Archive for the 'Faith' Category

Strutting Away. Not In The Bible.

June 26, 2008 | Faith, Parenting Gone Awry, Snips And Snails

There’s a particular little boy that Sean plays with sometimes who I would describe as “all boy”.  He is a bit more rough and tumble than Sean and uses language that we don’t use  try not to use don’t approve of at our house.

 

Periodically, Sean will tell me he doesn’t like playing with Billy and then gives me an earful of what kinds of things this little guy says.  With great judgment and condemnation Sean reports that Billy calls him a poo poo head and says idiot and butt and that he doesn’t like that.

 

He looks to me for agreement.

 

I can see in his face he wants me to jump on his bandwagon and say, “Yeah! That Billy!”  But I don’t say it. Out loud.  He then folds his arms across his chest with a harrumph, furrows his brow and pokes out his bottom lip to demonstrate the disdain he has for Billy.

 

I stop what I’m doing and look into his face.  “Well Sean, some people use those kinds of words, but we don’t.  We don’t think those are nice words,” I tell him.

 

“Well I’m not going to play with him anymore!” he says and harrumphs his arms to his chest again, this time adding a little foot stomp for effect.

 

“You know Sean, sometimes it’s better to continue to play with someone and just try to be a good example by being kind and not using ugly words,” I tell him.  As I say this, I realize it’s asking a lot of a four-year-old.  

 

And then I add, “But sometimes, you just have to find someone else to play with.”

 

He considers this for a moment.

 

“Well the next time he calls me a poo poo head, I’m just going to strut away!”

 

The mental image of Sean Travolta strutting across the playground made me laugh.

 

And then the mental image of a strutting Christian made me queasy.

 

Snagged

June 23, 2008 | Always Real, Faith

When I started dating Antique Daddy, every time we had a date, I would run out and buy a new outfit.

 

I wanted him to really really like me.  How could he possibly really really like me if I were wearing something he had seen me wearing before?  I wanted to look my best and wearing something new made me feel good and made me feel confident.

 

As I got ready for the She Speaks conference in North Carolina, I of course wanted to buy a new outfit because I wanted everyone to really really like me. I wanted to look my best and feel confident.  Going to this conference was like going on a date with 550 women.  As I type these words, I am fully aware of how crazy that sounds but I also know, ladies, that you know of what I speak.

  

The month before the conference, I went to my sister-in-law Annette who has a fabulous boutique filled with gorgeous things and she fixed me up with a nice business casual outfit — a Nic and Zoe crocheted sweater and matching pants.  The sweater was a splurge, but it was perfect for the conference because first and foremost, it was cute. Second, it’s always cold in the hotels but hot outside, so layering was a good choice. 

 

For the month before the conference my expensive Nic and Zoe sweater hung in my closet and I gazed lovingly upon it. Sometimes I would even walk clear across the house to my closet just to look at it, like I was checking on sleeping baby.  I would imagine myself striding confidently around the Charlotte Embassy Suites where publishers and agents would throw themselves at my feet with book contracts  — because certainly anyone wearing a sweater as cute as that should be given a book contract.  That’s how it works in the world of publishing. I think that’s how it happened for J.K. Rowling.

 

On the big day of the conference, I did wear the sweater and it was cute and it kept me warm in cold hotel.  But it snagged on everything but air.  It snagged on my purse, it snagged on my bag, it snagged on the clasps on my pants, it snagged on my folder and my ink pen.  I don’t know how many times I had to beg the poor soul sitting next to me to separate me and my sweater from whatever it had glommed onto.  By the end of the day, this sweater looked like something the lawn mower had spit out. 

 

But I really didn’t care.  Although my sweater was frayed, my confidence was intact.  You see, I learned long ago that while I enjoy new and pretty things, sweaters and the other things of this world will sooner or later, ravel and fray, disappoint and fail.  Even people who not only really really like me but love me, will ultimately fail me – if for no other reason than that someday they will die.

 

My confidence comes not from what I wear but from the knowledge of Whose I am.

 

 

Albuquerque

June 8, 2008 | Antique Childhood, Faith

When I was five-years-old, my parents and I drove to southern California from Illinois in their light green unairconditioned Oldsmobile. 

 

I remember quite a bit about being in California and later, the train ride back to Illinois with my mother, but I don’t remember anything at all about the long drive to California except that we stopped and spent the night in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

 

As a five-year-old, everything about being in Albuquerque was a new and electrifying sensory experience.  Even the name – Albuquerque! — was exotic and lyrical and fun to say.

 

As I walked with my parents from the motel to a nearby diner I remember that I felt like Dorothy when she woke up and found that the tornado had dropped her house in Oz — I wasn’t in Illinois anymore.  Instead of the familiar horizontal stripes of yellow cornfields and blue sky, this landscape was a hounds tooth pattern of oranges and pinks and browns and other kinds of browns all swirling and mixing together.

 

While we were eating, a sand storm blew in and when we stepped outside of the diner, hot wind and gritty sand pelted my face and threatened to blow me away.  My dad grabbed one of my hands and my mom the other and then they leaned shoulder into the wind and pressed towards the motel.

 

As we made our way across the street, each step a staggering effort, a gust of wind blew both of my feet completely out behind me. I clearly remember, at that moment, the sensation of flying.  I remember the feel of the scorching wind slapping my face and the tingling stinging blast of sand on my bare legs and the grainy pixels of desert colors I could see through squinted eyes.

 

As my feet flew out behind me, I was not afraid of the mighty gritty wind, but exhilarated.  I was fearless.  I knew my parent’s hands that were gentle and comforting were also capable and strong and reliable.  I was secure in the knowledge that neither they nor their grip would fail me.  And because of that I was able to fly without fear, not just in that storm, but in many storms to come.

 

 

Don’t Carry A Flashlight. Be A Flashlight.

May 12, 2008 | Faith, Makes Me Sigh

Last week, Antique Daddy and Sean and I were in the car and we drove past a house that had burned down.  This concerned Sean.

“I hope our house isn’t on fire when we get home,” he said, worried.

“Well Sean, even if it were, we are all here in the car together and that’s all that really matters.  All that is in the house is just stuff. We don’t really need it.”

I took the opportunity to reinforce one of my favorite New Testament stories.

“You know what Jesus told the apostles when he sent them out to preach the Gospel?  Don’t take anything with you.”

“Not even a flashlight?” he asked.

I laughed at the image of the apostles carrying a flashlight into the darkness.

And then I sighed.

I never know if I am the teacher or the student.

A Decision

April 28, 2008 | Always Real, Faith, Papa Ed

I am fascinated by stories of people who manage to survive in the most extreme and unimaginable conditions.  When I hear those stories, I wonder what it is in them that keep them hanging on and I wonder if I have it in me.

 

Sometimes, when I imagine that I’ve accidentally fallen off a cruise ship, I don’t really see myself treading water for days at a time.  If faced with bobbing up and down in freezing waters, I would probably take the easy way out and allow myself to slip away.  I would be happy to move along to the next life sooner rather than later as opposed to suffering for any extended period of time.  I am not afraid of what lies beyond.  I know where I am going when this life is over.

 

On the other hand, I really like my life and am in no hurry to leave it all behind.

 

About 14 years ago, I was in danger of drowning, not in an ocean but in my own sorrow.  Like a person lost at sea, I felt hopeless – without hope, not one ray of sunshine could I find.  I couldn’t see that life would ever be good again.  I started thinking that maybe it would just be easier to slip under the waters, to yield to the darkness.  All the while everyone was saying, “You are amazing!  You are so strong!”  I didn’t understand that.  How could they not see how desperate I was?

 

During that time, my dad came out to Texas to hang out with me.  Unlike everyone else, maybe he sensed that I wasn’t holding it together as well as it appeared from the outside because one day he sat me down and told me about a story he had read about a girl who was lost in a great forest.  He said that every day she would climb the tallest tree she could find and she would shout at the top of her lungs, “I am a survivor! I will survive!”  And then she would listen for her own voice echoing back, “I will survive I will survive I will survive…”   Eventually she was rescued or found her way out of the forest, I don’t recall.

 

I don’t know if my dad really read that story or if he just made it up on the spot, but on that day, I became the girl who climbed a tree every day, shook her fist at the world and shouted, “I will survive!”  On that day and in that moment, I made a decision to carry on, to go on and live and to live well.

 

A decision — the difference between life and death. That is the certain something that survivors have in common. 

On Wings Like Eagles

April 26, 2008 | Faith

“…those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary…”

 

~ Isaiah 40:31

 

 

No Glory

April 23, 2008 | Faith

I have spent the last two days sprucing up my yard.  Everywhere I look, something needs to be done – flower beds need to be weeded and cleaned, gutters need to be cleaned out, dead limbs need to be removed, bushes need to be trimmed and everything needs to be fertilized  There is no end in sight to the work that needs to be done in this yard.  If I were inclined to give up my blog and my child, I could make a career out of working in this yard.

 

Late this afternoon, as I gathered up my lawn tools for the day, I stood back and looked around at all I had done over the past two days.  I was filthy dirty, I had not one decent fingernail left, my bones ached and my spine was weary.   Except for several bags of lawn debris, the sad truth was that no one standing at the edge of the yard would ever know the difference.  I hadn’t planted a big tree or installed a fountain or done anything splashy.  Everything looked about the same, albeit a bit tidier if you cared to look closely.  No one is going to look closely.  There was not one drop of glory to salve my aching bones and weary spine.

 

No matter. It needed to be done, even if no one notices.

 

No glory.  As I put my gardening tools away, it occurred to me that that pretty much sums up Christian service.  Everywhere you look something needs to be done. And though you might work until you can’t stand up straight and your fingernails are so dirty they’ll never come clean, probably no one will even notice.

 

That is, if you are doing it right. 

 

Not to us, O Lord, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness.  Psalm 115:1 

Aunt Dean

March 6, 2008 | Faith, Family Stories

Last Wednesday morning we got the phone call that we had been expecting. Aunt Dean had been sick for well over a year, several years really, and Wednesday morning she slipped away from us and began the life that she had spent more than 80 years preparing for – eternal life.

Death is tragic, even when expected, yet for Aunt Dean I can’t help but feel a sense of victory, the kind of victory I’ve read about in the Bible, but don’t fully understand – the victory over death that Jesus promises to those who take up his cross and follow him. I know a lot of people who talk about taking up the cross, of dying to self, but other than Aunt Dean, I don’t really know that many people who actually do it. Certainly not me.

While many of us are in a quandary about what our spiritual gifts are and wonder what God wants us to do with our lives, Aunt Dean just saw what needed to be done around her and did it.

She welcomed the outcast, took in those who needed a home, fed those who were hungry, prayed for those who needed prayer, comforted those who suffered and encouraged those who were discouraged. And she did it all quietly and without fanfare.

So then, Saturday morning we returned Aunt Dean to the earth from which she came. Under impossibly blue skies and with the sweet promise of spring in the air, we cried over her with her children.  And we grieved, not so much for her, but for ourselves.

Photo Temporarily Unavailable

Aunt Dean with Sean in 2004. She stood only four feet and eleven inches tall but was a giant among believers.

Seasick

February 14, 2008 | Always Real, Faith, Medical Mysteries

Tuesday, I had my boat rocked.

In my life, I’ve had my boat rocked many a time. I’m a tough gal. I’m a high-cope person. I am good in a crisis. But yesterday was different. Yesterday it wasn’t about me, it was about my child. And it sent me overboard.

Tuesday morning, Antique Daddy and I took Sean in for his four-year check-up, which unfortunately includes four vaccinations. I was dreading having to put him through the four shots, but as a family that embraces pharmacology, it had to be done. (Your philosophy on vaccinations may be different than mine, feel free to discuss it on your blog.)

Since it was just shots, I agreed to see the nurse-practitioner. Go ahead and judge me now, I prefer the doctor. I’m a doctor snob. One reason I prefer the doctor to the nurse practitioner is because the doctor is not 6’4 and 85 pounds. He does not wear pointy-toed stiletto heels and expensive dry-clean only sweaters to see children who might puke without notice. Her clothing choices do not say “I love children!” Her clothing choices send a mixed message and confuse me. Therefore I am wary of her.

The regular nurse takes his blood pressure and does all the regular stuff and then hands me a plastic cup and orders me to get a urine sample from the patient. So I dutifully take Sean to the restroom and he happily complies as if there is nothing more fun one could do than pee in a cup and put it in a little window. “Can we do this at home?” he asks.  No.

We went back to the exam room and continued with an impromptu Tonka road rally and waited.  All was well and the seas were calm.  A little glint of sun peeked through the windows.

The semi-doctor breezes into the room, stepping through the Tonka road rally in her stiletto pumps and plops down in a chair and announces with no warning that Sean has a sugar count of 2000 in his urine, that he’s an insulin-dependent diabetic, that we need to gather up our stuff and rush to the Children’s hospital emergency room and have him admitted where they can start doing tests and that he will need an insulin pump for the rest of his life and I will have to finger-stick him to check his blood sugar several times a day.

As I’m trying to take in all this information, I’m watching Sean happily bouncing around the room, the picture of health in every way. And that’s when the room listed to one side. On another day, when I was feeling well, I would have put the brakes on. But I am at the tail end (I hope) of a nearly month-long bronchial infection and my reserves are low. In my weakened state, I just sat there with my mouth open and stared at her.

With all the energy I could muster, which was none, I feebly offer that maybe it was the blueberry muffin he ate that morning or some Valentine candy from the day before.

“No,” she dismisses me, “That might raise it to 200, but not 2000 blah blah blah the sky is falling blah…” After that I couldn’t hear anything other than that ch-ch-ch sound of my blood marching in my ears. And then she left the room to call her mother and proudly report the exciting diagnosis she just made. At that point, I felt like I was being burned at the stake. Heat started steadily rising from my torso to my head. The room started spinning and I had to decide whether to throw up or pass out. And so I knelt down on the floor to make either option more convenient. 

The regular nurse came in and asked me if I was okay. I said, no, I did not think I was okay and that I needed to lie down. She suggested that I lay on the exam table, so I crawled up there and curled up in a little ball and willed the room to stop spinning. Sean, who is oblivious to all of the drama happening around him, stops sailing a Tonka truck across the floor and climbs up on the table and curls up beside me. He kisses my cheek and pats my side. “I will take care of you Mommy,” he offers. How ironic. I can’t think. I can’t feel anything except the sensation of fire.

Twenty or thirty minutes or hours pass, I’m not sure which. I no longer have a grasp on time. The not-quite-a-doctor and the regular nurse have an argument discuss how to get blood work back STAT. The regular nurse, the one with some sense, sends us to another facility to have blood drawn before we go to Children’s. She hands me paperwork. This is good. I have something in my hands that I can do. I manage to pull myself together enough to check out and get to the car, but the sensation that I’m on fire and my legs are made of jello persists.

We go to the next place and get blood drawn, which on a four-year-old, is almost as fun as four shots in the same day. And then we go home and wait for several hours for the phone to ring. We cherish the next several hours because we don’t know if they will be the last four hours of our previously normal life. We play, we pray. Priorities are reordered.

Three hours later, the nurse-practitioner calls and reports that his blood sugar is as normal as can be. She tells us that she has talked to the endocrinologist at Children’s and that he suggests that the elevated sugar in the urine is a stress response to a recent ear infection.

So then.  The semi-doctor yelled “Boo!” and is now calling to say “Just kidding!”  I feel slightly relieved, but not. I want to break her 85-pound frame in two just the same.  She wants us to come back in for a retest of his urine later in the week and another blood draw next week, but in the meantime to go on with life as normal.  I’m not sure how to do that as I don’t normally live in the shadow of a giant scary question mark.

In the meantime, I remind myself that no matter the outcome, that we will cope. That if we have to, we will deal with this as families all over the world do and have.  In the meantime, I remind myself that my God is with me always, no matter how badly my boat is rocking. 

Sometimes You Get That For Which You Have Asked

February 8, 2008 | Faith, Snips And Snails

Last month I wrote an introspective post about how I want Sean to own his faith. That it is my prayer and my desire that though his own life experiences and the process of critical thinking, he come to own his faith rather than merely inherit mine.

Apparently God heard my prayer and went right to work.

Every once in a while, perhaps when the moon is full or there is something itchy in the air, kids are just insanely energetic.  Wednesday night was like that.  When I dropped Sean off at his Bible class, the room was swarming with screaming, laughing, running insane three and four-year-olds. And one shell-shocked grown-up standing in center of the melee wearing a glazed over expression. 

When I offered to stay and help, she shook her head vigorously yes and then wiped the drool from the corner of her mouth.  That’s not true.  That was me, I was the one with the drool.  Ms. Deanna is a pro with those kids, but she was quick to accept my offer to help.

Ms. Deanna had those miniature maniacs sweet little blessings rounded up in no time and gathered quietly around her.  Sean adores Ms. Deanna and had managed to secure a prime piece of real estate, right under her feet where he could better gaze upon her with adoration. 

My job was to sit in the back and catch anyone who tried to make an escape.

Ms. Deanna told the story of how the angel came to Mary and told her she would be the mother of God’s child.  All the children were in awe and silence fell over the room as she showed them a picture of the angel and Mary.

And then with a wrinkled nose, my critical thinker pipes up, “Well that’s kinda weird!”

Indeed, it is kinda weird.

Almost everything he is going to read in the Bible is kinda weird and that is the hurdle of faith for the critical thinker.

What Is Your Life?

February 3, 2008 | Faith, Photo Essays

You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. ~ James 4:14

An Inherited Faith

January 13, 2008 | Faith

The other day as I was getting Sean ready for church, I stood him up on a chair so that I could comb his hair.

“How many eyes does God have?” he asked.

“Well, um, let’s see,” I stammered, caught off guard. Like many people, the image I have in mind of God is somewhat like Santa Claus in pajamas.

“The Bible says that we are made in God’s image. Since we have two eyes it would stand to reason that he has two eyes. So that’s what I think. But I don’t really know for sure, no one has ever seen God.”

He twisted his mouth to one side as he considered this.

“Well then how does he see everything we’re doing?” he countered. “I think he has 42.”

“You could be right,” I said.

And then he jumped off the chair and showed me how he could hop backwards on one foot.

As I watched this funny little boy hopping, wobbling, falling over and starting again, I realized that I didn’t want him to just accept what I told him about God.

I don’t want him to simply inherit my faith on a silver platter.  More than anything, I want him to have the heart of a seeker. I want him to wrestle with God. I want him to search for the truth, to be a critical thinker. I want him to challenge what the world will tell him about God. I want him to come to a decision about his creator on his knees, through his own reckoning, maybe through his own suffering and disappointment, as every generation must.

And in doing so, his faith may not look exactly like mine.

May God grant me the grace to accept that.

Hands

January 9, 2008 | Always Real, Faith, Makes Me Sigh

The other night, in the wee small hours of the morning, I tiptoed into Sean’s room to check on him. I’m way beyond the days of checking on him 3 or 4 or 20 times a night to see if he is still breathing as I did those first several months of his life. Yet sometimes, something invisible gently stirs me into wakefulness and calls me to his room in the middle of the night to look at him.

Sure enough all was well. His little boy form, bathed in the amber glow of the nightlight lay peaceful and motionless.

As I turned to leave, I heard him whisper, “Mommy, will you lay down with me?”

“Sean, I didn’t know you were awake. Why are you awake?”

“Will you?” he pleaded with a desperate catch in his voice, “Will you please lay down with me? For a little while?”

“Sure” I said. “Move over.”

And so he did.

I should say here, that the bed Sean sleeps in is not really a big boy bed or even a youth bed. It is basically a crib six inches off the ground. It is so tiny it is straight out of The Three Bears and I am Goldilocks. If I contort myself just right I can snuggle up with him in this tiny bed. If I lay there much longer than 20 minutes, I can’t feel any of my limbs or walk upright the next day, but it’s a small price to pay, temporarily paralysis in exchange for snuggling.

I wedged myself in beside him. With his head tucked under my chin, he squirmed and squiggled and shifted until he had sufficiently pressed his bony backside into my tummy, just as he did in the days that I carried him in my body. He reached around for my hand and pulled it across him like a belt and then he wove his fingers between mine.

“Here’s the church,” he yawned. “Here’s the steeple….”

And then he gave up, too tired to continue.

Then, with his other hand, he covered our interlaced fingers. It struck me as an odd thing for a four-year-old to do. It was an old man sort of thing to do, this nestling of my hand, like a bird, into his two small hands.

Photo Temporarily Unavailable

In the thinning morning darkness, I watched him stroke and pet our clasped hands as he drifted back to sleep. I flashed upon that day in 2003 when I first saw his hands on the sonogram – tiny, shaky, translucent fingers reaching for the light of this world and then shielding his eyes from the harshness of it.

I thought of how those little hands reached out for me as he took his first unsteady steps. I wondered how many more times he will seek my hand. Before he won’t. Dear God, bless me, that I might always be there to hold his hand and steady him as he goes, for as long as he needs me.

Then I flashed forward to the appointed day when that one clear call is for me. And on that day, it will be my shaky, translucent fingers that reach for the light of the next world and then shield my eyes from the glory of it. Dear God, bless me, that he might be there to hold my hand and steady me as I go into that great goodnight.

In that moment, and just for that moment, I felt as though I understood something of eternity.

Finally his hands stopped moving. He had fallen back to sleep. I slowly extricated myself from the tiny boy and the tiny bed. I stood over him for a moment, praying over him, that goodness and mercy will surely follow him all the days of his life.

I never tire of looking at him.

I hobbled back to bed.

The Little Boy Who Sleeps In the Crib

January 6, 2008 | Antique Daddy, Faith

Guest Post by Antique Daddy

As I was going through my files from my old computer, I came across an email from which the following was excerpted.  It was written by Antique Daddy when Sean was about a year old back in 2004.  His words serve as a much needed reminder that both time and life are fleeting, delicate, miraculous and inexplicably intertwined. And that these things belong not to me, but to the one who created them.

* * *

Late every night, long after Sean has gone to sleep, I make my way through the darkness and quiet of the house to his room to check on him. Through the faint glow of the nightlight, I look down on his sleeping face. I touch his little fingers. I put my hand on his little head. I look and listen to see that he is breathing. I think about the life that is in him and the life that he will lead.

I put my hand on his tiny chest as it rises and falls and I say a prayer of thanksgiving for the miracle that God has performed. I thank God for taking what the doctors had said was impossible and making it possible. I thank Him for answering the prayers I offered in the dark of night, when I would awaken and feel the emptiness of knowing I would never have a child.

Those prayers were not just that He perform the miracle of allowing a child to be conceived, but that He would form that child whole and safe in the womb, that he would write His name on his forehead, that he would form in him, the heart of a servant, that He would only do all this on the provision that this child would be dedicated to His kingdom.

I raise my hands in praise and I thank Him from the depths of my being and vow that I will praise Him and thank Him all the days of my life for this little boy who sleeps in this crib.

Photo Temporarily Unavailable

Sleeping Miracle -  Jan. 2005

 

Angels Sang

December 24, 2007 | Faith

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby,

Hark! The herald angels sing

keeping watch over their flocks at night

Glory to the newborn king

An angel of the Lord appeared to them

Peace on earth and mercy mild

and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.

God and sinners reconcile

But the angel said to them, Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.

Joyful, all ye nations rise

Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.

Join the triumph of the skies

This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.

With the angelic host proclaim

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel

Christ is born in Bethlehem!

praising God and saying Glory to God in the highest!

Hark! The herald angels sing

And on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.

Glory to the newborn King!

 

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.

Luke 2:8-15

Weekly Reader Theology

October 6, 2007 | Faith

On Friday, Sean came home from school with a Weekly Reader in his backpack about apples.  I felt a gush of nostalgia for the days of yore.  I loved Weekly Reader when I was a kid.  I couldn’t wait to open it up and get a whiff of that inky smell.

I set him up on the breakfast bar and asked him about it. 

He opened it up facing me and held it under his chin like a little teacher and then began his presentation.

“Flowers grow on the tree and then die,” he said carefully, pointing to the second picture.

“And then little apples grow bigger and bigger,” pointing to the third and fourth picture.

“And then you pick them and you can make pie!” he said triumphantly.

“That’s great!” I said. I was really impressed with his presentation skills, but I noticed he had skipped the first picture which showed a halved apple with seeds.

“But what about this picture?  How do the seeds work?” I asked expecting a lesson on planting and watering.

“God doos that part,” he said.

Indeed.

Mrs. Titus Could Probably Throw A Big Wheel Like Nolan Ryan

August 14, 2007 | Faith

Awhile back I attended what was called a Titus 2 meeting at church.  Titus 2 is a passage of Scripture that admonishes the older women to instruct and mentor the younger women.  With that in mind, a panel of three older women spoke to a gathering of so-called younger women to share a bit of the wisdom they had cobbled together over the course of their lives as Christians, wives and mothers.

 

I have always been drawn to older people, older women in particular. They seem to provide something that is lacking in me, wisdom I suppose.  Or maybe I’m still seeking the grandmother I never had.  I don’t know.

 

The ladies who spoke all appeared to be model church ladies  – soft spoken, perfect beauty salon hair, silver-framed glasses, crisply and modestly dressed, legs crossed at the ankles.

 

I was surprised by what I heard that night.  One lady told the story of a time when she was a young mother and her two children had gotten into the baby lotion and baby powder and then gleefully hand trowelled the paste of sweet smelling goo everywhere.  And oh how she laughs about it now.  But not at the time. At the time, it was not one bit funny.

 

In her sweet Sue Ann Nivens voice, she confessed that she got so angry with them, that she spanked them.  And then as she was on her hands and knees cleaning up the mess, she got angry all over again and spanked them a second time.  The crowd gasped.  One audience member asked, “A second spanking for the same offense!?”  I did not gasp. I was nodding my head knowingly. And then when I realized I was the only one nodding, I looked around to see if anyone had noticed.

 

Afterwards, I spoke to one of the panelists and told her that I was surprised, that I thought I was the only mom who occasionally lost her cool.  I confessed to her that I was ashamed of that, and embarrassed to admit it.  She just laughed.  And then she told me of a time when she was so angry at her child that she picked up his big wheel and threw it clear down the driveway.  I looked at this tiny, 98-pound silver-headed, soft-spoken vision of grandmotherly Godliness and I could not even imagine it.

 

This is certainly not what I expected to hear from a panel of Christian ladies. An angry mother? An angry Christian mother?  How could that be?

 

But you know what?  It was encouraging.  It was encouraging because in spite of the fact that they were not perfect women with perfect faith, in spite of the fact that they sometimes got angry and sometimes messed up – they were good mothers and their children grew up to be good people.  Their children grew into productive people, people who honor their mothers and fathers and people who have held firm to their faith.  And therein lies the power of forgiveness, grace and redemption to grow us into the women, wives and mothers we want to be. 

 

And that gives me hope for someone like me, an imperfect woman with an imperfect faith who has a big wheel with a few dents sitting in her driveway.

Faith And Desperation Look Remarkably Similar

July 20, 2007 | Faith, Mildly Amusing

Today was one of those days when I just couldn’t seem to create any forward motion. I had plans to get things done, to get dressed, to brush my teeth, to move about in a productive manner.  But alas, it was nearly time for lunch and I had accomplished nothing more than a brisk 30-minute walk on the treadmill.  And I only got that done because I parked my child in front of the television.

And that is about the time the doorbell rang.

So, I jumped off the treadmill and hastily pulled on a tank top over my sweaty jog bra and my 1980s paint-splattered jogging shorts, the one with the L-shaped rip on the leg.  And then I zipped down the stairs in a cloud of perspiration to greet the Publishing Clearing House team.

But it was not Ed McMahon.  It was a gal from church.  Wearing a stylish pale blue matching shorts set. And probably deodorant.

With no other option at my disposal, I decided to rise above it in a Kathryn Hepburn sort of way and just pretend that I did not smell like last night’s Long John Silvers or have sweaty wet hair sticking to my neck or my tank top on inside out. And with my spine straight and my neck stretched tall, I opened the door and greeted her. 

To her credit, she came in when I invited her and didn’t even wrinkle her nose.  I had agreed to help out with Vacation Bible School and she was dropping off the lesson material, as she said she would. About that time, Sean ran past wearing nothing but a pajama top.

Yet she handed me the lesson material anyway and is entrusting me to instruct small children in the ways of the Lord. 

I’m not sure if that represents her degree of faith in what God can do with someone like me or her degree of desperation for VBS teachers.

The Persistence Of Memory

July 7, 2007 | Faith

A Sunday or two ago, I sat at the back of the church, where people with rambunctious and unpredictable toddlers tend to sit. I doled out Goldfish one by one as I waited for services to begin, occasionally looking up for familiar faces in the undulation of swarming believers.

A mother chased a runaway toddler. One row ahead, an old man leaned over the back of his seat and shouted a greeting to another old man who was less than a foot away. One little boy chased another in a flurry of Sunday school papers. The cacophony of human noise that precedes worship service reminds me of an orchestra warming up, a swelling of movement and sound that sets the stage, opens the senses and ripens anticipation.

It was in the midst of this jumble of activity that I caught sight of her bubble gum pink suit out of the corner of my eye.

She shuffled unsteadily towards me, taking tiny careful steps, watching her feet as she went. White soft-soled shoes scraped against the carpet. She clutched her white purse tightly to her chest with both hands. About every three steps, she stopped completely and looked around, bewildered. Her middle-aged daughter walked behind her, patiently and gently guiding her towards a seat.

When she was within hand shaking distance, she stopped and looked into me. Not at me, not beyond me, but into me. It felt oddly disconcerting to be the object of such an intense gaze at such close proximity. I gave her a smile. Her face remained expressionless. I could tell she was mentally flipping through page after page of blank Rolodex cards looking for my face. Nothing. Her daughter nudged her elbow and encouraged her towards a seat across from us and she turned away.

I stole glances at her over the head of my three-year-old as worship services began. She sat erect and still, here but not. A shell of human being, robbed of that which makes life meaningful.   

For some reason, I thought of the empty locust shells that I used to find in the summer time when I was growing up. I wondered about her, her life, the memories she had treasured up in her heart over a lifetime, faces and names and events that had evaporated and vanished as morning dew does in the bright light of day.

As the congregation began to sing “When I Survey The Wondrous Cross” I heard her trembling sweet soprano voice rise above the others — distinct and clear, word for word, note for note. I looked over at her, eyes closed, face turned upward. Not a locust shell. Her heart had not forgotten.

The magic of music had unlocked the dark prison of dementia if only for a few glorious minutes on a Sunday morning. 

I will sing to the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.
Psalm 104:33

God Bless America

July 4, 2007 | Faith

 Photo Temporarily Unavailable

 

 

Land that I love.

Stand beside her, and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam.
God bless America,

My home sweet home!

 

Irving Berlin

1938

 

 

 

 

 

 

This post was scheduled to go up on July 4th.  Apparently when you convert CST into Greenwich mean time into military time by a factor of blonde, you get 38 hours later than whatever time you hoped for.  Happy belated 4th y’all. And FYI, we had a rain-free starry starry night by which to watch the fireworks. Yay!  Now back to our regularly scheduled rain.