June 22: simply Thankful for Teddy

Last year, I can readily now admit to anyone who asks, there was a day that held such intense emotions within a 24 hour period that I was sure the human heart could not continue beating from the intensity. Fourth daughter, in labor and me en route to the grand event , second sister selling her home and beginning a new life phase, all of us dining in a very fancy Italian restaurant to celebrate. Excitement, everywhere.

The phone call came when we were least expecting it. I recall the waiter asking politely for our drink orders, me excusing myself to take the phone call that would herald the birth of my 12th grandchild,great-grandmother(my mom) barely able to contain her delight. The voice on the other end threw me off, not my daughter, but her friend, explaining that I needed to get on an airplane and come immediately. So I did.

Such a simple sentence to write, that last one. So I did. I smile writing it, amused that on the surface it is so benign, free of emotion and importance, three words on a piece of paper (except I do not think typing into a computer makes anyone able to even use that phrase anymore).

So I did. I am terrified of flying , as some would recall. I am a strict planner, always near my datebook, and definitely one who knows what her days will hold ahead of the arrival of those days.

Within 3 hours I was on an airplane, flying in terror for what would lie ahead, and definitely what would lie beneath if this airplane didn't stay in the air. So, as any frequently fearful flyer knows, I distracted myself with prayer and journaling.

The entry from my journal reads in part:
My grandson, Lord God, was born today.
 Please Father God, save his little brain, save his little body and his little lungs and his little heart and his little hands and his little feet and his little toes and his little internal organs and most importantly, Lord...his little soul.
If this sounds like begging, you would have correctly analyzed the situation from my heart's perspective. It felt necessary to beg for something so important.        So I did.

At his point in the journey of my body and soul, I recall the pilot interrupting my prayer(the official term used when one begs God for mercy and grace in the 35,000 feet off the ground range) and announcing that we were  at a 'comfortable cruising altitude'.  OH Really???!!!??

This thought occurring to me as I am writing, isn't that how we usually lead our lives? Day to day, bopping along, expecting breathing to happen, friends to smile when they pass , family to be there where we think they should be, airplanes to stay above ground, babies to arrive safely after labor, grandmothers to live another day, pets to annoyingly meow when we wake in the morning. Yup. Comfortably cruising through life, that's us.

Then we hit a bump. Bumps aren't bad if we are walking, but if we are cruising 35,000 feet above ground? a little more dicey. Baby born and maybe not going to live? Dicey stuff for the comfortable cruising mentality.

There in the air, 35,000 feet above the earth, terrified, I made a renewed decision within my heart. God and I have had these conversations before...believe you me. We go way back. However it seems that I get comfortable cruising through my life fairly often and we have to have another heart to heart. I decided it was a package deal between God and me. I would trust Him for the airplane ride, because I already trusted Him for my soul in eternity, and I clearly trusted Him for the providence that even got me ON the airplane within 6 hours of Teddy's birth. I already trusted Him for the care and keeping of my 7 children, their spouses and those 11 other grandchildren He was lending me to love, so why not trust Him for the rest? So I did.

I read Psalm 139.
Where can I go from your Spirit? or where can I flee from Your presence? I ascend into heaven , You are there. If I make my bed in hell, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your Hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me. if I say; surely the darkness will fall upon me' even the night will be light around me. Indeed the darkness will not hide me from You, the the night shines as the day, the darkness and the light are both alike to you.

Keep reading, said God. So I did.

For You formed Theodore's inward parts, You covered him in Rachel's womb. I will praise You, for he is fearfully and wonderfully made! Marvelous are Your works, and that , my Grammy's soul KNOWS full well. His frame is not now, or ever will be hidden from You, when he was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw his substance being yet unformed and unborn...and in Your book, Oh God, they were all written, the days fashioned for him, when as yet, there were none of them.

Search me, this Grammy of Theodore, Oh GOD, and know my fearful heart(you already do) Try me.again. and know my anxieties, see of there is a wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

So He did.

Thank you God, with equal intensity as I begged last year, perhaps more. Thank you that on June 26 his little fingers curled around mine and cemented my love for him firmly and forever. Thank You God for Teddy. Happy Birthday never felt so good to say.