Grief

And sometimes when I pray... We once looked at a house when we were a young married couple. It was the most beautiful house I have seen yet to this day. It was huge, with parkayed floors and walls - using oak wood to make beautiful designs. In the kitchen the cupboards were old fashioned and solid oak, with a pantry of solid oak. There was a "pie kitchen" off to the back that was all screened in, along with a beautiful porch off the front. The living room, dining room and another room were open to each other with tall pillars of oak stretching from the parkayed floors to the oak coves. The basement was perfectly square, cemented out with high ceilings... the way it looked it had never been used. The house was old, and yet it all looked untouched... as if they carefully built it with character then wrapped it up and boxed it for the future. The rounded wide stair case went to a huge upstairs... room after room it went. How in the world would we be able to heat this house? It was $28,000... with a pink barn and an acre to go with it! How would I be able to take care of a house this size? What would the upkeep be like? We were young and my father in law was negative. Plus, the town it was in was just not where we were to be (these are the things I told myself).

Someone else bought the house and they fixed it up on the outside so beautiful... I can't imagine what it must be like in there... through the years I drove by it when we were in town just to look at it. There is children living in this house. I don't know the family... but I remember so well the day she was killed. The neighbors had a swing set that was also very old. A freak accident took the little girls life... her brother by her side. And my heart travailed for this mother... I felt myself holding her and rocking her and telling her that it was going to be okay. That the Lord didn't take her but that He was there to receive her into his arms. I saw a picture of her and I weeped for days and days. It has been several years sense that day... I still drive by the house and I know in my heart how they would give anything to have back their little girl - and if I could I would give up all my dreams of the house and everything I own so they could hold her one more time and tell her again how much she is loved... but, I can't - so instead I will hold in my mind her picture and each time I think of the beauty of that house, I will remember the pain of a family with a little girl whose beauty will always be young as if she were made with perfect character and wrapped up and sent to Heaven ahead of time. And although I will never understand - I know we have a promise that Jesus died and rose again. Jesus, You have come to heal the brokenhearted... I pray now that You will comfort this family whom I do not know and assure them that you love them and have given them everlasting consolation and good hope through grace. And Lord, if You could please... gently rock them in the comfort of Your Love. AMEN

Generations

This small boy sinks comfortably in her lap
So content to sit and be held

She is blind and deaf and yet her senses have come vividly alive.
As she drinks in the smell of his skin,
She is aware of herself as a young mother and the
Generations melt away.

In her mind, in the words of the Spirit,
She listens to her 97 years of life
Realizes she has been around the world and back
... Yet finds herself where she started
Holding on tight to life
... Taking her first breath
And strangely enough she sees
Her future in her arms.

Consider how the lilies grow. If this is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is gone... how much more will he clothe you. From the book of Matthew

As I look at this picture of my first grandchildren
Something deep inside me moves.
I realize as I study it
That this exact moment will never be relived
Yet it will live on.
As a sister sits with her baby brother
Showing him patience and love.
He seems to be listening to her gentle voice
They seem to be consumed
By a love so beyond what a grown mind can understand.
They seem to be comforted
By the promise of Our Savior.

And my grandmothers heart beats to the waving of the grass
I reach into the picture
Touch each one of them and plant a Lilly by their small hands.
I am consumed by a love so deep
Only God can understand
The missing beats
Of a grandmothers heart.

The suitcase

I remember always thinking that my grandma was a "cool" one. Grams drove her own car (her husband had died when I was 2). Wore white dresses and heels with beehive hairdo's dyed red. She wore eye brow make-up and red lipstick. When my grandma would come to visit in Minnesota she had this great small piece of luggage... it had a lock and when it it opened there was a mirror in the cover and a removable tray. The tray housed plenty of good things - but oh the pleasure when you would take the tray out and there would be all these things that little girls loved. She would always let me look through it and use the make up and try on the jewelry. I thought she must be rich at the time - all those jewels and sometimes a little something for me. On every trip I remember that suitcase, the pleasure of touching it with small hands that wanted to be grown up... to try black eye brow pencil with red lipstick... and wonder if I would be as pretty as my mom and grams when I grew up. There was a comfort in seeing it when we went to her house also, it was always in her bathroom. Through the years as I grew older, I never remember the things in there changing much... it lost its appeal as I bought my own make-up...

It was in 2004 when my grams moved from her home in Huron, SD - back to Willow Lake, where she had been born and raised and then raised her own family. She moved to an apartment to be closer to my aunt as she was needing more help.

I remember when we packed up the house... the suitcase...

Funny how things go - it looked exactly the same as I remembered it when I was a little girl.

And I wonder if my grams packed that suitcase back in 1960 and brought it each time for her little girl? Could it be possible she didn't wear make-up and jewelry at all?

Downhill - another moment!

She is in her room. Her room is really the only thing that she could call her own anymore and yet she has no reason to care if it is hers. When I first met her she was a fiesty ole gal, small and pretty - wheeling around looking for the breakfast that she just got done eating. In constant battle with the staff that in her mind are out to take all that she doesn't have... they put peanut butter on the bread that she will soon blame them for taking, and pour her coffee that she will say they didn't pour - it is a constant uphill battle sometimes. And yet, today she hasn't eaten much in over a week - her smallnes is even smaller (if that is possible). Laying in her bed facing the wall, her wedding and family pictures in the back ground. When I come in to the room I do it carefully, asking if I can sit with her she smiles at me and moves over patting the bed beside her. Sitting next to her I feel like a helpless giant... what can I do to help? She asks me to scratch her back. Taking the lotion from the shelf I pour it into my hands and rub it into her paper thin skin - my hands trace over her skin feeling the life that she lived. She smiles the whole time and thanks me... and says "you girls are so good to me!" - taking this moment I realize we are on our way down the hill now... it is easier and God is here. Take her hand Lord - and remember she likes peanut butter toast with her coffee!

(The names and dates have been changed the story is true only in my mind)

Evermore

If you could go back and change one thing in your life...
what would it be?
Would it be something that would set your heart free?
Do you find yourself trapped in something from the past
That you wish your life wouldn't have moved so fast?
Is there love in your life that has given you pain?
A feeling of a house flooded with rain?


I would change only the things that wouldn't change me.
I would take my broken heart and break it again.
If just to slow things down to see them all more clearly
To take the pain and feel it for them all
Letting the flood gates of Heaven flood me for evermore... evermore!

The Racer!

Jaci, Emily and Lindsey ran in a 5 K race last week. They all did well, it was such a fun thing to do as a family. They had a beautiful day to run on the path that was layed out for them. Think of the race... God says run the race that is layed before you ... I think of her, little legs with her white tennis shoes, a number on her back - how beautiful God has designed us from conception - it is such a miracle. She lifts her head slightly to the sun that is shining on the path, and her feet move in the direction of His breath. She finishes with a sense of accomplishment. And later that day when they are at a dance recital they ask "Jaci, why aren't you in dance?" and she answers with assurance in her voice ...
"BECAUSE I AM A RACER!"