Just a Glimpse

There is a song we sang in church when I was growing up, maybe you know it. ♫ It will be worth it all♪ When we see Jesus♪ Life’s trial will seem so small♪ When we see Christ.♪ One glimpse of his dear face♪  All sorrows will erase♪ So gladly run the race♪ ‘Til we see Christ♫

What a day that will be!

Is there any way I can imagine now what that moment will be like?  Is my imagination wild enough? Large enough?  Do I have any experiences here on earth that give me a foretaste of that moment that washes away all the sorrowful memories of life and any trial, trouble-filled hours, days, months or even years?  What might I encounter here that helps me anticipate that more fully?

I’m always looking for parallels to jump start my understanding into spiritual concepts.  I imagine a literary person would call them metaphors.

Jesus used one when he warned his disciples, hours before his own crucifixion that mournful weeping was just around the corner, but their grief would turn into joy just like a woman’s anguish in childbirth is forgotten when she holds her newborn. (John 16:20-21).  That’s a parallel that I have experienced.  And it is true.  In the joy of holding the baby the travail vanishes.  That is until women get together and compare their “labor tales”.  And there are some doozies! 

In that parallel I can begin to understand how “one glimpse of Christ’s face” could really erase all my previous sorrows.

Another parallel came from a friend today.  She told me a dear person to her had given her a piece of precious information.  But my friend had no instruction of what to do with it or about it.  So she pondered it.  She wasn’t sure she had ever pondered anything like that before and certainly not for such a lengthy time.  Just within the last few days more information has been delightfully added to that morsel.  As she shared that with me I thought of Mary the mother of Jesus. Luke 2:19 tells us that Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.  She had messages from the shepherds, from the magi, from Simeon, Anna, the teachers in the temple and who knows who else.  Perhaps some of those treasures perplexed her, frightened or overwhelmed her.  But she pondered them and one day, they came to light and she understood.  My friend understands better today what to do or expect from that tidbit she pondered for so long. 

In the last 48 hours I’ve had an experience that is an appetizer-sized taste of a parallel in scripture.  I realize it is not the full-blown experience, but it is enough to nudge me toward the transcendent.

After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them.  His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them.  And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus.  Mark 9:1-4

My joyful experience has come to me after nine years of waiting. The waiting actually isn’t finished yet, but for a moment the thorough and exacting work that is being done in the waiting was shown to me.  The veil was lifted just enough to reveal the coming glory. It took my breath away.

And then I identified with Peter. 

Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters--one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah."  Mark 9:5

I wanted to live there.  I didn’t want to return to the ambiguities, the self-doubt, second-guessing, perplexities, fluctuations of faith, highs, lows and more waiting.  But I’ve read the account enough times to know, Peter, James and John couldn’t live in that moment forever.  They had to come down from the mountain.  I knew I would have to come down, too.  But while I was there I was filling my lungs with the mountain air.

It says, “Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.”  Poof!  It was over.  But there was a memory.  A transcendent experience stored among other treasures.  But they would have to ponder it, because on the way down the mountain Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen. 

What!  Not tell!  How frustrating. I think they may have asked him a lot of questions about that.  Maybe Peter said, “I should have built that shelter while I had the chance.”

They were to keep this experience to themselves until a better time.  What would have happened if when they returned to the other disciples, they told of their experience?  Would there have been jealousy?  Would the others have believed without seeing for themselves?  Would it have been detrimental to Peter, James and John?  Would it have had the reverence that such a revelation deserves?  We don’t know.

Jesus must have known there was a better time to share their glorious experience with the others.  Maybe it was right after the crucifixion in their grief-stricken state, sequestered behind locked doors. Maybe the unparalleled joy of Christ’s resurrection triggered their memories of Christ’s transfiguration and in exuberance they told the others. It could have been during those hours together in Jerusalem waiting for the Holy Spirit. Or maybe it was all of the above. 

I’m glad Peter, James and John didn’t stay on the mountain.  I needed them to come down to testify to me of what they saw and what they continued to see.  I am coming down from the mountain, too.  But I have this treasure that I can ponder any time I want and I plan to do so.

So my momentary look under the veil inspires me to testify that God is working regardless of whether we can see it or not. And waiting for just a glimpse or for the full glory of Christ’s face is worth the wait.  

Cool Tissues

In this blog posting I’ve included footnotes that give either relevant scriptures or background information that fill in the details. The footnotes are at the end of the blog if you’re interested. 

I pulled the tissue from the blue metallic colored square box and used it to blow my nose.  “Oooh, this is nice.  What is it?”  The process brought coolness to my nose as though the box was a tiny refrigerator keeping the tissues at a refreshing temperature.   Had the box been sitting near the air-conditioning vent?  No.  Every tissue emanated the same coolness.  Right down to the very last one.  Every time I used a tissue the same cooling sensation soothed my nose.  I’d never experienced this before and I was intrigued.  When I inspected the box, I read all about Cool Touch™, cooling, soothing and soft!  My word, I didn’t know this existed.  I usually buy the generic brand, which is nothing like this!  “After all,” I reasoned, “tissues are disposables and I do use them in great quantity.  Don’t spend a lot of money on them.” I was quite satisfied with my choice, until I used these.  I have now discovered something far superior to any tissue I’ve ever used or knew existed.

My life experiences have often been like that as well.  When I’m at an impasse, a tight spot[1] or a dilemma, I have one, maybe two solutions. But what I’ve experienced is that God has a myriad of options for every situation. At least 99.9% more that I could begin to imagine. Here are just a few examples from my own life. 

In August after my freshman year in college I was dating literally the “man of my dreams.”  He was everything I had wanted in a husband and more.  I believed I had delighted myself in the Lord and Wayne was my reward[2]. By October the guy ditched me.  I was hurt initially but maintained a thread of hope.  That hope mocked me and then I got mad at God!  I ranted at God, threw tantrums in front of my roommates and tried numerous times to fall in love with, well anybody.  Nightmares of dream guy with a fiancée or worse, a wife, haunted my sleep.

My life went differently[3] than I’d hoped. About the time I resolved the hurt, twenty-two agonizing months and four days later to be exact, I received a letter from him.  It was an out-of- the-blue option.  The romantic whirl-wind relationship that followed had not been among my options. I could not have imagined[4] that in the waiting God was preparing both of us for a timelier, healthier, richer relationship than either of us could have created.

You might think I learned that lesson, but not quite. 

We married and unsuccessfully sought jobs in Beirut, Lebanon[5].  We were at the end of our money and our “only option” was to return to the U.S.  On a whim we thought, “We may never be in this neighborhood again so let’s visit the family’s homeland, Iran.”  We did and within 48 hours of arriving we both landed jobs.  However, we would have struggled with cross-cultural living if we hadn’t had the time in Beirut under the tutelage of our aunt and uncle.  God’s option[6] gave us more than we knew to request.

We returned to the U.S. two years later.  After another four years and two sons, we started a business.  In that process we accumulated significant debt.  It got to the point where we had to close-up shop.  Wayne took a minimum-wage job in order to put food on the table, which was quite humbling for a Tau Beta Pi engineer.  I could not figure out how such low wages would meet our normal bills, let alone pay back outstanding loans.  I had very few options, none of them adequate. Our situation was impossible.

In a very creative way[7], God totally resurrected our business.  A hefty commission put us back in the game, the debt was retired quickly and we’ve enjoyed 32 more years of business.  Since then there have been many similar challenges and just as many God-designed options and solutions.

A few years later I felt directed to look for a new house, moving us out of the city and into the suburbs.  In the time it took me to find the house we wanted, our pending business opportunities had dried up and we were more focused on survival than acquiring more square footage. I don’t remember throwing any tantrums this time, but I was disillusioned.  I thought I understood God’s direction, but the “evidence” proved differently.  Six months later our financial situation was totally reversed and we bought a house after only a ten-minute walk-thru.  The house was directly behind the previous one we liked. If we’d had two nickels to rub together earlier, we’d have bought the first house and lamented not having the kidney-shaped pool that came with our “dream home”.  God had more options for me than I could imagine in my disappointed state.  And he preserved us by tying our hands through our finances so we would be available for his choice.

One would think after the years of witnessing this phenomenon I would now spend very little time stewing over the mountainous impossibilities ahead of me. But I’m in another tight spot[8].  This time I feel like I’m choking. I can hardly breathe[9]. I have a choice, to work within the options I see, or look further down the shelf at what God might be creating or imagining.

John 6 records that Jesus saw a crowd of people approaching and he asked Philip “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?”  Philip fell right into his own logic, “We don’t have enough money for that!”  Even Andrew looked at a lunch of five barley loaves and two fish and derided, “How far can this go to feed so many?”  But verse 6 tells us that Jesus asked this question only to test Philip because Jesus already had in mind what he was going to do.  And what did he do?  He blessed the small lunch and fed more than 5000 people with it.  This was an option outside of the disciples’ imagination and mine!

How often do I limit my solutions to what I know?  When the Creator of the gecko, monarch butterflies, redwood trees, prickly pear cacti, wild piglets, green turtles, sunsets, magnolias, Bonavila plants, sea salt, stove-pipe sponges and aloe for Cool Touch™ tissues can take my puny impossibility and speak the solution into existence[10]. Yes, options that before I needed them didn’t even exist.

Did you know there are other specialized tissues beyond the Cool Touch™?  You could have the Ultra Soft, the Lotion tissue or the Anti-Viral[11] tissue that kills 99.9% of the cold and flu viruses. (read the fine print). And have you seen those sophisticated oval tissue boxes that add a trendy pizzazz to your décor? The options are unending!

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[1] When I was desperate, I called out, and God got me out of a tight spot.  God's angel sets up a circle of protection around us while we pray.  Open your mouth and taste, open your eyes and see - how good God is. Blessed are you who run to him. Psalm 34:6-8 The Message

[2] Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this:  He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn,… Psalms 37:4-5 NIV

[3] For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8-9 NIV

[4] Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,  to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.  Ephesians 3:20-21 NIV

[5] When Wayne first hinted at marriage, he also informed me that he planned to join his aunt and uncle, missionaries in Beirut, to work with them and support himself with an engineering job.  He planned to be gone one to two years.  “Hold on,” I said.  “I’ve been waiting for you for two years, don’t expect me to wait around for another two.”  Thinking back on it, I was bluffing.  But it worked. Coincident with our engagement and wedding came our planning for Beirut. Two months after we were married, we boarded a freighter and headed for the Middle East. In reality, we were so naive and unaware, we had no idea the adventure that awaited us!

[6] …for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Matthew 6:8

[7] We were close friends with Ellie in Michigan.  Ellie moved to California.  She worked in a secretarial pool.  One day she was typing for Jim, because his regular typist was out.  His letter meshed with our work and Ellie connected him to Wayne.  Jim, an international recruiter, had a job order. Wayne had a person qualified for that job.  The two split the commission.  We were back on our feet, a little wobbly, but standing.  The solution had been utterly out of our control or planning.  One might say it was completely coincidental, if you believe in that stuff.

[8] Disciples so often get into trouble; still God is there every time.  He’s your bodyguard, shielding every bone;…Psalm 34:19-20a The Message

[9] The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.  The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me.  In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears. Psalms 18:4-6 NIV 

[10]  By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. Hebrews 11:3 NIV

[11] http://kleenex.com/FacialTissues.aspx

The Power of Feathers

He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge.  Psalms 91:4

My friend Joann laid in the emergency room, a brace around her neck, her body covered with warm blankets and a blood-soaked bandage wrapped her left foot. The car accident had been severe, totaling her car and backing up traffic while three paramedic teams cared for the drivers and passengers. I had just seen her the night before and she’d told me that every night she read Psalm 91, claiming the protection from many methods of attacks.  And here she was.  When I arrived at her bedside, I pulled out my Bible to read those familiar words…”no harm will befall you.”  The words seemed to mock Joann’s situation.  I said to her, “It may not seem like it right now, but these words are true.” 

For a while Psalm 91 was written on a banner that wrapped the perimeter of the cozy prayer room at our church.  We were encouraged to meditate on and pray through that psalm, which I did more than once. There was a pair of large wings covered with white soft feathers that also hung on the wall.  They had probably been part of an angel’s pageant costume and they gave the impression of a mighty soaring bird.  That actually is the image I have when reading Psalm 91. 

But I get a very different impression of wings of refuge when I read Christ’s words in Matthew 23:37, “how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.”  Although the images are quite different, they are not contradictory.  And when I need refuge, I don’t care what birds’ feathers are available.

Feathers as designed by the creator serve ubiquitous sparrows and majestic eagles.  They provide protective body covering, trap air for body warmth, provide insulation and increase buoyancy for water birds.  Some specialized feathers protect the eyes and nostrils during flight and others around the mouth actually snatch insects. All of those purposes fit nicely, reassuringly into the psalm.

Then very early this morning I experienced first hand

He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. 91:4

 It was four-eleven a.m. when I got out of bed to go to the bathroom.  I stumbled through the room with my eyes mostly shut so I wouldn’t disturb my sleep too much.  I felt I’d succeeded when I crawled back to bed very sleepy.  But the moment my head hit the pillow, my mind was barraged with fearful thoughts. “No, please not now,” I begged.  I had horrific tempests the day before with fear and worry and my daughter Alissa and husband Wayne held the life line taut for me and I made it to the other side of the troubling waters.  The attacks and turbulence in the middle of the night are horrendous.  “No, please spare me,” I prayed silently. 

But I wasn’t spared.  The gale, though intense, didn’t last long and I landed on these thoughts. 

            1) My second son, David, was jaundiced after birth and it took several precarious days until he was out of the woods. I was sent home without him, fearful, worried and even after a lifetime of Sunday School and Christian education I didn’t know where to go in scripture for comfort or encouragement.  That storm was a wake-up-call for me in how little of God’s Word I knew and how much more of it I needed.

            2) After starting our business we went through the worst financial situation we’d ever experienced.  Every bill produced fear in me, but also taught me that God was my literal provider.  I learned to cling to him like a life buoy.  I also learned how to pray about everything. 

In some mysterious way those memories settled my churning fearful mind. It was like Dramamine to sea-sickness.  It was, as I would find out, being covered with feathers.

As I was ready to sleep, Wayne asked if I was awake.  “Yeah?”  I said, sensing the gusting of my calm waters. I realized in the next few minutes that my rough sailing was not only for my benefit.  Unknowingly I secured a harbor for the imminent whirlwind that threatened to capsize Wayne.   I experienced as much of his storm as I had in my own squall.  This time I was on duty to hold the life line and I had been readied. I really didn’t have to say much; nearly nothing at all.  I just needed to listen.  I felt extremely calm, like I was protected behind a shield, a curtain of feathers with a powerful tempest just beyond them.

For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

 Psalm 91:11-12

Immediately I recognized the intricacy of the last few minutes. I marveled at the delicate work of the Holy Spirit to make sure I wasn’t awaked out of a deep sleep, caught unsuspectingly in turbulent waters of fear and sheltered during the torrent that was outside of me.  My thoughts moved from “Thank you for this safe, peaceful place,” to “Thank you that you are bringing Wayne to a similar place through this.” 

I’d never considered the strength of feathers. Also it was most pleasurable to imagine angelic activity around me.  They awakened me through a natural body function, let me experience the raw tactics of my enemy, reassured me by highlighting pertinent spiritual landmarks of my life and then tucked feathers together making a shelter for my abiding.  I was cared for.

At one point I did consider stepping over to the feathers and separating them a bit to peek out at the storm.  But I didn’t want to disrupt the detailed work or the peace it afforded. So I thanked and I prayed from under the covering of his wings.

Joann is still in the hospital.  She now has a soft cast on her foot, but it didn’t require surgery. She has a fractured pelvis that is amazingly treated with ice.  She is under observation for a few days which is expected, unnerving, but at this point not threatening. Numerous contusions over her body could make one doubt the presence of feathers or make us realize there is nothing downy about protective coverings.

Whether I thought so or not, Psalm 91 was true in the emergency room, in my middle-of-the night terror and in whatever arrows fly by day.  I can, I will, rest in the shadow of the Almighty for He is willing to cover me with his feathers.

And Wayne?  He also made it to the dwelling place of the Most High, though he migrated an alternate route.  After all, he is a bird of a different feather.

Blog Clarification

On spot remover bottles there is a warning:  Test this product on a small inconspicuous part of the garment.

To a new blogger there should be the warning:  Before inviting all of your contacts to your blog test your article with a few friends to be sure it is readable and clear.

Today I have bounced back and forth between the overwhelming expressions of love and concern given me by family and friends to the severe awareness that I have caused many people unnecessary worry.  I am very sorry for that.

 Let me reassure you that I am not in a terminal or life-threatening illness.  Over the last few years I have experienced fears, worries, disillusionment and questions that harangue us in seasons of uncertainty, change and loss of any kind.  My experience in an area that is not physical has enlarged my capacity for understanding and appreciating those who deal with heart-breaking prognoses or outcomes.  God’s Word has been especially precious to me in these years and the insights from it are honey-sweet.  I have loved praying God’s Word over friends dealing with illness and other seemingly impossible situations. In posting my first blog I wanted to share some of that sweetness with others, though I didn’t mean to cause any trauma, triviality or misunderstanding. I apologize for any pain I have caused you.

As a new blogger I’ve learned three important things.  One, be very clear.  Two, people care a lot!  And three, I will be far more diligent to comment on patients’ Bridge Pages or Care Pages in the future.  If what I experienced today through the concern and affirmation of friends is any indicator, those comments must deliver healing ointments to the patient’s bed.

Thank you for reading my blog. My PR man and #1 fan Wayne did an excellent job of getting it out there.  Thank you for the promise of your prayers.  I’ll take ‘emJ!

I hope you will continue to read my blog. I’ll try not to make it so traumatic in the future. That’s a way to lose readers! 

Coming up soon:  “Cool Tissues”

Prognosis: Days of Discouragement

Hannah Hurnard’s allegory, Hind’s Feet on High Places, inaugurated my spiritual journey the first time I read it in my early twenties.  The main character, stunted and deformed Much Afraid[1], struggles to make her way to the mountain heights where she is promised to be whole and to abide with the great and loving Shepherd.  At the summit she will no longer be plagued with her physical or emotional limitations.  In her often harsh journey she finds small encouragements that keep her hopeful.  Here is such a passage:

In all that great desert, there was not a single green thing growing, neither tree nor flower nor plant save here and there a patch of straggly grey cacti.

On the last morning she was walking near the tents and huts of the desert dwellers, when in a lonely corner behind a wall she came upon a little golden-yellow flower, growing all alone.  An old pipe was connected with a water tank.  In the pipe was a tiny hole through which came an occasional drop of water. Where the drops fell one by one, there grew the little golden flower, though where the seed had come from, Much-Afraid could not imagine, for there were no birds anywhere and no other growing things.

          She stopped over the lonely, lovely little golden face, lifted up so hopefully and so bravely to the feeble drip, and cried out softly, “What is your name, little flower, for I never saw one like you before.”

          The tiny plant answered at once in a tone as golden as itself, “Behold me!  My name is Acceptance-with-Joy.”

I have recalled with great joy that portion of Hurnard’s book when I’ve witnessed a pansy emerging from a crack in a cement sidewalk, or a single bloom surviving in the crevice of a mountain’s stone wall. 

Right now, living in my current prognosis[2], I long for a drop of that joyful anticipation.

The flower pots in my back yard billowed with blossoms and blooms over the summer.  But with the golden leaves now falling from the trees, I donned my gardening gloves and pulled the straggling plants, clearing the pots before the onset of winter.  To my surprise, in one of the pots, hidden under the old dying foliage was a small cluster of perfectly formed spring-green leaves.  If the leaves weren’t falling like snow flakes around me, that new growth could have convinced me it was spring.  I couldn’t pull it out.  I couldn’t deny it the chance to live. But also my heart sank.  “How long can this plant survive?” I asked myself. “Temperatures will drop soon.  One frost will probably finish it off.”

Equal to the wellspring of pure joy those single blooms popping out of cement or stone boulders have given me, the sadness of this tiny plant’s destiny deluged me. Inwardly I sobbed.

I’m convinced that my prognosis is parallel to that plant.  How long can I hold on?  I don’t expect that plant to make it through the next three weeks.  How do I expect to survive the frigid gusting winds of my own impossible situation? Get real! Am I fooling myself that there will be another spring?  It doesn’t matter how hardy this plant is today.  Its death is certain. How certain can my own deliverance be?

I want to be Accept-with-Joy whether my life is abased or abundant.

Could there be another spring when I display the beauty that abides in my roots and new growth?  How hard should I work at weathering the elements that are determined to bring my end?  Will it do any good for me to continue to believe for something better?  Should I now recognize the inevitable and accept-with-joy?

I think I saw Accept-with-Joy in my friend’s face today when out of her desperate situation she rejoiced in the little drips of hope God had provided for her over the last few weeks.  Her countenance displayed a golden beam.

Will holding on bring the joy and glory to God I direly desire?

Another friend, Janet who has lived two years beyond her seven-weeks-to-live prognosis and growing stronger everyday, told me that many receive her story with great joy.  But there are those, even eye-witnesses to her miraculous recovery, who don’t see it and refuse to give God honor for his deliverance of her.

So I, this Much-Afraid, am wondering what to hope for.  What provision should I anticipate?  How will God best receive glory?  Will it be a treacherous winter? If I hold on will spring sprout new blossoms?  Or do I now bow in acceptance, release my expectations and receive with joy what is currently obviously inevitable? 

After Much-Afraid’s arduous journey she did reach the mountain heights and she received everything and more than was promised. I can’t imagine what that might be like for me, but I take encouragement again from God’s Word through these contrasts.

The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon; they will see the glory of the LORD, the splendor of our God.  Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way;  say to those with fearful hearts, "Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you."  Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped.  Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.  The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow... the ransomed of the LORD will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. Isaiah 35:1-10

What a promise to hang on to! 

The green foliage of the little spring-like plant may soon shrivel up.  But I’m wondering if the woody roots below it may burst forth with new life come spring.

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[1] John Bunyan also has a Much-afraid in his allegory, Pilgrim’s Progress.   Doesn’t “Much-afraid” rightly name many of us in life’s journey?

[2] See my posting “The Prognosis”

The Prognosis

The prognosis came in January.  Eighteen months at the outside.  Less if certain things happened.  We have just entered October.  Every time I write the day’s date I get a jab in my gut.  I’m just that much closer.  Moving from9-27-12 to 10-3-12 may seem so insignificant, but it eats up a significant amount of my eighteen months.  

When we had a swimming pool we always asked when we closed it around Labor Day, “What will transpire between now and when we open this next summer?”  Actually the next summer seemed to come around quickly and no trauma in-between.  Just one-day-at-a-time ticked off the calendar and suddenly we were again scrubbing the tiles and pouring in the chlorine.

When we were children, those days until Christmas or the end of school or grandma’s visit or our birthday don’t tick off quickly enough.  Somehow that changed.  It seems like just yesterday we were in January and now we are in October.  I haven’t thought of what month the eighteenth month would be.  But I intentionally have done that to keep each single precious day in sight.  I’m trying to keep a degree of normalcy.

I’ve had friends who have outlived their prognosis.  Janet was told she would live seven weeks.  At the announcement she said, “Praise the Lord!”  She credits God with her healing and is grateful for the aggressive chemotherapy program her doctors designed.  This morning she held my hand and squeezed it so hard my ring finger screamed in pain.  When I told her she apologized, but I said, “It is a testimony of how strong and well you have become.”  She smiled knowing she has come a long way by God’s grace.

Another friend Bob was sent home from the hospital enrolled in hospice and expected to slip away soon.  Yea! He has far outlived his prognosis.  He graduated, in an “alive” sense, from hospice two times and cared for his wife through her life-ending cancer.  Now more than five years from his threatening diagnosis he lives a busy fruitful life.

 

Maybe I too will go beyond my projected end.

I have more than enough friends who are currently wondering how true their prognosis will be.  Have they figured in what month their predicted end date falls? How close will that be to their birthday, their daughter’s wedding, the birth of a grandchild or their favorite season?  While others are crossing off dates in anticipation, my diagnosed friends and I are painfully aware of how time flies.

A very few know my condition.  I want it that way. It means that some of my actions, decisions or isolation may not be understood.  My prognosis is not physical.  But it is life-as-I’ve-known-it altering.  It robs every day of its ordinary life.  Every day is a pendulum that swings closer to the end. 

Banner People

We will shout for joy when you are victorious and will lift up our banners in the name of our God. Psalm 20:5

Our friend, Fos, is a banner that waves high and marks the spot, “When you are faced with your mortality, here is where you come.”  He is in the midst of his second campaign against cancer in two-and-a-half years.  He was the one who started me thinking about banners.  I linked the other words with it, he didn’t.  He’s too humble to do that.  But those of us who see his standard waving, know the truth.  We read his honest, straight-forward and faith-filled blog and he inspires and encourages us in our “mole-hill” challenges.

I then thought of other banners I’ve had in my life.  Most of these I’ve gotten just a fleeting glimpse of as I marched through my own life.  I think of them as standards on the battlefield that let us know that our commander is very close by.  If we are in trouble we move closer to the standard.  We can follow the standard to the place of safe refuge. 

I recall a banner from thirty-some years ago.  A couple shared their story and their vision for a new venture.  They had owned a construction company and when hit with the current recession had either closed up shop or sold the business.  They were now in foreign missions construction.  What caught my attention the most was the knowing look that transmitted between them as they talked of a loss that led them into something more marvelous that they could have imagined.  I saw that look and sighed, “Oh how awful to lose what you have worked for.”  We were just emerging from a struggling phase of a fledgling business.  I was finally wearing stylish clothes and getting decent haircuts because there was finally money to do that.  I couldn’t imagine having that grateful look if it all went by the wayside.  But their standard was waving, “If you have to let go of something to grasp onto something better, have no fear.”

I met Renee last fall and was immediately struck with her lovely and warm countenance.  She showed interest and support of our celebration she was attending by asking questions, complimenting the surroundings and personalities.  It was much later in the day when I heard someone mention the tragic death of Renee’s daughter.  Her reply was, “Even when you experience great loss, God is good to teach you through it.”  At that moment she raised a banner for me. It signified, “When your heart has broken, if you let the Savior bind up your wounds, this is what you can look like.”

    

Dave and Shirley have only known frugality and generosity in their material lives.  The money that has gone through their hands to worthwhile causes and needy individuals that coincidentally cross their path at gas stations and grocery stores is more than the income of even affluent people.  They certainly did not deserve to be victims of a Ponzi scheme.  I can remember Dave and Shirley beamed when they first made their investment.  They told us the man they invested with said, “Your investment (nearly a million dollars) has taken us to a new level where my wife can now stay home with our children.”  Dave and Shirley’s hearts are as good as gold.  Later when the scheme was reveal, that gold was polished before my very eyes when Dave and Shirley raised a standard that shouted, “When you have been taken advantage of, forgiveness is the only sure route away from bitterness and into peace.”

After a battery of tests, Janet’s doctor informed her she had a rare brain cancer and had seven weeks to live.  The medical center shook as Janet raised her banner. “Well, praise the Lord,” she said as she maneuvered it into place.  Many people, well and sick, rallied around that standard as Janet moved through her treatment, therapy and restoration.  Now two years later that standard declares, “If you have an impossible situation, remember nothing is impossible with God.”

At a fall bazaar I was manning an inactive craft table so I was free to listen in on my friend’s conversation with a woman she had known several years before in her church.  I never caught the name of the pixyish lady dressed stylishly in black and donning a velvet hat with the brim turned up off her very pleasant face.  I listened because the conversation was so uplifting. I didn’t hear a negative word from her, but I learned through my eavesdropping, that her marriage of forty plus years fell apart, she now lived in a senior residence that I think was government subsidized and she had sold her car because it cost too much to maintain.  The woman who bought it asked her to drive her around in it.  They were together at the bazaar. Her story intrigued me because it was so dissonant from what I was witnessing in her.  Through a conversation that I wasn’t even involved in, that woman unfurled a banner for me.  “If life gives you lemons you can make much more than lemonade.  You can squeeze joy out of them.”

I currently have a friend who has lost her marriage, her financial support, her health, her sight and shares an assisted living space with her mother who is confined to a wheelchair.  I put myself under Mary’s banner every Wednesday afternoon.  We talk and we laugh together. Her standard reminds me that, “Contentment has nothing to do with what we have or what we have lost.”