Blast from the Past

 

I stood, staring out at the beautiful blue Pacific, stretching and healing in the hot summer sun. Behind me, a young couple whispered and laughed, enjoying the vibrancy of youth and companionship. It added texture to my experience; the beauty of God’s creation, the beauty of relationship and love.

All of a sudden, I was startled by a ragged line of pelicans swooping west to their nesting places out on the peninsula. Looking like some sort of throw-back to the dinosaur era, they moved in silence and speed, soaring and swooping, not fishing but heading home.

This was once land on which native Americans made their home. Before that, maybe others. I stood still, feeling like I stood still for awhile, but on reflection, recognising that my presence there was but a blink in the history of this place.

A thousand years in your eyes, God, are like a day gone by.

My life is but a flash in the sweep of history, and yet every second of my life has possibility, has meaning, has life.

Small adjustments can result in significant outcomes. Little tweaks to the steering wheel in driving a car result in crashes or clear driving. Little movements to the rudder or the sails of a yacht can have major outcomes to destinations or disasters.

May the nanosecond of my own prayers today help alter the tragic trajectories of the nations. May I have faith and confidence to believe that God himself hears the cries of my little heart, and answers.

Those pelicans. Swooping along the coast as they have for centuries, for eons perhaps. Seen by people I can only imagine.

Designed and orchestrated by the God who is pure love. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son Jesus so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

So grateful that Mom is now blessed in that eternal presence.

Footprints in the Sand

 

I took a walk in the sands of Redondo Beach. It’s not so easy walking in sand. Must be good for the glutes. I didn’t want to walk down where the water had compacted it into an easier surface to traverse, because I remember the tar which can come up along this beach, and it is not easy to remove from feet or shoes.

Walking in sand, though, is exhausting.

On a wall in my living room, there hangs a beautiful poem lovingly embroidered for me by Mom, many years ago. It is the famous Footprints poem, recounting an imaginary dialogue between a believer and Jesus. As the believer looks back at the trail of footprints in the sands of her life, she is disappointed that at times the two sets of footprints – hers and Jesus’ – reduces to one set. Sadly, she wonders why Jesus left her at those difficult times.

Jesus’ reply is that no, she has misinterpreted the evidence. The footprints reducing to one set came from the times when Jesus carried her. She was never left alone.

As I look back at, particularly, these last eleven years when Mom has been in three different assisted living facilities, I see one set of footprints. I have been so out of my comfort zone, so weak and lost to know which way to go, and that has drawn me to press in, to lean in to God. He has carried me through all the changes, all the agonising decisions, all the downsizing and distribution of another person’s lifetime of memories even while she was still alive.

I’ve written this before, but as I drove back to Josie Avenue for another load of possessions when we moved Mom into the first home, I was in tears. I remember which intersection on that road I was stopped at, tears flowing, when Jesus whispered into my mind, ‘In every teardrop there is a rainbow.’

The rainbow is the closer walk with him enabled by the weakness I felt. As Paul wrote, when I am weak, I am strong because Jesus empowers me.

My prayer as my steps begin to head out of the valley of the shadow of death is that I would not assume greater strength than I have. I want to continue to lean into God and not become self-sufficient and cocky.

May those parts of my trail where there is just one set of footprints, define the rest of my life. Totally dependent on my Saviour.

Ode to Mom

 

With polite professionalism, the Banking Relationship Specialist said quietly, ‘I’ll just have to ask you one security question. What is the name of your oldest best friend?’

Our meeting went on and finished.

This morning, I woke up thinking that the real name of my oldest and best friend is Marilyn. For seventy-five years, Mom was always the one who could listen carefully and then, in that quiet, diffident manner so characteristic of her, she would offer a few pearls of wisdom.

As a teenager, I remember sharing with her about the mother of a boyfriend who I thought was wonderful. The mother, according to the boyfriend, was a nightmare in various ways. Mom looked at me and quietly said, ‘Just remember, he is his mother’s son.’ I found out the hard way that she was right.

She always put herself after everyone else. She took the smallest piece of pie. She wore the same old dress while buying, or probably making, new ones for Judy and me. She didn’t return to the higher education she’d had to forego during the war until Judy and I were independent enough to manage if she were away in classes, or studying.

All with such good grace. With no thought of being the ‘sacrificial martyr’. With love.

I can’t say enough how grateful I am for the blessing of such a Mom, my oldest friend. Always in my corner. A gift from God to me, to the world. She left her mark on all who had the good fortune to know her.

‘That smile,’ one of the care team said to me. ‘She had that beautiful smile.’

Nobody is perfect, but she was pretty close to it.

Unseen companions

 

I parked the car and walked the two blocks to the beach, a walk I have taken countless times over the last seven years. Too tired to walk for exercise, I sat on one of the cement benches (not the most comfortable, it has to be said) on the bluff above the beach, and stared out to the ocean. The Pacific Ocean, oh so beautiful. Oh so many memories further back, further back than the seven years.

Paddle boarders and a few surfers were in the water. Others sunned themselves on the sand. A weekday, it was remarkably empty but then, everyone’s working hard.

Something caught my eye. Something in the water. Dolphins. Several dolphins – I couldn’t count – gracefully, lazily glided in parallel to the beach. Runners and walkers and cyclists kept pounding down the pavement, oblivious to the wonder of these beautiful swimmers slipping through the water, overtaking them effortlessly.

It’s such a poignant, sad time, and as I work my way through a challenging list of things that need to be done when someone dies, I am beginning to seize the moments to sit quietly, to remember, to grieve.

In his final prayer in church yesterday, Pastor Dan prayed with confidence that when one’s physical eyes shut on this world, one’s spiritual eyes open to see the face of Jesus. Yes, that is where Mom is now, out of her constraints and into the freedom of the Kingdom.

That is such a consolation, and so I grieve, but am not without hope, as Paul writes. I smile and cry over so many memories. Sat alone in a booth at a place Mom loved to go, Mimi’s, and ate what she would have eaten: quiche, fresh fruit, a blueberry muffin and coffee. And remembered the many, many times she had sat across from me.

As the dolphins, unseen, paralleled the walkers on the shore, so I imagine that perhaps Mom, unseen, parallels me now. And I know for certain that Jesus is with me, guiding, comforting, and answering so many prayer requests.

Take a breath

 

The Avis coach driver, with a friendly smile, helped lift one of my bags onto the bus. I joined the handful of others going to pick up rental cars. As the driver inched away from the curb and into the turbulent traffic at LAX, her radio was at high volume and tuned to a Christian radio station. The two men on the program were discussing anger management, suggesting that Jesus, by writing in the dirt when confronted with the men accusing the woman caught in adultery, modelled for us how to step aside, take a breath, when anger threatens to overwhelm us. They suggested Jesus was infuriated by the injustice of the accusers only bringing the woman for judgment, and not the man as well.

‘No, no, no!’ my bus driver shouted at a dithering driver in front of her, drowning out the speakers on the talk show. She gestured wildly at a car in front which was weaving in and out of slowing traffic. ‘Keep going, keep going – move over!’

Traffic bubbled and boiled as does a river when encountering a rocky descent. Skilfully, she pulled the bus into the space vacated by the probably terrified driver in front, muttering to herself.

‘Not supposed to be stopping here. Can’t read the signs?’

The men on the broadcast continued to discuss the rage in society today.

Honk! The driver slammed her hand down on the horn, again and again.

‘What are you doin’?’ she demanded of another driver in a luxury car in front of the bus. ‘Careful with that rental car you’re drivin’, mister. Bet you don’t have one of those at home. Come on!’

A light changed to red and the bus stopped. A lost pedestrian gestured to her from the other side of the street, and she opened her window. He shouted a question for directions, and she shouted instructions back to him as the light changed to green. She sounded kind, helpful. But then she pulled away, shaking her head.

‘Ain’t nobody s’posed to be walkin’ round this airport. That’s why the buses are free!’

As tired as I was after getting up at 3.30 am, and just off an 11-hour flight, I couldn’t help smiling at the timing of it all.

It’s pretty easy to slip into critical thoughts or words even against a background of praise music or an encouraging message. Life itself can drive us up the wall, where we give way to our baser instincts, to rage.

At the start of what will be a challenging day, I want to remember to pause, to ‘write in the dirt’ before giving a response, whatever situation I may be in.

Inadequate Tribute

 

The day dawns grey, windy and almost autumnal, yet it is August 4^th, which in my mind is the height of summer and the birthday of two amazing humans in my family, my mom and our son Jamie.

Jamie lost his ‘Birthday Buddy’ on Sunday when, just shy of her 102^nd birthday, dear Mom slipped out of this world and into the waiting arms of Jesus. Mom was always in my corner, and she bore the heavy loss of my sister Judy, and the death of my Dad, and the sadness of geographic separation from me and her grandchildren with grace and fortitude. She loved fiercely and she loved well. I know that she prayed me into the Kingdom, and the way she has walked through these last years of diminished health and mobility with such dignity, courage and even humor has been inspirational.

I was so blessed by my Mom, blessings I don’t deserve, and once I navigate the busyness of the final steps of walking her home, I know the grief will really hit. But the grief is cushioned by the joy of knowing that she is with the Saviour she loved since she was 7 years old, and with all those dear ones who have gone before.

My world has dimmed as her light has gone out, but I am forever grateful to God for the wonderful Mom he blessed me with.

 

Relationships

 

Distracted from my sorting through old prayer journals: I took my senior year high school annual from the bookshelf and sat back, slipping into a time in the far distant past. Remembering friends and fellow students who walked with me through those often turbulent teenage years, trying to discover our identities, feeling our ways forward into further education at colleges and universities scattered across the country. Having been connected with this large group of people my age, some for 12 years, we graduated and scattered, lost touch, lived our lives. Some – many – have already died.

The custom was to sign one another’s annuals and I was amused with how similar most entries were: wishing me well, wishing me luck, saying I deserved it, saying kind things about me. A few stood out; one in particular, because since I was eight years old, Jenny has been a friend.

A friend. The kind of friend who knows your good and bad traits and sticks with you anyway. She wrote a page, recalling memories of moments together, shared times as we struggled to make sense of our world, to figure out relationships, to live well during times of uncertainty – the war in Vietnam, which affected the boys in our graduating class as instantly they became eligible for the draft unless they had a good reason to defer. Nuclear annihilation was always a possibility. Racial injustices and civil disobedience. The hippy phenomena. A turbulent time to step out as a fledgling adult.

Jenny and I had more memories to make together. Memories made in each others’ universities when we visited one another; memories made in Europe when we both did a year studying overseas, Jenny in Bordeaux, me in Stirling. Memories made after university, each others’ weddings, letters and now emails and lunches every time I go back.

And now. Her husband is growing frail; things are difficult. Across the miles, we try to encourage one another.

Life is a gift from God, and part of that gift is friendship which stays the course.  Friendship which lasts through a lifetime, across the miles.

May God bless and deepen friendships; may he restore relationships which may have grown cold, distant or broken; may he deepen relationships in the high-tech generation who connect through the devices rather than over an ice cream.

May he deepen our relationships with him, the trinity being the epitome of what relationship can be, in him.