Reflections of a life...

     June 20th 2009

     I woke up this morning very early...not quite 3am...flooded with memories of my life with Paul.  Like watching old movies, the play-by-play of my husband and children at certain moments flashed before me. I don't know what triggered the memories. A day spent with darling new Moms experiencing their own lifetime of firsts? Maybe?  The upcoming celebration of another year of my marriage to Paul?  Perhaps God just wants to remind me of the journey.
     Our life started with dark stuff...Paul with his own before me, and then together we had more. His older brother Charles died right before our wedding and then I found David dead in our apartment just a few months later. Thats when Fear moved in and stayed too long. Those first few years were hard. We were simply existing on a thread of grace.
    Then God began to restore our hearts and joy came.  Paul cried tears of happiness for the first time as he held our baby, a little girl, in his arms.

     I still remember the smell of her. Paul was a natural Dad. Changing diapers, singing songs, taking her on tractor rides. I remember her at one, already precocious, on the floor in red panties and blue knee socks eating a plate of Cheetos. I saw myself lying on the sofa, Paul rubbing my huge brown belly as we wondered what the baby boy inside me would be like. 
     Tears of joy came again as he held his baby son, our Michael. I remember watching ReAnnon hit a ball off a tee and dance around in her Michael Jackson t-shirt to La Bamba while her baby brother bounced and laughed from the jumpy in the doorway beside her. 
     I remember ReAnnon running  across two acres with her Dad's ice teas after he whistled at her from the tractor. Paul mowed our 2 neighbors yards, (3 acres total) every weekend for an extra forty dollars and he would take us out for hamburgers and root beer floats.
     I saw Michael on the soccer field picking grass, chasing bugs, and  then jumping to his feet so serious when the ball came his way. 
     A little Madonna, a little Teen Wolf, our drama queen and bug catcher, our lives full as it took on new purpose.
     Michael barely four, eyes filled with excitement as he carried a bullfrog by the back legs that was almost as big as he was and he couldn't wait to show me.  (To catch a bullfrog you must canoe around a pond at midnight and stab them with a spear after paralyzing them first by shining a flashlight in their eyes.) Paul had taken Michael with him the day before and I had not slept.
     Then I remember ReAnnon, barely six, so eager and excited to leave me as she placed her suitcase by the door. She was going to visit her Mimi. Flying from Oklahoma to California with my Grandmother, a woman she barely knew, and I remember thinking, how can she do it? How can she leave me so easily?
     Life got hard again after that. Paul lost his job, couldn't find work, and depression set in.  I got pregnant and the timing was lousy, so very very lousy and I cried alone at night in a pillow on the couch so no one would hear me.   
     I got a key to the food closet at our church and I stood in lines with other pregnant mother's for food stamps and vouchers and it was so very humbling and hard.
     Our precious gift of a baby girl came with hair the color of an orangutan and as my husband wept once more, I knew that it came from a deeper place than ever before. God gave my broken man the greatest gift of love just when he needed it the most, and as the nurses fought over her in the hospital.  I begged to stay just one more night so I could have her to myself one more day.  I knew what I was going home to. 
     Her sister and brother fell in love with the tiny new redhead, and I cleaned a Montessori pre-school and so ReAnnon and Michael could attend. I watched my niece Tiffany after school for my sister and she soon moved into my family and into our hearts. Paul got a job at an Art Gallery.
     Shortly after this, God opened a door for us to begin life again in California, and Paul left us for 4 months to begin a new job while ReAnnon finished 2nd grade.
     This next section of time  is imprinted forever in my heart when our little family piled into Paul's Mother's Thunderbird and crossed the country headed for a brand new life. We started an adventure and sang our way to a place called Mammoth Lakes. 
    A California life...a new beginning. A cold triplex we couldn't afford to heat. Campouts on the living room floor in front of the fire. A bear in the parking lot. Waterfalls, mountains, sunsets, more stars than I had ever seen and snow. Moments full of awe and wonder.  
     Laughter, hardships, Chandler's first words. Her Na. Her Va. Her amazing and crazy red hair.  Kids hiding food under the table and Michaels first real soccer game.  A little boy who could hit a baseball the way a baseball should be hit. A natural athelete. A gift.
     ReAnnon's first dance recital. Her first musical. We watched her come alive on the stage. She glowed.  Another gift. And my Chandler...my best buddy...my little shadow...
     The snow didn't come and we had to move our little family into one of the motels we managed. We were now on-site and on-call and I hated it. I grieved for the home we left behind, and yet I also knew that God brought us here and that we were not going back.
     We got a fluffy white puppy and we were a family of love as a five-year old boy with a towel for a cape and tighty-white underwear dove off the check-in desk onto the lobby sofa. "Welcome to the Wildwood Inn", I would say to the guests, "I hope you like children."
     Swim parties at the motel pool, Chan in her Barbie car that we could not afford but bought anyway, Michael and ReAnnon roller blading in the parking lot. Michael skates three sizes too big but he still skated better than his sister. New bikes and Michael so good at everything but always pushing the limits. Always... pushing.
     Chan's first day of pre-school. Her first song. Her first dance recital. Her first musical. In the shadow of a sister as our little family celebrated it all. 
     We dug in deep. A friend’s teenage son, a high school baseball player, moved in with us and we weren't prepared. We made mistakes. 
     There were first communions, a little altar boy, a wedding on a boat, an adorable ring-bearer, years trying to fit into a church that didn't fit. We struggled through too little money, too many years behind a desk and broken promises. We did what we had to do and found the blessings.  I wrote letters to my kids with a dream in my heart that I could one day turn them into books and give them as a gift. I told snippets of life and I wrote inspirational stories for the local paper.
Life...love...sadness…laughter...compromise...discontent...broken promises…but yet choosing joy...finding joy...and always...always...believing God and having faith for more.

     ReAnnon began to drive...went to her first dance…had her first boyfriend.
     Then our partners sold the Motels we managed, and we were out of jobs. With no plans or prospects, I got scared again.  Then God gave Paul a vision for something great so when He opened the door, we stepped through it. 
     I walked into the Sierra Nevada ski lodge that first time and prayed that Paul could see what I could not.  My husband the visionary. I will never doubt him again.
     Paul keeping promises, working hard, and planting dreams deep in his heart. Fast and furious years of crazy busy as investors were paid and life went on. We bought a house and our family adjusted to a busy new life. 
     A new kind of stress came too, a kind I had never known before, a responsibility with employees, partners, and many years of hard work followed. Too much togetherness when my husband became my boss.  I didn't like it and I had to smile with hospitality when there was nothing hospitable in me anywhere. 
     We struggled around every corner with things, always things, things with guests, things with partners, things with employees, things with children. Always more and more things.
     We fought hard the good fight with integrity and truth and sometimes we lost and sometimes we got beat to a pulp. I no longer had holidays with my family because in the tourism business holidays are busy times and so...they disappeared in the business.

     Athletic successes for Michael, more dances, musicals, plays. School and church and friends and an angry husband and an angry boss and a wife who did not want to do it anymore. And yet always, always in the center to help me see and fight a little harder was my little red-head.
     Everything started to swirl together into a giant vortex of busy that became our life. But we found a new church, took a family mission trip to Ecuador, made new friends. God filled us with a few focus. He began to change our hearts, our spirits being made new. I was filled with faith for the first time in years. I learned how to pray.  Really pray.
     A daughter in Ywam wanting to serve, a championship football season for Michael his senior year, worries over college, more prayer, a season of understanding faith and learning to trust God.
    A proposal, wedding plans, and a gift from God of a son-in-law. Our family grew.
    Then one last horrible season of winter came and brought with it the worse snowfall in our Mammoth history. A local mother and her daughter who we worshipped with on Sundays got lost in a snowstorm and the whole community looked for them for 3 days. The daughter got out of the car to get help and died trying. We had people snowed in, sleeping in lobby chairs and I was so tired and full of saddness I cried and I cried and I cried. 
     God ended the season as only he could and as our baby was preparing to graduate high school, our business sold at the top of the market.
     The season that followed, God's gift of rest and blessing, surpassed anything we could have hoped for or imagined. I was given the home of my dreams and I have been given a garden where I meet with God. 
     Our first grandchild blossomed a new love in me like no other love before it and it takes my breath away.
      I don't know what the rest of my life with Paul holds. I don't know what the future for us or my children looks like, but I know without a doubt that many more trials will come. But I also know that God's promises and faithfulness are real and true and he is soverign and sufficent for anything that comes our way. 
     So I am humbled and thankful for my journey, with its darkness and its light because I am who I am today because of it all.

Confession. It's time

It's a biblical command.
It's good for the soul.
And so... 

     A car came into my lane and hit me head on going 40 mph.
     Could God have prevented the accident?           Yes. But He didn't.
     Did God save my life? Yes. I absolutely know that He did.
     The man that hit me had no drivers license. It was suspended months ago because he had no insurance. I don't like anything about that. And yet...before I knew any of this, his wife came to the emergency room to tell me that he was sorry and I was blessed.

So now what? 

     Is God doing something in the heart of the man who hit me? Will he be held accountable?
     Does God have plans for me in the still and quiet season that He set-apart for me while my bones heal.  
     I believe the answer to all of these questions is, "Yes."

     I don't like the way the pain medication makes me feel. But I hurt and my muscles are sore so I take it. I am irritated and I have no patience. Give me patience Lord.

     I pray for Grace. I need lots. I need it for myself. I need it for my husband. He needs it for me. I need it for everyone who loves me and everyone who loves me needs it for me. I am thankful that God gives it in abundance. 

In that abundance, I will find my Euchristeo praise. 

     I reel with frustration. I feel helpless, old, weary and weak.
     Going to the bathroom, getting something to eat, just getting out of bed is a challenge. 
     I see the scars on my husbands face and neck where large chunks of basil cell cancer have been cut from him in the last two weeks and I feel sick.

      And yet...I walk in a season of communion with the Lord like I have never known. I have new eyes.  Spiritual eyes. I see God everywhere. I feel his presence. I really feel it.       I draw and paint. I hold chalk between my fingers and I see a miracle on the paper. It took a huge step of faith to jump head first into a place I knew nothing about, but now, in the simple act of obedience, I get to see a miracle. 
     So I acknowledge God's power and presence in a gift he placed in me for his purpose and my great joy. I can't explain it. There are no words. 
     But I know. I see. And I praise.

     So I will settle into this place on my "Glory Road" in faith. I trust God's plan. He has proven that he is trustworthy and so even as I struggle and whine and cry, I will also praise. 
    I remind myself of what Jesus took to the cross for me and my portion of suffering becomes inconsequential. I will be restored. 
    And every day I look at the book on my nightstand, "Nineteen days," about the life of Samuel Parkins who died on a Christmas eve but I can't read the book. I don't want to.
     I know the story. I know what God did through Dan's blog of that time, but the family is precious to us and I know their suffering. I don't want to remember.
     Mine suffering is nothing. 
     So it is in this place of perspective that I will settle in. Jesus died for me. God saved my life when the man without a license hit me head on. And God had great plans for the short life of Samuel Parkins. 
    May my confession help me walk in the will of my Father. May it be filled with the hope of the Gospel, and may it glorify and bring praise to a God who is present, powerful, and worthy. 

    I love you Lord.     

Ezra 10:11

Now then make confession to the Lord, the God of your fathers and do his will.

Hebrews 10:23

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

Daniel 9:4 I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments.

Then Sings my Soul...

     I have a story to tell in spite of the fact that I owe a friend a phone call. I probably should have done that first but I know she'll understand.  The story comes about from my love of Hymns. I grew up singing them and many of them are buried deep in me. So deep in fact, that a few make me weep just hearing them.
     Sometimes a particular song will come into my mind and I spend the whole day singing the words I remember and then humming the tune over hoping to remember more.
     On Thurs. I walked into work and found a sack in the office with my name handwritten on the front. I grabbed it, smiling. I love surprises. Inside it were two books of old Hymns. Oh my Gosh, I love this, I thought as I opened one of the books and looked inside. It got better when I saw what else was inside. The left side pages held the music and lyrics, on the right were the stories of how the songs came to be. Wow, I thought.  It doesn't get much better than this. Anyone that knows me knows how much I love a good story. I love reading them and I love telling them. I had just hit pay dirt. This was the most amazing gift. I couldn't stop smiling.
     There wasn't a card but I was pretty sure I recognized the writing on the bag. It was a friend that I hadn't seen in quite awhile. I knew she was back in the area and I had been thinking about her. We had talked about getting together for lunch, so I picked up the phone to call. When she didn't answer, I decided to take a chance and thank her for the books, so I left a message. In it, I went on about how much I loved Hymns and stories and what a great gift it was. I said I'd been thinking about her and hoped to get together with her soon. Before I hung up, I laughed and said something about if the books were not from her than at least I got to tell her she'd been on my heart, or something like that. Then I said goodbye.
     All afternoon I thought about the moment I'd be able to dig into the books searching for all the songs that I couldn't quite remember. I couldn't wait to read the stories. I knew God was going to have something for me in there.  When I got to my car I laid the books on the front passenger seat and glanced at them, as I began to head home.  
     Here's the crazy part. Sometime during the 40 minute drive home as I glanced at the books on the seat, I had a flashback of picking the books up in a bookstore.  I remembered seeing the piano music in them and buying them for my friend, Vernita. She is a gifted piano player and has a sing-a-long Carol party every Christmas.  I remember grabbing them at the last minute as a second thought.  Almost selfish on my part because I know I pictured a great Hymn sing-a-long, (starring me) with Vernita behind the piano bringing the songs back to life. 
     I suddenly felt embarrassed and foolish remembering the phone message I had just left her about this great gift and remembered that she was preparing to move. I pictured her going through things and making the decision to give me back the books.  Oh Boy.
      Before I got home though, God reminded me that my excitement in receiving them was genuine and that nothing had changed other than I was feeling embarrassed and forgetful.
     God also reminded me that Vernita was a precious friend and that she would most likely laugh about this with me later.   
    I don't think I ever noticed or realized the songs stories were in the books when I gave them to her. At that moment in the gift store it had been all about the sing-a-long. At this point, God reminded me of my other friend Lisa who, like me, is a lover of old Hymns. She sings worship at church and in our small group.  I also knew that she would love reading the stories behind them. 
     I decided that I would give Lisa the books at small group on Wed. night even though one of my hands might still be clutching the pages. I told Paul to be prepared to pry it loose if necessary. 
     At home, I took the books upstairs and found all those old songs that were buried in my spirit.  I squawked with joy and sang with gusto while my gracious husband lied beside me in bed.  He smiled during the first few renditions, began to frown a bit around number seven, and then somehow, managed to fall asleep. 
     I'm still reading the stories, but God did have something very sweet for me.

     I'll share it with you tomorrow...and Vernita...I owe you another call.

A simpler life...come back in time with me.

     You don't have to step too far out your front door to understand that the world can be a big bad ugly place. But as a follower of Jesus, I am thankful. I'm thankful that I have the benefit of the gift of eternal life Jesus gave from the cross. I am thankful for the truth and promises of God's word. I am thankful for his supernatural power and provision. These are the things that help me see and arrive on the high road as I wallow through the mire. I do, however, still get pretty dirty in the mire at times.
     I spent the last two and a half weeks sitting on a criminal jury. I have always wanted to do this and have said as much to many family members over the years.
     So, when God gave me the desire of my heart, He also knew how very hard it would all be for me. It was not a case I would ever chose. It was a felony molestation case. Two teenage boys. As my friend Lisa pointed out, I got "Slimed."
     Nothing about it was typical. Nothing was cut and dried. It was a convoluted mess of story that required 24 pages of yellow spiral notes and ended with me empty and sick.
     I did the job I was called to do and I took it seriously. I prayed through the entire three weeks, that God would be glorified through my service in the courtroom and in my sequestered time with the jury. I hope he was.
     But because God is God and knows what we need and when we need it, I got a repose. After the trial, but before deliberations, I got a day off, and spent a long day with my Godson in a place called, "Laws."
     It is an old train depot and town that thrived in the mid to late 1800's. It felt like a breath of fresh air compared to where I had been the days before, and I wanted to blink my eyes and disappear into it. I would have been extremely challenged by such a difficult life, but I looked into it quietly and deeply with the eyes and a heart that yearned for a simpler life.
     So if your willing, come travel with me.
     Let's go back in time.
    

Redemption...

     Beauty from ashes.
     Only a Father who loves beyond measure can perform a miracle such as this, but my husbands life is the proof of God's redemption promise. 

     At the passing of Paul's Nana, people gathered from California, Texas, Virginia, Utah, and Washington DC to celebrate a life of suffering, sacrifice, laughter and love.
     Hard memories were spoken aloud to children who once were small and now are not. The shelter and protection of God's presence was identified, known and praised in these places beyond our imagining.
     My Paul was one of three brothers. He lost them both, as well as his parents, in a series of tragic deaths. And when our oldest daughter told us the baby in her womb would be another boy, my husband wept.
     As we settled into bed that night, Paul squeezed my hand as his eyes filled with tears. "Do you see what God has done?" It was a moment before he could speak again. "Jude and Reed and Gideon. Three brothers. Just like Charles, and me and David. God is redeeming everything."
     I weep as I write this knowing it is true. We have a Father in Heaven, a God, who takes terrible tragic things and makes them beautiful for his good purpose when we love him. Wow. Redemption indeed!

Mary and Elmer, Wonzell and Charles, Pam and Paul and a Nana

     I woke up this morning at 2:15. On my mind was a certainty of of how God knits families together.  Paul's Nana will soon take her last breath and go home. She is 98. 
     Now, at 4:27 a.m., I sit in the dark in front of a fire with thoughts and memories that will not stop and so I write...
     
     Mary, my mother, is writing down her story. She is being strong and brave and sends me pages that make me weep. My tears are of joy and of sadness. She tells of truths that have not been spoken to me before. She is doing it for me because I asked her to. I love her for it. 
     Everyone looked at my mother as if she was a movie star. I didn't know when I was young that she was broken, but, "Fragile...Handle with care" was stamped across her spirit even then. My Dad knew it, and a part of me did too. 
     God gave her four babies to love and care for and we were her life. We played, listened to records, read stories, sang, and Mother sewed. She made clothes for herself like the ones Jackie Kennedy wore, and she made Easter dresses and school clothes for my sisters and me. Ron was her first. Her only son. I was born 11 months later. Lori followed two years after me, and two years after Lori, came our baby, Kaylynn. 
     I love to dance and sing because my mother showed me the joy she got from doing those things. I love stories because Mom didn't just readto us, she made books come alive. And I know that I love the way I love because my mother showed me how. 
    
      Elmer, my father, made me feel safe. I learned to trust because he was trustworthy. He left the house in a suit every morning and came home every night at 5:30 as Mom put dinner on the table. He was gentle. He was funny. He fixed skates, light switches, dryers, bikes and cars. He rescued kittens from inside walls, killed opossums, and saved feather-dyed baby chicks that had caught on fire. He showed me how to catch fireflies and he took scary out of thunderstorms. 
     He taught me to play. I played harder with my Dad than I have ever played with anyone else, and I can still feel the velvety grass he put under my feet ever summer of my childhood if I close my eyes. And boy...could my Dad laugh. It was the infectious kind. I know all little girls think their Daddy is the most handsome man on earth, but mine...Oh...mine was! His smile would light up a whole room.
     
     Wonzell, Paul's mother, was born and bread a Texas beauty, but her father left their family to be with someone else and broke her heart. At sixteen she had a secret wedding to Paul's father, and Paul's brother, Charles B., was growing in her belly when she received her high school diploma. At seventeen, Wonzell was a wife and a mother. The next year Paul was born. Four years later, she had David and eight years after that, she had a baby girl who they named Charla, and their family was complete. 
     I will never know what it feels like to be in the skin of Paul's mother on that fateful day, but the decision she made changed the lives of her children forever. I grieve for all that was lost inside her room in the dark that terrible morning, and I must trust God for the things I will never know. I think about her often because she gave life to the baby boy that I have shared a life with. I wonder, "Would she love me?" I never got to look into her eyes. I never got to ask her what Paul was like at three. She never got to hold our children. Paul's children. She never smelled them. She never got to know their hearts. 
     
     Charles Brockton Payne, Paul's father,  is a man I would have loved deeply. I know this just as I know that he too, would have loved me. Sometimes knowledge just comes and you know.  I see something in the eyes of the handsome man who fathered my husband when I look at pictures of him. I can't explain it better than this, but I long to sit beside him and hold his hand. I want to feel him hug me. I picture him weepy in love, just like his Paul, with anything concerning our children. He got so much taken from him that morning. So very very much. Did he see it coming? 
     
     I have spent more of my life with Paul than without him. Thirty-seven of fifty-five years. He is the most beautiful picture of a life redeemed I will ever see. And that is my gift. Paul was fifteen when his Nana gave up her life for theirs and moved from Cleburne, Texas to Oklahoma City to care for four broken children left behind. Life went on.
     At 17, Paul met a free-spirited, guitar playing, Maxi-dress wearing girl with long hair bleached as white as snow. He thought she was beautiful. She was me. 
     We dated. We fell in love. We made plans for a life. 
     Weeks before our wedding, Charles B., Paul's older brother by one year, committed suicide. Paul's life stopped again. He was 20. This time, we planned a funeral together and after it, we married with broken hearts and began a grown up life with a 15-year old. David, Paul's younger brother, moved in with us and Nana, now full of grief and 63, took eleven-year-old Charla back to her home in Cleburne to give her the only life she knew how to give.  A few months later,  I found David locked inside his bedroom and Paul had no more brothers.  
      There is nothing especially unique about these peoples lives. They could be your family, but they aren't. They are mine. All of them, however, had an end to their life before it ever started, but God knew every detail and breath of every single one of their days.   
     The Pam and Paul story continues to thrive with struggles and laughter and love. We began our family five years later with a beautiful precocious daughter named ReAnnon who was in charge immediately. 
     Our handsome son, Michael, too smart, too cute, and oh so charming was born to negotiate and stole my heart four years after. He still charms like no one else and always makes me laugh out loud. 
     Chandler, our stunning, free-spirited, photogenic and fiery red-head, surprised us three years later and brought new life back into her Father. This one is so much like me that it that it takes my breath away.
     ReAnnon's story continues now at the leading (thank you Lord) of her husband Garrett and three precious boys. Jude is 4. Reed is a 2. And Gideon is 3 months. I have never been so much in love.  
     Gideon cooed at giggled at me this week...
     Jude and Reed happily took a spot beside me in the Higerd family Hillbilly band, but I know this will not last much longer...
     Michael is coming home for the holidays...his first trip home in almost two years. He's bringing a girlfriend home.
     Chandler moved back to the area from San Diego so I get to have her light and beauty much more often as she sings and dances and cuts my hair...
     And Paul? He recently came across a shoe box of love letters written between his parents while Charles was in New York City studying to be a stock broker and Wonzell was back in Cleburne with Nana.  Charles B. was four, Paul was three, and David was growing inside her belly as this shoebox became his gift.  
     Nana's body is old and tired and she is ready to go see Jesus. Paul is preparing to speak about the woman who sacrificed her life to four grandchildren...
     Life...it simply happens...and we are here.

Surgery on my heart...a tough season.

     It was a week before my upcoming surgery, and I was a total mess. The pain in my right eye was preventing me from wearing my contact and my reading glasses. I was having such intense headaches that I literally couldn’t read anything for days. 
     I had also been diagnosed with one-sided deafness. I'm 84% deaf in my left ear. (This has it's own story), but over this last week, the noisy room full of children, which is usually just hard, has become raging river of echo’s and roars. Chaos inside my head. 
     These things, however, dim compared to what I want to share with you now.    

    Back in Jan. I began to taste weird things in my throat.  When I walked into certain places I could taste metals in my mouth. I could taste it in my food for days. Other times, when I was around chemicals, bleach and other cleaning agents, my neck would start to spasm, my throat would constrict, and then my head would ache for hours. 

     It all came to a head in Houston Texas at the Siesta Scripture conference. I had been memorizing Scripture with the LPM ladies and had been looking forward to going to the conference with my sister for months.
    A few hours into the teaching with Beth Moore at the First Baptist church, I was so sick that I asked my sister to take me to the Chapel and pray for me. 

     Back in Dallas on Sunday, I went forward at my sisters Gateway church for prayer. I was ushered to a precious couple in their eighties, and as I stepped forward, they each reached out to hold one of my hands.  
     I told them I was scared. That something was really wrong with me. 
     They spoke simultaneously.  “I think you're having a strong allergic reaction to something." And they prayed for me.  

     I had never even considered that, but as soon as they spoke the words, my fear fled, and I had great peace. As the day went on, God reminded me of something I had read in my Juicing book but had forgotten about. When I got home I dug out the book. There was one small section that I had highlighted. "Take it slow. I got really sick when I started this.Your organs are going to release their toxins."

I had not taken it slow.
     Come to find out, my allergic reaction to chemicals and perfumes was near anaphylactic level by the time it was treated, but that's another story. 

     But back to Huston, picture me in a very large church full of beautiful ladies that love hairspray and perfume. I am smiling now, but I that night I wasn't. That night I was scared. 

     I now believed I could at least deal with whatever was happening to me, but I was sicker than I had ever been in my life.  I had no energy. I was exhausted.  I could barely do my job and if someone looked me in the eye, I started to weep. I have never been so thankful to be in communion with women of faith. Their love and prayers simply kept me going.   

     Then the Wed. morning before my surgery came and I opened my eyes. Even before my feet hit the floor, I knew that God had done something in my body.
     Walking to the bathroom I felt light and energetic. I hadn’t felt that way in months. 

     I was able to put in my contact in. And that afternoon, the classroom noise was just loud. 
I climbed into bed that night praising God for what He had done. 
   On Fri., just two days before my cardiac ablation, I had a deep feeling that the reprieve in my allergic reactions might be just temporary, that I wasn't done with all that yet, but I also told two friends that day that I believed God was saving me from something. I felt deep down that it had to do with my upcoming heart surgery, and it did.

     That part of the story will follow, and will always be remembered as a memorial stone I planted. A memorial stone that is shaped like my heart. I am now going to dig a deep hole into the ground of remembrance and plant it.      And for me, as I go back and sit there, I sometimes hold in my hand the precious gift my friend Peggy gave me. It's a small red rock shaped like a heart. She mailed it to me before my surgery. And as I do, I will always remember the blister on my back and what God did.

Planting a heart-shaped memorial stone…Part Two

 

 

     

  Well I can. That one blister represented what God saved me from.  

    

      I have a scar on my back.  Just one single scar.  It is the remnant of a blister that I received during my recent heart surgery and the cause of the only real pain I felt throughout the whole ordeal.  The doctor was asked twice how I got it, and his answer was the same both times. “It’s an allergic reaction.” He told the nurse, “Either from the blue pads or the chemical glue that was on them.”  

     “But the pads were all over me.” I said when the nurse came back from asking the doctor the second time, “My chest and back and stomach were covered with them. "Why would I have only have one spot that reacted?”

    “That’s the weird part," she said shaking her head. "No one can answer that."

    
     Well... I can. That one blister represented what God saved me from.  I rubbed my fingers over it every day and when it popped it hurt like heck and was so tender that I wore a bandage over it for days.  

    The skin that was pink and soft is now red and rough, but it makes me smile because I know I should have been be covered with them.  

     I want it to stay forever. 
     However, whether the remnant scar remains or not, the blister is a memorial stone story that God crafted inside the greatest "Story-teller" room of all and I was there. I was with him as it got imprinted deep into my spirit with all it truth and promise. 
     So the memorial stone I plant and hold might be shaped like a heart, but to me, it will always look like the blister on my side. 

I was just headed home...

     Today was one of those days so I've decided to tell you it's story. I believe it is worth the telling and the remembering.
      I really wanted to show you the story of this day with pictures, but instead, I'm gonna have to put on my big girl pants and use my words so you are going to have to use your imagination.
   
     "Where you lead I will follow. Anywhere, that you you tell me to. When you need, you need me to be with you, I will follow where you lead."
     These words are from a song by Carol King, but today, I sang them to Jesus.

     I was just headed home...
   
     "You should drive up to Rock Creek Lake. It's really beautiful today."
     I pass Tom's place restaurant and slow the truck. Hmmm...
     I make the turn.
     20 minutes later I sit in a line of traffic behind the flag man.
     The road is torn up. It's bumpy and dusty and I am irritated. "Really...and why am I here?"
     I pull into "Pie in the Sky" restaurant, let out a big sigh of frustration, and park.
   
     "Go inside and get a piece of pie."
   
     I need a bathroom.
     But I go inside and a lady is fussing about the pie menu. She wants peach. It's written right there, she says and points. It's barely 10 oclock. Why is peach crossed out?
     A couple behind me complain. I am not the only one who doesn't like the road work.      
     So I go outside to the bathroom, do my business, and head to the car. I am dreading the drive back down the dusty construction road.

     "Go inside and get a piece of pie. Take it down to the lake."

     So I sigh, give in, and stand at the counter.

I'm now  behind the fussy lady. She is upset t about the peach pie.
     The young man behind the counter is trying to be kind so he walks away and comes back. Yeah, I checked with the pie guy again, he said. No more Peach.
  
     I don't really like any of the pie choices either, but its my turn. I step up and ask, Rhubarb or Banana Cream?
     Rhubarb. He answers without hesitation.
     I order a piece.
     20 minutes and $7.50 later I get back in the truck with my pie in the sack and know in my heart that I am  just as fussy as the lady who wanted Peach, and I drive to the lake.
     I get out of the car carrying my sack of pie and my phone and my keys.
    S I walk I catch a sight of the lake and I sigh. It is beautiful.

     There is a place in the sun right at the waters edge and so I go and I sit and I open my sack.
   
     "Put your feet in."
   
     And so I do. And I take a bite.
     It might be the best pie I ever tasted.

     (Here is a pretend picture of my feet in water with a half eaten piece of pie in my lap and a lake glistening like diamonds in the sun.)
      I eat most of the pie and flutter my feet back and forth in the water.
     I lean back, hold my face in the sun, realize I feel good and know this a good and beautiful thing. A God designed thing.

     "Walk with me."

     And so I do.
          (Here is another pretend picture of the fly fishermen I run into, five of them, thigh deep and arranged perfectly in a geometric pattern in the water by the big rock.)
 It stops me and I take a deep breath.
     I walk for an hour and it is beautiful and I take lots of pictures.
     I am happy and have forgotten about being disappointed. About being discouraged.
     Thank you Lord.
     I get back in the car and I am the first one at the flagger with the stop sign.
     I don't even care and I smile. His beard is long like the Duck Dynasty guys and his smile is just as genuine.
     Thank you Lord.

     "Stop at the campground."

     I choose the lower rather than the upper campground and park near the lodge. The wildflowers are in crazy bloom. Purple like I have never seen. Long grass in shades of green I can't even describe grow around the trees with the light... oh the light. Just so...
     And the creek...so loud and foamy and dancing. I close my eyes and listen.
     And then I walk.
     And I see and I snap...

     "Get off the path. Go down by the waters edge."
   
     Really? I look down at my rubber flip flops and too long sweat pants already wet around the bottom. And my foot hurts. I was just headed home.

     "You love adventure. So go down to waters edge."
   
     For the next two hours I am off the beaten path. Following a most beautiful creek ducking under branches, climbing over slippery rocks, holding onto tree trunks as I step around and see the most beautiful light and beautiful things and I am smiling.

     "Does your foot hurt?"
     

     No. It doesn't hurt at all. I am happy. All alone and surrounded by glory. The water is so clear. A huge trout nips and plays chase with little ones. The colors of the creek water go from white to turquoise blue to every shade of green you can imagine and the long green grass has so many shades and the wildflowers and...I pull my Maui Jim sunglasses off my eyes just to make sure...and... I am awestruck.

    (I have no words for what these photos looked liked. Just picture the most beautiful creek and grasses that you can imagine)

     When I take my next steps in the thigh high grass, the water suddenly hits the middle of my calf and my foot comes out of the sticky mud without a sandal. I hear a swooshing sound and I laugh.
   
     (Here is a pretend picture of my legs in the deep grass, my foot coming up naked, and my hand holding so tight to my phone that I have a cramp. I'm so worried I'm going to drop it.) But I laugh again.

     "You want adventure."

     Yes, I do. And I smile. But I'm not sure how far I've walked and going forward from here means I might have to wade in waist deep water across the creek. I would be soaked. And so...I turn around.

     I get back to the car and eat the rest of the pie. It's almost three-thirty and I'm hungry.
     When I get home I eat and sit down with my phone. I can't wait to see the pictures.
   
     There are no pictures.

     I spend the next three hours in Bishop at the AT&T store.
     My device storage is full although my camera is set to copy to my SD card which holds all my photos and has 3.11 GB of memory left. He is baffled. I am about to cry.

     I go home with no pictures. No pictures of my amazing God day.

     But then what I realize as I wrestled around with all of this is his that this day was not about the pictures. It was about God. Who He is. What He does. How He speaks to me. Do I want to show you what He showed me today? Yes. because it was glorious, but I can't. Does that change what God did for me today and what He showed me? No. It does not.

     I was just headed home.
     But God had a different plan.
     Thank you Lord...  
   

The greatest stories ever told.

 I love a good story. Really love them. If you give me one, I will usually jump right in to the pages and often linger there between the lines.  And, it's often in these places, that the story takes me down a side road.

    Now please come back in time with me and picture Noah building the Ark.  The scholars say that it took approximately 75 years to built the boat and that it was around 450 feet long. It is however, the years of life not described in the scriptures, where I sit between the lines. I know that Noah was called by  God to do this huge and incredible task, but the people around him were not. His wife was not. His sons and their wives were not, and yet for 75 years Noah continued to do the job God had assigned him.  What did they think about that?

     And so...

     What I can't help but think about and imagine are the whispered, and maybe not so whispered, words of the people who watched Noah do this. Did they think he was crazy? Was he talked about? I think they probably did, and that he was.  "The crazy old man has been doing that for 40 years," someone might tell a newcomer when they asked about the man and the boat.

     And then that day arrived. The day the animals began to show up on the horizon. l thought about this for a very long time. Can you imagine it? Scripture says they arrived two by two and scholars say this probably happened over the course of 7 days. I picture the looks on peoples faces and the gasps they made as the creatures headed together toward the Noah's boat. Giraffe's and elephants, lions and tigers and bears, "Oh my." The town gossipers must have been sleep deprived and exhausted. 

     And then there's Jonah. He spent 3 days in the belly of a whale. He did this alone. No one was watching, but boy do I want to have a talk with Jonah about that one day.

     And then there was a King who heated a furnace 7 times hotter than usual to burn 3 Jewish men who refused to bow to his image. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were tied together and thrown into the flames. I'm sure many people were watching this horrendous thing unfold.  Inside the furnace, the men prayed and praised and the King saw 4 men walking around inside the flames. The solders who placed them in the fire were burned to death, so the King ordered the men to come out, and not a single hair on their heads were singed. 

     And then there's Daniel. He survived being thrown into a pit of hungry lions because an Angel came and closed their mouths. Can you imagine that moment? A stadium full of spectators waiting for Daniel to be ripped apart and devoured. I try to imagine the looks on their faces, their whispers, their unbelief.

     And then there is that Holy Night in Bethlehem where the greatest story of all begins.  I have thought about that night so much since taking part in the "Bethlehem Walk." What an incredible experience that was for me. And inside this greatest of story, I find myself settling in where the Magi finally get to meet the Savior of the world. 

     Scholars say that when the Magi arrived, they found the young child in a home and that Jesus was probably around 2 years old.  I wonder what they found Jesus doing? Was he toddling around outside playing with a stick? Was he watching his Father Joseph make a table? Was he playing with his brother James?  Maybe he was sitting in Mary's lap.  And when the Magi handed the precious gifts to the child did Jesus understand what they meant? Did he understand who the men were? Who he was? A two-year old little boy who was also God. Perhaps he did.

     And when Jesus was 4 and 5, did he climb trees and throw rocks and play sword games with sticks like other boys his age? Did Mary and Joseph worry about him like other parents do? He didn't run away to the synagogue until he was 12. Did he look and act different to the world before then? I have to believe that he did. How could he not?  And yet, wasn't he also just a little boy?

     I believe one day I'll get answers to the questions I ponder. The things that lie between the lines of the, "Greatest stories ever told." Until then, I'll continue my journey of imagining, and questioning and being in love with the stories of God. In all His power, in all His glory, He gave us the greatest gift of all. The baby born in a stable during a cold and possibly rainy night in Bethlehem that saved the world.

     Merry Christmas