If I Hadn't Seen It for Myself...

I don't believe my seventh grade Creative Writing teacher ever gave such an assignment, but it will stretch every literary muscle I have to describe to you the scene that unfolded the other night. So, let 'r rip, Tater Chip:

I heard the crash. Well, it wasn't really a CRASH! like I would have expected. It definitely wasn't a THUD. Maybe, more like a clatter. We had just finished dinner. Scott was taking out some trash. I was carrying Mom's water into the other room for her. "C'mon in here, Helen," I had instructed her, just as I do all throughout the day. We have taken to calling her "Helen," because her memories of being "Nana" faded a long while ago, and she only occasionally remembers she is "Mom." I figure, she has always been Helen, best to go with that. Anyhoo, I'd just set her cup down and figured I'd check the front porch for my package while waiting for Mom to be seated. As I said, I heard the clatter and assumed she'd knocked over some of my books or one of my tchotchkes. "What now?" I sighed, and casually finished locking up the front door before I headed back to the kitchen. The thought of her falling had never crossed my mind. The sound didn't even come close to being that nauseating. But there she was, collapsed on the floor behind her chair which was askew and wedged -- and I do mean wedged-- between the corner of the table and ?thin air? Seriously, I have know idea how it had become wedged or, even, why. It was a physical anomaly. Then there was Mom. She was resting on her right hip. Are you with me yet? Are you thinking, "This is the beginning of the end"? 'cause I sure was. Anyone knows a broken hip for a ninety-one year old person is a harbinger of-- well, the worst. My stomach churned. She had fallen against a buffet that runs along our kitchen wall, and was pinned in front by her chair which, as I said, was pinned by the table and nothing. Lifting her so as not do further damage to her or injure the torn labrum I've been nursing for lo these many years, appeared impossible. Assessing her injuries without getting her from that location seemed equally impossible. Just at the end of the buffet is a sort of table top with a sharp corner begging to inflict some sort of bump or laceration. I checked Mom's head. All good. She was moving her legs. Even better. I squeezed as much of my body as I could between Mom and the buffet, and placing the bend of my arm under her shoulders, I began to gently take weight from her hip. No cries or yelps --from either of us-- so it was time to get her to find some traction. She was able to get her knees in front of her and her feet planted, and slowly, carefully she rose in some demented dance as I "spotted" her to ensure she remained steady. Together we walked to the sofa, and there, my story ends.

The rest is all up to you. You see, I understand how bad this could have been. I understand the mercy we received in avoiding any injury. I understand the grace shown to us by being able to get Mom up safely and having Scott nearby if I couldn't. I get it. I was there. But if you're anything like I was for a very long time, (and, on occasion, still revert to being) you have to see it, smell it, touch it --perhaps, not exactly taste it, but you have to experience it for yourself to know just who God is and what He will do. Don't feel bad, one of Jesus' disciples, Thomas, had the same issue. But Jesus didn't chastise him; He doesn't chastise us. He isn't threatened by our unbelief, He just wants our belief. He wants our eyes to be opened and our hearts to be soft. He wants us to come to Him and be saved. And when we have those moments of doubt, those moments when we're not quite sure He is with us, He wants us to cry out, "I believe, but help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24). 

And He'll show you things you might never believe otherwise!

8:05 and So Much He Is Due!

So, during this hiatus of the last few months, folks have asked about my writing. The truth is, I hadn't stopped writing at all; I'd merely stopped taking the time and concentration required to publish. (Some scribblings in my journal tend to be more effortless than making sense of things for readers, working to protect the privacy of others, and providing references and notes to back what I've written.) But the writing has continued, often times in the form of prayers. For instance, today's was this:

Good morning, Jesus. Thank You for the morning, my favorite time of day --so many possibilities and the clock is set to zero: all day to do what I need to do, what I want to get done. Now, if I can just give that to You, if morning can become an empty slate rather than an overflowing list of things to do, if I can accept the "failures" that will come as eagerly as I accept the "victories." If I can breathe You in from the time the first light peeks through the trees until my head sinks into my pillow and my eyelids fall like lead; if I can listen instead of talk, follow instead of lead (or so I think), obey humbly instead of trying to do this one last thing... If I would set my love on You, know Your name, and call on You, the intentions that fill the morning to its brim would not be the defeats that keep me awake at night, the troubles of tomorrow would not taunt me today, the tasks --or, even, the task-- I accomplish today will be well won, for I will have done as You will, I will have given what You are due: all of time.

I love morning, I really do. Things start off slowly, peacefully. I spend my time listening to the Lord. I plan the things I'd like to accomplish I over plan a bunch of stuff. And the clock-watching begins. My heart begins to race. My jaw tenses. I rework the plan, shaving off seconds here, cutting some details there. The list even gets longer when I realize just how much time I can save! But the slow, the peace, the listening evaporates with the morning dew. Possibilities become burdens. The clock set to zero sneers at me with each second that ticks off. I am no longer the master of my schedule, I am its slave; I am ruled by time.

We were never meant to be ruled by anything but the Peace of God, Jesus Christ. How foolish of us to be controlled by something that was given to us as a gift: time, opportunities! We are God's masterpiece, and He has set aside plenty for us to do --good things. We are to walk in them, not by them or for them, but in the way of good deeds that God has planned. Walking, as God walked in the Garden of Eden. Can you picture Him running through, looking for Adam, not finding him, and thinking, "I don't have time for this. I'll have to try back later." Walking as Christ walked to Calvary: slowly, even stumbling, with every ounce of energy He had, wracked with pain, but wholly obedient.

I pray we all give Him His due today and every day.

As His Story Unfolds

It is hard to believe, more than a year has passed since I "retired." Notice the quotation marks? Life has been nothing like I thought it would be. The visions of retired life dancing in my head as I walked out of work that last morning included long, leisurely cups of coffee on the deck, hours of reading and crossword puzzles. I dreamed of my own words in print (and a paycheck to show for them), of days talking to and listening for God to speak: "Taste and see the Lord is good" (Psalm 38:4) would happen over lunch with an old friend; "Encourage one another and build one another up" (1 Thes. 5:11) would result in hours of writing out cards filled with hope and praying for those who would receive them. Wonderful plans, good plans! *record scratch* Most haven't happened.

Suffice to say, it's been busy. Children moving in and out and about the country, and the remodels and readjustments that go with all of that. Endless preparations for a life change Scott and I have felt lead to pursue. Mom's decreasing abilities and increasing confusion. We seem to clear one hurdle, hit our stride, and BAM! another hurdle. Outside of two brunch dates and several hastily scribbled cards, none of my plans have transpired. And the writing thing? Within six months of retirement, every attempt to carve out time and a place for me to write seriously had failed. God had shut it all down.  

I'm going to be completely transparent here. Before I really tried to find out what God was doing, things got ugly. I blamed myself: I've got to stop being a pushover; I cave so I'm not the bad guy, but I'm not being good to me. I really need to make these people do for themselves. I blamed others: Let them make their own dinner! Better yet, why can't they make me dinner? I care for everyone else; who cares for me? I blamed God: You're supposed to take care of me! You told me to write --even told me to retire to do it, but now there's all this stuff going on. Is this some kind of joke? 

Scripture says a lot about perseverance and enduring hardship. We're commanded to trust God; He will get us through trials so we can do what He has called us to do. But there's a difference between persistent and petulant; there's a difference between doing what God wants in His way, and following my own path. The minute I began assigning blame, the minute my frustration and selfishness prevented me from serving gladly in the ways He'd called me to serve before --as a daughter, a mother, a wife-- I knew I'd crossed that line. It was time to stop insisting and time to start confessing. Father, I'm confused as to what You want me to do. I'm the one who doesn't understand, and I believe I have stolen Your plans and made them my quest. It was time to stop pushing and time to start searching. God, what is it You are trying to do? It was time to stop demanding and time to start yielding. Where You lead me, Daddy, I will follow.

In the months ahead, I hope to tell you all He's been doing. "Retirement" has taken me on a journey of healing and discovery. If God allows, I will continue to write here and give Him His due as much as I am able. If not, one thing He has made abundantly clear: this is His story and I've got to write it His way.

The Tomb

My dad is buried in a clock. Well, not quite, but that has been the running joke in our family for years. When Dad passed, Mom had his ashes placed in a mantel clock. There have been all sorts of "irreverencies" like my children calling it their "Grandfather clock," or one-liners about it being Dad's time to go. Mom, however, will be buried with her family in a cemetery not far from here, a place that is both sad and comfortable. Mom was the baby in a large family, and had me later in life, so aunts, uncles, grandparents were aging and passing on from the time I was a young child. The cemetery reminds me of my childhood as much as it reminds me of grief. Death has walked in and out of my life as freely and as familiarly as a friend. Death is a transition and for some, by God's grace, a joyously anticipated shuffling off of a mortal coil.

Matthew 28:1-7, records the events of Jesus' resurrection. This might even be one of those passages that, were you to encounter it during your daily reading, you might just gloss over it. Read it once, read it a thousand times, right? But this morning, I was stopped by verse 1: 

"Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb."

They came to see the tomb. The tomb. Speaking from experience, most people when they go to place flowers on a grave or remember a loved one, say they are "going to talk to Dad," or "I'm going to put flowers on Mom's grave." There is a sense of ownership, personalization. This is not just the tomb, it is his tomb or her tomb, their place of rest. That's not the case in Matthew's Gospel -- nor in any other, for that matter. Every record of The Resurrection in the Gospels refers to the tomb. Until God, through the Gospel writers, discloses the entire story -- The Resurrection -- no one mentions it was Jesus who had been in the tomb. Not until speaking of where Jesus had been is His name mentioned. 

I am guilty of, for the sake of brevity, referring to Jesus' tomb. Praise God, it is just the tomb! Jesus' association with the tomb was temporary, momentary. It was not His then and it isn't His now!