Over a year ago, I started out on a
mission that I felt in my heart would bless the most forgotten ones. After 5 years of visiting my dad in the
nursing home, I had made acquaintance with many of the residents, and decided
that I should continue to visit them, to encourage them and cheer their
hearts. What I have discovered after a
year of this, is that the opposite of my “mission” has occurred. They have encouraged me and cheered my
heart!
These people, who are basically
imprisoned by their disabilities and age, have shown me some wonderful
truths. Larry, who turned 90 last week,
walks 4 miles every day, and because he is in the assisted living section,
still drives his car, takes people to church, and when opportunity provides,
helps out others that live there. Doris writes little notes and gives them to
those who pass by, stating that she is a nice friend to them, and puts her room
number down so they can find her later.
Carol, whose lungs and heart are failing, gets in her wheel chair, and
gets out of her room and involved with the resident advocates, helping those
who she doesn’t even know by casting her vote for those who can’t speak for
themselves. Margaret, who has had a debilitating stroke, smiles and offers her
hand to everyone. Johnel, who also had a
very bad stroke, so that he can’t even get out of his room, complains very
little with his surroundings and situation, just waiting on the Lord, or as he
puts it “Just relaxin”. I have to admit that in the
beginning, before actually getting to know these people, that I felt they were
a “mission” field. I have since had my
mind decidedly changed, and realize that I am their mission field.
So what could I possibly find that
would cause me to change my mind about the situation? Or, to make that clear, yours or mine. For it is surely true that we all will go the
“way of the world”, and we only get one chance to ride around the sun. We have to face it, one day we will all end
up either in a nursing home, or stuck at home with little ability to care for
ourselves. And one day, that great
leveler, Death, will come for each of us, unless the Lord comes back first.
These ones are just a sampling of the
people within nursing homes. These are those
who built our country, fought our wars, made lives for themselves and their
communities, and yet they are relegated to simple quarters, and over 90 percent
of them get no visitors. Of course, in
this working world, it is nearly impossible to take time off from our busy
lives to visit, and it could be that some of them alienated their families by
their behavior, however, what I found in visiting these people is this. Each one, at some time had a life. As some of them put it, “I had a home, a car
and a job once.” For most Americans,
these are the simple necessities. For
these people, all those necessities have been stripped from them. They now have a bed, in a room they share
with strangers, with perhaps a few personal items, and nothing else. Their
health is not just on the decline, they are waiting for the end, sometimes even
hoping for it. The ability to care for
themselves and to preserve some form of human dignity, even to the point of
personal care such as toileting, bathing and feeding, has also been stripped
from them. They are what our society
would call, “the cast-offs”.
But they are far more than what they
appear, as I have finally come to understand.
In their world, filled with darkness and hopelessness, they are a
shining light. In the midst of the
suffering, in the pain and the lonely nights, in the endless waiting, they have
a hope. Each of the ones I mentioned
have put their trust in the Lord God, believing every word He has said, knowing
it to be true, and trusting that one day, hopefully sooner than later, they
will be with him.
So how have they changed my mind
about my “mission” field? I find this;
they were once as I am now. Working,
having a car and a place of their own, having families and things to do. They
were once held by the dreams of this world, to succeed in their chosen paths,
to live a long and happy life, and to spend their days in happiness. It never occurred to any of them that they
would end up in a nursing home, abandoned by family and friends, having some
stranger wipe them, feed them, and take care of their every need. They are, to put it bluntly, you and I in the
very near future. And as will happen to
all of us, the unthinkable happened.
They got too old and ill to take care of themselves.
But something greater happened in all
this too. In losing everything, they
found their center, the truth of our hope in Christ. They had always known the Lord, but now they
found He truly is “with them always”.
They found that, in the midst of the suffering, He sustains them, holds
them and loves them. They found the only
true thing in life, that the Lord is their strength, their shield, their
comforter and their friend. And even in
the middle of the suffering, they all found joy!
And thus, I became their mission
field, and they became my mentors and teachers.
There is still so much to learn from them, before they leave this
earthly home for their heavenly one. I
want to know what else they can inspire me to do, what advice they have to
give, and most of all, I want to get a firm grip on the hope that makes them
shine like beacons in the night. Because one day it will be my turn to pass the
torch. I can only hope I will be
anything nearly as wonderful as they are.
Take a moment, listen to the song at the beginning, contemplate your life. You were made for a purpose. Live it to the last drop.
I hear dead people.
Yah, you heard me. I hear them.
Well, not exactly AUDIBLY, but I hear them. I shall explain, but first let me tell you what
brought me to tell you of this.
Today, on another New Year cleaning organizing binge, I
determined that I was going to pull out one of the old trunks, give it a good
coat of Tung Oil, dust and vacuum it.
That was interesting, because considering its age, there is probably 129
year old dirt in there. But there are
also family treasures, or “Junk” as my kids like to refer to it.
I painstakingly pulled all the “Junk” out, pulled out the
drawers of the trunk, and stuffed everything in plastic bags. After all, “Junk” needs protecting from my
inept painting rituals. I attempted as
best I could to sort the” Junk” by who it belonged to, and even decided (HOLD
YOUR BREATH, KIDS) to throw some stuff out.
So various and sundry boxes and carefully tied ribbons that I will NEVER
in my life ever be able to identify the person whose hair they tied, went into
the REAL trash bags.
Then I dragged the
trunk outside, brushed it carefully, vacuumed it, and proceeded to apply the
life -saving oil. For those of you who
don’t know anything about Tung Oil, it is the stuff that our Great Great’s used
prior to the invention of Shellac or Varnish.
And obviously it works, because all these years later, that trunk still
has the canvas, the wood, the latches; everything intact, except the key.
So after the careful application of the Tung Oil, I came
inside to sort and identify the “Junk”.
I had decided a while back that I am probably not going to live forever,
and someone in my family may want the Trunk of Junk and perhaps they would like
to know what each item is in it, rather than attempting to guess. Some items were easy; Funeral books, letters
in the envelopes, World War II newspapers.
But it was the articles of clothing and some of the other stuff that I
needed to label. I decided that for the
clothing, I would just stuff a note in the pocket. Hey it worked for my
grandmother!
The first thing I ran up against was a trash bag full of
linens, my grandmothers’ bonnet (easy to identify because I had seen her wear
it) and some pot holders that I know she
made, because I helped her. There was
also a stack of neatly ironed Table linens, that were made easy by my Dad’s
evident scrawl across the bag that said, “My mother’s Table Linens, cotton and
linen.” I quietly said “Thank you, Dad”
and sorted through it all. It’s amazing
that each piece is still so neatly folded together with the companion pieces,
and still smells something like my grandmothers linen closet. It’s also amazing that my dad even bothered
to label the bag.
On to the Military Uniforms.
I looked at a long overcoat, thinking for sure it was an Army coat, because
of the wool and the color. I could not
imagine my dad needing an overcoat off in the Pacific Islands. And then I heard his voice. “Look at the buttons.” Mind you I was not taken back by this, I just
did as I was told, as I had been taught by Mr. Marine Sergeant and clearly on
the buttons was the Marine emblem. The
second item, a uniform coat, was the same, and the Marine hats were easy to
identify, because there is a picture of Dad wearing one.
Then on to the various and sundry papers that were neatly
rolled up. I know I had seen them
before, but never looked at them. And
then a voice, “Take a peek”. My Granddads’
voice for sure. So I opened it up, and
there were all his diplomas and his teaching certificate from 1912.
I could go on and on about the things I found in there, that
I had never noticed before, and the voices of those gone on before that I
heard.
And I am sure each of you would find it creepy that I hear
their voices. But I don’t find it
creepy, I find it comforting. It’s not
like it’s audible, it’s more like it’s hidden away in my heart.
For there is where they are, each of them, with their smiles
and their little laughs, the jigs they danced and the arms that held me. But most of all, the voices that taught me
and directed me in my life.
Somehow I know they are watching, occasionally going “OH
SUSAN” and occasionally rejoicing. I
know they are with Jesus, who also watched them go through this process of
sorting through dead people’s stuff. And
He is the one I can hear audibly. For He
is telling me, “These are part of the legacy of your forebears, who are with
me forever.”
It is 2015, another year, another chance to live a life with
meaning. I have often wondered if my
life would matter upon this planet. With
this New Year, I intend to make a dent in the things I have left undone. I am trusting the Lord to give me direction, to find the path and the purpose for my life. This morning, with the new snowfall fresh on the ground, He impressed upon me that there are many sayings that people use as guides for their lives. The following is the first thing He brought to my mind. And so here is my first dent in undone things for this year.
Beware the bareness of a busy life.
This one is a warning to those who are so busy making a
living they forget to build a life.
Believe me when I say that there will come the day when you will not be
able to work to build a portfolio. If
you live a busy life, there will come the day when your Account at the bank may
be full, but your life Account will be empty.
Money and things are cold partners. Not only that, those who fill
themselves with busyness, become addicted to the day-in day-out workings of a
corporate world. Busyness does not just
include the making of money, it includes the filling of a life with tasks that
while they bring a semblance of discipline to life, are not fulfilling when it
comes to your soul. If you fill up your life with tasks to obtain stuff, you
will find at the end that your soul is bankrupt. More importantly, those things
may fill up your pockets, your house, or your garage, and eventually fill up
the pockets, garage and house of your heirs, but it will not touch one soul on
earth with anything that has any lasting significance.
We were put on the planet to work.
But work includes more than just making money.
It is how you do it and why you do it that makes it count for
something. If you do everything from an
aspect of love toward your family and fellow man, your busyness will count for
something. If you do it only for gain,
you will find your days empty and lonely.
It is necessary to make a
living. But begin your day and end your
day of busyness with love toward your family.
Believe me when I say that a neglected child becomes a bitter
adult. I don’t even need to explain to
some of you men, what a neglected wife becomes. And wives, a neglected man
finds other things to do, perhaps those that he shouldn’t do. So cuddle and
coddle your children and your spouse enough to let them know that they are
important in your life, and that nothing is more important. Don’t try to fill their lives with
things. Things will never take the place
of a relationship with you. Spend time
with each of them, one on one. Share
your heart, share your dreams, and share YOURSELF with them. And never forget your sisters and brothers. Inclusive in that statement are cousins. After all they are just sisters and brothers, once or twice removed, who never had the opportunity to traumatize you.
If you have elderly parents, aunts
or uncles, do not neglect them, even if they neglected you. There will come the day when you will wish
you could spend time with them. Death is the great leveler. I can truly say that it will come for each
and every one of us, and once it does, the opportunities for building a
relationship are done. Spend time with them, even if they were one of those
busy people who never spent time with you.
Find out what they are about, what made their lives tick. This is where you will find the clue to why
they have done what they have done and sometimes reasons for you to do likewise
or avoid at all costs.
My dad is the greatest example I
can give. He was one of those who was always so busy it made him grumpy. He neglected each and every one of his
children and his parents. He somehow
felt he had to earn a living and it was not until his later years he learned he
had not earned a life. The last 5 years
of his life, he was a captive audience, living at a nursing home. I made a point to spend time with him, if not
every day, then every other day. Although
I had to take time from my busy schedule, listen and bite my tongue more than
usual, and on occasion wonder why I was doing this, I found in the end, that
both of us gained from this experience.
He gained introspect into his own life, and I gained understanding of
why he was the way he was. For the first
time in my life, I came to know who he was really was, not just who he
portrayed to the world. When he left
this world, I found that I truly loved him, in spite of who he had been to me
all my life. For the first time in my
life, I had a relationship with my dad. I
will always be grateful I was given the opportunity to make this relationship
right.
Do not neglect the others in your
life for sake of busyness. There are those who God put in your life for a
reason or for a season. Your friends
become your family when your family cannot fulfill that role. Your extended
family, those who are in-laws (not outlaws) and their children can be the
family you always longed for. I have
sister-in-laws from my brother’s marriages and from my former marriages who are
truly sisters. They call, they write,
they are there for me. I love them as
though they were my own, because they have become my own. I have friends who know my deepest secrets, and
still love me, amazingly.
And then there are those random
people you meet. The store clerk who
checks out your groceries, the old man in the produce isle who stops to chat
you up about the cost of cucumbers and the lady who goes walking with her dog
past your house. You may never see them
again, you may never learn their names, but you have the opportunity to make a
difference in their life, if only for one day.
Some people have no one. Some
people never see a smile or hear a kind word except on TV. So smile at someone today that you do not
know. Greet your store clerk. Let someone know that they matter on this
earth at least for one moment.
Give hugs often. If you are not a hugger, then give a
handshake. If you are a germophobe, nod
your head. Recognize the people who walk
the world with you. If you do the math
you will learn that you to each one you may have given only one, but at the end
of the day, you got back ten.
God’s math is amazing. What you give, you get back in
multiples. Don’t clog up your life with
busyness, fill it up with love and you will find that your life was not barren,
but had some meaning to someone on this earth including yourself. After all, why else are we here?
As I was sitting on my porch today, enjoying the sound of
the neighbor children laughing, watching the elderly walk their dogs, and
hearing the sound of busyness everywhere about me, I stopped to reflect.
It is not because of anything I ever did that I enjoy peace
and safety within my home, my city, my country.
There is something far beyond anything that a normal citizen could ever
do to enjoy being able to travel this broad country, start a business, go to
school and any of a myriad of liberties that we enjoy but take for granted
every day.
I know that my country has many who fought and died for our
own liberty and that of other countries too.
I often hear some say that we should not send our troops to foreign
lands to fight battles that are not ours. I often think this: that the
survivors of Auschwitz, the people who were freed in Bosnia, those, because our
military fought for them, would not think that way.
Yes, our country has engaged in battles that would seem to
not be our own. But in thinking about
this, I realize that the cause of liberty and the destruction of tyranny ARE
our battles. And I think that those who
fought, served not only our citizens, but mankind. For this I am proud beyond belief. For this I am grateful.
And as I sit here today to reflect, I think of my ancestors
who fought in the revolutionary war, the war of 1812, as Union soldiers in the
Civil war. I think of my grandfathers
who fought in France in World War I. I
think of my father and so many of those I have known who fought in World War
II. I think of those of my own
generation, who fought in Korea and Vietnam. I think of those who fought in
Bosnia, in Iran and Iraq and Afganistan, some who are currently serving
there.
All of these gave to our country. Not just their time away from their families,
but their lives, their sanity, their bodies, their chance at a “normal” life
like the one I can enjoy from my porch. I know so many who survived the war, came home
to attempt to resume life and found that the horrors of war had changed them
forever and for always.
Some gave all. I
visited the cemetery today to decorate the grave of my father and my stepmother
with flowers. My father served in World
War II in the Pacific theatre. He passed
away on March 4th of this year. Just two weeks later, he now has a Marine
resting next to him, who was barely 20 years old. I do not know where he
served, or anything about him. I just
know that here is a young man, who gave his life so that I can be free to sit
on my porch, listen to the sound of the children laughing, and remember that
the liberty I enjoy came with a price that was paid for by our military.
So to current and past veterans, Air Force, Marine, Navy and
Army, Thank you for my freedom. You will
not be forgotten.
Taps
Day is done, gone the sun,
From the lake, from the hills, from the sky;
Soldier sleep, safely rest, God is nigh.
Fading light, dims the sight,
And a star gems the sky, gleaming bright.
From afar, drawing nigh, falls the night.
Thanks and praise, for our days,
'Neath the sun, 'neath the stars, neath the sky;
As we go, this we know, God is nigh.
It is time to move forward.
I woke this morning from a dream about a paisley Nehru jacket, a green
velvet dress and the woman who helped me make them, my step-mother, Ruth. In that dream I had stopped to visit her,
went to my work, then on to lunch and decided to run back. I have moved past
grief, to gratitude, and now on to gratefulness. But the Lord had more in store for me on this
day.
It was time to take a visit to the cemetery this morning, to
see if they had put down my dad’s headstone.
I woke way beyond early, made coffee, debated on whether to go or not,
and then put my hair up in a ponytail and headed off to the cemetery with
coffee in hand.
It is a beautiful clear morning, but hot already, and I
decided I had made a good choice to go before the traffic started. As is with Him, there were other plans for
this trip. I put on my favorite
Christian radio station, and was just grooving along with the music. Arriving at the cemetery, I inched my way
past the new graves that have been filled since my dad passed just 2 months
ago. When I finally got to Dad’s, my
suspicions were confirmed that the cemetery has yet to put down a
headstone. I stood there a minute in the
morning quiet. Another confirmation. Yep,
Dad is not there. He has moved on to
other realms. It was a comfort to know this. Since there is no one there to visit, I
decided to take my coffee and take the long way home. I turned the radio back on, and the song, “I
will rise” by Shawn McDonald came on.
This song had brought me to tears many times during the years of
watching my dad suffer in his pain and confinement. This time I did not cry (well, just a
little), but got that smile that says, “I get it God!” Suddenly, I was alert. My ears were on and
tuned.
As I drove along, I passed a car at an intersection with a sign
across the front that said, “NO SNIVELING.” I chuckled at that, until, not 50
feet from there, I passed a woman in a wheelchair struggling to get on down the
road. Then I passed an elderly
gentleman, clearly homeless, struggling along with his walking stick. Then an accident with a motorcyclist. Then an elderly man walking along picking up
trash along the road.
I GET IT, LORD!
I have little to snivel about. I am blessed every day, with a job, with
family, with friends. I am not
attempting to wheel myself down a cobbled up street in a wheel chair. I am traveling in a nice black car with
leather seats. I am not homeless, I am
on my way to my comfy apartment. I am
not relegated to picking up trash, I have a job. But I have so much more.
I have a God who loves me, who knows that most days I am not
paying attention to the spiritual realm I live in, and some days am just plain
stupid. Here is the greatest blessing of all.
He loves me anyway! He talks to
me even though most of the time I am not listening. Then is when he posts signs clearly that say
things like STOP SNIVELING!
"That I may be filled with joy,when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also." 2 Timothy 1:4 -5
(My small self on the left, defiant in my underpants, and Grandmother, praying for me on the right with Dad and Grandad )
I had my grandchildren over one day to visit and the boys
took off, as boys will do to go down and play in the stream that runs in front
of my house. To get there, you have to
traverse a steep hill full of cactus and trees with thorns. I have many times had to pick cactus needles
out of the neighbor kids and my grand children. On this particular day,
however, Hannah, my grand daughter was with us.
She was only two years old at the time, and far too little to traverse
the hillside, the cactus and the stream.
I told her she could not go down with the boys.
I went about my business, thinking telling her would do the
trick, but when I looked up, there she was halfway down the hill, headed right
into a thick batch of cactus. In terror,
I got up, ran down the hill to circumvent her path, and yelled at her to
stop. “Hannah, go back up the hill! “I
shouted. And then an epiphany occurred
for me, as I watched her put her little hand on her hip, wiggle her shoulders,
shake her head and respond to me, just as loudly, “No!” She continued through the cactus patch,
without getting one scratch, right down to the stream.
The epiphany was this. Here was a little girl, who had an
idea, and would not be thwarted from it.
She is just as I was at her age. Some
things are inherent. Like stubborn
wills.
My Grandmother Linn was a stern woman, with very particular
ideas about how little girls should act and dress. She came from that generation of women who
were elegant and tasteful. She was
blessed with one grand daughter who was born to be a tomboy. I say blessed, because I cannot think of
another term that she would have used tastefully to describe the trauma I put
her through when I went to live with her and Grandad just before and shortly after
my Mama passed away. I say shortly
because within eight months, she also went to be with the Lord. I often wonder if the stress of having a
tomboy in the household caused her to give up on living.
One particular incident will forever stick in my mind. She was doing the dishes, with me standing
beside her on the little stool, impatiently waiting for the next dish. I must have been eyeing the great outdoors
through the window, and she noticed that I was not paying attention to my chore
of drying the dishes. So graciously, she
told me, “Why don’t you go outside and play for a little while?” In truth, she might have just wanted to get
things done quicker, without me to slow the process down. I have to hand it to her, she knew what I
wanted.
I was joyous! I had
so wanted to be free, outside running around, and so out the back door I went,
and straight up the big Russian olive tree that was just outside the door. I pulled my dress up to get a better grip on
the trunk and the branches and made it all the way to the top. I was ecstatic looking out over the
farm. I could see my Grandad working in
the garden, the barns, the chickens, the neighbor’s house and barns, and even a
little glimpse of my grandmother’s face through the corner of the kitchen
window. And then Grandmother came out to
call for me. What did I do? Nothing.
I just sat up there looking down at her.
As she became frantic, calling me and calling me, I repositioned myself
to get a better grip on my branch, and she looked up. The look on that poor woman’s face was
priceless. If white people could turn
any whiter, well let us just say she turned nearly transparent. And she called frantically for my Grandad. I watched as he walked in from the garden,
asking her what was so wrong. She
pointed up at me, and said, “Susan is up in that tree!” He scratched his head for a minute, looked up
at me, and said, “You ok, girl?” I
nodded in assent, and tenaciously held on to my branch. Problem solved from his perspective. He looked at grandmother and said, “She will
come down when she gets hungry.” It was
nearly dark when I did come down, but she greeted me with happy arms and a
kiss. I never did figure that one
out. I guess she should have punished
me, according to her standards, but she never did. I think she thought her
disapproval of my choices was punishment enough.
It was only many years after she was gone, that I realized
how much I could be like her, and found that my sense of adventure, and my
willingness to put myself at risk to achieve that adventure where inherited
from the one person I always believed to be the most careful.
It was within her diaries that I found this information. Those
diaries that ran over the course of many years dated 1912 when she was 26 years
old to the date of her death in 1960 when she was 74 years old. They speak of everyday life, but I found
something far more interesting than her genealogic research and her detailed
documentation. On the pages of those
diaries lay the record, in her own hand, of a woman who rode coast to coast on horseback
alone. This at a time that women did not do these things. I find a woman who picketed for the
Suffragette movement, that I would have the right to vote. I find a woman who was fearless in her
pursuit of knowledge. Most importantly,
I find a woman who trusted God for all of her days. For running through and
through those writings, she declared her love of God and her pursuit of Heaven.
I know my Hannah has definitely inherited the Scot genes of
persistence, stubborn defiance and indomitable will. I hope she also inherits a love for Jesus,
and a pursuit of His heart, that I received so graciously from my Grandmother. I
did not see this in her life, most likely because I was too young to
notice. But there in her writing, in her
scrap books, in her little notes on items, I found her profound love for Jesus!
