What I Wished I'd Said

Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loosed, Or the golden bowl is broken, Or the pitcher shattered at the fountain, Or the wheel broken at the well.
Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, And the spirit will return to God who gave it. Ecclesiastes 12:6-7

My high school alumni page on facebook contained sad news yesterday. A classmate of mine, aged 55, succumbed to cancer. Regret washed over me as the news took me back to fourth grade, out on the playground of my elementary school.

One bright sunny day felt more like a thunderstorm gushing over my head as some boys were making me the laughingstock of the day. It was probably due to the fact that I was not well coordinated. My whole year wasn't going well. I was having trouble making friends. How I wished I could disappear. School felt like prison. (That same year my gymteacher told me I gave him a heart attack when I tried to jump the hurdles.) 

But one girl from my class courageously stood up for me, told the bullies to stop bothering me, and chased them away. I felt so ashamed, but there was one person willing to do what was right, who helped me out when I needed a friend. I felt so grateful to her for sticking up for me. I still see it play out in my mind.

At the time we lived in the same neighborhood. I remember her being in classes with me in fifth and sixth grade and we were friendly with each other, not best friends but friendly. When middle school rolled around, the population of the seventh grade was at least three times higher than it had been in elementary school and we simply lost touch. It pretty much stayed that way for the rest of high school. I didn't even know many of the close to 800 people I graduated with back in 1980.

How I wish that I had reconnected with her, and told her how much I appreciated her for standing up for me when no one else would. Seeing news that she'd passed from a brave, brief battle with cancer hit me with its finality. When I read her obituary I saw that she also had stayed local and even went to the same university I did, though our paths never crossed there. The chance to ever say thanks now is gone. Maybe someone reading this might understand how hard it is to be a victim of bullying. Now, it seems it is more pervasive as there are increased ways to bully: social media, texting as well as on the playground, on the bus, or any other myriad of ways kids find to make the lives of others a living hell.

To others who also were bullied, if anyone stood up for you, you might want to say thank you, tell them how much you appreciated their act of kindness.

Our life is so brief. Tomorrow's not guaranteed. If there's something you have been meaning to say, by all means say it before it's too late. And if you can stick up for someone who's the underdog, you might just save their life.


Thank you Kim, for sticking up for me. I hope we will meet again on the other side.

A Christmas Like No Other

I Thess. 4:13-17 13 But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.fn
15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.

This is going to be a different Christmas from all others in my life. Last week, my Mom fell and received an excruciating pelvic fracture that only can heal through rest and time. I was with her when she fell and saw her go down. I ran to her but did not get there in time. Now her life, and indeed all of our lives, have been rearranged.

Mom always loved Christmas. When I was a little girl, she tried so hard to make it special for me and my two sisters. I will always treasure a special memory of the note she wrote me when she gave me my last baby doll. I was growing up, and she gently told me it would be my last one, though I was reluctant to leave childhood behind.

I was just starting to get into the spirit of things last week when I accompanied Mom and Dad on a trip to my sister's house, and it was on our way there she fell. At first I thought she was very fortunate, for she was able to walk when we helped her get to her feet, but it seemed that her pain only got worse and worse. It was not until we returned home that she got the XRay that confirmed she had a small fracture.

Now, Mom needs my help. It will mean travelling to her home and staying there and helping my Dad, at least until she begins to improve. The last two nights have been difficult when she wakes up in excruciating pain. Somehow, my zest to write Christmas cards and do more shopping has gone by the wayside.

But I have comfort, even in knowing that my parents are aging, and that one day they will leave us to carry on without them. Mom and Dad know the Lord, and I will see them when I get to heaven. Every morning, they have devotions together. They read from the Word and pray together. They didn't do that when we girls were little, but now it is their daily habit. They went from going to a ritualistic type of church to an evangelical one, and that didn't happen until we girls were grown and gone too. In fact, all of my family attends evangelical churches where the Word of God is taught. I am so thankful.

And so, I sit here and try to process what the near future holds for me. Mom's advice is "one day at a time," and I have to admit she's right. Jesus said to take no thought for tomorrow. My joy now is to see my own grandchildren and enjoy their delight in new life and adventures. The train of time stops for no one. One day, I will be in Mom's shoes, if the Lord tarries.

My comfort in all of this is in Christ, and that my family, whether awake in the Lord or asleep in death, will hear that trumpet call one day. Christ is the one thing that makes life worth living. Whatever hope do we have without Him. Current events, which seem to spiral downward in a vortex, faster and faster every day, make our lives uncertain, but Christ is our stronghold and our hope.

Wisdom and knowledge will be the stability of your times,
And the strength of salvation;
The fear of the LORD is His treasure. Isaiah 33:6

A friend of mine who lost her mother recently encouraged all her friends to spend Thanksgiving in gratitude with our parents, if we still had them. I never realized how timely her words would be. One day, it will be too late to show my gratitude to my parents. The time to love and help them is now.

Proverbs 23:22
Listen to your father who begot you,
And do not despise your mother when she is old.

Halfway through 2014...and a minute to pause

"I returned and saw under the sun that-- The race is not to the swift, Nor the battle to the strong, Nor bread to the wise, Nor riches to men of understanding, Nor favor to men of skill; But time and chance happen to them all." Ecclesiastes 9:11

I just realized, 2014 is half gone already. I feel it barely started and here we are at the beginning of July. Do you ever feel you "can't keep up?" I have felt that way ever since I was in my early twenties. Now the years roll by faster and faster, and each one blurs right into the next. I can't keep up.

The wisest man on earth, Solomon, tells us, no matter how many toys we collect, no matter how high up the ladder of success we crawl, no matter how much fame and fortune we amass, still,
"time and chance happen to them all." Kind of equalizes all of our playing fields, from the richest CEO to the poorest child lying in a refugee camp somewhere. We can't outwit the passing of time, or the day God has appointed for us to leave this earth.

And so, halfway through this year, I think to myself, am I going where I want to be going in this year 2014? What matters to me the most? I believe there is more waiting beyond this life. One day, which will seem like the blinking of an eye, I will stand in front of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and give account for the time He gave me here on earth.

If you ask my family, they will tell you I have a weakness for collecting books. It is evidenced in every room of my home. Yet, when I get right down to it, when am I finally going to have the time to sit down and read every one of them? Is this what I need to do, right here, right now, in light of the times? And so, I am slowly parting with some of them.

Eureka! I cannot do it all, I know that to be true. I am not the woman who can "bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan..." as the old perfume commercial goes. No, I am just me, with my many limitations. But I have the gift of this day, and how I choose to spend it is up to me.
I want to choose that one thing that is necessary, as all the distractions clamor for my attention:

"...one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Phil.3:12-13