Relatives

My grandson is 28 years old now, but he was much younger when he helped me learn something important about God. I wrote about it at the time this way:

My grandson, Russell, asked me a question recently that pointed up how far the world is from fulfilling God’s plan for the family – and how great his mercy and love are in forgiving and renewing us.

I was taking care of my two grandchildren while my daughter and her husband had dinner with her father and some of his relatives. The children would have gone, too, but Russell had chicken pox.

Russell, who is 6, asked me why I hadn’t gone to the dinner.

I said something about that being another part of the family and families being like that today.

It triggered another question, one I believe he must have been pondering all along because the words came so quickly.

Russell asked if his stepfather was my stepson.

I answered, “No, he’s my son-in-law.”

He stared at me, a puzzled look on his face. After a brief pause, he tried again.

“He isn’t your stepson?”

“No, Russell,” I replied. “I don’t have any stepchildren. The only children I have are your mother and your Uncle Nathan. Your daddy is my son-in-law.”

He grew very still, very serious. It was almost possible to hear the wheels of thought turning around in his head.

“Then what am I?” he asked, with as much challenge as question in his voice.

“You are my one-and-only, very precious grandson,” I said.

My delight in that fact must have been conveyed by my expression and tone of voice for he raced to me and gave me a big hug.

“I’m your chicken pops grandson,” he shouted with pleasure.

He repeated the hug, then turned to pick up a toy.

Life goes on.

So did my thoughts – on to the difference between our lives and the lives of so many people I know and the intention of God for families as expressed in the Bible.

How many men and women I know are no longer married to their first husband or wife. How many children have step parents and stepbrothers and half brothers.

How many opportunities we have missed for knowing God’s blessing through obedience to his word.

It made me very conscious of the pain we have caused each other and of the burden of guilt we bear before the Lord for making such a mess of things.

Without Jesus’ death for us on the cross, we would have had to bear that burden for ever.

I am so grateful for the forgiveness which God made possible for us through his great love. I am enormously thankful for the fact that he can bring blessing even out of such failures.

Russell has parents and stepparents, a half sister at his mother’s house, a stepbrother and hal brothers at his father’s and a couple of extra grandparents.

All of us love him dearly, but not one of us singly or all of us together can give him righteousness, peace and joy. Only his heavenly Father can do that.

Good or Bad News?

I’m writing from a position of extreme ignorance – I only know what I heard on a TV newscast.

According to the news clip, Mother Theresa was not sustained in her ministry to the poorest of the poor by a warm, comforting relationship with her Lord. In fact, she wrote to a friend saying she was not sure she had any faith at all. And had not been sure for a long time.

.The guy on the television said this revelation might change the way we thought about Mother Teresa. He said it with a studiously neutral voice. I have no idea whether he thinks we will think better or worse of her.

But I don’t really care what he thinks. And it doesn’t really matter what I think about it unless it affects the way I live when I can’t feel my faith.

Perhaps she did not feel it, but she lived it anyway.

This morning I came across something I wrote 20 years ago. I wrote it after a time of dryness and lack of any feeling of contact with the Lord. I’m not comparing my life to hers, my brief dark trying of my soul to her long painful years. I wouldn’t dare.

But perhaps your lives are more like mine than they are like hers, so maybe this will speak to you, too.

This is what I wrote;

I had some good news and some bad news last week.

The good news was a note from Reader’s Digest saying it was thinking about running an anecdote I submitted – maybe three years ago!

The bad news was that my air conditioner had to be replaced.

The wires melted. And for a time it appeared that the damage might be even more extensive.

After calling the air conditioning repairman – and making the decision to replace the central unit – I opened windows, turned on a floor fan in my bedroom and went to sleep.

Sometime in the night I woke to the sound of rushing wind. For a moment I thought it was beginning to rain and prepared to hop up and close the windows. Then I realized it was just the fan – just the fan acting very strange.

It would slow down, come almost to a stop, then start again with a rush.

As the fan stopped entirely, I glanced at the digital clock by my bed to see if it was still working. Its dark face confirmed that the problem was electrical.

My next thought was that bad wiring must have burned up the air conditioner and was now about to burn up everything in the house – if not the house itself.

I turned off the fan and checked the house to see what else was or was not working.

The refrigerator was acting just like the fan. The sound of the starter motor grinding away conjured visions of more melted wires -- which sped me on my way to the circuit box to flip a breaker or two.

With half the house shut down, I went back to bed, but I must confess, not back to sleep.

The electrician, when he came, said a “bad” wire at the meter box was the culprit. He replaced it, checked the circuit box, charged me a very reasonable fee and left.

A new three-ton air conditioner is expensive, but it could have been much worse.

The amazing thing about both the good news and the bad was that neither disturbed a deep, joyous peace I felt within. That peace had been mine ever since I confessed my rebelliousness and anger to my Lord in the presence of a friend and she prayed for me that I would be able to delight in all he had for me.

If that notice from Reader’s Digest had come before I asked him to deal with my jealousy and selfish ambition, it would have been fuel to that fire within. But coming as it did after that confession, I was able simply to delight in the possibility that they might print something I wrote.

And I was wakeful the night the electrical wiring in my house acted up in case something else might go wrong, but deep down inside, I was still happy. When someone asked later how I was doing, I said, “Great!” and meant it. I could not have done that without God’s peace in my heart.

Surrender and obedience sound like such grim things to do. But when that surrender and obedience is to the Lord, this is not true. Then it is the beginning of something wonderful and the fruit is that peace which passes understanding and joy beyond measure.

What can I say?

My friend John Cowart says it’s more important right now for me to paint book covers than to retype columns.

Boy, am I relieved!

I wrote those things years ago and I can’t even read the small type now, especially on yellowing newsprint.

John says he thinks that, put together, the columns will amount to a spiritual classic.

If so, it’s true that God can use anything or anyone He wants anyway He wants to. Singly, which is the way I wrote them, they were reflections on my spiritual journey, the rocks I tripped over, the ditches I fell in and the oases that turned out to be just more sand – and the occasional moments of peace and joy and fulfillment given to those who try to follow.

I sat with John as he scanned in just one column. I was overwhelmed by the process, the amount of detailed – DETAILED – steps involved. And he has done all these steps hundreds of times

When I retired, I stopped writing. It felt all burned up inside of me. I had nothing left to say.

Or so I thought. And I may have been right.

But John has put my fingers back on the keys and I press them down one at a time, prayerfully, waiting to see if the Lord has anything He wants me to say.

Like thank you.

Not, thank you, John, for all the work you are doing to make books of my columns. There is no way to do that. Besides, I don’t actually think somehow that he is doing it for me.

But Thank You, Dear Lord, for reminding me of all the trials and all the joys and all the in-between moments of the life which You have given me and in which You have been with me.

Bless those who labor in Your vineyard, Lord. I ask for a special blessing on those who are working on this book because they believe it will bring glory to Your name.

Their labors already do that.

So I’m off to the other labor, painting pictures for book covers. I am as skilled at this as I am at doing all those other things You have ask me to do, Dear Lord.

So go with me, please. And thank You.

Roses: Fragrance and Thorns

After several weeks of talking about thorns, I’d like to say a word about roses.

A true appreciation for colors, shapes and fragrances of roses can be lost in the press of attention to the thorns.

If you are standing far enough back from the flowers, you can enjoy their beauty without paying any attention to the danger. But you can miss the perfumes they hold for those who come up close.

If you’re standing in the middle of the rosebushes while a windstorm is swirling them all around, it’s hard to do anything but stay out of harms way.

The trick seems to be to get close enough to smell the roses while staying far enough back to avoid the thorns.

I think a lot of Christians try to do that. They try to get as close to Jesus as they can for the warmth and comfort his presence brings, while staying far enough back to safeguard whatever it is they are afraid he is going to take away from them.

I do that.

And I do it very well. I disguise my true motives, saying I am concerned with this or that aspect of the matter. I even find Scripture to back up my stance. But all the while, the truth is that I want something to be different from the way the Lord wants it to be. I want it my way.

Only sometimes you don’t get to choose where you stand. You can only agree to stand there or walk away.

Before I walk away, I’d better make sure the ground I’m leaving isn’t the one on top of the rock. I might be headed for sand instead.

If I’m sure of my ground, I can risk standing around among the roses even in the whirlwind.

The words of a song I’ve heard recently speak to this issue. The song goes, “Oh, let the Son of God enfold you in his Spirit and his love. Let him fill your heart and satisfy your soul. Let him have the things that hold you and his Spirit like a dove will descend upon your life and make you whole.”

Let him have the things that hold you – everything that holds you back from touching and smelling and living among the roses of delight in his will, delight that quickens the senses, that fills rising in the morning with joy and going to bed at night with peace.

Of course, letting go can hurt. I’ve been hurt before and I still flinch when the thorns come my way. I can’t seem to help it.

Sometimes I even ask the Lord if I couldn’t have just a little recess from admiring the rose, a break from dodging thorns.

But no thorn ever comes my way that will be more than I can bear. He promised.

All those thorns have been taken by Jesus.

The thorns that do come serve to snatch away those things that had been holding me back – things we had been holding back and are now ready to release.

And when I look back from the other side of that place called “letting go,” I can mean it when I say that his yoke is easy and his burden light. Then I can renew my strength and soar on wings like eagles. I can run and not grow weary. I can walk and not be faint.

For I have smelled the roses of the Lord now and no other fragrance will ever sartisfy.

The Chartreuse Hat, Part II

There is a deeper meaning to the event of the chartreuse hat (see the previous item for the original story).

I thought of it during Sunday School this morning when the teacher made an of-the-cuff remark. He said, “How profound we are in our shallowness. We can drown in a puddle.”

The “deeper meaning” of my finding a chartreuse hat to wear while painting – and getting lots of positive feed back from folks who saw me wearing it – may only be puddle deep. But it’s there.

But when there hasn’t been much rain, a puddle is still water.

What I received with the hat was laughter. A floppy yellow-green hat with a turned up brim seen on top of a quite wide old lady made me laugh when I looked in the mirror.

And I think it amused God, too. I think He planned it that way and I was fortunate enough to see the plan.

Every morning I pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.”

And I believe He does.

The trick, if I may call it that, is to learn to see the widely – and sometimes wildly – different forms bread can take.

It can take the form of a chartreuse hat.

That hat with its floppy up and down motion and outrageous color fed my spirit with the idea that God picked it out for me and left it in the Boutique for me to buy.

You don’t think He does things like that?

Maybe. Maybe not.

But Scripture says He knows my sitting down and my rising up, my going out and my coming in. He knows my thoughts before I think them.

There are certainly deeper proofs of this than a chartreuse hat, things deeper than a puddle. But I believe you can find your own deeper meanings if you try. Or God will show them to you if you ask Him to. Or at least give you hints and clues for you to ponder while wading.

The Chartreus Hat

There is an entire society of women who wear red hats and have fun together, attracting attention along the way.

All by myself I managed to do the same thing, only my hart was chartreuse.

My eyes were bothering me the other morning in the arts room so I went next door into the Boutique – which is the fancy name we give the place where we dispose of things we no longer need or have room for – to see if they had a hat. And they had a red one, but it did not fit, too small.

The one that fit was chartreuse, and soft and bouncy. You can roll it up and shake it out and it goes right back to its original shape. I think the slightly rolled brim goes up and down as the wearer moves, but since I was the wearer, I paid no attention to that.

For the best thing about the hat was that it shaded my eyes from the fluorescent lights.

I enjoyed the shade so much, I wore it into the dining room for lunch and there it attracted lots of attention and comments. Mostly positive.

I don’t think I will wear it everywhere, however. I don’t have that much that chartreuse goes with and I’m not really energetic enough to become – and maintain being -- a character.

I got my brace back at about 3:15 yesterday afternoon. It is so much more comfortable than the old black fuzzy boot. With its Velcro bindings and over all rigidity.

Today is an all-mine day, nothing scheduled to do for anyone else.

So I did basically nothing all morning. Not a bit productive.

I think I will go paint a while this afternoon. At least that produces feelings of contentment in me, if it doesn’t do anything for anyone else.

While I concentrate on the picture before me and on how to make it look the way I want it to look, I can’t think about what I could, or should be doing instead.

Like finding a deeper, spiritual meaning in this entry.

Click Scrunch

I took my brace to Hanger Orthotics and Prosthesis on Tuesday because it was going click clack.

Now it goes click scrunch.

Not an improvement.

Today I will take it back and see if they can repair it by tomorrow. In the meantime I get to wear the old black boot with Velcro closings that they gave me when I first tore the tendon that held up my arch. And now doesn’t.

Getting old really is rough on the body.

There is a lady here who celebrated her 103^rd birthday last month. She still rides a three-wheeled bicycle (if that isn’t a contradiction in terms) and writes poetry and volunteers here and there. She must have drawn on a very good gene pool and been much more careful and active and all that stuff.

Ah, well.

There are, of course, others in my shape or worse. When we greet each other and say, How are you? we usually just say, Fine. Meaning fine for the shape I’m in.

However, I am in better shape now than I was when I moved here five years ago. Isn’t that interesting. Compliments to my doctors and thanksgivings to my Lord.

I think it’s a combination of the right medications – heart condition – and prayer and praise. As I increase the latter I may be able to decrease the former. If you can follow all that.

If not. I enjoy life more because of the prayer and praise. And that’s worth a lot.

Art class this morning! Joy, joy.

Hanger after.

Not stupid, not smart

I can’t begin to tell you how stupid I feel when I can’t get the copy to come out the right size! No one will believe I used to work on a computer every day at the newspaper. But I only learned how to work their program. I didn’t learn anything about computers. Oh, well. I guess I am, well, if not quite stupid, at least not smart.

I received a post card from Switzerland yesterday. It was a picture of a hotel tucked in the crack between snot capped mountains with lots of flowers and trees around. Very beautiful and very cool. COOL. With temperatures at 95 or higher, cool is very attractive.

The card came from Margaret Peattie, who lives in Scotland and is vacationing with her younger sister and her brother-in-law. Margaret and I began writing to each other when we were in high school, right after WWII actually. I remember sending CARE packages to her.

But she is the one who has kept us in touch with each other. When my marriage failed, I quit writing. She sent Christmas cards every year until I finally sent one back. She and her husband visited me some years ago, before I retired. I visited them the summer after I turned 65 and no longer on the job. I called her the night before she left for Switzerland – it’s five hours later there so I have to remember to call early enough not to get her out of bed.

She was my only pen pal. I was not her only one. She visits another pen pal in France and may have others I don’t even know about. But I’m glad she did not let me drop off the face of her life.

Tomorrow’s schedule starts with picking Mary up and taking her for her weekly blood draw. Then I go to the brace place to see if they can find out why my new brace clicks. That will be followed by a meeting of the officers of the residents’ council.

Doesn’t that sound fine? Well, it will keep me out of trouble.

Nighttime serenade

I ate grilled tuna for the first time today. I have eaten canned tuna for years – when did they start canning tuna anyway? – but raw tuna looked so unappetizing I avoided it. Until today.

I went out to lunch after church with a few friends. I’m such an in-a-rut person that I almost always order a particular thing at each restaurant I go to. Tuna was not on that list. But somehow, I felt out of ordinary today and ordered a salad with grilled tuna on top. Asked how I wanted it cooked, I told the waitress I had no idea, never having eaten grilled tuna before. She suggest medium rare and that’s what I got.

Delicious! Who would have thought it!

Other than that things are very much the same as they have been for the past 22 months. My primary focus has been on my 47-year-old daughter’s fight against small cell lung cancer. She is such a fighter. She has done everything they ask her to do – except get a port. As long as they can find a vein, she will go that route. I drive her to appointments, sit with her while she has a treatment and occasionally cook a meal.

I took her Christmas shopping a couple of weeks ago. She used one of the carts with a scooter attached and went aisle by aisle amassing items for everyone on her list. This is not a result of her cancer, but her usual practice. She hates Christmas shopping in December. Too many people in the store.

My secondary focus has been on my son’s off and on struggle to get to the other side of an injury from a motorcycle accident that happened when he was 20. He was 50 last month. This was at one time a primary focus, but it has gone on so long I am often numb about it. There have been so many starts that petered out, so many chances for change that never happened. But I hang in. Positive things are happening now. Maybe this will be the time when that continues.

Any time left over from all this has been occupied by writing minutes of meetings. I don’t know why I can’t stop being secretary of the Residents’ Council here. It’s a volunteer job. All I have to do is say I resign. I just haven’t done it. I’m numb about this too.

Oh, yes. Once a week I spend a morning in an art class, along with half a dozen old folks who live where I live and an old teacher who also lives her and who really knows her stuff. Just lately I have been going back to the arts and crafts room by myself to paint. When I tried a hobby art class 40 years ago I had expectations of really doing good work. Now I have no expectation except enjoying myself. And I am.

It helps with the thoughts that leap into my brain if I wake in the middle of the night. All negative. Maybe just realistic, but not welcome in any case. My son-in-law says there will be no negative speaking around here. And I told the Lord I really didn’t want to give room to the thoughts I was fighting off. I told Him if He didn’t take my load it would squash me flat. I remembered that all I really had to do was give it to Him and leave it there. It. The outcome. The solution. The rescue and restoration. I can do nothing about any of that. But He can.

So I sing to Him – out loud in the middle of the night. The noise interrupts my other thoughts and I believe somehow that it sounds beautiful to the One who listens. And loves and works and accomplishes – whatever it will be. Who better?