Tiny fragments of a larger picture

Spent the last week or so pulling together what Dan left behind; his pictures, meager possessions, and the fragments of our hearts.

We have spent hours going through pictures, and days in surgical and ER waiting rooms. They are still pulling out pieces of glass from Tom’s neck and arm.

Yesterday, his stitches fell out, leaving a gaping hole in his neck from the surgery. It was awful.

I watched him lay on the hospital bed. I couldn’t see his face behind the doctor. All I could see was his arms, stomach and legs. Without making a sound, his hands turned into fists gripping the sides of the bed, his stomach tightened and sunk as his knees began to buckle with pain.

I am so weary from watching my children suffer physically and emotionally. Emily crying at night, now watching him on that bed. I could just feel my strength run out of me. As if someone had tapped my heart and siphoned the life out of me, and let it run out onto the hospital floor.

I came home, exhausted and retreated to the comfort of my robe and covers, wanting nothing more than to end the day.

Tom’s sewn back together, and feels better I’m sure. He brought home friends last night. I wondered through the living room and found three 6’ foot frames draped over the couches and spread out on the floor. That’s a good sign. They are lifelong friends, holding each other together. No one here has escaped the summer without pain, or scars.

Today promises to be a better day. Wait. Does it? Does the dawn ever promise us anything? No. That is the bitter lesson of these past summer days. The dawn breaks with beautiful color and majesty on a day of death and destruction, just the same as it breaks on a day of birth and rejoicing.

So what to do then? Pray. As the new day dawns, it holds only the promise of the love of Christ, and His mercy no matter what the day will unfold.

Our only promise is love and redemption as we walk through our appointed days in a fallen world. But this new day brings hope because of His love, and the seeds of blessings He has planted all around us. Most of which, we aren’t aware of until He brings them into bloom.

We just have to make sure our eyes are not tight with tears, or hands with clinched with fists, that we can’t see them or reach out and take what goodness has God brought into today.

Is the sword of the spirit refined by fire?

A young mother stood up in church and asked for prayer.

She explained that she had been suffering with pain in her arm, just months away from graduating college; she faced a diagnosis that could not only force her to drop out of school, but permanently disable her.

As she asked for prayer to fight off her circumstances, my mind began to drift to my own struggles. The Lord seemed to answer my questions, by painting this picture deep in my spirit.

What if the sword could speak? Would he cry out to his master, “No, don’t put me in the fire! I won’t go. It hurts.”?

Yet, it is only the fire that brings cold steal to a place where it can be molded into a useful tool in the hand of its master.

As I stand in the fire, and the hammer of life beats my heart into submission to accept what I cannot change, will I refuse to allow the fire to mold it?

Would not the real tragedy to be put in a fire, to be brought to a place beyond endurance, and come out unchanged?

If we want to be refined, changed, and made into the image of Christ, we must trust that our lives are in the hands of the Master, who loves us, and wants us to fully become what he has designed.

A new chapter

A page has turned.

The leaves have begun to fall and the corn is showing its age; fall has arrived. The hot summer days have faded with the flowers, all that’s left is the memory and remnants of what was once brightly colored and bursting with life.

It is another step away from what I once knew as my home, my family, and my children—even myself. It’s another reminder that everything has changed, and there is no going back. If I look back too often, I fear I will turn into a pillar of salt; hard, frozen in time, unable to move onto what God has prepared for me and my family.

One foot in front of the other, eyes straight forward... I am pulled by those who love me and need me to keep walking. For I know that Daniel, is with Him, and does not want to come home to us, but us to come home to him. My prayer is that God will indeed wipe away our tears, and show us His glory. That He will heal our wounds with the salve of peace, and dress it with His joy.

Prayer for today: Father, bind our wounds with your joy, and anoint us with
the peace that passes all understanding. Let the words of our mouths sing only
of your praise, and not answer the call of despair. We lay before you our
hearts, our minds, and our hands. Use them father to care for your creation, and
see your love for us.

Another bride leaves the nest to feather her own

Sandboxes, brides and boys

In last week’s column I wrote about our sandbox and this Magnolia tree that has been a friend to my children for over a decade, and now my grandchildren have discovered it. Together they watched the wedding. I wanted to share it with you.

My column week of the wedding...

There have been several amazing things that have occurred in my garden this summer. We have had some down right strange things like the mysterious foam that appears over night. And wondrous things, like the swarm of dragonflies that visited us one Sunday morning and filled the air until nightfall. Yet, nothing has compared to what I saw out my window yesterday, and what is yet to come.

If you peek out of any of the upstairs bedroom windows, you have a beautiful view of our yard and my flower garden. Dividing the yard between where I want flowers to grow and children to play, is an island of old trees, bushes, and indestructible daylilies.

One particular tree is an old Magnolia that has grown at a slant. All of its branches bend to the side like a ballerina swaying to the north. When my children were small we put in a huge sandbox (that holds a full ton of sand) made of railroad ties, under the shelter of its outstretched limbs. It has always been the center attraction in our yard.

For years my children have delighted in playing in that sandbox; especially when we bring in new sand. They would stay busy for hours on end. Which, truth be told, is why this busy mother loved the sandbox—it was the best babysitter a mother could ask for. It was always available, and the children were never out of my sight.

That sand box beckons children of all ages, girls and boys. Early this summer, I caught two 13-year-old boys digging and forming the sand with precision and purpose…sheer childhood fun. Today I witnessed two 12-year-old little girls digging and sculpting a pickup trunk in the fine, fresh new sand. But this year, something has been quite different.

You may be thinking that this is the oddity I saw out the windows. Children, who, in our world today seem to be thrust into a false adulthood, instead actually playing like children.
No, that’s not odd around these neck-of-the-woods. We get a lot of that, and I am thankful. I love to see children play and pretend.

But that wasn’t it. What I found so amazing was that this year, it has been filled with my own grandchildren. A new generation has discovered the same sandbox that my children spent so many summers playing in.

Other than the perennial big kids rediscovering their first love, I hadn’t realized how empty it had become. One by one each of its inhabitants, that once kept it fully populated, have grown up and stopped visiting it.

Looking out that bedroom window, and seeing another generation busily building and creating a new world of castles armed with guards, and filled with highways was quite a stunning view. They bare the resemblance of children I once saw, sitting in the very same place.

Once again, I am reminded that time not only pushes us on when we want it to stand still, but it also slips by. No matter how hard we want to stop it, or are too busy to notice it slipping through our fingers; it is ever changing and living.

This week our sandbox will undergo yet another transformation. The little girl that once swung from the branches above, and built tunnels with her brothers below, will walk past it without giving it a glance, or thought. No amount of new sand will entice her to come and play.

She will walk past, arm-in-arm with her father, seeing only the sparkle of her groom’s eye. Sand and trees all wearing their wedding attire, will say good-bye to the little girl they once knew, and we will marvel at God’s plan unfolding before our eyes.

Catching up

A lot has happened since my last post, I apologize for not keeping up. Between a house full of the flu, the wedding and a traveling computer, it's been nearly impossible. Now at long last our PC issues are resolved, the chaos of the wedding is over, and I can catch up, and begin a new routine.

I had spoken too soon. After my last post, I went to bed and woke up early with the flu…the Tuesday before the wedding—mother of the bride knocked out cold.
Three days to go
At first most everyone we counted on to help stayed clear of us-- as they should. A few brave souls came in later in the week and made all the difference in the world.

Brian came over that Tuesday and talked to Emily in the yard. (Deb told him to stay out of the house.) He asked her what he could do outside to help us get the house ready for the wedding. She told him I was worried about the porch.

I was. It was in sore need of paint, and there was a hole in the floor that had been there ever since we bought the house 12 years ago.

Emily crept into my room a few hours later, too excited to wait till I was coherent. She wanted me to see what Brian had done. I vaguely remember her telling me that he tore of the siding. She said it was beautiful! I took her word for it and rolled over.

I soon learned that Brian and I have different ideas of what is worrisome. He was more worried about the porch falling off the house, than paint.

The next day, while Hannah and I surveyed the yard and the work yet to be done, she asked in a very soft measured voice, “Are you worried that its three days before the wedding and the front porch is missing?”

I really wasn’t. I told her we may have paint brushes in hand the day of the wedding, but it will all be done. Besides, it wasn’t missing. It was in the front yard.

I have had a strange lack of stress and panic over this wedding. Not that there wasn’t plenty to stress over. I think its just system overload. There are only so many emotions you can handle at once.

Besides, when it comes right down to it, most problems seem to pale in light of the past three months. We have gained a new perspective.

Once again, the church pulled together, lifted us and carried us through, and gave Hannah and Travis a beautiful wedding in the garden.

5 Days left

Ok, so we made it through the night and all day without anyone running to the bathroom or sleeping with a bucket beside their beds.

Perhaps tomorrow we will actually get enough done to make us believe we can really have a wedding here this Saturday.

Pray we get through another night without anyone getting sick.


Rhonda