Singingwaters

On the Second Anniversary of My Mother’s Death

2012-02-16T22:20:00.000-06:00

Today, the sun came out, after a stint of gray weather. It brightened the office later morning. This afternoon it sparkled on the little pond outside my window. It took its time settling into twilight, stretching a pink, then salmon, then deep magenta band over the horizon.

Today, I remembered the long, dark night my mother lay dying in her room and that awful, final exhale just before sunrise two years ago.

Yet, I could feel the wonder of tonight’s lovely sunset, something I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to do again.

And today I felt joy. Something I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to grasp again.

Today I graded children’s Bible lessons in a room Mom had described to me. In some way, perhaps, I was taking part in something she remembered. But it wasn’t just that. It was (and is) a work that reaches beyond her or me or the four walls of the building. A work reaching not just around the nation and the world, but into eternity.

As I wrote little encouraging notes to each student, I felt as if I were making deposits of life into children’s lives.

What better way to live out the legacy of my mother’s life, the fruit of her years raising and loving me with the light and life of Christ?

Today, I know my mother is happy. She’s smiling, surrounded, perhaps, by children and adults who were touched by her love and service, undoubtedly surprised at how many there are.

Today I thank God for the privilege of being Sandy’s daughter. And I thank God for His healing comfort that breathes new opportunities for eternal fruit in every season of life.

Tomorrow: Two Years

2012-02-15T16:17:00.000-06:00

Two years.

Two years since I’ve seen her face, heard her voice. Since she sighed the long sigh of death and took up life in a place invisible to those of us on the other side.

How deeply I miss her, my mother. How often I long to pick up the phone and talk to her. After two years, I’m still not able to calculate the magnitude of losing that close relationship with her.

Today, I traveled to the destination of the last trip she took: CEF headquarters in Warrenton, MO. She arrived here just a couple of weeks after hearing that the cancer had spread to her lungs, just a few weeks before we would learn that it had spread to her brain.

In that window of time, she was well enough to make the long trip. And what a God-ordained trip it was, a road of hope and encouragement between two devastating diagnoses. Today I stood in the little prayer room and saw the couch where she sat as precious women of God ministered to her. Mom told me about the prayer time, the conversations, hugs, testimonies and tears. She told me what she had been processing from the Word of God.

Her faith was deepening, her awe of God growing.

Tomorrow, February 16, marks the date she made the final trip to her heavenly home. In memory of her, I’m here visiting and volunteering at a ministry that was so close to her heart. A ministry that reaches children all over the world and touches the lives of families everywhere in between.

For their friendship and care for my family, I am deeply grateful. For their commitment to the kingdom of God, I am proud to support and honor them.

As the Sun Sets

2011-12-31T16:45:00.000-06:00

As I write, the sun is setting on another day, another month, another year. Today was beautiful, sunny and spring-like, unseasonably warm.

It reminds me that, no matter the current season or what predictable course any season may take, things sometimes take you by surprise. You never know what a day, or a year, may be like.

So, I’m asking myself, why not anticipate those good surprises? Why not hope for that which would seem unseasonable, despite the earthly odds? Why not ignore the odds, or anything else that stands against me, and place all trust and expectation in the God who does exceedingly beyond all that we could ask or imagine?

Why not?

It’s not just a nice question or a good idea. It’s actually God’s expectation of me—His hope—going into another year.

Whatever blessings and miracles, provision and gifts, God has brought in 2011—and for me, there have been so many!—remember them and give thanks. And whatever sorrows, disappointments and frustrations life has brought in 2011, acknowledge them in humility and surrender before the Father.

Then release them into His hands, and open your own to what lies ahead.

What I Love Most About Christmas

2011-12-18T21:59:00.003-06:00

No, it’s not the cookies, presents or parties. It’s not favorite holiday traditions, music or movies.

But it is everywhere.

It is the increased opportunity to hear God speak.

After all, Christmas is His story. And every year, in the carols and cards, programs and performances all over the country, His story and the Scriptures are proclaimed publicly. Even NPR makes the story, through Handel’s gorgeous Messiah, freely available for online listening.

But the story of Christmas is not static. Nor is God’s message through it. God’s voice is never lifeless, His Word never stagnant. In every season of life, He has what my church calls a “rhema” word for us: a timely and personal application of His Word in our lives.

Many times, that word comes for me through the Christmas sermon series at my church, which this year has been exceptional. But He always speaks through other special things I attend, whether they are church or community events.

At Christmas, the opportunities to hear from God are plentiful. The question is whether we taking advantage of those opportunities and receiving the gift God wants to give us this year.

Listen for a fresh word of encouragement, strength and hope this week as you celebrate the gift of Jesus, because He has one for you.

Merry Christmas!

Ruminations on a Windy Night

2011-11-12T23:09:00.000-06:00

Wind.

It swirls around me tonight, with November’s brittle leaves. It stirs mystery within me—the unanswered questions, the life my mother now lives in heaven, things out of my control. Things that might or might not happen.

Its mystery always seems more enhanced, more noticeable, in night’s darkness, in the gaps between seasons.

Wind, how it takes me places, places both dark and bright:

Mystery—that of faith, of beauty in this world, of friendship. Of Christ’s cross.

Wind and Mystery, the voice and the nature of the Holy Spirit, the pain and joy of letting go and taking hold,

Of choosing to believe, whatever is stirred.

Dreaming of Mountains

2011-11-02T21:06:00.000-05:00

Last Saturday I spent some quality time with the mountains—the Rocky Mountains, to be specific. All I had to do to see them was sit on the balcony of my lovely hotel room. The sun was warm, the air just cool enough, the sky flawless. The afternoon, perfect.

And the mountains, green-orange-gold with white dots of autumn snow, like sheep.

As I sat on the plane traveling back to Nashville after a wonderful four days in Colorado Springs, I wrote about the spiritual inspiration and refreshment of my trip. Here’s my concluding paragraph, and I hope it encourages and reminds you of what is truly beautiful and unchanging in this life.

I could sit and stare at these mountains for an afternoon. Wen I return to the chilly, humid air and potentially stress-filled days of life in TN, their image will remain a prize in my mind. Their strength and inescapable presence, their sun-stained and rugged beauty will remind and teach me of the Rock in whom I hide, on whom I stand, wherein lies my comforting strength.

“I will lift up my eyes to the hills—from whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” Psalm 121:1-2

The Wistful Wind and Robert Frost

2011-09-05T11:04:00.000-05:00

It’s Labor Day, cloudy and full of rain-laden wind and the cooler weather I longed for it to bring this weekend.

It’s so appropriately wistful.

I’ve been reading Robert Frost this morning. His autumn poems seemed to blow in through my open windows, settling around my soul with fresh understanding. I love poets: They express so well feelings and moments that might otherwise go unexamined.

In my last blog I wrote about my long season of “in between,” a characteristic of September simply and beautifully expressed by my lovely late mother—who did not often put her own spirit’s poetry on paper. This morning, Frost expressed another aspect of “in between” in his poem “Reluctance,” which ends:

Ah, when to the heart of man

Was it ever less than a treason

To go with the drift of things,

To yield with a grace to reason,

And bow and accept the end

Of a love or a season?

What is it about the breath of autumn that reminds us of losses, of sorrow, of our heart’s own reluctance to move forward? While part of us gears up for the many new things that begin this time of year—semesters, sports, programs, classes—another part of us hesitates, longs to snuggle down inside the gray morning for a while, and rest.

Thankfully, we have a day like Labor Day that affords us such an opportunity. It’s a recognition that no matter how productive and responsible we must be, there comes a time to stop and consider our lives, to review the past season, to contemplate the new one that approaches.

It’s an appropriate day to acknowledge reluctance to move on, to change, to let go, and to take the time we need to ready ourselves for the dropping of an entire summer’s leaves to their forever rest in the ground. And it’s a day to let the wind stir our anticipation for the way that only God can beautify melancholy transitions.

The Season of “In Between”

2011-09-01T20:02:00.000-05:00

This summer has been one long and challenging transition for me. So much has changed in my life over the past 18 months, and I'm still adjusting.

It may take me a while longer.

God is doing good things in my life, to be sure. But sometimes those good things are the result of hard things. I'm feeling a bit glad that the main months of summer have passed, hoping that my internal world will soon begin afresh like that first fallish morning with a hint of frost in the air. For that reason, I'm so glad it's September.

Yet, I'm reminded that September is itself a transitional month, and as my mom once wrote in a poem, it's not quite summer, not yet fall, but sort of in between. I feel like I’ve been “in between” for a really long time, and I feel tired.

But my dear mom, who I've been thinking about a whole lot lately, also reminds me in her poem that no matter what season it is, what transition isn't yet complete, the unchanging presence of God is always promising new things.

I hope you take a minute to read Mom's poem below and feel His gentle peace for this season of “in between.”

* * *

A welcomed rainy day

Dark gray clouds and sky

Leaves turning brown and gold

Learning how to fly

Leaves fall like colored teardrops

Floating to the ground

Landing in streams of water

But never make a sound

Black eyed Susan flowers

With yellow on the face

Showing that our Father's love

Is always full of grace

September is sort of in between

Not quite summer and not yet fall

Before the cool breezes blow

Yet cattails still stand tall

Creation shows His majesty

And through His death the sting

But in His total forgiveness

He gives us everything

By Sandy Chantelau

Something I Just Can’t Do Without

2011-08-17T20:24:00.001-05:00

This evening as I drove to the store after spending my first day at my new writing office, I noticed something I hadn’t felt in a long time. It was as if a smile played at the edges of my spirit, like remembering something that still makes you feel special.

It was something I have really missed this summer.

It was anticipation.

This summer has been challenging for my intricate soul, for the layer of melancholy that wraps my natural personality. My writing time has been focused on my book, The Redemption of Singleness—a project on which I have long worked with excitement and endurance. A project to which I’ve devoted time and tears, solitude and study.

It’s a wonderful and terrible assignment. This summer, the work has required deep emotional and spiritual processing of the book's content, subjects not easily considered or cast aside. It has forced me to travel down to the dark and faraway regions of disappointment, scraping at my soul like rust in an empty water barrel.

But what I’ve found is a spring, tiny, trickling and singing. It’s delicious. It’s the water of the Holy Spirit. And now that some of the heavy, residue–removing work has been done, I can identify what it is that I’m tasting.

It’s expectation. Anticipation. It’s hope.

And it’s something I just can’t do without.

This Plot of Heart

2011-07-23T10:52:00.001-05:00

Painful the work God does in the heart, yet joyful its end.

That is my simple testimony so far this summer. A couple days ago I wrote a prayer based on Psalm 16, which captures my response to His work and His heart toward me, which are always, always good.

Your love draws lines

around me;

I am fenced in with beauty,

freed up with joy!

My heart is Your spacious place—

there find openness for all

You want to do,

endless fields for sowing,

deepest wells for holding

Living water,

richest soil for nourishing

healthy, life-giving fruit.

This, Your work—

Your planting,

Your vineyard—

this is my inheritance,

my portion, my lot—

the plot of heart You’ve chosen

to inhabit,

Your Garden of Eden

in a dark and dirty city.

Here, here let me dwell

with You,

and rejoice.

Selling God Short

2011-07-04T15:40:00.002-05:00

How much do you believe God wants to do with your life? How about in the lives of your friends and family, in your local church, or in our nation?

Today is Independence Day—what a gift from God. In a world of oppression, prejudice, selfishness and hatred, He’s allowed us to live in a nation with more freedoms, conveniences and blessings than most people of the world can comprehend.

Yet, is there more for us? Something my pastor said yesterday has been making its way these last 24 hours to the very foundation of my faith: “We need to ask God for more. Don’t sell Him short.”

Is it possible to sell God short, to ask for less than He wants to give, to believe for less than the all-consuming, all-powerful, all-knowing God is capable of? The apostle Paul taught us that He is the one who can do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we can ask or imagine.

Imagine walking more by the Spirit. Imagine a deeper prayer life. Imagine knowing how to apply the Word of God to every situation, to every wrong philosophy posted on the Internet or blasted on TV. In a nation of free speech, imagine yourself more freely and boldly speaking to others about the truth of God.

Imagine the American Church being a more powerful force in our culture than Hollywood or the music business or Oprah or political talk shows.

What do you think God wants to do in our nation? Do you believe He wants you to be a part of it? And, most importantly, do you want to be?

Don’t sell God short. If you do, you will also sell short yourself and our perishing world.

2011-06-27T14:39:00.003-05:00

New blog coming soon!

Thinking About Dad

2011-06-15T21:47:00.001-05:00

I’ve always been told that I look like my mom. Someone once said I have her smile. It has always been clear to me how I take after her—from my inability to sit still “doing nothing,” to my propensity to “whip up” cookies at a moment’s notice, to my enjoyment of planning and preparing meals for guests.

For over a year now, Dad has been my only parent. And although I’ve always known that I inherited his love of peanut butter (which is a given if you are born a Chantelau), his good teeth and his aptitude for interesting word choices, I’m now more aware than ever before how much I take after him.

Like vitamins, for example. Dad was always the one recommending vitamins for this or that health issue, having us take tissue salts for this or that ailment, and trying to sprinkle wheat germ on our ice cream.

When he was here a few weeks ago, I found myself opening my cabinets, unscrewing lids from a variety of vitamin bottles and creating a custom combination for him to take with our freshly made fruit smoothies (because of him I always add flax).

Dad is also passionate about things he believes in. He loves and studies the Word of God and is able to teach lessons from it from time to time. And he’s been known to write a poem or two (although his are funny). In these ways, as well as others, I’m proud to be like my dad.

Thank you, Dad, for all you’ve done for me and given me over the years. Thank you for all you’ve been to me especially since Mom went to heaven. Only you could have handled life, loss, family and faith with such wisdom and fortitude. We couldn't have survived without you. You are very much needed, and I love you lots.

Happy Father's Day from Jo Jo

Prayer on a Lonely Evening

2011-06-09T21:38:00.000-05:00

and let this yearning rest

in You

reminding me that even the dust

of earth, which I’m made of,

along with its rivers and trees,

stones and mountains,

is lonely

for the day when You and I

will no longer be separated

by hope

and though the ache runs deep

let it lead me to the place where

only glory waits—

Yours,

in the wordless groans that impart

the strength to endure

and the ability to receive

unseen love

until disappointment itself rejoices

that my heart at long last

sees Your face

Romans 8:18-27

Not a Moment to Waste

2011-05-31T22:17:00.000-05:00

May has flown by, and I’ve not stopped to blog! I’ve been spending time with out-of-state family, working on my book and adjusting to my new schedule as part-time office girl and part-time writer.

I’ve also been reading the book of 1 Samuel. This time, it wasn’t the stories of the main characters like Samuel and David that stood out. It was those of the “supporting characters,” like Hannah and Abigail. These people seem to have lived on the sidelines of the main story the writer is telling, and often I feel like one of them. It’s easy to feel insignificant when I consider the huge issues at stake in our world and country, in the kingdom of God.

But I learned that the lives of these people with seemingly less crucial stories were deeply important in the bigger picture of God’s plan. It’s a plan they didn’t always see fully, but the moment-by-moment choices they made determined the significance of their stories.

Jonathan was one of them. We might think he lived in David’s shadow. But Jonathan faithfully lived the life God gave him, in the moment right in front of him. He didn’t waste any time. He chose the most important thing right then, whether it was attacking the Philistines or protecting David.

The last time the friends saw each other, Jonathan encouraged David and reaffirmed God’s promise: "Do not be afraid, because the hand of Saul my father will not find you, and you will be king over Israel and I will be next to you" (1 Samuel 23:17).

Jonathan thought he would see the day of David’s crowning—and live the rest of his life supporting the king. He had no idea that he would die before that vision came to fruition. His choices and actions in those ordinary, day-to-day moments became, instead, his main story. They were an integral part of David’s story, and years later, of his son’s.

And today, they have become an important part of yours and mine, something he never foresaw. No matter what we think God has for us in the future, we have no idea if we’ll live long enough to get there. It’s up to us to discern how to spend each moment we do have, present tense, because God surely has significant plans for each one of them.

Unfolding Like Roses

2011-05-01T17:30:00.002-05:00

Oh, the gifts of these past 30 days. The faithfulness of God—how He has proven His trustworthiness! His goodness, yet again!

Thirty days ago—on April 1—I left my job to follow a crazy-feeling plan to pursue part-time work so I can spend more time writing. I didn’t know what that part-time work would be. I wasn’t exactly sure how to pursue freelance writing. But someone counseled me: As I stepped out in faith, God would meet me there with provision.

And how amazingly He has. He’s dropped two amazing things into my lap: First, an ideal part-time job: I get to stay with my company, working at a different entity for someone I already knew as a colleague. Second, the opportunity to write my first freelance article. This month I will have a new published clip to add to my portfolio! Both of these blessings are beyond what I could have asked or imagined, especially in less than 30 days.

But these aren’t the greatest gifts of this season. The budding of joy and hope—these sweet gifts of God’s presence have gradually unfolded like the roses around my yard. These are the eternal messages of Easter embodied in every day life. As His Spirit ministered to me during this past Easter season, a familiar Scripture took on new meaning:

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:31-32).

I’ll let you meditate on that for awhile and discover for yourself the irreplaceable treasures that Jesus wants to provide in your own life. I know He will, if you trust Him. He always proves Himself faithful.

Easter Meditation: Beautiful Bruises

2011-04-24T18:38:00.000-05:00

A bruise on His heel. That was God’s prophetic description of Christ’s suffering at the cross, spoken at the beginning of time (see Genesis 3:15).

After reading detailed descriptions of what Jesus suffered both before and during the crucifixion, it’s hard to think of His wounds as a bruise on His heel. Why would God, the loving Father, reach that conclusion?

Because Jesus didn’t stay dead. As one pastor said this morning at an Easter sunrise service, Jesus got up! He wasn’t crushed. He crushed the head of the enemy—not the heel—when He arose.

Jesus, now in heaven, still bears the scars of His wounding, my punishment. Maybe, from afar, they look like bruises. Those scars will be one of the most beautiful sights I see when I get to heaven because they are marks of love for me.

But at the time of His death, He was too marred to look at, too disfigured to recognize. Whatever horror, whatever revulsion people felt when they looked at his butchered body, He bore for us. The Message explains it this way: “But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.”

What bruises disfigure your heart? What ugliness makes you ashamed? Take it all humbly to the cross of Jesus. Because He rose from the grave, He can bring life to every dead place in you. He alone can turn wounds into scars, beautifying them with His love and purpose.

Easter Meditation: Life Immersed in Tears

2011-04-22T11:05:00.001-05:00

“Let us remember that life is often immersed in tears.”

The Passover Seder leader spoke these words as he dipped parsley into salt water last night, which was Maundy Thursday. In the ceremony, parsley represents new life and new beginnings, but salt water represents the suffering of the Jewish people as slaves in Egypt.

My own eyes stung at these words as I thought of the tears and grief that immersed my life over the past year. I was moved to think that God would include the reality of pain and sadness in a tradition that celebrates life and deliverance. He is a God who understands our deepest sorrows while bringing hope to them.

Who could understand better than Jesus? Isaiah called Him the “Man of Sorrows.”

His resurrection—new life—was possible only after He had immersed Himself in the worst death imaginable. Laden with the sins of the world on His torn shoulders, He was forsaken by the Father Himself.

He did this for you and me, so we wouldn’t have to be forsaken by the Father. The eternal life and communion with God He offers us is possible only because of the bitterness He endured.

Whatever your sin, Jesus bore its punishment fully on the cross. Whatever burden you bear, Jesus bore its full weight on the cross. Whatever grief or anguish of your heart, He bore its full bitterness on the cross.

There is one who understands that life is often immersed in tears. And ultimately, life came through the tears of the Son of God, who offers you today a new beginning.

Easter Meditation: The Message of Spring

2011-04-19T11:47:00.000-05:00

When daffodils, tulips, irises and cherry blossoms begin to color in the brown landscape left by winter, evidence abounds that seasons of renewal are possible. Many people celebrate Easter as nature’s rebirth through the coming of spring.

But revival, and the hope for it, would not be possible without the redemptive nature of our Creator. New life and resurrection would not be possible without the physical torture, death and resurrection of the Son of God.

This week I’ve been reading studies of Christ’s passion week based on the Greek text of the New Testament. I’m overwhelmed by the contemptuous hatred and scornful reproach imposed upon Jesus by even the cruel, self-serving Roman leaders who found Him innocent. I’m tearful at the description of the scourging He endured—we’re not talking about a few punches and bruises. It was an agonizing and horrific mutilation of the body.

What deep wounding preceded healing—my healing! What savage hostility preceded peace—my peace with God!

What horrible death preceded glorious resurrection. What dark passage of the Christ through winter to bring us spring.

No matter what despair, sadness, sickness or grief you experience today, hope is available in Jesus Christ. Let the earth’s lovely spring awakening remind you of the hope Jesus offers you. I challenge you to meditate on the details of His work this Easter and ask Him to fill you anew with His presence.

Stories of God's Faithfulness

2011-04-14T16:05:00.002-05:00

The second week of my new venture is almost over—already! This lovely week has brought more opportunities to let go and take hold, and more places to trust, believe and receive from the Lord. My heart has been so encouraged by His faithfulness.

Let me tell of it.

Provision

Last week I picked up printed copies of my poetry (which you will eventually be able to purchase through my Web site). To my surprise, the man in charge gave me the books free! It was a very personal message from the Lord assuring me of His care and provision for me in this season.

Strategy

I’ve prayed a lot about how to invest my time wisely to prepare for the work God has called me to do. He led me to a wonderful book that’s stepping me through the process of launching a freelance writing business. I’ve spent the last three days getting my home office set up, cleaning out and rearranging. I’m encouraged because today, I’m ready to start my writing projects! One week ago, I wasn’t.

Income

The Lord has opened the door for me to work a part-time job that is more perfect than I could have imagined. And when I say He opened the door, that’s what I mean. I didn’t even knock on this door. It will be at an office where I already know some of the people and processes. This too, is a gift from the God who alone knows best the desires of my heart.

I will sing of the lovingkindness of the Lord forever; to all generations I will make known Your faithfulness with my mouth. –Psalm 89:1

Spring Poem to God

2011-04-11T13:36:00.000-05:00

Oh Savior,

When I look into your face,

all is bright and clear

like a spring morning.

I hear your songs, gentle and sweet;

the more I listen, the more

they crescendo into symphony

and I long to be swept in.

I see your heart, ever blooming and blossoming

with new life,

the flower of forgiveness bubbling

from the wound in your side;

seeds of mercy raining

from the scars in your hands,

carpeting the pathway before more.

How endlessly you love.

How ceaselessly you serve.

How tirelessly you endure

my emotions, doubts, fears!

No love is so gentle

nor all-consuming

as yours.

Oh Savior!

It is the fruit of your mouth

that nourishes my heart.

It is the abundance of your hand

that provides my every need.

It is the river of your heart that

satisfies

stills

calms

every place of my soul,

that completes my spirit.

It is your eyes I search for in the crowd,

above all others,

longing for them to meet mine.

It is your favor my heart is set upon.

for in it, there is

no disappointment.

Read

2011-04-08T20:22:00.003-05:00

Springtime brings the consolation of hope. It gives the assurance that death has lost its sting. There is beauty in this hope and this assurance. –Mark Buchanan

Beauty and hope, available to us always, illustrated in nature’s cycle. My heart has lived in winter this past year, but I sense that springtime is coming.

That’s why I’ve picked up Buchanan’s Spiritual Rhythm again, focusing on the section called “Spring.” Last fall I read the section titled “Winter”—twice.

And this is just one thing I love about reading: In books we find validation, direction, confirmation and revelation about our lives. This is true of nonfiction books pertaining to the spiritual life, the kind of books I read most. But I think it can be true of good fiction as well. Or history. Or poetry.

God can speak to us through the experience, insight and creativity of others. He has a way of bringing different books to my attention in different seasons, and my life is the richer for it. It’s one reason I love to read.

And one reason I love to write.

As my first week in my new life adventure comes to a close, I feel disappointed that I did not have as much time to read as I anticipated. But what I have been able to read has nudged some of winter’s seeds to bud. I have faith that they will bloom with new hope in the season ahead.

Write

2011-04-07T17:38:00.000-05:00

My desire to write is what brought me to this week—the first week after leaving a full-time job, the first week of the rest of my life. It’s not that I’m not going to work (and writing can be hard work). I’m just going to shorten the number of hours spent at a professional office so I can spend more time writing in my home office which, right now, is the desk beneath my bedroom window. It’s a soft place of vintage white and yellow, lots of books and late afternoon sunlight.

I’ve been doing a lot of writing this week, but most of it has not occurred in this “office.” I’ve been putting pink pen to one of my many journals, thinking, praying and processing. It’s these journals that I want to tell you a little bit about.

My sister crafted this journal, blooming with inspiration, for me as a Christmas gift. In it, I write poems to God. I added a poem this morning that I’ll share with you in a future blog.

Almost daily I write in my devotional journal, the pink one on the bottom (it happens to be pink inside as well). Here I write meditations on Scripture. This week I read through all 2011 entries, assimilating key themes and direction from the Lord about this season of my life.

The little green journal is my current poetry journal. It contains fragments, phrases, drafts, and haiku that occur to me throughout the day or, most frequently, in the evenings before I sleep. I also use it to complete fun writing exercises from the book poemcrazy. I type poems from this journal into my Mac, editing as I go.

This leather beauty, flourishing with design, is a treasured gift from my teammates. I wrote my first entry in it yesterday. The focus for this journal is simply life—happenings, memories, feelings, anything that feels significant.

I love to write, and I want it to be much more than a pastime. I have some major projects that are stirring in me anew, and for that reason, I need to get going. It’s time for me to sit down and write.

Pray and Listen

2011-04-06T19:03:00.000-05:00

The third day of this first week of the rest of my life dawned bright and sunny with the promise of warmer weather than yesterday. And though it’s breezy outside, the day delivered on that promise: the comforting warmth of sun soaking into chilly places leftover from a long winter.

I spent a few hours at one of my favorite parks, praying and listening. Praying and listening are important activities for any day in a believer’s life, but having extra time to seek the Lord during key transitions is one of the gifts I’m enjoying this week.

Hearing specific direction from Him is the inheritance of every child of God, if we take the time to pray and listen. Jesus said in John 10 that His sheep hear and know His voice. The Holy Spirit is the voice within us that speaks on His behalf and illuminates His Word.

The Bible is the primary way that I hear from the Lord. Almost every day I journal on a verse or passage that stands out to me during my reading. Today the Lord’s direction was to persevere in faith and belief in all that He is, to trust Him completely—for in Him is the way of life (Deut. 32:46-47).

But often, I hear the Lord during prayer. I find that as I honestly express every thought and feeling to Him, two things happen. First, I feel the comfort, love or encouragement from Him that I need. He is truly the safest place to keep my heart. Second, I tend to have new thoughts and ideas as I’m speaking. These things are often points of insight or direction that I haven’t seen before.

When I take extra time to journal about these things, He often brings additional realizations or revelation about my circumstances. He did that for me today, providing some direction and calming some anxiety as I sat in the sun-dappled shadows of the blooming trees and shrubs that line the park’s little creek.

It is a beautiful blessing to hear God’s voice. And today it was a special blessing to hear it through His creation, in the stunning arrangement of blue sky and sunshine, through the swaying branches bursting with tiny messages of hope.

Give Thanks

2011-04-05T19:49:00.000-05:00

Today was a day of trees stretching themselves tall toward the sunshine, of dandelions growing a head taller after a day of storms. It was yellow and blue, light-filled and glistening with hope.

It is spring. And inside, I feel velveteen, verdant like the earth. I am thankful.

The first item on yesterday’s list of things I’m doing during this first week of the rest of my life is give thanks. That’s where I started today.

Interestingly, and certainly not by coincidence, I read Psalm 77 this morning, which is all about remembering God’s great work in your past and declaring it to those around you—thanksgiving. This kind of thanksgiving increases God’s glory, hallows God’s name. It builds faith and defeats discouragement.

So, let me get started doing just that. Here are a few things on my thankful list, which will only grow with each passing day.

Thank you, thank you, Father,

for Your faithfulness in every season of my life.

Thank you for 11 years at a good and reputable company,

for bosses who appreciated and promoted me,

for years of provision and abundance, of endurance and grace.

Thank you for Your strength and wisdom in every change.

For opportunities to travel and to use the gifts you put in me,

and to learn how to do new things.

Thank you for seeds sown in me and through me,

for fruit and friendship.

Thank you most of all, my Father,

for Your favor upon me:

Your smile of acceptance and approval,

Your presence that crowns my life.

Without You I can do nothing.

Thank you, thank you.

The First Week of the Rest of my Life

2011-04-04T20:16:00.000-05:00

Last Friday I received cards, gifts, hugs and well-wishes. I ate fabulous cake (the corner piece with the yellow rose on it). But it wasn’t my birthday. It was the last day at my job.

Over the weekend, I read and re-read cards from my friends and colleagues. I paged through the pile of new journals I received, appropriate gifts for someone leaving to make more time to write.

Now, more than ever before, my life feels like a stack of empty journals. Each page represents the unknown. Each page represents work, endurance, and faith. Especially faith.

This week—the first week of the rest of my life—takes me deeper into the transition that started long before I turned in my resignation. Transitions are often difficult, creating clashing emotions as we let go of the past’s familiarity and take hold of the future’s uncertainty. So, most of my activities this week are all about that process. These are at the top of my list:

Give thanks. For God’s amazing faithfulness. For friendships and provision, for growth and experience. In the face of mourning loss—loss of familiarity, steady income, interaction with colleagues, routine—profound gratitude and humility. So much has been good. So much is worth remembering, and celebrating.

Pray and listen. In the quiet house, at my favorite park. To the Word of God, to His whispers in my heart. Through the music of worship and the music of nature.

Write. In journals. In Word. On my Mac or online. With keyboard or pen (preferably the pink one from my coworkers). New strategy or poetry. Words, rhymes, questions; joys and blues.

Read. “Spring” in Mark Buchanan’s Spiritual Rhythms. The final chapters of Randy Alcorn’s Heaven. A daily dose of poemcrazy. The rest of Disappointment with God. Each of these books feeds different regions of my heart. Each will contribute to my ability to take hold of what lies ahead.

For the past few months, I’ve had one foot in the boat and one out on the water. But now I’ve plunged in, both feet. I’ve jumped the cliff, no turning back. And who knows what exciting things I’ll encounter as I glide to the other side?

Out of Ivory Palaces

2011-03-13T17:49:00.000-05:00

Every time I step through the doors of Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center, I fall under its majestic spell. During a private tour of the three-year-old limestone building this weekend, a lone cellist practiced on the auburn Brazilian cherry-wood platform in the concert hall. The lush rasp of his bow over the strings surrounded us with music even up in the balcony, as if the instrument were whispering its melody right into our ears.

I am overwhelmed by both the beauty of strings and the artistry of an elegant building like the Schermerhorn. As it turns out, so was the king whose wedding is the subject of Psalm 45: “Out of ivory palaces stringed instruments have made you glad” (verse 8, NAS).

This king is, in fact, a portrait of the King of all kings—royal and gorgeous and spotlessly good. The book of Hebrews puts the words of Psalm 45 into the mouth of God, spoken to His only Son (Hebrews 1:8-9).

It’s no surprise that symphonies and sculpted stones make even the God of heaven glad. He infused the world with pink cherry blossoms and bright red birds. He fashioned man and woman in His own creative image.

His creativity is the expression of His own nature; our creativity is evidence of His existence. Delight in created beauty connects our spirits with His. Beauty magnetizes us because it is meant to draw us closer to the King, the true object of our deepest desires.

Next time you are swept away with the glory of symphony or poetry or stained and sparkling glass, remember that the thrill of worship is ultimately destined for the King. Remember that in every moment of beauty He waits, adorned with scars-turned-regal, for us to see the nature of His love.

Gold in my Hands

2011-03-05T10:45:00.001-06:00

It is Saturday morning, and quiet, except for the sound of rain splashing out of the gutter into the empty clay flower pots beside the house. I sit at the kitchen table, lit naturally by two great windows and the pale peach glimmer of the candle warming my little white teapot. On the other side of the room, the small window above the sink is open a few inches, letting in the spring-soaked smell of rain and the music of its falling—almost like bells in the distance.

On that windowsill sits a tiny earthen vase containing three mini daffodils. They sing with remembrance of my mother’s beautiful spirit, which filled rainy Saturday mornings of my past with light and joy. They sing of anticipation and longing, and of the present moment’s pleasure. They sing of loss’s pain, of the inability to remain.

I think of Robert Frost’s poem, “Nothing Gold Can Stay”:

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Once, while I admired a new golden-edged volume of Frost’s poetry at Barnes and Noble, an elderly man told me about his experience with this poem. One day, this man, his wife and daughter had a random conversation in which his daughter said that if she were to die, she wanted “Nothing Gold Can Stay” read at her funeral.

Sadly, she died unexpectedly not many months later. “Nothing Gold Can Stay” became her memorial.

My heart wants gold to stay, to last forever. And truly, it does—but not on this plane of existence. How deep is the gold of heaven’s daffodils, how luminous the glory of heaven’s leaves? How healing is the fruit of its trees, how pure is the water of its river?

The loveliest of moments here give only hints. The tiniest of glories, the birdsong of spring, the treasure of relationships all point to something richer, deeper, forever. How radiant now is my mother’s spirit? One day I will see for myself.

In the meantime, I snip the flowers at their stems and bring them in to stay for as long as they can. I hold the gold while it’s here, before I am forced to let it go.

The First Daffodils

2011-02-27T19:48:00.000-06:00

I awoke this cloudy morning to yellow buds on the mini daffodils I planted in memory of my mom last March. By the time I got home from church and errands this afternoon, a downpour had given way to sunshine, and the daffodils were fully open.

This transition from winter to almost-spring is a fitting picture of life infused with the presence of God. He is the rain that waters seeds of faith in cloudy seasons. He is the hope that flowers after the heart’s winter. He is the spring that brings redemptive life to places of pain.

This weekend I had the privilege to serve and speak at Caring Resource’s HOPE Workshop, where we teach that the fullness of God’s healing, renewal and hope is available to us as we walk in intimacy with Him. Part of deepening that intimacy is developing a relationship of emotional honesty with Him, according to Psalm 62:8: “Trust in Him at all times, O people; Pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us.”

In every season of life, we can cultivate a personal history with God, expressing emotions and thoughts to Him, experiencing His presence and receiving healing and direction for life. After a year of processing the deepest loss of my life, I can truly celebrate the unfolding of delicate yellow petals in springtime and the fresh hope of knowing Him in the new season ahead.

Memorial

2011-02-16T22:05:00.000-06:00

Today is the year anniversary of the day my mom took her first breath in heaven. Though I think of her every day, I wanted to do something special as a memorial on this significant day. I wished I could leave a bouquet of daisies, her favorite flower, on her grave, but I live 800 miles away from it.

What, then, to do? I wondered if a ritual of some kind could really matter anyway, since nothing could possibly be an adequate memorial to a lifetime of love, to the rest of a lifetime of deeply felt loss.

Somehow, though, memorial rituals do matter to those who desire them. We got the idea from God. He values memorials that call to mind things of great significance.

It was He who instituted the annual Passover feast to help Israel remember how He delivered them from slavery in Egypt. Years later, it was Jesus who took the Passover cup and unleavened bread, turning them into communion, the sacrament memorializing His death on the cross.

Behind these and other biblical memorials is the presence of God in the lives of His children. Memorials have value because of the relationship they represent—a relationship that must not be forgotten.

God Himself has memorials of us. Isaiah wrote that He inscribes the names of His people on the palms of His hands, inscriptions perhaps shaped like nail prints.

So, in today’s simple rituals, I remembered. I remembered Mom happy in the kitchen as I made a batch of the Hunza bread she used to make—unleavened bread probably not unlike the kind used at Passover. I remembered our countless conversations and time spent together cooking and baking.

I brought a fresh piece of the bread and some grape juice with me to my favorite park, where I took communion in the solitude of warm sunshine and the presence of Christ. I remembered that it is only because of His death and resurrection that I have the promise of seeing my mom again someday.

Finally, I stood on a bridge and cast a bouquet of daisies to the sparkling creek below. The daisies floated away in the reflection of a pure blue sky—in the reflection of the heavens. Today, I remembered the day of her death, but more importantly, I remembered the gift of her life and the blessing that continues to flow from it.

Last Year

2011-02-10T21:10:00.000-06:00

Tonight the sparkling, cold sky and cradle of a moon paint peace over the earth. It's a beautiful reminder of the Creator's nature. No matter what unrest, sadness, or burdens the people of earth carry, He always offers peace to those who cast their cares on Him in faith-filled trust.

Tonight, my family continues to think of the day almost a year ago that ripped the stars from our skies and shattered our hearts. We've been talking both about that day and the present day: the reality of our sadness, the truth that healing is taking place. Our family's landscape, and that of our individual lives, is forever changed. So is our view of the heavens as we gaze up at it, wondering what it looks like from the other side.

My sister, Dianne Oetzel, gave me permission to share a poem she sent us a few nights ago. Its lines are like stars, some falling and some fallen, leaving blackness in their place, some of them beginning to shine again.

Anguished heart.

Desperate prayers.

Believing,

Waiting.

Fifty-nine years.

Days ordained.

Fearing the worst.

Hoping for the best.

Final hours.

Sorrow beginning.

Upward rising.

Downward burial.

Death's lost sting.

Life's eternal victory.

Pain mingled with

Hopeful joy.

Spring, then summer.

Wintry heart.

Golden memories,

Golden leaves.

Winter again.

Her abscence felt.

Promise treasured.

Reunion pondered.

Living forever with

The Ever-Living One.

A Touch of Spring

2011-01-29T20:20:00.001-06:00

What unexpected warmth and sunshine on this last Saturday of a dreary month! January has hovered unusually over Middle Tennessee with snow and cold, oppressing my spirit with a relentless gloom.

As I sat by the bubbling creek at my favorite park watching the sun cast golden sparks over a cattail-filled marsh, a sense of relief settled over me—the tearing of a thick curtain, the rolling away of a heavy stone. It was as if nature were letting go of winter and preparing for spring, rejoicing as it did the morning Christ rose from death.

There is an appointed time for everything, Solomon said:

A time to weep and a time to laugh;

A time to mourn and a time to dance…

A time to search and a time to give up as lost;

A time to keep and a time to throw away.

This open-the-windows of a day seemed to add its own conclusion to his poem:

A time to hold on and a time to let go.

Even if winter returns, if more snow drops from the sky and clouds cover the sun for another month, today’s beauty reminds me that spring is coming. It’s physical evidence of a spiritual truth: For every sorrow, love, disappointment or happiness of a past season released into the Father’s hands, something redemptive is waiting in its place.

The resurrection life of Christ floods every tomb-like place in the hearts of His followers, if we only dare to let go of the darkness.

These Past Eleven Months

2011-01-16T23:53:00.004-06:00

As the sun settled below tonight’s horizon, I sat for a few minutes in the fresh, cold air on a screened-in porch overlooking a giant lake, absorbing its stillness, and its utter quiet.

Today is the 11-month anniversary of the day my mom left this earth. It’s hard to believe that much time has passed because the event of her death still feels recent and shocking.

But I can tell that time has passed, and that time—these past 11 months—have yielded new thoughts, feelings and experiences as I’ve traveled through grief with the Lord.

I’ve found that in my time of deepest and lonely sorrow, He has been my closest friend. No one is gentler, kinder, or more understanding toward the broken soul and breaking heart than the one whose heart was pierced.

I am weaker than I ever realized, and needy. I need Jesus. Even more than I know. Not because I am grieving, but because I am human. How much greater seems the gulf between creature and Creator; how much more clearly I see His mercy that fills the widening gap.

He’s taught me that resting, grieving and weeping are just as much a part of perseverance as praying, worshipping and Bible-reading. In fact, they are a vital part of relationship with Him, intertwined with prayer, worship and Bible reading.

It has been a sorrowful season. Challenging, painful, hard. But it has not been without blessings or goodness or moments of happiness. I hardly stand at the end of grief’s journey. But I have moved forward on its path. And I know it is the things I encountered on that path that lead me to anticipate deepening relationship with God in the season ahead.

Remembrance and Anticipation

2011-01-06T20:03:00.000-06:00

Another year has passed, a year painful to remember yet impossible to forget. A year when last my mother breathed, when last I embraced her, heard her voice, saw her face. The last year any of those things would ever take place in my life.

The new year dawned with her birthday. She would have been 60. Every new year will make it impossible to forget, as if I could, as if I wanted to. I will never forget the life with which my own was so connected.

We don’t forget what we’ve gone through, the pastor said on Sunday. Remember God’s goodness and faithfulness, what He taught you in difficult circumstances.

But, he said, we need fresh words for today. Fresh hope. And in this new year, he encouraged us to anticipate something new in our relationship with Him, in our experience of Him.

And so I do, remembering a favorite verse: But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in You. (Psalm 39:7)

* * *

It is You I anticipate, You I expect—

Your character again my experience,

over and over,

desired, revealed, delightful.

You

are the life in death,

the wholeness from the brokenness,

the new thing

from the old.

I remember You, O Grace—

embracer of tears,

kind to the downcast heart,

enduring in love.

I remember those arms

everlasting

enabling, carrying, strengthening

the one weak with sorrow,

the one weakened still.

I anticipate You

more than circumstances, more than the dawn,

Sovereign One—

meet me.

Walk with me.

Speak Your heart

as I speak mine.

Let us exchange words,

poems,

let me offer praise

increasingly

that it may grow to become

unceasing,

that Your glory may flow

between You and me,

my life a

remembrance

of Your faithfulness, an

anticipation

of seeing Your face in the lifetime to come.

In Humble Praise at Year’s End

2011-01-01T14:40:00.000-06:00

Faithful, ever.

In changing times,

unchanging.

In sorrowful times,

revealing grace

upon grace

upon grace,

lovingkindness that endures

forever,

changeless.

In lonely times,

manifesting love,

deep, great, unwavering,

true.

In restless times,

inviting rest

providing hope for new things,

making ways,

directing steps

ordering days,

proving Your Word

deep, great, faithful, true

unwavering.

In needy times,

in weakened times,

a very present Help

and helping

a strong arm

fortifying and strengthening.

In all times—Potentate—

in time itself—Creator.

All this You are

You accomplish

You prove Yourself

All this

in this grieving space

of time

in this night time

of a year—

You are light

and illuminating.

You are Savior

and saving.

When all other words

fail to explain

or describe

all of You—

this word remains

and suffices:

Faithful.

Ever.

A Beautiful Word

2010-12-19T21:20:00.001-06:00

Emmanuel.

It’s a beautiful word, if you truly know what it means. And I don’t just mean the interpretation, God with us.

Much can be said about God with us. The fact that God came to earth in human form and His name was called Jesus. The fact that His motivation for coming was love, love for you. Love for me. The fact that without His coming, all people of the world would perish eternally. Both you and me.

It’s all beautiful. And sometimes very hard to believe that it’s true. But it is. And that is, perhaps, the most amazing part about Emmanuel that I’m meditating on this Christmas season—it doesn’t just mean God was with us, 2,000 years ago when Jesus was born. It means that He is still with us, if we have asked Him to be Lord and Savior of our lives.

It means His presence and its essence—Love—is with us. Dwelling in us, pouring over us, every minute of the day. The Bible tells us that God’s anger lasts but for a moment, but His love endures forever—a truth repeated 26 times in Psalm 136.

Love is with us. Comfort, peace, mercy, truth—everything we so desperately need is already flowing from God’s heart toward ours. Not anger, not judgment, not condemnation.

Emmanuel.

A beautiful Word. How well do you truly know Him?

A Wintry Day

2010-12-12T17:30:00.001-06:00

Today we Tennesseans are getting a taste of real winter. Snow is whispering its descent to earth, gently piling over the dry grass.

The last time I experienced such a wintry day was in February, the week my mother died. Days earlier she had written to me that the freshly fallen snow was so pretty. More lovely snow fell a few days after she died. And now, it’s falling again.

It is still pretty. In Decembers past, I would feel old tugs of nostalgia’s magic as I looked past my Christmas tree at the window to watch it fall.

Though I do not wish to dwell on the happy memories of the unrecoverable past tonight, I do wish to linger on comforting words I heard at the holiday Griefshare class I attended in November. Christmas, one of the speakers said, is for those who are suffering. Because this world is full of sin, pain, death and darkness, Jesus came.

Wintry days bring cold winds and temperatures, but they also bring the unique and special beauty of falling snow. It is the beauty of the unimaginable love and good purposes of God that decorates winter with Christmas.

As I watch the shiny ornaments at my window sparkle in the light of my little tree and warm fireplace, I feel the peace of Jesus, the Light of the world. I feel the strength of His love promising hope and joy for my life, even though the pain of loss will always linger in my heart.

The Centerpiece

2010-12-04T23:56:00.000-06:00

As I took a walk on Thanksgiving morning before the family came over for a holiday breakfast, it suddenly occurred to me that we had no centerpiece for the table. I couldn’t help but think about last Thanksgiving; Mom was with us. We cooked dinner together. Canadian geese bellowed outside; the stereo sang inside. The table was set and we had our choice of floral arrangements to use as the centerpiece. Several people had sent them to us, expressing their care as we prayed that Mom would be healed.

As I walked past dried weeds and berry-laden bushes, I thought that perhaps I could gather a few things from nature to beautify our table. But I was already behind schedule and didn’t have time for anything extra.

Back inside, I began slicing oranges and making the special oatmeal that cooks for half an hour. I selected a rich maroon tablecloth that reminded me of Mom and spread it over her table. As my sisters arrived, they helped set the table and prepare food. Then one of them announced that Aunt Ruth had dropped off a centerpiece at her house for all of us, along with a Thanksgiving card.

Those bright, fresh flowers around a yellow candle perfectly complemented the tablecloth. The centerpiece was the same style of two that we had received last year, and I knew that God was speaking directly to my unspoken feelings.

He knew how many countless little details I missed because of Mom’s absence. He knew I needed to know that someone remembered. He wanted me to know how much He cared.

I’m so thankful for the many ways that He acknowledges my heart, and how faithfully He does so. I’m grateful that my aunt, herself recently bereaved, took the time to do something special for us. She carried God’s specific message to someone waiting to receive it. How many simple and unique messages does God desire each of us to carry for Him today?

so thankful

2010-11-23T20:58:00.001-06:00

tonight

so thankful

for You

whose lashes healed me

whose nakedness clothed me

with salvation

whose innocence removed

my guilt

You

unchanging Rock

midst my tumultuous emotions

Shelter that graces me

with peace and security

the broad path that keeps

my feet from slipping

so thankful

for the family

You gave me

for Dad

whose character is like

diamonds in the coal of night

for sisters

who understand, talk, laugh,

grieve

with me

for 37 years with

beautiful Mom

for her parents—

lights, love, warmth

for friends

from all seasons of life

so thankful

for Your abundance,

extravagant

in forgiveness, provision, direction,

comfort, healing,

love

tonight

so thankful

for You

Beauty for Ashes

2010-11-03T22:47:00.000-05:00

On many occasions, the bright colors of autumn trees have cast their glow against deep gray skies and chilly weather, outshining the gloom of a rainy day. But today—this week—the weight of ashen clouds seems to smother the beauty of the changing trees.

This afternoon I looked through the rain-speckled windshield at a palette of leaves, but the heaviness in my heart illuminated the darkness of the sky. One year ago yesterday, we found out that cancer had made its way to my mom’s brain. The first week of November 2009 was filled with shock and terror. I can’t help but remember the emotion of that week, adding to it the memory of the day our worst fear came true.

As I thought about past rainy yet lovely autumn days, I began to thank God for His goodness to me. For 37 years with a loving, servant-hearted mother who followed Him. For the family relationships I still have. For His promise to be strength in my weakness. I began to speak Scriptures aloud, determined to strengthen myself in Him. I began to pray.

Remembering God’s goodness and faithfulness brought the colors into focus. Pouring out my heart to Him illuminated the beauty, moving the gray to the background.

In every season of life, the character of God shines greater than the worst circumstances. When He promises us beauty for ashes, He promises us Himself. It’s up to us to go to Him, and receive.

October has Brought its Gold

2010-10-31T16:04:00.001-05:00

The other day when I walked out of my office, the cool, crystal-clear air smelled like a Pennsylvania autumn—a breezy freshness with a touch of smokiness and a trace of cold that might be on its way. Just a couple weekends ago, I was there running a 5K with my sisters in memory of our mom.

And almost a year ago now, I was there for the month of November, spending most of my time with my mom. I treasure and mourn, remember and long for that month, praying that the details of those days will return more fully to my mind.

I drove Mom to her appointments, saw the sealed, metal door behind which she lay alone on a huge machine receiving radiation, met her kindly nutritionist doctor. I waited at the curb while she dashed through the drizzle to pick up fresh bread from Bakers on Broad. I took her Christmas shopping and chuckled when she asked if I was definitely planning to buy myself the purple sweater. I knew she was up to something, and at Christmas I opened the sparkly purple earrings that match it.

I wore the sweater and earrings today as October prepares to leaves us with its glimmer and shine.

It pains me to think of these memories. But for the first time since Mom’s death, I found myself this month longing to remember scenes from her life more than the images of her dying and death crowded them out. I want to gather and cherish good memories rather than avoid them because of the ache they bring.

It’s a sign of healing. October has brought its gold, changing the world since it began 31 days ago. It leaves me with a new glimmer of hope and joy in the gift of the past. And in the air I sense that something refreshing might be on its way.

Comfort in Sadness

2010-10-03T17:05:00.001-05:00

Today I feel sad.

The dew on the grass this weekend looked like tears in the sunlight. The sun-glinted leaves during my morning drive looked like cheeks wet from crying. And this afternoon the gray of the bunched-up clouds reflects the gloom that fills my heart when I think about living the rest of my life without my mother. Even when the sun bursts through the clouds, sending its glow through the maples and over the grass, its beauty creates the ache of remembering my mom’s smile, her comforting voice.

It’s been one of those weekends when I long to hear her tell me everything’s going to be okay. Even when she didn’t actually say those words, simply talking to her and knowing that she was always there, available for me, often made me feel as if everything truly would be okay.

But God, my loving Father, knows exactly what a daughter needs. Perhaps that’s why He reminded me of a conversation I had a few weeks ago with some godly friends. After I expressed some burdens on my heart, a brother in Christ responded, “Everything’s going to be okay.”

How did he know I needed to hear those words? Only God could have known that. And He knew again, this morning, what I needed when I came across these words in Isaiah: “As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you; and you will be comforted in Jerusalem” (66:13).

God was promising His people a wonderful future, even though their present experience was hard and painful. He was promising redemption and restoration to them.

Today, in my sadness, the Lord is telling me everything’s going to be okay. He is near. He understands. And the present pain I’m experiencing in no way forfeits the joy of relationship with Him or the plans He has for the rest of my life.

O Lord, beautify my tears with Your glory.

Be magnified in my pain,

be glorified through my grief.

Let Your face, which my mother now beholds,

shine in favor upon me,

and give me peace.

Amen.

Kisses of Heaven

2010-09-25T15:43:00.002-05:00

The first week of September was lovely. I found myself breathing fresh air through open windows, delighting in the brilliance of blue skies sparkling in sunlight. I gloried in the glorious creation of God—something I hadn’t been able to do since my mom left this earth.

I am beginning to enjoy again some of life’s beauty that I never imagined would be past my ability to deeply appreciate. It’s just that now I appreciate it in a different way.

One thing I’ve learned this year through the study and contemplation of heaven is that it is beautiful—more exquisite and shimmery than a September day filled with the final kiss of summer gold. In fact, the touches of beauty in our days are like kisses of heaven upon the earth. There’s no way that mankind’s dwelling place outshines the splendor and elegance of God’s.

If God went to such trouble to make beautiful the place where we would live our temporal lives, how much more beautiful will be the place that Jesus said He is preparing for us to live eternally with Him?

More and more, I am longing for that place and the One who is preparing for me to be there with Him. I long to fill my life here with things that will matter there, sowing seeds of loveliness here that will explode in glory there. I am so grateful that some of the old joy I had in nature is returning. But I am even more thankful that now this joy extends beyond the moment, filling me with the hope of the greater joy that awaits me in my eternal home with Him.

What Brings the Most Joy

2010-08-04T21:15:00.006-05:00

Joy is not the absence of sadness, else it would not be available in seasons of grief.

Nor is it merely the knowledge that God works things out for our good if we love Him, that He builds character through suffering, that He will one day wipe every tear from our eyes.

The key to joy, I’ve found, is intimacy with Christ. And intimacy with Christ comes through emotional honesty with Him. Joy comes from knowing Jesus.

In joy, then, I find peace in the middle of pain, comfort in the depths of sorrow, hope in the anguish of grief—pain, sorrow and grief expressed fully and privately in the presence of Jesus.

Psalm 16:11 says, “…in Your presence is fullness of joy, at Your right hand there are pleasures forevermore.”

It is in His presence that I am freest to mourn, to weep, for He is trustworthy. I have yet to find a safer place for my broken heart, a place freer of judgment, freer of self-consciousness, freer of shame.

This place, this freedom—this invitation—to unabashedly pour my heart out to the God of the universe and to find acceptance, love and comfort is nothing less than joy.

King Jesus,

Accepting and Saving One,

Gentle and Mighty One,

I offer You this honesty, this barrenness—

my heart helplessly broken, my love unalterably pained.

How thankful and amazed I am at Your response—

covering me with acceptance and safety,

transferring Your love

from the pages of Your Word

to the understanding of my heart.

Five Months Later

2010-07-16T08:57:00.004-05:00

Today marks the five-month anniversary of my mom's heaven-going. After just two weeks without her, someone told me there would be days when I feel like I just can't do life.

Today is one of those days.

In fact, I often get up in the morning and think, "I can't do this." But as I've written in a previous post, part of God's comfort is the fortitude He provides. It's strength to keep going when I feel like I can't.

The weaker I feel, the more I crave, desperately and deep down, is help. Help that I know no one but the Lord can provide. It's amazing how often David, Israel's greatest, godliest king, cried out for help. His words have brought me hope and comfort today, helping me look to the ultimate source of help. After spending time reading Psalm 18 and Psalm 121, I wrote my own little psalm about His help, and I wanted to share that with you today.

How precious Your name:

Help.

My Help.

God who never sleeps

or turns His face from me--

I lift my weeping eyes

to You.

I look to You, my spirit

wilted and weak,

my soul broken

my flesh powerless.

I look above the heavens,

beyond this life and earth,

and You are there.

Yet You are here

in the valley,

beside me.

And You lift my head

with the buoyancy of

Your glory,

that my eyes may see beauty

again.

Moments of Happy

2010-06-28T22:32:00.001-05:00

What I really want to write about tonight is the symphony, and why hearing those three oboes, those tenor-singing cellos, those delicate violins makes it impossible to keep from smiling.

I'm not sure, though, if I can explain it.

Perhaps my love of music, and in this case, classical music, is comparable to my love of books. They have to be the right kind, and good. They can only be enjoyed individually; my enjoyment of them is entirely personal, mixed with my own experiences, feelings and interpretations, not exactly the same as anyone else's enjoyment of that same tome.

Recently I got to enjoy the aforementioned instruments live, rich, warm and up-close at a performance by the Nashville Symphony and special guest the Claremont Trio. Because our beloved symphony center is still undergoing repairs from the Nashville flood damage, the concert was held at David Lipscomb University's alumni auditorium. And it was kind of nice. More relaxed, less conventional. Lots of great steps to climb up to the grand red doors; a great courtyard complete with little tables and lemonade and, during intermission, one lone star suspended brilliantly above the building's pediment.

Not to mention a gorgeous selection of music by Telemann, Beethoven and Brahms. The result of it all for me were some new downloads from iTunes, especially of those oboes. And they've made me smile all week.

Why do I feel the need to write about this? Simply because it was beautiful, and it made me happy. Happiness doesn't come upon us all the time, and it's not always a choice. When it comes, it is often spontaneous, unexpected, even unsought. It was, however, invited that night. It was asked for, and celebrated.

And often, happiness comes, for me, through music, through violins and cellos. And oboes.

Tonight, when sadness seems so easy to come by in this season of my life, I simply want to memorialize that happy evening of carefree music. I want to remember with gratitude all the undocumented moments of happy. They are gifts and glimpses of life as God intended it to be long before the world was created, long before the world was fallen. They are reminders of God's plan to redeem and resurrect this earth and all its inhabitants. The truest of glories has yet to shine.

Hidden deep in the notes of those oboes, in the strings of those cellos, are traces of the truest happiness. The best is yet to come.

Expectancy

2010-06-16T22:35:00.002-05:00

Tonight I came across a draft blog entry that never got posted. I had written it on February 13, at the end of a very busy and stressful week--and four days before my mother's unexpected death. The blog begins:

Last Sunday morning as I was praying, I sensed the Lord was telling me to be expectant. To expect Him to do good things in my life, to give me opportunities to speak into others’ lives. To not be surprised when He answers the needs and desires of my heart.

Didn’t He, after all, fill me with hope for this new year back in January?

And then, quite unexpectedly, I heard my pastor say as he began the sermon: Be expectant. Believe that God will do what His Word says He will do.

Already, God had confirmed the words He spoke to me just an hour earlier.

I think I forgot all about this word from God. I mean, who's feeling expectant when someone they deeply loved unexpectedly dies? Surely, this was not the good thing God wanted me to expect. Surely not.

But maybe He wanted me to start the year with fresh hope because He knew I would need it this year more than ever. My draft goes on to say:

How do I so quickly forget that God is all about new things? Redemption, resurrection, purpose? Hope? In every minute of the day. He’s not one to waste time. He redeems time.

Four months have passed since that awful day of my mother's death. The Lord is reminding me again of the true redemptive nature of His character, and lately He's been calling me back to expectancy.

Deep loss, as I've said before, precipitates deep assessment. And I've been assessing. I want to live the rest of my life with more intentionality than I ever have. I want to mine the meaning from this loss.

I'm finding that the Lord's desire for me is the same. And because it is, I'm expecting Him to answer that desire of my heart.

The Longest Prayer

2010-06-07T22:40:00.001-05:00

The outskirts of loss are deep places. There in the shadows of non-comprehension, there in the smacking reality of pain, emotion and intellect collide. There in the crater of grief lies meaning. And I cannot imagine trying to find it in the midst of such dust without my heavenly Father.

Nor could Jesus. In John 17, He stands on the edge of death--and not just normal death, whatever that is. Excruciating death. Torture and torment. Unimaginable humiliation--the Healer wounded, the Savior not rescued, the King executed like a criminal. So Jesus, considering the darkness before Him, turns to the Father and prays.

It is this prayer that becomes the longest recorded prayer of Jesus in the New Testament. In it, He looks back at the way He lived His life. He thinks of the ones He's leaving behind. And He considers the ones who have yet to meet Him, ones who are in His future outside of His life on earth. His mind is sharply aware that although something terrible is about to happen to Him, God the Father is moving and working. He's not about to waste the suffering of the Son. Jesus is reaching for His Father, remembering their relationship. Rehearsing what He knows to be true, even though not all of it has yet been manifested. He is speaking in faith.

Jesus is mining the meaning from the depths of loss.

Before, after and during seasons of great pain, our hearts long to know that what we're experiencing is somehow worthwhile, somehow purposeful. Even when--and especially when--the mind can't comprehend what the heart already does, it seeks to push past the ache and discover the source of light, if it even exists. It's like moving blindly through an utterly dark cave looking for the pinprick of light that means an opening lies ahead.

Even in the darkness, our hearts begin looking for redemption.

When the prayer in John 17 took place, Jesus was about to accomplish it.

As I read this significant prayer of transition for Jesus, I felt Him acknowledging, understanding, validating my current season of life. My need to assess, to look forward and back. To ask questions. To feel every nuance in the passage between twilight and dawn.

As He prayed, Jesus Himself was experiencing the deepest transition of humankind: the movement from life to death to life on the other side. He knows what every dying person feels and thinks. He knew what my mom was feeling in her last hours, those last couple of days, weeks, months. The questions in her heart, the sensations in her body. What's more, He was there experiencing everything with her. I believe that as she spoke His name for the last time from her home on earth, He answered immediately. He acknowledged the sacredness of her transition with His presence. When that final, holy moment came, He took her hand and walked her across heaven's threshold, flooding her awareness with His own resurrection life.

Meanwhile, He is here with me, too, present in my transition as I learn to live without her. The cave has been dark and the crater deep. But the light of His countenance shines upon me, and I speak, by faith, of the redemption He is going to bring.

The Never-Ending

2010-05-27T21:56:00.003-05:00

And somehow this is a gift from my late mother: the draw of eternity.

This life is just the beginning.

I think that’s what Mom would say now—because she is more alive right now than she ever was. She’s just living in a different realm. The pain is ours, not hers. She experiences what we can hardly imagine. She has begun the rest of her life in that hard-to-comprehend state, eternity.

I think, though, one of the points the Scripture makes is that eternity has already begun; it is embedded in our hearts (Ecc. 3:11). Forever starts now. Our lives begin, but they won’t end.

How then must we live this beginning stretch of our existence? I’d say, with the never-ending in mind.

Because my mom has transferred her residence from earth to a place beyond earth, invisible to the human eye this side of the threshold, I’ve been thinking a lot about the never-ending. Suddenly, lots of things don’t seem to matter quite so much.

But this beginning-life does matter, even though it’s so short compared to the never-ending. It directly and drastically affects the life that comes after life: One can experience everlasting life and the full redemption of God’s dreams for humanity in that paradisaical realm where Mom is, or one can be lost in the horrors of the second death.

This life matters, because Jesus stepped into it, once. He died the most appalling death imaginable as punishment for my sin and yours. Then He crushed the power, the permanence, the pain of the grave through His resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven, making it possible for us to avoid the second death.

Paradise will be mine, because I trust in Jesus. And paradise is now Mom’s, because she trusted Him here, where her life began. Will it be yours?

Fortitude in the Flood

2010-05-08T22:31:00.004-05:00

Grief. It is heavy as it sounds, wrenching with desperation toward the flatness of the word’s final f. Flat like the smack of an anchor hitting the water before it sinks, downward, downward to the bottom of the sea.

Yet Handel’s Water Music Suite cascades over the airwaves, regal in its procession, glorious and joyous, as I write.

Days later, grief continues to swell after the muddy Cumberland drowned my city’s treasures, including the Schermerhorn Symphony Center and the Opryland Hotel, not to mention personal homes, businesses, livelihoods, memories and family members.

Family members and friends whose faces and voices will never grace this earth again.

Flood waters recede. Happy music plays on. The sun rises on a new day, and birds come out to sing. But loss doesn’t fade away. Grief doesn’t float.

But, as a little plaque of my mother’s says, for this we have Jesus. Only in Him can we find such a thing as comfort. For this very reason He sent us His own Spirit, named the Comforter.

I heard the breakdown of the word comfort at my GriefShare class the other night. Co indicates the coming alongside, the Spirit working together with us, and fort is grounded in the word fortitude. The comfort the Spirit gives us is strength.

This word study expanded my understanding of what comfort is and enabled me to better identify how God has administered it to me since the day my mother died. The pain hasn’t lessened. But somehow in spite of it—in spite of the muddy water that continues to swirl around my heart and in spite of time’s refusal to stop moving forward—I remain standing on solid ground. Every time I feel weak and unable—and there have been so many of those times in the past two months—He girds me with strength. He comes alongside and bears me up on His wings. He has helped me think clearly, teach sessions, lead discussion groups, draft manuals, drive to church, get out of bed.

Sending comfort is one of the ways God has proven Himself to be a very present help in time of need. Grief is powerful. But its heaviness can’t prevent me from doing what the Lord has called me to do, whether it’s going to work or reaching out to someone in need.

Though grief belongs to this broken world, it gets shaped into a tool that displays God’s great strength and faithfulness when we submit ourselves to His loving hands. I pray that the flood victims in Middle Tennessee will look to His comfort to bring them through their grief into a season of restoration.

Where is She?

2010-04-25T19:07:00.001-05:00

In the two months since my mother died, I’ve wondered many times exactly where she is. I know—the answer is, generically, heaven. But where is heaven? What is it like? While there is comfort in knowing that she is there, it doesn’t really take away the pain of loss experienced on earth. And for me, it’s raised a lot of questions and thoughts that have, quite honestly, disturbed me at times.

That’s why I started reading Randy Alcorn’s book Heaven—a thick and wonderful tome studying everything the Bible says about the place followers of Jesus go when we die, as well as the place we will live eternally after the resurrection from the dead. Reading it fills my hunger to know, nourishes my soul that languishes.

But I still need the comfort of the revelation that the Spirit gives me Himself as I read the Word. One day last week I was in desperate need of that comfort. I opened to the words of Jesus in John 14: “Do not let your hearts be troubled….in My Father’s house there are many dwelling places…I am going away to prepare a place for you.”

Then comes this huge little interchange. Jesus said, “And to the place where I am going, you know the way.” Thomas responded, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, so how can we know the way?”

Jesus had just described the place where He was going. Yet, Thomas felt uneasy. Where was this place exactly? Perhaps he was picturing nebulous castles in the sky. How would he know how to get there if he didn’t really know where it was?

For the first time, I truly stood in Thomas’ shoes. I hear what Jesus has said, but I don’t fully understand, and I even feel a little troubled.

Peace filled me that morning in Jesus’ answer: “I am the Way.” I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except by me.

Where exactly is my mom? It’s not a location I can find on a GPS or on Google Maps. But suddenly it doesn’t really matter, because I know, in a fresh way, what really does matter. I doubt that she worried about where she was going during her final hours of consciousness. In fact, I think she was only thinking about the Way she would get there. Here is an excerpt from the tribute my dad wrote the morning after she died:

On the evening of February 15, I leaned over her and said, "You will be seeing Jesus before we do.” With her quivering lips she said JESUS. This would be her last word. At 5:35 a.m. on February 16, 2010, she peacefully took her last breath and moved out of this earthly shell to be present with the LORD.

Where is she now? I still don’t really know—but I know without a doubt that she knew, intimately and unquestioningly, the Way to get there.

What About Healing?

2010-04-18T16:19:00.002-05:00

I prayed for a miracle. I believed for a miracle. I blogged about a miracle. I waited for the miracle.

But my mother died anyway.

How do you reconcile Scriptures that promise healing when the healing doesn’t come? One can argue that healing did come—through death. It’s true that Mom now lives without cancer in the tangible presence of Jesus the Healer, somewhere beyond the realm of my understanding.

But I don’t believe that every Bible verse about healing means “healing in heaven.”

There are two things that I know, and a third that I believe: God tells us to pray for healing (James 5:14-15), and it is appointed for every person to die once (Hebrews 9:27).

We prayed in accordance with God’s Word, which can never be wrong. But it must have been Mom’s appointed time. Even the raised-from-the-dead Lazarus died again. But his appointed time that eventually came did not nullify the miracle that occurred. He truly had been healed and given more time on earth.

Here is what I believe: We received the miracle we prayed for in November. When the doctors gave Mom three weeks to live, she was weak and tired with fluid in her lungs. But she emerged from the hospital with clear lungs. I’ll never forget how she looked walking toward the house as I waited for her to come home from the hospital: energetic, youthful and beautiful. Clear skin, radiant smile. Even the doctors were surprised. Instead of three weeks, she lived for three months.

Yes, I prayed for more than three months. More than three years. I wanted Mom to grow into the strong and graceful old lady she would have been. But her heavenly Father, for reasons known only to Himself, wanted her with Him. He gave us the miracle He had prepared for us, even though it was different from the one we wanted.

There’s something else that I think. I think part of the three-month miracle was God’s answer to the desire of my mother’s heart. I know she wanted to be with her family over the holidays. Or maybe she didn’t want her family to lose her right before the holidays. Either way, God granted that desire.

How I wish He had given us more time! How heart-broken I remain. But this I know and truly believe: God is still in the business of healing. He heals broken bodies and broken hearts. Maybe the only way to discover true wholeness in Christ is to be willing to fully embrace the brokenness He allows and to trust Him through the pain.

The Willow by the Water

2010-04-07T20:51:00.000-05:00

Hours after my mother died, I found myself touching her things as I went around the house. Her jewelry box and its contents, her clothes folded on the dryer. So many things that she had touched, that had touched her. These were all I had left of her now. These things, and memories.

As the days passed, an almost panic-filled idea oppressed me: That Mom’s death had somehow erased her life and existence. Had she been real? Had all of our moments together been real? Was it possible that she could be so easily torn from my life if she had really been that closely woven into it?

Maybe my subconscious mind thought that touching her things could somehow prove she had truly existed. I slipped my feet into her shoes and slippers—perhaps there were still a few molecules of warmth left from the last time she wore them. I swathed my lips with the pink gloss I found in her purse—perhaps the wand still held some of her sweetness. Maybe touching her things was my attempt, my new way, to be close to her.

These feelings must be part of the erratic symptoms of grief. The suddenness of a whole life’s becoming only a memory was and is too much for my being to absorb.

This week, on a warm, spring evening 50 days after her death, I planted a weeping pussy willow tree that a friend gave me in memory of her. My friend wrote, “I feel like this is your mom’s legacy: For I will pour water on him who is thirsty, and floods on the dry ground; I will pour My Spirit on your descendants, and My blessing on your offspring; they will spring up among the grass like willows by the watercourses (Isaiah 44:3-4).”

That Scripture reminds me of something very important: I am proof of my mother’s existence because I am her legacy. I was fashioned in her womb. Her blood is mixed with mine. That’s about as close as I can get to her now; if I look closely enough at the mirror, I can see glimmers of her there.

When I sit at my writing desk and look out the window, I will see that willow growing in the grass. I will remember that I am part of her legacy—my three sisters and I, and now my four nephews and niece. I am part of her legacy just as I am part of my late grandparents’ legacy. Their lives created seeds, and we grew like fruit under their branches. Now, their blossoms have fallen like those on my weeping willow.

But I’m still here. No one can take away the reality that my mother lived, that she lives still in another realm. No one can take away the blessing of her life that watered and nourished mine. Even though I’m weeping, I will let nothing stop me from allowing this life that came from hers to spring forth and blossom by the watercourses. After all, those waters are the life of the Holy Spirit in me. I will not deny Him the fruit of my mother’s life and faith that has yet to come into full maturity.

A Plate of Waffles

2010-04-01T22:02:00.001-05:00

One of my favorite things about God is His redemptive nature. Over the years, He has given me very specific and unexpected gifts in answer to the many kinds of losses and disappointments I’ve experienced.

This week I experienced His redemption through a cancelled flight, a sold out hotel, an unexpected guest room—and a plate of waffles.

Last weekend I flew north to visit my family, right at the 40-day mark since my mother’s death. I arrived at my dad’s house knowing that these visits would never be the same again. There would be no flowers in the guest room to welcome me, and this time I wasn’t even able to sleep in the usual guest room. There would be none of my mother’s pancakes waiting for me in the morning, no sound of her voice chatting with my father. There would be none of her hugs, none of the countless thoughtful ways that she made everyone feel special and at home.

We had a great visit. I don’t need flowers and pancakes to enjoy my family. (I’m quite capable of making my own pancakes!) But I missed my mother.

Then came the travel drama, and I was stuck at the airport. It was late, and the stress of trying to arrange the long, unplanned trips to and from the airport was disheartening. Suddenly, in the time it took to make a quick phone call, I found myself the unexpected guest at the home of a couple who live near the airport—a couple who are good friends with my dad, who knew and loved my mom.

I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed that brief time at their house. I was welcomed with the hugs and special attention of a mother. I slept in a waiting guest room. And I was served a plate of waffles in the morning.

I couldn’t understand why this little detour in my trip had made me so happy. But now I do. It was part of God’s plan. The one who knows my heart so intimately placed me there to receive His kindness. Through this couple’s thoughtfulness and hospitality, He provided so many redemptive moments—the motherly hugs I missed, the breakfast I didn’t wake up to. The guest room I didn’t get to sleep in.

It’s not that I needed to be served or treated like royalty. It’s just that I missed all the little things my mother’s presence always brought to the home.

I’m so thankful for this couple and their willingness to share their home, their time, and their friendship with me at the last minute. I’m sure they’ll never know how that plate of waffles made my day.

The Longest Winter

2010-03-26T23:15:00.003-05:00

Spring is trying to arrive. Well—I guess it’s already here. This year I totally forgot to notice the first day of spring. It has been one of the longest and coldest winters I can remember in a long time. Even in middle Tennessee, we had multiple snowfalls.

It was lightly falling that February day—the last 24 hours of my mother’s life—I left Nashville. At least six inches of snow was on the ground when I landed in Philadelphia. More fell in the days after my mom’s death. Then, there was rain. Then, more snow, covering the new grave.

This week I have been watching the daffodils open (although they typically bloom weeks earlier than this). I’ve wanted to capture the first warm, sunny days in a bottle and put them on my desk at work. I see the profusion of pink on the branches of the trees around my office.

But my spirit hasn’t been filled with spring. As my sister said in her blog recently, inside my heart it still feels like winter.

A phrase spoken by the creatures of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia keeps popping into my mind this week: “Always winter, never Christmas.” It’s this kind of winter that fills my heart.

I can’t put a band-aid on my heart. I can’t wrap my feelings in pretty words and make a sweet spring poem out of them. I don’t feel the happiness of the daffodils, my favorite flower—my favorite color—this year.

But I do know that somewhere deep in my spirit, there are seeds. Seeds I can’t see. Seeds the Father planted during this long, cold winter. Seeds that even now are filled with hidden, silent life. I don’t know what these seeds will become. But I do know that one day they will bloom.

And when they do, winter will finally be over.

Love and Hugs

2010-03-19T19:32:00.003-05:00

Oh let me remember Mom’s hugs—the rounded softness of her shoulders, her scent, the hum of her voice with our heads pressed together.

I wanted one of her hugs the night she lay dying.

The last one we exchanged was at the airport in December after Christmas. I think I remember it, but the memory might be blended with the airport hug in November after Thanksgiving. They were similar—affectionate, moving, heavy with unspoken emotion.

The last hug I gave her was during her final breaths, early in the morning. By then, my dad and sister had pushed her hospice bed flush against the bed I lay on so that I could reach her better. My dad was on the other side of her bed and my sister at the foot of my bed. We had all been silent but not sleeping. Suddenly, at the same time, we each sensed a change in her breathing. We knew what was happening, and moved closer to her.

I lay my head on her shoulder, my arm around her neck. Even then, she was soft and warm, like the word mother. Her shoulder heaved up and down beneath me. Her breaths became sighs. Our good-byes became tears. Her shoulder became still.

When we were young, my three sisters and I heard the story of Little Women. Those four girls—Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy—called their mother Marmee. From time to time, we four girls called our mother Marm. Sometimes I’d write it in letters; sometimes she signed her letters that way.

Our Marmee is incomprehensibly gone. But her love isn’t. As one of my sympathy cards states, a mother’s love lasts forever. She gave so much of it, so freely. Nothing can take that away.

A friend who lost her dad told me that for her, feeling the depths of pain and expressing her grief was a testament to how much she loved him. How helpful her perspective! For now, I can only hug my mother with my tears. But one day, when my life on earth is done, when we all receive glorified bodies and cry no longer, I will embrace her with my arms once again.

Song in the Night

2010-03-15T16:46:00.002-05:00

Soon after Mom’s death, I longed increasingly to know what she was thinking and feeling. Did she know how we were doing? Did she even need to know? Only the Lord could answer these questions that arose from my well of sorrow. So I expressed my thoughts to Him during a morning walk in softly falling snow.

Later that afternoon I had some free time and did some exercises in my parents’ basement. I put on a CD that my mom had enjoyed. A particularly worshipful and reverent song came on, an anthem of exaltation to the Lord. With great crescendo it moved into these lyrics:

Blessing and honor

Glory and power

Unto the Lord be praised

Sing with the chorus

Resounding before us

Holy is His name

Suddenly I envisioned angels and believers worshipping the exalted Christ, the ever-living God, in heaven. I felt as if I were standing before His throne. The moment was so amazing that I had to put the weights down and simply stand and sing in His presence. And once again, the Lord provided what I needed in the deepest place of my heart.

Instantly I knew what my mom was thinking and feeling…and doing. She was worshipping and exalting Jesus, joyously and reverently joining in with the heavenly chorus. I pictured her surrounded by a gigantic congregation, singing with her hands raised.

I don’t know exactly what believers who have gone before us are experiencing while we’re living on earth without them. The truth is, they have not yet received their glorified bodies and therefore aren’t raising physical hands as I envisioned. What I do know is that heaven is filled with worship.

And I know that as my heart worshipped God in a basement, wearing workout clothes and lifting weights, He answered my prayer. He gave me the song, the prayer in the night that Psalm 42:8 describes. He used it to fill my heart with peace and assurance that even though I could no longer have a relationship with my mom, He did. And He was telling me that all of her needs were met—met by His lovingkindness and physical presence as her heart overflows in response to Him.

Deep Calling Deep

2010-03-09T20:30:00.001-06:00

I don’t remember much about the couple of days following my mother’s death, besides writing her obituary and sitting with my entire family in the funeral director’s office. But I do remember the crush of physical and emotional exhaustion, the sickening awfulness that I can’t describe.

I had no idea what to say to God or what to read in the Bible. I’m not sure I was able to respond to Him with anything other than outpourings of grief. But at some point during those first days without her—those days of wordless prayer—I felt a desperate need to worship God. I needed someone else’s words, someone else’s song, to remind me how.

I dug through my parents’ CD collection looking for a recording of my favorite old hymn, Crown Him with Many Crowns. I found one, and listened. The familiar music flooded my spirit with the presence of God, with the reminder of His greatness, goodness and gentleness. I needed them all. I needed Him, and there He was.

And the recording of that song was purely instrumental. I didn’t even need to hear or sing the words of worship. It was enough that worship was the desire of my heart.

I experienced what the psalmist described in Psalm 42:7-8, starting with verse 7: “Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls; all Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me.”

The phrase deep calls to deep is like “sorrow calls to sorrow.” One commentary puts it this way: The roar of successive billows, responding to that of floods of rain, represented the heavy waves of sorrow which overwhelmed him.

After this expression of grief, the psalmist says in verse 8, “The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime; and His song will be with me in the night, a prayer to the God of my life.”

Somehow, in the middle of his pain, he met the Lord. I think he found that song of God’s love and presence through worship, which is the most fitting, intimate and deepest response to the “deep calling deep” of sorrow. He designed the deepest wells of emotion for worship—the voice of our own “deep” calling for Him. Only the presence of God can reach that hidden, wordless place in our being.

Psalm 22:3 tells us that God dwells in the praises of His people. He responds to our worshipful joy or brokenness with His presence. His presence always provides exactly what we need, whether it’s comfort and hope or simply a safe place to weep. And it prepares us for the day we enter His physical presence in heaven, where we will weep no more.

Far Above Rubies: A Tribute to my Mom

2010-03-04T21:19:00.002-06:00

Sandra J. Chantelau

January 1, 1951-February 16, 2010

My mom was like a ruby in the center of a gold setting. The gold is the life of our family, and she was the gem at the heart of it, radiating from the inside out. Her light and beauty were gentle, softly illuminating our lives, sensitively weaving all of us together like a silken scarlet thread. When we lost her, we lost a big chunk of our hearts, as if that lovely thread had been pulled from the tapestry—compassionately taken by a Father who said it was time for her to come home to Him.

Yet, the fabric of our family will by no means fall apart. She wove herself into all of our lives, but she added thousands of threads, along with our own contributions, that will remain. The strongest and most vibrant one is her love.

Mom was the most devoted wife I’ve ever seen. She truly understood what it meant to be a partner and helpmeet for my dad. Her heart was in tune with his desire to give financially to missions so the nations could hear the gospel. She worked side by side with him to build his business. Mom and Dad parented their children together, planned home renovations together, vacationed together. Ours was a family that sat down to eat dinner together every day, that always spent time talking and relating to one another.

Talking together—that is one of the things that stands out most about Mom and Dad’s relationship. I never remember them not talking. I never remember them yelling or fighting. We would always hear them talking in their bedroom as we got ready for bed. When I visited them from out of state as an adult, I would wake up to the sound of their voices floating up from the kitchen each morning. Mom was my dad’s best friend.

And she was one of the closest friends each of her grown daughters had. We confided different things to her, and she to us. Yet I never felt that she favored one over the other. Some days I would call her and find out that she had talked on the phone with each of her daughters that day. When I was visiting, I would see how many calls she received, not just from her daughters but from her mother and sisters. And she had time for every phone call. She would sit down and talk as long as was needed.

I think one reason our family is so close now as adults is because she always took time to communicate with us when we were children. Mom was always there in the kitchen as different ones came down for breakfast, and she talked to us. She was always there when we came home from school, and she talked to us. In the evenings we talked as we did things around the house. On so many of my visits, Mom was content to hang out in the kitchen or sit by the fireplace and simply be together. The home she made with my dad has always been a gathering place where relationship flourished. And that’s not going to change.

This gift is one of her many legacies to her family. Now, more than ever, we want to be together. My family is golden in my eyes, as it was to hers. We may not be able to see her smile, hear her voice or lean into her hugs. But we will always be able to feel the love and warmth radiating from the relationship we had with her.

My Mom’s favorite book of the Bible was Proverbs. I am sure she did not realize how much she fit its description of a godly woman. As I think about the legacy of her life, these verses come to mind: “Who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies…Her children rise up and call her blessed” (Proverbs 31:10, 28, NKJV).

And because of her life, I am, and always will be, blessed.

The Worst Storm

2010-02-24T08:58:00.002-06:00

The storm did its worst. It roared and cracked and thundered, splitting my world into a before and an after. The tempest has passed, leaving devastation in its wake.

My mother is gone.

Was it I who just wrote that beauty and holiness are “both present in the most terrifying of floods and gales that shake us to the core of our being”? Did I think I could sing a song in the fiercest of storms?

Maybe, if a song can be composed of tears.

Last week my mother took her last breath. By the time I got here to my parents’ house, she was already unconscious, lying on a hospital bed in her own room. She had only a few hours left on this earth. I am so thankful I got to spend them with her. Those were night hours; I was awake for all of them, doing my best to make sure she was comfortable, touching her and hoping she knew that I was there, that she was loved.

I wiped the bubbly foam that blew from her nose. I moisturized her lips with some balm. I added a blanket when the air grew chilly. I dropped morphine into her mouth on the hour. How many nights had she stayed up with me? How many runny noses did she wipe, how many blankets did she tuck around her daughters?

There were a couple of hours when it was just me and her alone in the room. I lay on the edge of the king-sized bed next to the hospice bed and covered her ice-cold hand with mine. Remembering those moments now, I can honestly say that beauty and holiness were both present between us, the one physically shaking from the effects of the storm, the other being carried by it to the lovely place where faith becomes sight.

The beauty was there on the bed next to mine. The beauty of God’s gift—His countless gifts—to me in my mother. Her character. Her spirit. Her sensitivity. Her selflessness. Her faith. Her relationship with me. And the fact that I got to be there with her in those hours.

The holiness was God’s care and loving presence as He prepared to receive His daughter into eternity. Precious, says Psalm 116, in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Or, as one translation says, He doesn’t take it lightly. It matters to Him. It is a holy moment, one in which the redeemed meets the Redeemer, in which sanctification is complete.

Now, grief threatens to steal peace, joy and vitality, not to mention hope. But this time, it is the whisper of God’s voice that is greater than the work of the storm—the stillness of hope. Not just that I will see my beloved mother again someday, but that I will experience the grace, strength and goodness of God every day that I continue to live.

I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. - Psalm 27:13

The Song of the Thunderstorm

2010-02-07T20:51:00.003-06:00

No, it’s not storming outside as I write this. I’m actually enjoying a very quiet evening alone in my serene living room on this Super Bowl Sunday night. (Just in case you can’t tell, I’m not a football fan at all.)

In my last blog I talked about the snowflakes that fall from the sky like postcards, noting that sometimes God’s messages to us don’t come so gently—like when rain beats against the roof like hailstones and thunder rattles the windows. (That rattling can be quite unsettling when the windows are as old as the ones in my little house!)

This week I read a gorgeous psalm that looks a little more closely at the God of thunder and lightning. Psalm 29, in the Amplified Bible, includes these descriptors of Him:

Give to the Lord the glory due to His name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness… The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of glory thunders; the Lord is upon many (great) waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; yes, the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.

God’s voice is like thunder, majestic, crackling with such force that the prized cedar trees, known for their strength, could be snapped like twigs. The footnote for this psalm says it “has been called ‘The Song of the Thunderstorm,’ a glorious psalm of praise sung during an earthshaking tempest which reminds the psalmist of the time of Noah and the deluge.”

I think it’s fascinating that such an awesome and fear-inspiring God can also inspire a song in the midst of a destructive storm. A song that examines fierce exhibitions of His greatness and glory while inviting the listener to consider the beauty of His holiness. Beauty and holiness—both present in the most terrifying of floods and gales that shake us to the core of our being.

Sometimes those thunderstorms have nothing to do with the weather. The cancer raging against my dear mother is one of those storms for me right now. Although disease threatens to steal peace, joy and vitality, not to mention hope, the thunder of God’s voice is greater. And in the middle of the maelstrom, it is His peaceful presence that inspires a song of worship.

A song that celebrates the beauty of His creation and provision, the reality of His lovingkindness. A song that exalts His holiness above every imperfection of the world. A song that gives Him the glory due His name.

Perhaps it is storms like these that cause us to seek God in ways we never have before, to experience new facets of His character. To gain a new understanding of His perfect love as it stands in pristine contrast to the devastation of our world.

Perhaps it is in this most frightening thunderstorm of my life that the Lord can inspire a song of hope more beautiful than any I’ve ever sung before.