Loss and Love

Sometimes they are the very same thing. Sometimes we give up the very thing we love because we love it.

We hurt. We cry. But we know that our love - our very act of loving - means we must let go.

My sister took her 18 year old cat to the vet tonight to have him put to sleep. The reasons were many, but the chief among them was her love for him. Loved him too much to let him die alone. Loved him too much to prolong his suffering. Loved him too much to be selfish for one more minute.

Letting go is never easy. It is our nature to hold all that we have and to hold it tight. Our grip can be smothering.

Opening our hands to free something -or someone - is the hardest thing we may ever do. But there is freedom there - for us, too.

Ultimately, the loves, the possessions, the things we call ours were never really ours to own, guard and jealously grip. They are here on loan. And our grip must be loose, the way we hold a tiny flower or china tea cup.

It is really our hearts that get to hold on tight to the memory of love and the warmth of living so long with the truth of life.

Some may think - it's just a cat. But love is love, big or small. Our hearts are filled with the stuff - if we let them be - and it flows out and over all we touch.

We will miss you, sweet furbaby. Go and sleep peacefully. Thank you for the memories.

I will lift my eyes

Perspective is everything.

It can be skewed - like thinking your thumb is bigger than the moon just because you can blot it out of the evening sky with one eye closed. Or by closing one eye and pinching someone's head between your fingers from across a room.

We can focus so intently on the problems in front of us that they loom large, out of proportion - like that giant thumb you just discovered. And once we grow used to this, we no longer see a way around, over, or under them.

It may be a little problem, it may actually be a big problem. But add our fear and worry and intent stare (with one eye closed) and we are dwarfed by it.

A young man I knew took his life yesterday. Perhaps he told his family why. Perhaps he told no one why. But in his young mind, whatever the reason, he must have had one eye closed. He must have forgotten that if you open both eyes, the trick doesn't work anymore.

In Psalms 120:1-2, the writer says, "I will lift my eyes toward the mountains. Where will my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth."

Once we lift our eyes, we can see beyond, above, and past what lies before us. Now we are standing at the top of the Prudential building in Boston, looking down, and saying - they all look like little ants. Well, that's just not so bad.

Be careful how you are looking at your world. Make sure - are both eyes open? Lift them up and see, with clarity, how big our Lord is.



dedicated to Jes Smith. I will miss you while on this earth. I loved you, son.

Happy Birthday!

Today, Eli turns 11.

With each marker in his life, I am blown away - AGAIN - by God's mercy and love.

Every mother looks back, I am sure, to the morning of her child's birth and remembers. I remember holding him and wrestling with the nurse's swaddling so that I could find his tiny little feet. I had to see his little feet. I remember his head full of sticking-up hair and his big adorable cheeks. I remember his scream.... haha. Good lungs, everyone said...

I even remember watching the news unfold in England when Princess Di passed away - because I WAS UP ALL NIGHT with him!

And I remember the dreams I had that day, wondering where he would go and what he would do. I had no idea that in a year and a half I would be back in that same hospital, a few floors down hoping he would just live.

I had no idea that in a year and a half, I would walk through that same lobby and see women just like me taking their babies home for the first time and my bitter heart would silently say to them - "Just wait. Just wait for what is in store for you. You think you are happy, but everything could come crashing down."

And now, here I am 11 years later and I look at this big boy - with his own cell phone - making his way through middle school, smiling his way into everyone's hearts. I get emails from his teachers telling me what a delight he is to have in their class. I see people smile when he walks into a room.

I get to enjoy his great sense of humor and watch his eyes dance with anticipation at life's joys - big and small. Just getting to see his cousin on any given day will give him that look in his eyes. Hearing the door unlock as Dad comes home. Spying a sleeping cat in need of a cuddle.

Oh, how I wish I could stop and enjoy life like that.

Happy Birthday, sweet boy. Thank you for sharing your love so easily. Thank you for your laughter. Thank you for being so patient with all of us as we push you and pull you and stretch you and subject you to so much. Thank you for teaching us when you didn't even know you were. Thank you for surviving. And thriving.

You are a blessing, my best good boy.

Love, Mom

What are you proud of?

I was challenged yesterday.

The sermon was on pride. Identifying pride, preventing it in our lives.

And I proudly thought, I'm not proud.

*sigh*

Why do we struggle so with this in our lives? Wait... Why do I struggle? Dear reader, I wanted to include you so that I wouldn't feel so miserable about myself. But that's not really fair. I can't say "we" when I know I need to say "me".

I have discovered as I have walked this path that the singular cause behind all the wrong I do is the elevation of Self. As soon as I put my Self in the center, at the front, of any activity, encounter, or relationship, I start to trip, to slip and to fail. It is the force that pushes over the first domino and the rest go cascading down around me.

And I know this. Yet I continue to let it happen.

I find that my need for attention, my need to elevate myself, to feel better, to feel valid, to feel smart, to feel valued, begin to cloud my vision. I begin to look at the words that pour fourth (there are quite a lot of them, aren't there?) and I feel that old familiar smile tug at my mouth. Yeah, that sounds good. What a smith I am.

And there-right there-I slip. I fail (again) to credit and praise He who gives vision, wisdom and talent. I fail (again!) to see the nothing I am and the everything He is.

And I stand, ashamed and painfully reminded that without Him, without my Jesus, I can do nothing. With this, I weep at my rude spirit, my greedy pride.

Lord, take this, these words, take me, and use me, not for my glory but for You. Make me a mirror, an instrument to magnify You and diminish me.

And you, friends, please, forgive me for when I have put myself in front of my love for you and my love for my Lord. Forgive me for hurting you, for ignoring you, and for any harm I may have done.

When pride comes, disgrace follows, but with humility comes wisdom.
- Proverbs 11:2

16 years

So, yesterday my husband and I celebrated 16 years of marriage.

What does that mean? 16 years?

Joy? Pain? Trial? Laughter? Tears? Giddy Love? Blinding Rage? Safety? Fear?

What can I say? YES. All of the above.

And here we stand, together, side by side. We have seen dark days, walking through that valley (the one with the shadow of death hanging over) and came to the other side hand in hand. We have seen glorious days (those that contain wonderful things like the sparkling light in the eyes of little people who look a lot like us). We have hurt each other terribly. We have forgiven each other over and over. We have helped each other to stand back up when we stumble. We have held each other through sorrow. And we've laughed. So much laughter.

We have learned, argued, shared, and prayed together. We have built things with our own hands, all the while making fun of the directions (written by someone whose first language was NOT English). Together we stood over our son's hospital bed. Together we smiled (and cried) as he walked (the second time) back and forth between us. Together, we proudly looked on as our daughter stood up and played her violin in front of a roomful of strangers.

The history is rich and intricate. The intertwining of our lives so delicate and yet as strong as steel cable.

What is 16 years?

A lifetime of moments, big and small, painfully tender and raucously joyful, a re-creation of self into an us. Measured by time and yet eternal.

I love you, Marc.

A New Pair of Glasses

Do you wear glasses? If you do, you will understand me when I remember these moments (and if you don't, well, you're getting older, so you might experience this one day...):

You sit at a table with a funny round mirror and a stranger puts glasses on your face. That is never good. Another person can never put your glasses on for you or take them off for you and it still feel right. If you've been wearing them your whole life, like me, you smile a "no offense" smile and you take them off your face and put them on yourself. There. That's better.

Then, a strange thing happens. You blink, you look at yourself in the mirror, you look around the room. You start looking for things to read. And for a few moments you feel like you are in a fish tank looking through 10 gallons of distorting water. And then - amazingly soon - your eyes say - oh YEAH... I can SEE that. And THAT. And that, TOO!

And by the time you've paid these nice people and walked out of there, you think, how could I have ever lived without seeing the world like this? I must have been blind before because everything looks so new and crisp and almost fake. Perhaps it is the shocking cleanliness of the lenses that contributes to that. No matter what, they will never be THAT clean again... you just know it...

You drive home and it is like you are experiencing everything for the first time. Leaves? the trees have leaves? I thought they were just green scribbles like my daughter used to draw. The details of the world begin to pop out at you and you realize how much you had been missing.

Sometimes, if we allow it, God can do the same thing for our hearts. When you finally reach that point when you just can't see anymore, when your head aches from trying on your own to understand your situation and your heart strains against what you think you see. Your dim view is causing you to trip, your aim is bad, and you feel unsure of where you are even going. It is in these moments, if we are wise, that we turn our eyes on the Great Physician and we ask Him to repair our vision.

We rise from our knees, we raise our heads from His Word and we blink, we look in the mirror. We begin to look around the room and suddenly, with the refraction of His love and mercy, we begin to SEE. We wonder how on earth we could have been so blind. Perhaps we feel shame and loss for waiting so long, but mostly, mostly we feel relief. And wonder. And a refreshing newness as we are able to look at ourselves with truth and others with love.

Leaves? The trees have leaves?

Rewind button?

Do you ever wish you had a rewind button?

We say something harsh, do something stupid. We stand by and watch as the words that just flew out of our mouths (or our keyboard) do their damage. And once they are out, we cringe, like the archer who let fly the arrow accidentally.

Sometimes we do intend harm only to find ourselves horrified at the reality. Sometimes we are trying to be funny and it goes horribly wrong. Sometimes we are hurting ourselves and the only way we think we can feel better is to poke those around us with that sharp object we carry around (that would be our tongue).

How often do we then let the apologies pour forth, hoping somehow to pull those words back into our mouths? Hoping that with the flood of guilt and shame, the awful thing we just said will get washed away. Sometimes we fall over ourselves trying to make up for the pain we inflict. We get a bandage, hold it over the wound to try and stop the blood from flowing, all the while whispering I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry.

And in your mind, you see the tape rewinding, people walking backwards, words turned inside out and you get *just* there - to that one moment in time when you had the choice to say it or shut your mouth, to click send or the big red X. But the tape won't stay rewound so you can start over, it just plays out over and over again in your mind.

Why? Why did I say that? And the words of James 3:8 flood your mind - "but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison."

But there is a rewind button -and that is forgiveness. True forgiveness. A good friend of mine (who has been jabbed - several times) taught me that forgiveness freely given is a balm that stops the bleeding. Forgiveness freely received stops the torment in your heart. Forgiveness from Heaven heals and teaches us.

And hopefully, prayerfully, that forgiveness will stand in front of our mouths reminding us, warning us against the next foolish choice.

The Thing About June

We all sort of dread this time of year in this town. The temperatures rise and we realize that no matter what we do, we are in for it - cars so hot you can barely touch the steering wheel, pavement that causes burns to your feet, days on end when you do nothing but sweat, and the impending knowledge that you must rearrange your life to stay indoors as much as possible. Well, that is, unless you are in a swimming pool - and even that is best when the searing sun has gone down.

Yet, there are surprises everywhere you look. The sage says, "I care not!" as it brandishes its new crop of little purple flowers. The Mexican bird of paradise says, "Bring it on!" as it holds high its bright red-orange beauty. The fountain grass says, "What heat?" as it sets forth its fluffy kitten tails for you to touch.

But the best of all - the thing that makes me smile - is watching the giant green ladies of the desert don their extravagant flowered hats as they say to the sun, "Finally!"

A Rock In Your Pocket

Sometimes a friendship can be like a smooth stone you like to keep in your pocket. You hold it, enjoying the coolness and the easy way it fits your hand.

You turn it over and over, looking for flaws, the ridges of your fingerprints searching out an imperfection. Instead, you are surprised by the depth of its beauty, painted - how long ago? - by the Hands of God.

You lift your hand, test the weight, and you realize how easily it could be a weapon. But you smile when you understand why people use stones for paper weights - so all your important stuff doesn't fly away.

And In Comes Peace

There was a wind blowing today through the city. Warm and strong, it took my breath away. It was not a menacing wind. Not one that brings storms and hail and frightening darkness. But one that instead brings change. It was one that pulls you out of where you are, forcing your face upward to the sky.

It was a wind that awakens and fills us.

When the Lord takes away our pain, He does so by changing us. Our surroundings are the same, our situations still familiar. But we are changed by His power. Thankfully it is not our own, for I know it would not last if it was my power.

As we look upward, our eyesight is changed. We see through a different lens, the focus tightened in on the only One who can save us, comfort us, change us. If we will allow Him, He fills the spot of pain with peace, with healing and even – unbelievably – even with joy.

Sometimes Pain Can Be A Companion

A loss, however great or small, is often replaced by a pang you carry around. You become familiar with it and sometimes, just feeling that sting can make you feel not quite so lonely, not quite so bereft. You turn to it and just the act of feeling it makes your loss a little less.

But one day you wish it to be gone. You don’t want to feel that pain any longer. You pray for the Lord to take it from you. And yet, there is a little fear there. Will my loss be complete if I no longer feel the pain? Is that the end?

And you can’t imagine that you could hold your memories without the pain there, stabbing you in your chest. You see evidence in the people around you – there they are, remembering and not crying, talking and laughing without holding a hand to their heart where it hurts so badly.

And so you cross that threshold, to see if it can be. Laughter without pain, fondness without sorrow. Yes, perhaps it will come true on this slippery strand that we call time.

You open your hands full of glitter and tears and let them go, watching to see where they will fall.

Good Samaritan Hospital

Sorrow lives just around the corner. It will peek around at the best of times. Sitting in a sunny spot outside, feeling the warmth on my back. I turn my head. And there it is.

The building is the same. It’s been the same for nine years. Those windows staring down at me. I knew I was close – there is a little flashing light somewhere in my mind that blinks faster the closer I get, even if I don’t consciously acknowledge it. I knew I was close, but somehow my eyes had avoided the skyline.

I turn and there it is. Oval windows. No other building in this city has windows like that. I look up and study the windows.

I’m just sitting, trying to eat my lunch. In a few minutes, I will go and pick up my daughter. She is the gift that God gave me to prove to me that life goes on and it is glorious. And soon after that, I will see my son – the gift that was given – twice.

But my eye has settled on those windows. I try to see inside from where I am. I know it is impossible, but suddenly I can see the hallways, the doors, the paint. The thin disguise of decoration over reality that fools children but never fools a mother.

As I sit there in an uncomfortable wicker chair with people walking by and talking about who knows what – stuff they think is so important right now – as I sit there, I can actually smell that building that is blocks away.

Something inside me changes, twists, and hurts. My mind says, no that is all over. Years ago. You don’t have to feel that anymore. But that spot deep within begins to weep. I want to put my hand on it and apply pressure like you would a bleeding wound.

I know if I don’t I will have to let it all out. And I don’t have time. So, I push my sorrow down, and it is like a sleeping bag that will never fit back into its original sack. I push and pull, tuck and push. And with the last bite of the lunch I no longer want, I force myself to stand and turn my back on it.

The building of sorrow with oval windows. Just around the corner.

*** and with that, I say, goodbye, May... see you next year***

Little Purple Flowers

In January the landscapers came and butchered our sage bushes. I had never seen pruning like that. One could scarcely call it gardening. When they were done, there was little left of our plants that was recognizable save the location of their roots. Every leaf was gone – and in January in Phoenix there were still many leaves to be lost. Every major branch was cut back, some were even torn.

It was very disheartening to walk outside that day and be met by these scrawny stumps that were once our big lush sage bushes. I won’t even tell you how my husband reacted – that’s for another blog!

For weeks I would walk up to the house and lament our sad stumps. I’d look longingly across the street at the reasonable landscaping going on over there. I’d remember with great sadness how wonderful they looked at Christmas with net lights covering their rotund beauty.

And then we saw a leaf. Even so, you can’t imagine that it would make a difference. Then, another. Soon, I stopped noticing the new growth altogether – as we often do with things we see every day, like children and cities.

Yesterday, I was unlocking my front door and a fragrance came to me. It was soft and beautiful and I immediately recognized it. Sage. Those sweet little flowers. I stepped back and really looked at my bushes again. There they were. Big, round, full and in need of trimming, for heaven’s sake! And absolutely covered in purple flowers.

Sometimes we are pruned, aren’t we? God in His wisdom removes from us what seems like beauty, what seems like necessity, what seems good enough. Sometimes we stand and look at ourselves and it feels like He may have taken the very thing we thought we needed to live. It’s not pretty. We feel torn and void. We do not understand when we are being cut back that it is the only way to grow from the inside out – the only way to fill out to our potential and be shaped by the Master Gardener. My prayer is that one day I will send a sweet fragrance to His nostrils.

Tonight I Was Surprised

I stood behind my daughter as I combed through her hair, blow drying it after her bath. Her flowing beautiful hair. We were laughing at something simple and her golden little giggles were bubbling up around me. Suddenly I thought how blessed I am to have the privilege of this moment. I know so many people who love her, who are delighted by her. I have heard testimony to the light she brings into a room. Yet I am the one who gets to stand here, so close in a warm steamy bathroom and hear laughter meant for only me.

I remember when I was 18, there was a baby in our church whom I loved. His mother and I were friends and I worked in the nursery and had held this baby since he was born. He smiled at me and loved me back. He was always happy to see me and came willingly into my arms. I loved him as though he were mine.

I remember that one day, I realized that no matter how much I loved him, there would always be something I could not grasp, something I could not understand. I realized that my friend was the one who was blessed with his nighttime snuggles and she was first to see his eyes in the morning. Perhaps it was the first time I recognized the desire in me to be a mother.

Tonight, as I touched her silky hair and looked in the mirror at her shining laughing eyes, I wondered why. Why I was chosen to be so near this beautiful creature. Why it was my hand that had the honor of caressing her face.

Time will stretch and fold and soon enough she will be grown. She will never remember this night after a bath, brushing her teeth and laughing with me.

But the 18 year old in me will never forget that I have found that sweet fragrance, the heart stopping moment lost in her eyes, that glorious blessing that is the love of a child.

When Hummingbirds Come To Call

I saw a hummingbird. It came before me, teasing my eyes, floating there for a moment. And then – zip. Away. I thought it was gone and smiled, feeling a tug in my throat.

And then, suddenly, it came back. Dancing from side to side, it hovered there – inspecting the red cord hanging on my porch. Soon, just hanging there looking at me.

Tears came then. An impossibly small creature that has come to mean so much to me. I watched its throat turn from red to green in the sunlight like a hologram.

No, I am not alone. Even when I feel so. The great and wonderful God of the Universe somehow knit together a tiny heart, eyes so small I can barely see them and wings so fast they are just a sound. Such beauty. Such exquisite detail. Surely. Surely He is still with me.

And almost in agreement, my little friend flew up to a high branch and watched over me as I drove away.

Missing

Have you ever really missed someone? You walk through a room where they used to stand and you see them there. You blink and look again and they are not. But something in you aches and comes out as a sigh.

You walk through a restaurant they used to frequent and you see them there at the table you last shared. You know they are not there but you see them like a ghost. And then like a cruel breeze, you move on - to your party, your day, your life. But somewhere amid the noise you can still hear the laughter in your empty ears.

Raindrops

When they are so rare, they are extraordinary. What a place I live in – today was the last day of school and how did the children celebrate? They ran outside and danced in the raindrops. My daughter giggled and jumped about as they tickled her, falling on her upturned face.

Soon, because we tarried too long with our goodbyes, we had to run to the car in the falling rain. Still, we laughed and shrieked with the rare cool experience. I didn’t run that fast. The only thing that made me hurry was knowing my glasses would be impossible to see out of and hard to dry with a wet shirt.

Today at recess, before the rain fell on us, I stood outside and drank up the darkening sky and the coming storm. The wind whipped my hair into more of a mess than usual and the clouds pressed down around me so much that my head began to hurt with the pressure. But the air was cool and such a welcome relief. I would have stayed there forever.

Where did this come from? Suddenly everything shifts and we enjoy a day of rain and quiet. We experience record highs and now sudden lows. Going out tonight, I had to back up and get a light jacket. My, what a difference a day makes.

And isn’t that how our life goes? One day we have everything and one day loss. One day we are scorched and burnt. One day, refreshed, and we open up again like a little flower. Some days the change hurts us. And some days it heals us. One raindrop at a time.

Time

Time is not even. My watch protests this thought and measures each second the same but I know it is lying.

The last hour of a boring work day is identifiably longer than the last hour you have to spend at Disneyland, isn’t it? The last night you have left to write a paper is much shorter than the night before you get to go on a special trip (unless you’re packing at the last minute and then it flies by again...).

I don’t know how it works, but it does.

Your children grow in a flash – so fast you don’t even know what could have happened. Time machine, wrinkle, warp, who knows. And yet, there are moments, tiny moments, that stretch and elongate, like your reflection in a fun-house mirror, and you think they are eternal.

When a hummingbird stops in front of you and looks right at you.

When you look into someone’s eyes and you see beyond color, even expression. You see THEM and you think: this must have been what your mama saw the day you were born.

When you watch your child run and laugh with abandon.

When your newborn baby opens up his eyes, his face, and he looks long and hard at you, studying you.

When your child has his first seizure – the longest 30 seconds yet.

When you stand by the bed and watch a single tear run down your dying grandmother’s cheek. To this day I wonder why she was crying.

Perhaps God, in His wisdom knows how we are, flying about, like bulls in the china shop, and he takes certain moments and turns the clock backward just a bit, just enough so that we stop and notice. He knows that otherwise we would lose the lesson, miss the beauty, forget the heart-stopping wonder that is His world.

These moments are the asterisks of our lives that keep the minutes and days, the hours and decades from running together, the bullet points that help us to make sense of the rest. How on earth can we measure them with a second hand?

What Do You Remember?

I can feel the sun burning the back of my head. My dark hair pulled taut into braids, even here, even in the mountains, so tight it makes my scalp hurt when I turn my head. But still I squat there, burning head and tight scalp. My stick is a good tool and I can turn over big clods of dark almost black soil. Soon, there they are, squirming, writhing away from the sun that heats my head. Daddy is pleased. We pull them out – gently so they don’t pull apart. Dig in, dirt in your nails, gently place the soft pink earthworms in a cup. I have a brother and two sisters somewhere in this wood but I’m the only one taking in the lesson. I want to be near him, to feel his hand over mine while I hold the fishing line, to watch him put a worm on a hook just right. I feel a little sorry for the worm, but I wouldn’t risk missing all of this just for a silly old worm.

You have to be quiet, stay out of the sunlight, don’t cast your shadow on the water. The fish are smart in their cold world. My eyes are still too young and not yet hungry enough to see them flash in the water but he sees them and if I’m watchful – ever watchful – I can see one jump after a bug on the water. Even though I can’t see them, they can see me, he warns. There – just there – let your hook float past.

That feeling, like no other in the world and impossible to describe. How can they be so strong? How on earth can I keep from squealing when my rod jumps and rolls in my hand. Oh, don’t lose it, don’t let it go.

Don’t let it go.

I never wanted to, but like all that is memory and time it slips silently into something I can barely hold. Tears prick my eyes while I stand at the edge of something so far away. My favorite place in all the world, images and years and the sound of rushing water, always the rushing water and the stones slipping into the new shape of the river.