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.

Never Deleted

My mind is like a computer, as has often been said to little people when they are watching TV. "Your mind is like a computer, what goes in stays there...be careful what you watch."

I guess we forgot about the delete button.

On a computer you can delete the entire item you have just written, talked about, blogged or even Facebook posted. You can even lose something entirely just by blinking, as evidenced by the number of times I have written a blog and lost it. Or an email that is of lengthy proportions...off to cyberspace it flies.

There are several thoughts rambling around in my brain these days and frankly I am tired of them. With my passel of kids and grands there is always something of that genre in the brain pockets, but there are also church issues, work issues, television shows I am waiting to see results of(I watch The Voice :-) ) and then the regular stuff of life, like eavesdropping.

I eavesdropped (ok, where does THAT word have it's origin?!?) yesterday on a conversation between 4 young parents on the virtues of making children make their own beds in the morning. It was a fascinating listen, really, as never before had I even considered that this topic was an optional choice in parenting! No, seriously, we need to discuss the idea as if we were choosing a dinner menu? wow. I am equal parts amazed and astounded. Amazed that parents do not instinctively know that teaching children to care for their own beds, bedrooms, toys and messes builds character, and astounded that there was hesitancy even when faced with the suggestion.

My children , and even my nephews from Brasil who lived with us awhile, know that I was one of the old fashioned variety of mothers who raised her kids to get themselves out of bed on time, then make their own beds as they readied for the day. It became habitual but first was mandatory. Guess I figured it was the parent's job to set the standards and role models. My bed was made every day before I began other tasks, why shouldn't theirs be done?  God said He wanted all things done decently and in order, so that was my standard. My mother before me, also added on the task of changing your sheets on Saturday mornings before 10:00 am, so my kids actually had it easy.

Funny thing is, after they all became adults, I am not real sure the teachings of their youth stuck, or if secret rebellion reigns and they all have messy beds, dirty sheets, dishes in their sinks, and laundry waiting to be folded.... I wonder?

I did an experiment yesterday, by the way. I left my bed unmade all day for the first time in 63 years. Completely out of my comfort zone, and when I went to bed last night I had to make it first, Furthermore, it reminded me to change my sheets this morning since mom would have been disappointed in how long it's been....

Good, I can delete this entire thought process from  my brain now, because for me that is what Blogging really is-my delete button. It is never really gone, just located in another location, somewhere with no attachment to the mind.

Delete.
Are you sure you want to trash this?
Yes, quite sure, my kids are grown.
Thank you, God.

Images of Easter

The images of Easter, known to many Christians as Resurrection Sunday, are plentiful. Just sitting at my computer thinking about Jesus Christ and His death on Good Friday so many years ago, and His Resurrection and eternal life now, is a sobering process in my mind. I think about my different friends and how they do or do not celebrate this friend Jesus, of mine. I scan through the pictures on this laptop and am astounded at how so many different photos represent where my thoughts often drift.

 This church,  seen as my mom and I drove across the Midwest last summer, is one of so many I snap with my camera while driving or walking around. The general public still revere a church and are often found in it's services only on Easter Sunday and Christmas. There is a mystical, spiritual  feeling of being in the house of God on such occasions. Kind of an insurance policy of sorts for people who do not want to place all their bets on the Christ thing, but do not also want to discard completely the thought that He may actually BE.

Another ragingly popular image at Easter is the Bunny. Meet Thomas, a member of the family, who has no clue he somehow plays into the upcoming Easter festivities with increasing popularity and love. He hops round delivering Easter baskets full of candy and gifts to good little boys and girls. He has become the Santa of the Spring season ! Albeit a cute idea, my mind does get rather panic struck that this image is the only one some of my special little friends will ever know.

Every child's favorite Easter activity!  Along with the Bunny and the candy and the Great Hunt, small children are thrilled to go hunt for for their treats, decorate their cookies, and dye their eggs.

These images can be spiritualized, as almost anything can be, but are certainly prettier than the blood of the Cross and the messy Crucifixion that reality dictated.

Lest we leave the animal kingdom without adequate representation...the birds. I love nests and birds as much as the next crazy lady, but this image of Easter is a far cry from the Cross. I imagine somehow, as I ponder, that the birds of Calvary were silent as Jesus slowly died on His Cross. Maybe they protested from nearby branches in their loud boisterous ways as the hammers pounded the nails into His palms, trying to chirp over the crowds cheering.

Then there are Easter flowers! I wanted a picture of an elegant Easter lily, but since my mind can only handle momentary processing before I get distracted, I opted for floral representation being imperfect. This then reminds me of my imperfections. I want to be a lily, but am so often just a dandelion. Jesus made me and loves me as I am, so perhaps to Him I am an orchid  :-) !

 Have you heard the story of the dogwood flower? I know it is connected to the Cross, and I know for some it is a spiritual message, but sadly, the reason I cannot speak of it is because my memory lapses more quickly than it's flowers wilt, so I'll leave the story to someone else. Now if it were in Scripture, I could go look it up, but I am fairly certain from my recent readings that it is not.

 Ah, a rainbow~~ the Easter reminder of the faithfulness of God!! He is alive! He will return as He promised!! The rainbow began so many years ago as God promised never to flood this earth again, and He set it as a promise to His faithfulness. I choose this image as a pretty awesome one.  Even last night there was a comedian using Christ's return to earth as a joke line and I cringed in disbelief that he could dare joke about our Holy God Who designed this planet. I fear for his audacity and foolishness.

 Newborn babies are such a simple, significant  joy of Spring and Easter! Do you think Mary's baby Jesus  maybe looked like this as He was swaddled in His little dusty, hay smelling swaddling cloths? Do you think she feared for His little life in her inexperience and youth, never realizing that His death would be crucial to her own salvation someday? Do you think she, young and eager to nurse this first  Child of hers, would be able to imagine the Tomb He lay in some 33 years later?

 It is not a Tomb, but  merely represents what the Tomb may have looked like on that Good Friday long ago. A completely different type of swaddling cloth was used for Jesus as He lay buried for 3 days, awaiting His Resurrection.

 The heavens! How they seem to show the glory of God and our Hope for eternity! Another less common image of the Easter season might be these clouds and skies I saw last week while visiting the ocean. I stopped and stared they were so magnificent, and then snapped my picture to cement this glorious thought in my brain: heaven is real and more beautiful than any skies on earth. Easter, the fact that Christ actually beat death because of His love for me, His very Being of Goodness. No words left but thank you Lord.

really perfect shell.

So. Clearly one will say when viewing the above image, Sue you have lost your marbles(or sea glass pictured below perhaps?) on this Easter image

How does a little sea shell down by the sea shore have anything to do with Easter?? 

There's a back story that should be shared here, so grab a cup of coffee and keep reading. 

My children at various stages of their lives have caused me much joy, and hand in hand there is the sorrow- like two friends walking along the beach on a sunny day . This particular day at the Beach in OCNJ, I was looking for shells but all were very  broken and spread sparsely in my path. As I walked along,one of my children called from home and began sharing of their saga of life that had the potential to discourage me as a mom. 

[Details spared to protect the guilty.]

I hung up the phone and cried out to God, my heart filled with fear -in- the- making- of- my- mind, and sadness. I looked down and I kid you not, there sat this perfect shell staring up at me. Where did it come from amongst the broken and shattered shells?  I seriously even looked around to see if it was a reality TV show placing it in my path! :-) Ok, I watch too much tv.

Symbolism for me personally this Easter season: If God can keep this tiny little beautiful shell from being smashed in this massive ocean as it pounds the shoreline with waves...He most certainly can care lovingly for my child who He has given me to love and care for while on this earth. He loves them too. He died on that old rugged cross for them individually should they choose to trust Him. 

nothing but cool.

 Finally. The end of my thoughts on Good Friday.....there are these little people whom God has given me to love, cherish, and adore. Twelve and counting. Grandchildren beyond grand. Some came and shared the beach with me this week, some could not.  Easter is Not about bunnies nor birds nor baskets nor babies nor buds . Easter is the celebration of the Resurrection of the man called Jesus Christ, Who IS worthy of teaching these precious babies of, Who died for them on Good Friday and left that grave, by the power of God, and I will use every breath I have to share this truth with them whenever I can.

You see, Grammy doesn't lie.