Everything's Going My Way....and A Living Eulogy

The last three months or so?  We'll call that "uncomfy grace".  Mainly because the Almighty seemed to have plans He wasn't filling me in on.  Except?  Except to say..."Be still.  Sit still.  Shhhh."  I'd start to shred paper like a hamster and find myself compelled to do something, do anything but just sit still, for cryin out loud.  It's so irresponsible to simply trust, when all signs point to flashing red lights of danger.  Isn't it?

Tonight I sit on my big red couch that I inherited some years back from my favorite coffee shop when they closed their doors.   I'm pushing ideas around in my head and typing and deleting and typing again to somehow turn a marvel into words you can read that explode in your heart.  My sitting still, my hearts' desires that my Creator planted in my spirit months ago and watered quiet as I went about my life, bloomed big today and sit smiling on my horizon.  For in this week alone, the nightly warfare of pushing back worry of car troubles and money squeaking tight and dreams going unanswered and sliding them off my back and onto the floor in front of His feet....again?  This week, when I'd finally laid my paper shredding down and laughed ridiculous to the ceiling at how incapable I was of finding solutions because I just couldn't see any, He solved them all.  And I am quieted before Him.  "Sit still, my daughter."  Did you hear that?  My daughter.

And here's the bigger thing of it. What if none of it got "fixed"?  What if this week my angel friends hadn't driven their car to my door and handed me the title because mine died?  What if I faced another week of not enough money coming in and figuring in my head what else I could let go of, shy of electricity and I hadn't been blessed ,not once, but several times with monetary gifts?  What if my yearning to be around kids, to hug them and encourage them and listen to them and let them know they are loved with an Everlasting Love had not been met this morning with the "perfect" job for me?  What if everything looked unmet and unfinished?  Or, what if everything looks aligned to the "nines" and I suddenly died?  And everyone I loved, all those I am so fortunate to have cheering me on, are left standing bewildered?  What if what we think "should" happen...didn't?

I've walked many days, weeks, months and years when things didn't turn out.  I've reaped consequences from my own actions or those of others.  I've had some things happen that still don't make sense to me.  So, these few days past go down sweet and sit in my belly like hard won supper.  This I want my children to know tonight as I write; these words I want them to read some day to whoever is standing with them when they lay me down; to mark it in their own hearts as they continue on.  It was enough.  It was always enough.  Because, in the end, God, it turns out, gave me my hearts' truest desire.  He made me a new creation, old things passed.  Behold, new things were made in me and He only sees me holy now.  Nothing else compares to that.

Whether I'm standing beside you or whether I'm no longer here, this is the love song I'll be singing to you.

Invisible Grace

It would seem I'm a student in the school of all things grace these days.  And yet again today, I had a pop quiz visited on me.  My recent car purchase has proven to be a month long disappointment after a total break down on the side of the road after just five days of ownership.  My mechanic went AWOL on vacation, courtesy of my money just spent futile and I was left holding no money or car keys.  I began to get anxious and fretful and just downright righteously angry when he wouldn't answer or return my calls to find out just what in the whole wide world was going on with this "new" car he was supposed to be fixing.  This wouldn't be happening if I had a man to go after him, I fumed.

I've woken up the past three mornings, way before the alarm announced the dawn, pacing over what to do, what to do.  Father?  What am I missing?  I need a car.  Where ARE You??  And so today, I gathered up bravery more than I felt and called the mechanic one more time, and miraculously, he answered this time. The holes in his defense stood out clear to me and I knew I had a "case".  So.  I breathed in and asked for my money back and named the time frame, with the consequences planned out if it wasn't met.  I sat down wondering why any of this.

There's a book on my table, just unwrapped from it's packaging in this afternoon's mail.  I pick it up restless and begin to read the introduction.  A Grace Revealed is the story of a man who, twenty years ago, suffered the sudden loss of his wife, mother and young daughter in one accident, an accident that he survived.  "In the months and years following the accident, I realized that the tragedy itself, however catastrophic, could actually play a less significant role than what God could do with it and how I responded to it.....that redemption happens through God's involvement in the ordinary circumstances of life, no matter what those circumstances happen to be."  That whispered loud in my soul and I sat the book down, picked up my coffee cup and went outside to walk in my thinking spot in my back yard.

Could it be, this man's tragedy, was calling out to teach me something in this small uncertainty?  That, a malfunctioning car was protection, was invisible grace, for unseen things ahead?  Why couldn't God just give me the "right" car the first time?  I'm unable to reason the answer to that.  I do know, though, that this week has seen that kind of thing happen a few times over and each time a layer of trust; trust that breaks down another boundary of condition, starts to set itself firm in my heart.

I'd already pounded out the words hard on my keyboard and posted them to my Facebook to rally other indignant supporters for my cause.  But this?  This stirred me.  Father?  This You can handle.  This You can use to come to my defense in ways that cause me to know Who my Defense is.  So I deleted my words and sat quiet.

Invisible grace tastes sweet when it is revealed grace.

Grace, simply

My girl naps peaceful beyond the window just behind me and I sit outside on my "porch in the trees" listening to the summer sounds; the humming bug thingies that I don't know what to call that drone and fade out and drone again?  Those.  It's a gift this porch, this time unclaimed.  I should be nervous because time unclaimed is time not working and that means less money to buy.....say.....food and electricity.  But here I sit, hollowed out in His hand, a strange place of grace that fits on me like new clothes.  They look good, they feel good....I'm just not used to calling them mine.  I'm not sure what God is doing with my near future, but I'm quite sure He's very present.  I will know.  I will know soon enough.

I moved through today like visiting a hometown that you drive into the edge of and realize the bowling alley has been remodeled and none of the businesses have the same name.  It's the kind of familiar that makes you cock your head to one side and smile quizzical.....this.....is my town.  But.  Twenty two years strong I've schooled my six treasures at home.  This year, though,  a new wind whispers and my girl, my last one at home, and I have been gathering up the necessary paperwork and new backpacks to make ourselves ready.  Today was her physical, the last piece of the puzzle and going back to that doctor's office, a few years passed since I'd needed to go there, I sat in the same chairs where, so many times, I'd kept watch over my young flock all runny noses and rashes.  The aquarium, which had been at their eye level, seemed so small now.  I thought sure that'd been near ocean size at the time, as I'd gotten down on my knees beside them and looked at it through their eyes.  Today, though, my 15 year old gave it only a glance and I smiled wistfully.  Remembering.  I captured a shot of the waiting room on my phone camera and sent it to my older kids so they could remember with me.

My mother has come with us today and I maneuver the car close to the building so she can get in easier.  She leans on a cane these days and her legs hurt her, her back, her feet.  Her heart threatens to fail her and I catch my breath as I glance over at her.  This new found ability to be with her, even near her, I only understand through the lens of His grace over me; over her.  So much has changed.  My father is in heaven a year now.  My heart has grown new skin that has patched over wounds grown deep and made a small path that has made room for my mother.  I don't understand it.  But it comes softly and at His hand.  We sit over lunch and laugh.  Actually laugh real laughing and mean it.  It doesn't escape me unnoticed.  I look up to see a friend I have on Facebook but never actually met in person standing beside my table.  She'd seen where I'd "checked in" and came across the room to find me.  What a joy to meet and already have a heart connection.  Those things, I treasure quiet.  It means more inside than the outside can show and we take a quick picture to hold the moment forever.

As I type my son in law, who, if we get down to brass tax (which, what does even mean?) I barely know but love full up to the top, sends me a message just right out of the blue that he's thinking of me and praying for me.  Tears well up the minute I see his name, for he represents God's unexpected grace to my oldest girl and I am so grateful.  But to have him take the time to tell me that my name went across his mind?  That's pure gold.  We should all do that.  And often.  On the heels of that, my wacky friend drives by my house and honks loud and calls me on my phone to "demand" lunch with me this week for no reason but that we're both alive and it is good to be alive together in the same room at the same time now and again.

This day I've gone back in my mind to memories, seen torn hearts being mended with His slow and deliberate stitching, met new friends, heard from others "old", and rest peaceful in the unanswered for the days ahead.  Except that He is and He sees me and I hide safe in the shadow His wings.

Headlines in my Heart

Chattanooga, Tennessee: 5th Service Member Dies After Thursday Shooting

Pierce City, Missouri: Police Find Missing Woman After Endangered Person Advisory Issued

Zoey Tur: Transgender Journalist Gets Into Heated Exchange With Breitbart Senior Editor Ben Shapiro

Susan Rice: National Security Adviser Says She Expects Iran to Spend New Money on Military

Wrightwood, California: 100-Acre Wildfire Near Campgrounds Forces Hundreds to Evacuate

Claudia Alexander: NASA Scientist Who Oversaw Galileo Mission, Managed Rosetta Project Dies at 56

Bill Arnsparger: Former Miami Dolphins Assistant Coach Dies at Age 88, Team Says

Oregon State University: Researchers Develop Bacon-Flavored Seaweed

I quickly skimmed my sidebar this morning as I sipped my coffee and it struck me, how, when I read the "news", I read words.  And forget the people involved.  Real people, With skin on.  Like, Susan Rice is a real person, living and breathing right now.  So is Zoey Tur.  The hundreds, nameless and faceless to me, in Wrightwood California are leaving their homes, while I sit in mine comfortable and unaware.  Claudia Alexander dies at 56, it says in black and white, and I move on to bacon flavored seaweed, without much of a thought to how those words hit heavy on someone's heart who loved Claudia, who knew what her favorite flower might have been and long to hear her voice again.

The woman found in Pierce City, Missouri....can you imagine the celebration and collective sigh of deep, indescribable relief her family feels?  No.  I can't either.  But this morning, as we pass over that headline, she is sorting out what happened to her and there are people who keep coming back into the room just to make sure she's really there again.

Bill Arnsparger; he lived a long, good life with experiences most of us don't have.  We all, however, end up human, in the end.  And what we hold in our hearts, it turns out, is what's most important.  The forever things.  The seeds we've sown in our people gardens.

These things.....these are what pass through my mind when I read the news.  I'll carry these in my mind today and offer them up in prayers as I move around in my day.  I'm not educated enough on many matters to "take stands" on social media.  But I do listen, with my heart's ear, and consider deeply.

I Don't Ever Want to be Okay Again or; Tomorrow I Turn 57

Shook up right good.  That's what my 56th year's been.  Nothing.  And, by that,  I .mean. nothing....is what I had in mind.  I sensed a year of change ahead, for sure.  I had no idea what that meant.  Here's what it meant.  Two more of my six kids joined the one already gone and ended up far, far away in a land I could not afford to go visit.  That meant, half of my kids were geographically farther than my arms or my pocketbook could reach.

It meant that I became a mother in law for the very first time to a young man I barely knew and wholly loved from the start.  Because my girl loved him and he took the time to learn her and made her happy and promised to stand guard for the rest of his life.  A few months later, it meant that  I would get a new name come right around Christmas; "Nana".  My heart has trouble even wrapping itself around this.  How will that feel?  I have no frame of reference to fit that into so I try to build a new one and become that older woman who looks at all little people in grocery stores with a wistful look in her eye and imagines that is my grandchild.  It feels strange and foreign to have the thought and I shake myself back awake.

Being 56 meant I finally got what it meant to accept grace from God and from others.  I sat down and made friends with it and wove it into the fabric of my encounters with those I met.  I could love whether they loved me back or not, whether I agreed with them or not.  I found a way to set others free and walk free myself.  I served them the same grace I'd been given.  Because just because a person doesn't love me?  Doesn't mean I'm not loved.  This, I have learned.

I figured out some things don't have answers all nice and acceptable.  That there's wrestling to be done with what I see happening.  I don't much like some things and the way they turn out.  And God doesn't tell me the why's.  It turns out the "rest of the story" most times comes a page at a time; nothing more or less.  And trust has begun to bloom that seems reckless crazy. I'd laugh at myself if I wasn't me and tell me I'm nuts.

I decided this year to wear my own skin, more pliable as I age though it is, and wear it well and out and thin and let it not harden but be stretched thin to keep up with my arms as they reach out to the world I used to shield myself from.  I look in the mirror and feel a spirit young and slappy silly with new found dreams smiling out from more...ahem...laugh lines then I remember.  I don't fear sickness or death like I used to because I know it's not my end and until I am dead I will be smiling at the wind even when it kicks up big and feels like a tornado.

I had my boy put me under the water this year to stake my claim that all things old have passed away and behold I have been made new by the One Who created me.  And in this, my 57th year, what comes or goes, I call out to that reckless, raging fury that is the love of God and ask  Him not to let me settle again for being "okay".  Just "okay" isn't good enough anymore.  Keep me in that uncomfortable grace that forces my eyes up.

July 10th Is Not Just Another Day

I'd had a coupon for Joseph Beth Bookstore and it was rainy and cozy.  Today is the day, I reasoned.  I walked amongst the shelves, greedy to find just the right thing.  I love titles.  They make me pick up a book; the title that grabs me.  Rare Bird.  I love birds.  The cover was robins' egg blue with the silhouette of a boy and girl, arms wide to the sky.  "A memoir of loss and love."  I held it in my hands and knew it was already mine.  "I want you to read this," seemed to whisper in the hallways of my spirit.  I bought it quickly and drove home.

On the couch, my lamp beside me to illuminate the gloomy outside, I opened the cover and began to read with that feeling of dread you get right as the roller coaster you're on begins to edge over the top and you dig your fingers into the rail holding you in and close your eyes tight and hold your breath.  I absorb the pain of others.  I wear it in my bones and breathe it in my lungs.  I knew this story was going to hurt.

I liked this woman the moment I took in her words.  She was honest and raw and said brave what most people, especially most christian people, don't dare admit because it's not "nice."  You probably couldn't, wouldn't say it at church.  But it's truth groaned out loud and real.  "I wish I had nothing to say on the matter of loss,but I do.  Because one ordinary day I encouraged my two kids to go out and play in the rain and only one child came home.  I learned in that moment what many other people already knew; that it can all turn to sh#@ in a heartbeat.  All of it.  Our families.  Our futures. Our dreams.  Even our faith."

I got to the part about only one kid coming home and shared grief spilled down my face.  I had to stop and walk into the kitchen and get a drink of water.  I wasn't really thirsty.  I just wanted to know I could go to another room and make her story not be mine.  It scared me.  It scared me how life can start to look like things are finally falling into place, like dreams are being answered, like new horizons are opening and then all of a sudden somebody dies.  Just without good reason, as if there could ever be one.

This mother, Anna, she taught me what a person needs in those moments.  She saw people that were close to her disappear and yet others, brand new in her life, be very present and reach out unsure but willing.  She learned to let them in because she feared herself alone.  "I want to go over the afternoon of the accident again, as if discussing what details we know will help my mind grasp how any of this could have happened.  I want us to look at one another's faces and cry.  To question God.  To hear that Jack meant something.  It is in the telling and retelling that we work our way through painful territory and gain insight.  Grief is my work right now."

My heart yearns to understand, to know how to walk out real, this thing that hits us hard; how to read my Bible and sing my worship songs and have them sit solid in my spirit while I cry and wonder why God thought something was a good idea.  To trust the One who gives and takes away.  To bless Him.  I want to choose to be able to hear the ugly, to stomach the sickening, to grab hold unafraid the hand of someone falling to pieces, to hold mine out when I see myself falling, to not need to make sense in the middle of it all and just be and wait and sit silent on the inside.

I know someone.  July 10th?   Someone they loved went to heaven on that day last year and those that loved her stood and watched.  And wrestled to trust anyway when the question screamed loud; "But.....God??"  I will make a marker in my heart for that day; to press on in honor of the pain and questions and courage.  To live full and walk out honest truth.  July 10th should never be just another day.

"For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:38-39

For Doris, Jan, Michael, Billy and all the "Jacks" this memory touches.

Doing Something Honest

I crave honest like decadent chocolate.  I'm so hungry to be laid bare before my Creator; to let Him garden in my heart at His good pleasure.  I don't fear His spade anymore like I used to because it's covered in His tears.  He cries when I cry; He cries more when I have been blind to Him, when I have drawn back without full trust.  When I have doubted.  And I have doubted.  Because honest requires open heart surgery. That is painful and leaves scars.  It whispers in me to live without answers always.  It poses the possibility of dying without knowing why.

I walk with my blinders off now and don't carry a shield to keep the world away.  That means people speak into my life or walk out of my life; it means I spend time sifting and sorting what I hear and feel and taste and see and I walk alive doing it.  Some days I'm flat wrong and have to spoon through a bowl full of regret.  Now, though, that feels like honest and good work to be done because I don't digest the regret.  I see it full on and nod my head without delay and exchange it for a meal of healing and truth.

I have asked for, and been given, friends who will challenge me, who won't leave me to cut bait and wander on my own.  We do life with our hands dirty and tears sometimes running down our faces but we do life real.  There is no exchange for letting someone see you as you really are and have them "keep" you, bump up against you, yell at you even, but.....keep you.

I have honest days now.  They hurt and sand me raw sometimes; they cause me to gasp surprised others.  When I look at you, I look at you open and ready to receive what you're brave to share.  I'm always delighted at being invited in.  It's a glimpse of the Father's hand, welcoming me into His work; doing something honest.

The Meaning of $%&*ing )$@&$

Today I made a careless, distracted human error.  I was talking on my phone while driving.  I came to a stop at a small 3 way intersection.  There was one other car at each stop sign.  I chose to pull out at the same time another woman pulled out but I did not see her.  We were going roughly 5 miles an hour.  She ended up behind me and stayed on her horn until the next stop sign just down the road, then got out of her car and came up to my window.  "You almost killed my kids, you #*($ing  $(#&%!!!," she yelled at me, the look on her face so angry it took me aback.  She turned on her heels and got back in her car.  That did not diffuse her anger.  She then followed me to the street I turned onto, tried to run me off the road and then pulled up in front of me and blocked both lanes of the two way street so no one could move.  She got out of her car again and came up to my window.  "You almost killed my kids and got me hysterical!," she yelled.  I rolled down my window, looked her right in the eye and said.  "I'm sorry.  I was wrong.  You are right."  "
"THANK you," she bellowed and got back in her car and drove off.  A soft answer does indeed, many times, turn away wrath.

Traffic moved again and I began to think about what had just happened.  I ran my errands and came home, still pondering.  I sat down at my computer and looked up the words "$*(#ing" and "#)%*$", not because I don't know what they mean.  I wanted to read the intent behind the words.  "Contempt, displeasure," it read.  It's the contempt that gripped me.  I understand a mama's anger when her babies are in danger.  I own that I was distracted and took myself out of turn at the stop sign.  I acknowledge that, while death was most certainly not on the table, at most a fender bender could have occurred.  That would have been inconvenient, costly and it would have been my fault.  I deserved a "You should have been paying better attention."    But contempt?

I considered that in light of all that's going on in our world.  How our belief and our anger skews our thinking and causes us to lash out full on contemptuously towards someone who we don't even know while our kids look on.  How the anonymous part of that makes it easier to rage, to inflate, to explode, to put our foot down hard and venomously.

I will pay better attention. My fellow drivers deserve to expect that of me.  I will also be mindful to quell contempt wherever I am the holder of it or the cause of it, to not rush to defend myself where it will only feed ire, to choose to breathe deep and look at the road ahead of any choice I make in the moment I'm in.