I reached up and opened a card. It looked promising. I read the inscription which dashed all my sentimental hopes. My only hope these days for meaningful inscriptions is a blank note and my own pen.
Valentine’s Day gets a lot wrong. Romance for romance sake. Elaborate, one-time displays of affection honored more than the constancy of daily warmth in the grind of life. Crude and scoffing cards meant to illicit laughter at the expense of respect.
But, it gets one thing right. The color of love is red.
Red is the color of blood, the color of oxygen infusing a liquid that brings life to the body. Red is the color of the dirt from which God created man in His image. God delighted in man. God loves humans. God loves you. God loves me.
Then, God loved enough to take on a body that pumped blood. After that, He loved enough to be tempted in every single temptation. He knows our pain, our sorrow, our sin. He took on all the hurt, pain, wrong, and disgusting perversion of every person on the planet and bled for it.
The color of love seeped through the pores of His skin and offered us release from death. We, the living dead, can be born from above.
Last year and again this year, I read the uproar about movies and porn and abuse, my heart aches and it was and is appropriate to grieve. Grey is what we get when we forget that love requires the unselfish giving of ourselves to another.
Grey is the color of death and death brings mourning…or it should.
My husband is a mechanical sort. So was my dad. I know just enough from listening to them talk to make wild assumptions on what is wrong with machines. Most often I jump directly to worst case scenario. I get the feeling that is not particularly endearing to some, ahem, my husband.
Like the time we returned to our assignment in Asia after a 6 month absence. Our cute orange car waited 6 months for us parked outside. Friends cleaned it a time or two and started it a time or two, but it was lonely.
Our first morning back I headed to the car to go and stock our bare fridge and cupboards. The engine turned over, and over, and over, and over…and didn’t start. I gassed it and tried again and again. Our car was dead, I knew it. Stone cold dead.
I also knew just enough to know that maybe stepping on the gas repeatedly could flood the engine and undermine my efforts to bring Orangey back to life. I laid off, took a breath, and eventually got to the grocery store.
So, here I am years later trying to write again after months of upheaval and absence from my blog and not writing. I primed the pump last week at the library by checking out books on writing like Stephen King’s book On Writing which I stumbled across in the stacks.
I took it as a sign that it was time to try and begin again.
Plus, I heard it was good. Stephen King’s writing is not my genre by a long stretch. But, his book On Writing is more my style and quite a fascinating and humorous read so far.
I checked out another on the craft of memoir writing. I haven’t cracked it yet. It sounds too serious, a little more ambitious than I’m ready to read.
My library trip and a couple short editing projects, and I felt a bit of the spark of desire to write again. It felt good. Like a visit with an old, familiar friend. Like unpacking a box and remembering a beloved object not seen for years.
I started to feel ready to write again.
Plus, an automated woman from wordpress called and warned me to pay up or I’d lose my domain. I didn’t pay up soon enough. I lost it and now must pay a fine for my procrastination. But, something about a call from wordpress made me think about writing again.
Like a kick in the pants.
I remember paying for my domain name last year. It was a huge step for me to put money towards writing. I was so serious about it. I realize I don’t want to pack up my love for writing.
Last year, Dad gave us a Christmas tree. Pre-lit, he assured us. We accepted and they hauled it to Florida where we were living just last year.
After Thanksgiving, we opened the box and encountered a hairball of Christmas lights. My husband and I looked at each other. Dad harrumphed and commented, “post lit, I guess.” We laughed and began the task of unsnarling a few layers of Christmas lights that didn’t all light. After figuring out which lights plugged in where, we still noticed a quadrant of the tree was dark. Our oldest touched a strand and, voila! Lights! A Christmas miracle.
I remember Christmas past and I startle at how much can change in just a year. It takes the breath away and leaves me a bit brokenhearted. This Christmas is not what I expected last Christmas.
So much is new. So much is not with me. I don’t know always know where to hang the old memories. They surround me in the form of ornaments from family and friends, nativities from far off places. All symbols of real events and real people that stir up nostalgia for times past.
Hope is the advent focus this week. It’s stirred around in my soul for a few days now. Hope seemed such an ethereal word in the past.
Hope.
Like a wish upon a star. It just went out into oblivion, or so I understood it.
This year, I think about hope and I see hope begin in the past with the promise of One who would come and crush the head of the snake. It continued with One who fulfilled the promise by substituting His death for mine. And, hope stretches strong into the future attached to the One who entered behind the Veil that separated men from God. Jesus.
One day He will come back and put to rights all that is wrong, and there is so much still wrong.
Hope is surer and stronger than I ever knew.
Hope means I can hold joy and sorrow together, because I know there will be a day when the tears will end. It is not today, but I know there is a day. That is enough.
Hope means the future is bright because God promises to never leave or betray His children. I am not alone.
Hope says there is a purpose in and there will be an end to suffering. God does not waste the hard things in my life.
Hope straightens my spiritual spine and lifts my head. Hope says life will not always be like this. Hope extends the offer of joy in the midst of deep sorrow.
Hope is a strong word. It’s a bold, uplifted smile through tears.
I published this around Easter two years ago. As I read it again, I am struck by how the Lord is calling me, yet again, to stoop and look into the tomb. I reposted it this year. It is still a very current place for me.
I don’t like to wait. I try to find ways to avoid waiting. Call ahead. Go do something else and come back when the line is shorter. I especially don’t like to wait when I don’t know how long the wait will be. That’s what it feels like to be left, to wait for the unknown. When leaving, I think about the future, to what comes next. It’s exciting. When left, I think about the future, too, but what comes next? I know not.
The tomb scene in John spoke to my heart this week as I contemplate the departures of a few friends and teammates. Mary came to the tomb early and left late. She saw the men come and stoop to look inside and then they returned home. She, too, looked and saw emptiness inside, I suppose. The text doesn’t say specifically. She was left, so she thought. But she lingered anyway, weeping and waiting. I don’t like to wait or to weep. I don’t like to be left.
But, then she stooped and looked again where others looked before and saw nothing. Amazing. Why did she look again? I don’t know but if I were her, why would I look again? I want to see. I want more. I want a different reality. Maybe I’d think that if I looked one more time, just once more before I left I could leave and go home and start to fill the emptiness on my own, sure that there was nothing left to wait for anymore. The act of stooping to look again is so full of faith.
She stooped and looked weeping and she saw angels…heard angels, spoke with angels! She saw the Risen Christ, clung to Him, and He gave her a message to pass on. For others who came and went, the tomb lay empty, just empty. But for Mary, who waited and wept and stooped to look again, the empty tomb became a place of joy and comfort and hope and purpose. The emptiness of feeling left by the Lord filled up with so much more.
So, I wait weeping more and more. I stoop to look in the emptiness and wait for His explanation of the reality I feel so deeply. He fills the emptiness more and more with the comfort, joy, and hope in His Word. And, He challenges my view of reality.
I am not left. I am not alone. The emptiness of the tomb is the reality but the explanation for what my eyes see is far from empty.
Time is a gift. I know that today more than ever. My father’s tumor spreads as I write, moving us closer and closer to the end of his earthly, physical days. There are few treatments and they only promise an extension of days. Apart from miraculous healing, we know the end is coming. It always was, death comes for us all, but knowing a time frame brings life into focus.
This is the time under heaven and each moment swells with importance. A time to weep over the missing and laugh over memories past and the foibles of the present. To uproot from life as we knew it. A time to embrace what matters and avoid what doesn’t. A time to search out disconnected family members and reconcile those we can’t find. Times of silence together and times we speak.
Sacred time is what I call it. Not everyone experiences these moments. There are things worse than death. Things that make death a jagged sword that rips out flesh after it pierces the heart.
It’s inescapable. Death does pierce the heart with grief. It keeps me up at night, it makes my heart pound. I physically hurt. But, death doesn’t have to sting the way it can. It doesn’t have to drag a pound of my soul on the way out.
The red trees are called poison wood trees.
Some things are worse than death. I’d take a brain tumor over my parents divorcing any day. I’d take this over parents with a contentious marriage fraught with selfishness. Unreconciled relationships and unforgiveness are sins that infuse death with a harsh sting. Before that, unforgiveness kills the soul and binds the heart tight and small. Those that encounter such hearts sustain injury to the deepest places in their soul. We’ve all met them and we’ve all been them, too.
I see my parents holding nothing against each other, though I’m sure they could find something. They spent the fall looking deeply into their relationship in a small group. It was painful at times, but I see that it washed their relationship from resentments. They feel closer than ever.
My parents and I sure have our moments we’ve needed to forgive, too, but this time together assures me we hold nothing against each other. And, lest you think we don’t have opportunities, you are wrong.
The freedom this brings to my soul is unspeakable. The freedom this brings to my father is beautiful. Though I see his sadness, I see that death has lost its sting. He says it himself. He woke my mother up one night to tell her. He is forgiven, and he has forgiven. He experiences freedom from fear and crushing regret and flaming anger.
I want this for myself. I want this for others too. The sting of death is sin (I Corinthians 15:56-57). Victory is through Jesus Christ.
Be reconciled, my friends. To God first, then to parents, spouses, children, friends, and co-workers. Even the person on the road that cuts you off in a blatantly offensive way. The politicians that get under your skin. The doctor that does the paperwork too slow.
Sow the seeds of forgiveness and uproot the weeds of resentment and bitterness. Let it not be on our shoulders, the crushing burden we do not have to carry. I long for the freedom that comes through receiving forgiveness and extending forgiveness.
Day after day, as long as it is still called today, don’t be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin (Hebrews 3:13).
His plate sat there half full of scrambled eggs as he reached for more. I watched as he spooned some more on the right side. Then he ate the right side leaving a line straight up the middle. Eggs on the left. No eggs on the right. I turned the plate and it was like a magic trick.
The brain is fascinating. When signals don’t come from the eyes, it fills in the blanks, interpreting from what it’s learned. My dad doesn’t realize he can’t see his left side. That means walking into walls and furniture, knocking things over.
Now he often needs help on his blind side to prevent a fall or running into things. It’s a lesson in humility, I’m sure. For me it’s a lesson in service.
I’m constantly watching and adjusting on the blind side, learning his limits, walking the fine line between parent and child. Sometimes I tell him like it is, and he follows. Other times there’s no leading him anywhere, only hanging on for the ride. Like when he wanted to do a pre-op snow angel outside the hospital.
Walking the blind side is a privilege, but he’s a man not used to being guided. He’s led where he doesn’t want to go. Like Peter in the Bible.
When you were young , you would tie your belt and walk wherever you wanted. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will tie you and carry you where you don’t want to go. John 21:18
At this point we’re not tying him up. Its a tempting option when he’s home alone and inclined to test limits that are steadily changing.
He’s not the only blind person. I’m as blind as my dad about what’s next. My mom less so, but this is the first brain tumor in our family. We pray it’s the last.
None of us wants to walk this path. We’re learning and we’re taking faltering steps into unknown territory. I’m growing wary of what I can’t see ahead, like my dad.
Follow Me. That’s the big question, bound on this path, will I follow Jesus? Will I go where I don’t want to go, because that’s where He’s going? What does faith look like on this path?
I will walk the blind side again today and tomorrow and for a long time to come. At least, it will feel long. Doctors say it will not be nearly long enough.
We saw something coming a few months ago. We didn’t know what it was, but my dad was acting strange. More strange than usual. He’s a funny guy.
Reckless driving, clumsiness, memory skips. He’s 73 so we expect some sliding. But, this was more.
Then he decided not to drive because he wasn’t safe. He didn’t want to hurt anyone else. That’s my dad. Thoughtful of others.
What we saw coming grew larger in our minds and hearts.
Then, he saw the eye doctor who says he’s lost 50% of his vision. But in a way that means it’s not his eyes. It’s his brain. MRI’s happened so fast we knew this wasn’t good. Doctors rush when it’s bad.
The call back came with a next day neurosurgeon appointment. Something was in his brain besides what was supposed to be there. The tidal wave bore down.
We saw something coming a few months ago. We didn’t know what it was, but my dad was acting strange. More strange than usual. He’s a funny guy.
Reckless driving, clumsiness, memory skips. He’s 73 so we expect some sliding. But, this was more.
Then he decided not to drive because he wasn’t safe. He didn’t want to hurt anyone else. That’s my dad. Thoughtful of others.
What we saw coming grew larger in our minds and hearts.
Then, he saw the eye doctor who says he’s lost 50% of his vision. But in a way that means it’s not his eyes. It’s his brain. MRI’s happened so fast we knew this wasn’t good. Doctors rush when it’s bad.
The call back came with a next day neurosurgeon appointment. Something was in his brain besides what was supposed to be there. The tidal wave bore down.
Then it hit.
Large, rapidly growing, tumor, malignant, decisions, no cure. Mere months of decline I can count on one hand. Or months of painful, invasive treatment that buys extra months I can only count with two hands. None of that factors in a God who can heal, yet healing doesn’t always come here on earth.
Life and death and never enough time. But enough time, too. Heaven. And sleep until the day for us who believe.
And he knows whose he is. He has a hope that lies steadfast beyond the veil. That hope stands strong even as my heart is slayed. I am weak and strong. Mourning and possessing some strange, deep peace all at the same time.
New always seems exciting…better somehow. The New Year is usually the holiday I count down and celebrate with a cheer. But, this year I felt a bit of trepidation. New feels a bit scary this year.
When I think of new I usually think of good things. A new shirt, a new baby, a new apartment, a new destination, new friends, a new restaurant, a new recipe.
But, new shirts need tags ripped off and a good washing. Sometimes they don’t fit as well as I thought. New babies cry and demand a lot of attention and care. Sure, they’re cute and all but…new isn’t just exciting, it’s hard work.
In a new apartment I can’t find my way around in the dark. New shoes feel pretty awful before I break them in. It took a good soaking rain storm to make one pair feel excellent and that happened 3 years into wearing them.
Making new friends takes time and attention. Time to share memories, experiences, preferences, life. New recipes sometimes don’t look like the picture and new restaurants are difficult to find.
New doesn’t fit quite like the old and I like comfortable and known. I don’t want to wait three years for the storm that finally makes everything fit right.
When I celebrate the new year, I bet I’ll indulge in a little more nostalgia for auld acquaintances and times past as is fitting when a new year arrives. I plan to take a look at the last year which gave us a lot of twists. We find ourselves a little weary at the end of this year. I guess I am ready for a little new even as I pine for the old.
Because new flowers are beautiful and new babies are warm and snuggly. New apartments hold yet-to-be-made memories and new friends enrich my life. Finding a new favorite restaurant sparks my curiosity and new shirts sometimes graduate to favorite shirts.
New isn’t all bad yet new is a bit more complex than I originally thought for a mere 3 letter word.
Last week in a fit of inspiration I instituted a redesign of my blog. Now I get why such decisions happen in a boardroom and not at a solitary desk. I don’t like it. It’s too austere with too many straight lines. A boardroom might have saved me.
Every theme I liked better cost money. I am too cheap to pay for anything on my blog. Which leads me to another problem. I have not invested money into my writing beyond paper, pens, ink, blood, sweat, tears, and time.
Now, money is not as important as time set aside for writing, but it says something that I haven’t applied material resources to my craft. What does it say? I’m not sure yet. I’m figuring this out as I type these words. I’m hoping that my conclusion paragraph will give a large “aha” moment for us all.
My relationship with money reveals much about my relationship with God. I’ve seen that over the years. Money and many other things go hand in hand. People talk. Money backs things up. Money gets things serious. Money leads to a lot of bad things but it also reveals what we are for.
Have I bought into my writing? Am I willing to buy into my writing? To commit to pursue something to point that I will spend actual currency on it? In this area of my life-my writing-what am I for and am I willing togo the next step and have it cost me?
I think I’m ready. I don’t know what form it will take. I might pay for the redesign I really want, or the class my coworker emailed our team about. Maybe I need to sit down and really ponder my blog and see if this is what I want write. Is there something else I want write?
Beyond those details is a larger realization-there comes a time when I need to put my money where my mouth (or pen?) is. Am I a writer? Yes. So maybe I need to invest more in it!
What talents or gifts will you invest in this year?
One day He will come back and put to rights all that is wrong, and there is so much still wrong.
eternalwaitofglory 