring His treasure, but in jars of clay. In ancient timea, most everything was put into clay vessels, from olive oil to be shipped to foreign ports, to wine that was drunk by an individual. The disadvantage that what was inside was unseen. Clay is hardly transparent. Treasure or trash, it was hard to tell from the outside.

We are followers of Jesus Christ with a treasure within that can't be seen. What needs to be done to show that treasure others, which is the natural reaction to having something incredibly valuable.

One way is that this treasure can be poured out. You scream, "I can't do that! I'll lose it! It'll be wasted!" But God's economy is not the same as our economy. The last will be first and the first will be last. (Matthew 10:31) The more we give out, the more of Him we have. The goal is not to keep or accumulate, but to get to know God more and to share more of who He is. The more that is poured out,the more joy.

Jesus set the example for us when He loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Ephesians 5:2) We receive the most satisfaction when we do the same. The way to the ultimate meaning in life is to know Him and to give up all to Him. Again, the economy of God is one of receiving by letting go.

The other way to find out the contents of a clay jar was to break the jar. By being broken we can share the treasure with them most people. God is incharge of how we are broken and by what, but He also promises never to leave us. He weeps with us and holds us up. He becomes our strength and gives us His power. He gives us comfort far beyond what we could ever have experienced, had we never been broken.

He is there, holding us, entrusting us with His treasure. He can be trusted. He showed His love by giving everything ...for us.

He's Got My Back!

God leads us down bumpy roads with uniquely taylored twists and turns, designed just for us. When we are on the journey, it's often extremely difficult to understand why. Again, as in so many things, we have to trust His heart. He is looking at His specialized plan for each life, as He designs the road, and His plans for us are very, very good. (Jeremiah 29:11).

I am now on a road many have traveled, the path of back trouble. My special case began last summer when we moved our mother to assisted living. Sometime during the hauling of boxes, lamps and furniture, I sprained my back. Upon taking said back to the doctor, it was discovered that I have three or four arthritic knuckles in my spine. And that very spot is where all my weight centers when I stand.The doctor is working on complete healing of the area, as well as strengthening the muscles around the area, training them to take the load.

This particular design in my specially-designed road is significant because I can no longer stand for very long. I can walk, sit, kneel and lie down in comfort. But standing sets off inflamation in my lower back that causes pain and more therapy. I feel like I'm 102 years old when I sit, while everyone else stands in church. I'm no fun at all at a social gathering, having to find my parking space on a sofa or chair and stay there. I have to make passing conversations brief, since lingering and listening causes problems later.

This has been really, really irritating when I need to be with people. I love people. God made me, like my father, with a deep love for and desire to be around people. Communication is essential for me. It energizes me.

The limitation on the back is not just inconvenitent when I want so much to get up and talk when there are people around. I can't help my mother much any more. With an elderly person, much of what you do for them is to stand and hover. It takes them a long time to move. Sometines you stand and listen for a long time, while they think of what it is they want to say, or the rest of what they wanted to say. I love being around elderly people, but I can only come over, sit and talk now.

I have stayed home from church, parties, family gatherings, shopping and numerous other things, because they involved standing. I have found that Alleve doesn't work by way of great digestive discomfort. Over and over, I have said to God, "Why this? Why now?"

Trying to bend my will to what God has planned for me, I reluctantly did a word search for everywhere standing is important in the Bible. The most meaningful were as follows:

            Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today...
            The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still.
                                                                                                         Exodus 14:13-14

Applying this here and now, I need to stay in the place where I am and trust God. HE will work good
out of this, even if I don't see it. He'll eventually deliver me from the pain (no pain in Heaven, right?) but, in the meantime, He will fight for me.

            I waited patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry.
            He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire.
            He set my feet on a rock, and gave me a firm place to stand.
                                                                                                          Psalm 40:1-2

Again, I am to wait. He will hear me. He'll either lift me out of the slimy pit of pain, or He'll give me a way to grow more closely to Him in this time. Or BOTH!

            No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful.
            He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted,
            He will also provide a way out, so that you can stand up under it.
                                                                                                           I Corinthians 10:13 

It's tempting to whine and complain. It's tempting to focus only on myself. It's tempting to fall into despair. But here God promises that He won't give any more than I can bear. He will give a way out that I can stand up under.

Could it be more clear? He stands with me in the place I am. He is developing patience and who knows what else in me through this. He will give me a way to bear it. And, one way or the other, He will deliver me from the pain.

Isn't He wonderful?!!!

Hello, My Name is Barbara and...

I'll confess it here and now. I didn't watch the Super Bowl! I watched dozens of football games, night after night, weekend after weekend, this fall. I have heard hours and hours of earsplitting cheering. screaming and whistling. I have heard hours and hours of well-dressed former players/coaches describe play by play actions on the field, peppered with anecdotes about the players' lives. I have watched college or professional players smash into each other, get up and do it again, and again, and again. I have watched players injured and interviewed, penalized and praised. I have watched uniforms of every color of the rainbow, except pastels (though the Oregon Ducks have come closer to this than anyone else!).

And now I am home alone with the dog, while everyone else is off at THE party of the winter, while I ice my aching back.

I like the people at the party and people in general. I like dips, mini-hotdogs wrapped in crescent rolls and sweet snacks. I like the excitement of being at a place where others are excited. I like the screen that makes the players almost as large as life. I am sorry I missed all this.

But God in His mercy was good to me. Despite missing the atmosphere, the food and the people, despite the pain of my once-again-inflamed back, I DIDN'T HAVE TO WATCH FOOTBALL TONIGHT!

I adore my still-handsome husband. I respect the sport he has lived and breathed since seventh grade.  I want to support him in every way. There's no place I'd rather be on this planet than being with him, taking a walk or eating out. I even enjoy sitting in a room with him, just watching television. But, until next summer, IT WON'T BE FOOTBALL!!!!!!!!

Goodbye is Not Goodbye

Goodbye is Not Goodbye                                                                            Barbara Flanagan

My friend Connie has gone to be with the Lord. I picture Him opening His arms and holding her, saying, "I'm so glad you're home!" She really didn't have to suffer long, compared to what it could have been. But all that suffering is over.

She was brilliant. When she graduated from high school, her parents couldn't afford for her to go to college, she took the Civil Service exam. Her score was so high, she was immediately sent to Washington, DC, to work for a high government agency. She had interesting tales to tell of her time there, including a time when she discovered a plot to blow up the World Trade Center as it was being built!

Life was rocky after that, but she raised three gentlemanly, refined sons, practically by herself. She worked as an account, being very steady-on and detailed. You could set your watch by her, she was so punctual. She exuded a quiet strength, which was as strong as steel. Connie was extremely unassuming.

But the strongest thing about her was her faith in God. It was quietly displayed in everything she did. Her humility was sometimes taken as weakness by those in her past. But weakness it was not. She lived out Isaiah 30:15, “In quietness and trust shall be your strength."  

Connie deeply loved her family. She was especially close to her granddaughters. She felt that God had given her a daughter-in-law to live with who was just about perfect. Her son and daughter-in-law had taken her in to help with their young daughters, while her son traveled. This arrangement may have benefited them, but Connie felt like it was a total blessing for her. She loved being there with them.

I will miss her. but so will many others. Her quiet life touched the lives of so many people.  A person can have influence on this planet for a period of time, but I think it was Christ in her (Colossians 1:27) that gave her such an attraction to others. It was the gift of a wonderful, giving personality through which God worked.

Life has purpose. There is meaning in our daily existence. God takes what is black and white in the life of a person and infuses bright, rich colors of meaning. This was seen vividly in Connie's life. I am so glad that she was my friend.

Goodbye is not goodbye. I will see her again

Name Tags

Name tags seem to be a part of the working world of America. Some names are stitched on shirts. Some are attached with magnets. Some with pins. Some bear a company logo. Some are in cursive. Some in plain print. All stand for belonging, being part of that group.

Several years ago, I lost a job in which I had felt very valued and valuable. I got home and took off my name tag. As I held it in my hand, I found myself surprised that my name was still on it, next to the company logo. I had once belonged and now I didn't.

It is never this way with the Lord. We are His securely and forever. Isaiah tells us in the book in the Bible that bears his name, verse 16 of chapter 49, that we are written on the palms of His hands. The verse before this one promises us that He will never forget us. Even if a mother would have no compassion on her child, God will not forget us. Our names are tattooed, so to speak, where He can always see them.

In the same book of Isaiah, we are promised in chapter 43, verse 1, that God has called us by name. He knows my name and your name! He knows your icky middle name that you wish your mother hadn't given you. He know the first name that you aren't called but keeps popping up on mail and other computer-generated places. He knows the nickname the kids in the neighborhood had for you growing up. He knows the name you call yourself when you mess something up.

In Biblical times, a name had meaning. Parents named a child for events around their birth or for what trait they wished that child would have.Jacob, as is recorded in Genesis 25:26, was named for what went on during his birth. He came out holding onto his twin brother's heel. So his parents gave him a name that sounded like the word for "heel" in Hebrew. Evidently there was a common image at this time that pictured someone who was deceiving someone else as hanging onto his heel as he tricked him. And Jacob lived up to the name, tricking his brother out of the coveted birthright.  

If others could see inside us, they might have change in the name they called us. Maybe "Screw-up"or "Worry Wart," or "Coward," or "Traitor." But no matter what's name we might think we deserve for the mess that's deep inside us, God sees what's there and loves us.

He loves us so much that a relationship with his created beings was always what He desires the most. That relationship could never have happened (Great, powerful, holy God way out of ordinary, messed up man's reach) without something changing. A common denominator had to be established. The chemistry had to be changed in this oil and water situation. A common language had to be created, so to speak. A common meeting place had to be set up between the King who controls everything, and me and you, the needy peasants who have to admit that we can't control anything for long.  

God, in His ingenuous answer to this dilemma, sent a representative of Himself into the world. The common denominator was humanity. He represented both the oil of being a human being with the water of being a holy God. His language was love, but not fallible human love, but lasting, unbreakable love that only God could generate and sustain.

Jesus Christ, this representative, didn't come to earth to show us how it's done, like a do-it-yourself show on television. The common meeting place of God and man was not in the arena if self-effort where we look at His example and give it a try. The place which made it possible for God to meet man one-on-one was a cemetery. A place people only entered to carefully lay their loved ones to rest. Not the throne room of a palace. Not in a court of law where earthly power, which at this era in history was purely Roman, but location where a man was taken after his execution.

Why and how did an empty grave spark a reunion with a compassionate Father and His rebellious created beings? That criminal, in the eyes of those who had him killed, was totally innocent. Not just of the crimes that the angry mob shouted out, but of everything. He was sinless.

Each one of us, the created beings, are full of trash inside. We have messed up. We have hurt others and ourselves deeply. We have tried to be our own god, and we have failed.We have sinned.

This man, Jesus, died in our place. He suffered, so that we wouldn't have to. He with a clean record, voluntarily switched it with our long rap sheet. We ended up with a clean sheet. He ended up with all that we'd ever done on his record.

What is needed is that each of us admit that we each need Him. I needed a clean slate, when at the age of sixteen, I realized that He had been patiently waiting all my life for me to come to Him. All the pieces of the puzzle came together. I became His.

And so, I have a name tag that can never be taken away. There will never be a day when I will hold my name tag, which assures me that I am His precious child, in my hand and wonder why I don't belong anymore. I am His. And it doesn't depend on me. He is the one who put my name on His hand, where it can never be washed off. Not only do I think I'm valued and valuable to Him. I am. I belong.    

Where do you belong? Does the name on your shirt or your name tag describe who you really are? Are you written on the hand of the One who made you and loves you?

The Treasure

                                       But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that

   this all-surpassing power Is from God and not from us.

2 Corinthians 4:7

Waiting in the car for my husband to make a quick purchase at a store, I was full of self-pity. Why couldn’t I go inside and get lost in shelf after shelf of the materials with which my dreams would be built? Why couldn’t I go in and pour over paint colors and materials to kick my imagination into high gear for another project?  Why did I have to have a sprained back and stay off my feet here in the car? When was it ever going to heal?

Having nothing else to do, I watched people go in and out of the store. It was then that I saw them.

They were an elderly couple walking slowly. He was short and wore khaki pants and a brown jacket. She was large and had on purple sweatpants and a flowered blouse. His hair was grey. Hers was brown, though her face showed that many years had passed since that had been her natural color. She had a cane, which she leaned on, as she carefully stepped down the walk. He held her arm and helped her as she walked.

One step. Another. Then another. 

As they came closer our car, the woman looked down to scout out her next step.  Her bent head revealed a large bald spot, like a monk in centuries gone by. Otherwise attractive, the hairstyle only framed her face and neck. The rest of her head was devoid of hair!

I thought, “Oh poor woman! How horrible that must be!”

I watched them, fascinated by the bald spot that was by now quite visible. What would I do if that were me? How painful for her that must be!

But her face was one of tranquility, as she and her husband walked between cars a row over from me. The walking process continued to be slow. The bald spot continued to shine. But she  possessed the countenance of one fully content with life. I wondered why.

As if he were holding on to a treasured Stradivarius, the old gentleman held her arm and guided her. There was no doubt that he held her in high esteem, as he aided her in her arduous struggle to make it across the parking lot to the car. He would steal a glance at her now and then, with a look of admiration. In his mind he was not helping an elderly, almost bald woman across a parking lot. He was escorting a homecoming queen out onto the field, as she was making her promenade before the rest of the school. She was his girl. And his love made her feel  beloved and  special.

And then it dawned on me. This is how God sees us. We limp through life, wounded by our own decisions that cripple us and make us struggle. Things happen to us that are just part of living in this world so deeply occupied by the enemy of God. We have “bald spots,” so to speak. Created to be a beautiful reflection of Him, we instead look rather war-weary and used.

But, like the elderly man gazed at his aged wife, God looks at us, His children through eyes of love.He knows we are just “jars of clay,” yet He fills us with His Spirit. He is the treasure within us. Because we have chosen to be washed clean with the blood of His Son, we appear before him pure and spotless. He doesn’t see us as limping or shrink back in horror at our bald spots. We are beloved to Him.

 We can walk through tough circumstances with serenity. We, like the elderly lady, can have a look of utter contentment, a life of utter contentment. And all because God gazes at us, His beloved children, with eyes of love.  

As my husband returned to the car, I realized I had forgotten about my agony over my back pain. I had lost my self-pity. Instead, I felt a rich, deep sense of peace, the kind only God can give.

All I Have Was Given to Me

All I have of any worth was given to me by God. Events have no meaning unless put in the context of who God is and how He moves in this world. What happened to me or what happened to someone else is hollow and empty without the clear light of Truth shining on it. This is shown intensely when we think of our future home with Him.  

My friend Connie is dying. We are the same age. This terminal illness came as a total surprise. She had been having swelling in her hands and stomach pain for several months. What had originally been diagnosed as arthritis had ended up being stomach cancer.

After the surgery that got her digestive system to work again, I went to visit her. Her house is picturesque, one of those well-preserved jewels from the post-World War II era. It sits in a well-kept cove, where yards are neatly manicured.

As I walked up the path to her door, I thought about how we who know the Lord tend to expect our lives to be picturesque and neatly manicured, so to speak. We seem to think that belonging to the Him means a perfect existence. In young adulthood, or whenever we are hit with our first big disappointment, we’re startled. ”What’s this?” we want to say to God. “This isn’t part of the deal! How could You let this happen?”

Unless we run to God’s word and/or to the counsel of wise Christians, we can stay in this place of disappointment with God. Unless we remember the goodness of God and the promises that He will be there in trouble, we can move away from His warm Presence.

But I was about to be with someone who had not forgotten.  Connie met me at the door in fuzzy blue bathrobe that showed off her light blue eyes. Her face showed that she was very tired, but she smiled as she slowly led me to the sofa.

We talked a while about her family, the time she spend working in Washington, D.C. when she was young and how her surgery had gone. Then we were quiet, looking out her picture window at the snow.

“You know,” she said, “There’s really nothing in life but Him.” Her calm acceptance of what has suddenly come into her life is rooted in God. She has a rock solid trust that He holds the future. Most of all, He holds her.

She has moments of fear, moments of panic, but they are eased by His Word. His Presence is real, and He holds her in the pain. And she chooses to let Him hold her and rock her and cry with her.
I have told her that I want to go on the journey with her. I want to know Jesus in a deeper, richer way. I want to share her approach to heaven, to being with Him intensely and forever. After all, I will be going on that journey too, at the time appointed for me. I, too, with leave this world with all that is familiar to me and run into His arms. He will look me full in the face, as He will Connie, and say, “Welcome, daughter! I am so glad you are home!”