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The Weight of Memory

Bad memories must be lighter than good ones. They seem to rise to the surface much more easily.

It has taken a deep dive to find some good ones from this time a year ago. It was then that my dad was in the hospital, recovering from surgery. At least that is what we thought in late April. He seemed to be making good progress and would soon go home. It turns out, he was on his way Home.

For over a month now my heart has been dreading what it knew my mind would do during this time. Each day would bring recollections of what was going on last April and May. Those memories would rise up and overwhelm me. But, I serve a God who is bigger than my mind and heart. By His grace, He has helped me skim the dark waters of my father’s illness and passing to uncover the good memories, the ones that easily sink to the bottom, buried below the pain. Those are the ones the Lord can help me focus on, and the ones I want to make known here.

Following are moments of light God provided in the darkness:

Playing with my sister’s beautiful hair while we sat on the couch in the ICU room.

Delicious homemade meals from my cousin Donna and Aunt Diane.

Watching Lost on the laptop with my sister.

Praying with my extended family in the hospital chapel.

Hugging my mom.

Reading the book Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man.

Being led in prayer by a nurse who asked to pray over my dad with us.

Writing scripture on the white board in the hospital room.

Feeling a closeness with my sister that goes beyond words.

A blanket fresh out of the warmer, tossed over me by a kind nurse.

Encouraging emails from friends far away but praying for us.

Having a home-cooked meal with family in the hospital cafeteria.

Laughing uncontrollably with my mom and sister at Denny’s.

Enjoying a few minutes of warm sunshine as I walked a trail near the hospital.

Checking doctors’ ring fingers, keeping an eye out for opportunities for my single sister.

Having Mother’s Day dinner with my mom. I think I even cooked.

The sight of my friends outside my parents’ house as they showed up to support me.

Feeling SO loved by the surprise visit of friends who had driven over 300 miles to spend my birthday with me and attend the wake.

Spending my birthday at the zoo with amazing friends, husband, and sister.

Family and friends close by at all times.

Hearing my dad confirm to a pastor that he had forgiveness in Christ.

Daily, hourly, minute by minute – being able to approach the throne of God’s grace to receive mercy and find grace to help me in my time of need. Hebrews 4:16

A Weekend To Remember

We had ham and beans for supper that Saturday night. That’s the only detail I can remember right now from this weekend a year ago. I guess if I had known it was the last times I’d spend with my dad outside of the hospital, I would have done a better job of burning them into my memory. Isn’t it strange the things we remember? I can remember what shirt I was wearing when he died a month later, but I can’t remember what we talked about that weekend.

I wonder, if I had known how things were going to turn out, what I would have done differently. I suspect there would have been so much pressure to have a perfect weekend that it actually would not have been better. This suspicion arises from the time at the hospital, when I did think it might be my last days, hours, or minutes with him, when I couldn’t come up with a darn thing that seemed right to do or say. At least, nothing felt like enough for the possible significance of each moment.

I hear stories of others whose loved ones were so accepting, even joyful, as they faced the end, desiring to be surrounded by God’s word, pouring into others even as they were nearing death. They had these great conversations, seemed to know just what to say, and had such meaningful moments. I’m ashamed that I usually feel envy rather than rejoice for them. With my dad, the outcome was so uncertain. Every day was full of contradictions from doctors, unanswerable questions, and physical pain that made it hard for him to do anything but lay there and fight it. For me, all I could do was pray, sit by his bed to be near if he needed anything, and tell him I love him. I know most people will say that is the best anyone can do, but at times it just doesn’t seem like enough.

There are a lot of things I can learn from all this. Among the lessons: Make the most of each moment with my loved ones. Accept the past and move on. Let go of regrets. Be grateful for the opportunity to be with my father in his last days. Be thankful that our last words were I love you. Rejoice that his suffering is done and He is alive with Christ in heaven today.

I know all these things. I do. I thank the Lord for all of them. I feel I have made progress with most of these during the past year. As the calendar rolls by, and we enter into the anniversary of those long days in the hospital, the part I struggle with is:

Remember the good times. Don’t dwell on the bad.

I am praying for a mind filled with 30 years of Dad memories, rather than 30 days of hospital memories.

I guess I’ll start with the ham and beans.

Leap of Faith

I was working out in my basement, which is equipped with two very large windows, complete with very large window wells. As I was jumping up and down from my stepper, I realized I had company. Someone was jumping along with me. A frog had hopped right into my window well, and now could not get out. It’s at least five feet deep, so I knew his little hops, no matter how mighty, were not going to cut it. Thus, unless I wanted him to end his days there, I would have to help him.

Out came the bucket. The well is large, but not big enough, I felt, for me to climb down there with him, within hopping distance of landing on me. I wanted to help him, not be his friend.

My solution: The bucket. Tie string to bucket. Lower bucket. Scoop up frog. Dump frog in pond 200 feet away.

Problem: Frog doesn’t like bucket. Frog hops away from bucket. I plop bucket around the well after him. He hops away.

This continued for a while. Sigh.

New solution: Shovel. Scoop up frog with shovel. Dump frog in pond 200 feet away.

Problem: Frog doesn’t like shovel. Space is barely wide enough to get a good angle for scooping.

Are my neighbors seeing this?

After many, many, MANY attempts, I finally climbed down the ladder to get a better angle. My fear was reaching shoulder level with the frog-filled shovel and receiving a face full of webbed feet.

After a few miss-scoops, it finally worked. I alley-ooped him up out of the well, then followed him up. I scooped him up again from the grass, quickly walked him over to the pond, and slid him off the shovel at the bank.

Have a nice life, little guy. And don’t come back!

Now, I’m left thinking. I’m sure the frog wanted out of there. He must have realized there was no food or water, and he would die, right? Or maybe not. He obviously couldn’t tell I was trying to help him, or he wouldn’t have fought me so.

Can you see where I’m going with this? Yep, I’m the frog. You’re the frog. We’re all frogs, at least at one time or another. Ribbit.

We don’t realize we’re in trouble. Or, we are sure our “mighty” hops are going to get us out, if we just – keep – jumping!

God extends the bucket. God reaches in with a shovel. He even goes so far as to climb down into the world with us to save us. But, like the frog with the fly-sized brain, we don’t see it. We see threat instead of rescue, or help we don’t want. Why? Wasn’t the frog much better off after I was finally able to help him? Of course. But he did not realize this from his vantage point. His automatic response was to flee. We can be so stubborn, blind, rebellious, and more. If we realize that God is trying to help us, we’ll end up much better off too. We have to trust.

At one point, I was tempted to just forget it. He could stay there. If he didn’t want out, he would suffer his fate. But, I decided to keep trying. I finally succeeded by forcing my will on him.

God won’t. He wants to save us. He doesn’t want to leave anyone in the well. He will continue to extend the bucket and shovel, but we have to hop on.

What will you find?

Love

joy

hatred

pain

sunshine

warmth

clouds

and rain.

Life and death

sorrow and gladness

smiles and tears

happy and sadness.

They’re all part of life,

the good,

the bad,

the envy and strife,

the joyful,

the sad.

With all the world’s changes,

the should nots and the shoulds,

try to look past the evil

and seek out the good.

He who seeks good will find goodwill, but evil comes to him who searches for it. Proverbs 11:27

Rollin’ Along

In an instant we were off the highway and into the large ditch median. How could something that happened so fast seem to go on forever? As we rolled over again, and again, and again…glass shattering…horrible crunching sounds coming from every direction…something – sunroof? door? pavement? smashing into my head with every roll…my thoughts were not ‘take me home, Lord.’

Oh, it’s much easier to say, ‘I’m ready when you are, God’ until you actually face that moment. Then it’s a bit more…well, a bit more everything. When faced with your own mortality, you become a bit less flippant with your life. No. Knowing that each resounding crunch might be the sound of my husband’s life ending, or the signal of my own death, the terrified words out of my mouth were “Save us, Jesus!”

And He did.

The SUV was totaled. I had to be cut out from the passenger side. We had some scrapes, bruises, and a lot of aches.

We hadn’t hit anyone else. We both walked into our house that very night after a day at the ER.

WALKED.

Praise the Lord!

So.

What now?

God has given me more days. What shall I do with them? If He didn’t have things for me to do, I wouldn’t still be here, right? So, the question is, how do I honor Him with the extra time he has given me. I certainly don’t want to stand before Jesus one day and say, ‘Lord, I had a lot of fun playing games and watching movies,’ do I? How do I not waste any moments? How do I make the best use of each and every day He has so graciously granted? What do I do? How do I live?

Where do I go from here, Lord?

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should Go: I will counsel you and watch over you. Psalm 32:8

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to Go and bear fruit – fruit that will last. John 15:16

Where can I Go from your Spirit? …your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. Psalm 139:7,10

Therefore Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Matthew 28:19

Powers of Observation

How could she not see it? A shaggy dark brown wig was hanging from the dining room ceiling fan. It looked as if the fan had gotten the best of a Cocker Spaniel or won a battle with an Ewok.

My dad, sister, and I had decided to use this unusual choice of décor as a test. Known in our house for her lack of observation skills, my mom was the one unwittingly taking this exam.

Five feet above the table my mom eats at daily, in the center of the room she walks through multiple times each day, on the fan that is visible from the living room, the kitchen, and the foyer, thus in plain site from the moment you step through the front door, hung the wig. We simply hooked it over one end of a blade. Would she notice?

If memory serves me well, after about 48 hours we broke down and told her.

Much laughter ensued.

Her defense: “That’s not fair! I never look up!”

As amusing as I find this story, it does make me pause and reflect on my mom’s response.

‘I never look up.’

How often are we guilty of this? We are so busy observing the things around us (or not observing them) that we fail to look up. We think we are running things just fine. Everything is under control. We know our way around. We know all the answers. We see to it that we’re getting all we can out of life. But, we don’t realize what we are missing out on.

God has more for us. He wants to show us so much more that we’ll never see without Him. He’ll be our guide, our light, our salvation.

If only we’d look up.

My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.

Psalm 5:3

Such Times

I recently watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy again. This scene keeps replaying in my mind, the quote having an impact like never before. Maybe it will for you too.

Frodo: I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

Esther 4:14b: And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?

In the well with my soul

We’re stuck in that deep well again, surrounded by darkness. How do we get out? Do we even want to? We weep. And weep. Perhaps we will cry enough tears to fill the hole and bring us to the top. Instead, we choke and nearly drown. We scramble at the sides, pressing, pulling, scratching until our fingers bleed. We end up bruised, broken, torn, but nowhere nearer the top. We continue to stumble around the dark circle, only hurting ourselves more. We eventually run into something in the center. We discover it’s a rope. We start to climb up. It’s so hard. We tire. We ache. We can’t pull ourselves out, no matter how strong we think we are. We fall back to the bottom, crushed yet again. We begin to think we are better off here – no risk in getting hurt if we stop trying. We fall. But, as we fall, we stumble over something else. It’s at the end of the rope. We feel around in the dark and realize it’s a large, overturned bucket. Is this a way out? We try to figure out how to use the bucket to help us climb. We get nowhere. We sit on the bucket and cry. We get angry and kick it around the pit. It lands face up in the center. We realize there’s no way out. This is something we just can’t do on our own. We plop back down. The ground is hard and cold. The walls are uninviting. Sitting there empty, the bucket seems more appealing than our current spot. There’s nowhere else to go. Nothing else to do or try. We climb in the bucket to rest, surrender, and just be still. That is when it moves. Jesus Christ pulls us up, all the way up, out of the darkness, and into his light.

Some sat in darkness and the deepest gloom, prisoners suffering in iron chains, for they had rebelled against the words of God and despised the counsel of the Most High. So he subjected them to bitter labor; they stumbled, and there was no one to help. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He brought them out of darkness and the deepest gloom and broke away their chains. Psalm 107:10-14

The Zoinkclick Theory

You meet someone new. In just a few seconds, it’s determined. Click or Zoink. You just know.

The Zoink

You will never be close. There’s not necessarily any negativity present. Certainly no hatred. You just didn’t click, and never will. You can be civil, even friendly. You can hang out, get along, be around each other and have fun. But, there will not be that closeness, that feeling of familiarity, of total rightness, between you. It will just never happen, no matter how long you know each other or how much time you put into the relationship. That special bond will never form. Just ain’t gonna happen. Zoink.

The Click

There’s something there. A familiarity, a kinship, a bond. It may be weak at first. It may take a long time to develop. But it’s there, however faint or strong, immediately. You feel you’ve met a kindred spirit, someone you can be yourself around, someone whom you can understand and will understand you. It is this bond that is necessary to develop a life-long friendship, a closeness that does not come with others. Somehow, the hearts, the personalities, the minds, just fit. It just happens. Click.

Foundation

In the past year, I have been learning some hard lessons on relationships. The syllabus has included priority, prominence, and price. I sat down one day to sort out some of what God was teaching me. The following is what appeared on the screen:

I was standing on a three-legged pedestal.

One leg was God.

One leg was family.

One leg was friends.

When the family leg wobbled and seem to break,

I leaned on the other two,

finding it hard to keep my balance,

but possible.

When I felt the second leg shatter,

I didn’t know how to stay up.

I had been leaning on that friendship leg so hard and for so long,

I was left flailing my arms,

crying out to God to help me stay up.

I think he has let me fall.

I don’t think he wanted me on that particular pedestal.

Now I’m on the ground,

with nothing but Rock below me to build on.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.” – Jesus, Matthew 7:24-25

On Christ the solid Rock I stand.