Anticipation

Anticipation.

Trying to ensure that Mom is able to manage her life once I am gone is a challenge.

Once again, I am thrown onto the grace and mercy of the Lord. I trust that he will put helpful people in her path. That he will remind her of anything important. That he will bless her with peace and remove her anxiety about my departure.

I know he will do it, so despite my qualms, I’m gonna shout in the middle of the storm of emotions, louder praises raising faith.

My hope is in him who made heaven and earth.

Blessings

A precious time lingering over dinner. One elderly resident, confined to a wheelchair and crippled up by diabetes, relived six months of an adventurous past, when she had interrupted her ordinary life to go work on a kibbutz, then travel with new friends to Greece, Turkey, Yugoslavia, hitching rides and sleeping outdoors. Her eyes twinkled and her laughter was contagious.

Nobody should assume that residences for the elderly are boring. They are filled with people who lived through different times, whose outlook may be different but whose experiences reveal the richness and depth of life.

As she finished her memoir, she remarked that she has had to ‘live like a vegetable ‘ since December. She’d like to move on to heaven, but guesses God must have work for her to do, though she can’t imagine what it is.

I think we witnessed it. Bringing light and laughter to people whose options and vision are shrinking. God bless her.

Hallelujah

A dirty hillside beneath the towering eucalyptus. An old Episcopal chapel nestled in the grove of trees. We were greeted with smiles. The service was familiar from my distant past, and Mom knew it by heart.

Afterwards, the priest was friendly, interested to get Mom’s details, keen to follow up. We returned to her new home, where we were assured a car could take her to that church for the early service every week.

God is in his heaven, and he is smiling on his children, working his wonders even in the midst of challenges. Sing a hallelujah. 

Every challenge is an opportunity

My Buxom Beauty Rose is fading. Petals fall when the table is nudged. Its days are numbered.

But the heady perfume remains, bringing a smile to my weary face.

There is a time for everything. Every ending heralds a new beginning. Ours is a God of hope, of life and light and love. Every problem signals an opportunity to see our sovereign Lord display his mighty hand.

The joy of the Lord is our strength. Walking towards the sunset, we know that we will never be left in the dark.

I am overwhelmingly grateful.

Umbrellas in the Sun and Rain

I hoped to bring a few strawberries in from the garden for breakfast. In fact, I found only one that was red enough, and not nibbled by snails or pecked by birds. In the sodden garden, the strawberries look soggy, unripe and unappetising. They are crying out for the warmth of the summer sun.

Last year, we had a rare summer with little precipitation and armfuls of sunshine. The berries grew ripe and sweet, but we did have to water them ourselves.

We need a balance of sun and moisture to produce a big, sweet crop.

There lurks within my heart a kernel of a seed. I envision it like an unexploded popcorn kernel. It is hard and useless. Over my heart I have positioned an umbrella of self. I readily see my own needs. I readily see the inadequacies of others in serving those needs. I deflect the softening moisture of the Spirit, defensively repositioning the umbrella when his whispers correct me.

Today with his help I take that umbrella down. I open myself to the Spirit’s life-giving rain, to the Son’s life-giving warmth and light. May that kernel within me pop, or grow, and provide for others this day. And may he keep me from seeking to open up that umbrella ever again. I can only do this by his grace. May his grace overrule my rebellious heart this day and forever more. Amen.

Caution!

Carefully, I tucked each trouser leg into a long sock. I didn’t look sophisticated. I didn’t care. I didn’t want a tick bite.

I thought I was safe. Then last night, a few hours after our walk, I felt a sharp pain on my calf. A tiny tick somehow found its way through the trousers, or up the leg, or whatever, and there he was, sucking my blood. I tweezered him out, put on the TCP, and now pray there was no Lyme’s disease in him.

We can take all sorts of precautions in life. But life itself is risky. It’s worth taking the precautions, but then it’s worth taking the risks. Jesus came to give us life to the full. He doesn’t want us to stress out, nor to play it safe.

Have a great day.

Death by a Thousand Cuts

Death by a thousand cuts. A form of torture and execution used in China until the beginning of the twentieth century. (Thanks, Google…)

We are all here for a purpose. God has created us to do certain things, to be certain people, to be conduits for his light and life in this dark and dying world.

I think it is possible to miss our purpose because of a focus on the thousand cuts. I am walking my mom home. The important part of the walk is not what pieces of furniture she can take forward into the smaller place, nor even the pain of letting go of vestiges of a long life. I need to resist stressing about the insurance, what it will cover and what it won’t. I need to let go of the anxiety of anticipating her distress, and focus on the real future. I don’t want to miss the gift of these moments with Mom, the blessing of her long life. I want to live the adventure God has called me to live, with grace and faith and love.

Jesus died a death of a thousand cuts, but he never lost his focus on his Father and – incredibly – on us. He didn’t let the small cuts distract him from his main purpose.

Happy 4th of July!

Red, white and blue. The 4^th of July. Today (despite the Scottish ‘mist’) I celebrated the Glorious 4^th with my sisters in Bible study. Despite the brutality, injustices, and other signs of moral failure we read of daily, I choose to celebrate a nation born to give the religiously oppressed the freedom to worship as they wished. I choose to celebrate a nation whose open doors were symbolised by the welcoming heft of the Statue of Liberty, her arm held high with the flame of freedom. I choose to celebrate the idea of a country my dear dad laid his life on the line for, fighting on the beaches of Saipan. I choose to celebrate the country I thought I knew, the country where the citizens wore the white hats. (vintage cowboy movies…)

God looks at me, and despite my critical thoughts, narrow-mindedness and other signs of moral failure, he chooses to love me. Even, dare I say, celebrate me.

We’ve all got a long way to go. But God is faithful. He is in it for the long haul.

The Grin of the Cheshire Cat

The Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland had a talent for disappearing – leaving behind only his toothy grin. Some dear people in my life have disappeared over the years, but I still remember their grins and smiles. I can picture them doubled up with laughter, enjoying a moment. Those things I remember, much more than frowns or tears.

Jesus told his friends that there would be trouble in this world, but they should be encouraged because he had overcome the world. Whatever my troubles today, Jesus has overcome them. That is reason enough for a toothy grin which will last long after everything else fades.

Still

So, the twins had an unsettled night, as babies do sometimes. I found myself wheeling out the double buggy around 9 am, so the shattered parents could get a bit of respite (if you can call it that, when an active 2-year-old is still with them, just ready for another energetic day…).

All was calm and quiet. Both babies: pictures of peace. For half an hour, when those elusive burps – or something – started them writhing and squeaking and squirming and stretching and, eventually, crying. A brief pause to pick one up and try to bring relief wasn’t a success, so I turned round and kept pushing for home.

Lullabies didn’t cut it. So I decided to have a bit of worship time myself, hoping they might catch a bit of the peace of Christ. ‘Hide me now, under your wings…’ I sang. ‘I will be still and know you are God’.

One settled. Then the other. I kept singing for the next half hour, headed back, worshiping God and soothing those precious babies.

The beauty of God can be contagious. The peace of God can spread to others when we carry it in ourselves. I could have stressed. I could have picked up speed and hoped they wouldn’t be apoplectic and hysterical when I handed them back to the parents. Instead I settled into a rhythm of my own, focused on God rather than on the babies, and sang.

I’m not suggesting it always works. But this morning, it did. Praise Him.