The night Demar Hamlin’s heart stopped no one asked each other which God they were praying to, or what words they were saying, or who they voted for. We all just prayed, begged, stormed the throne room of grace pleading for Demar. Friends hugged each other, strangers comforted strangers. We fell asleep praying, woke in the middle of night searching for updates, and fell asleep again praying.
Humans have a very short memory. We don’t easily apply what we learn in one situation to other situations. So the next day humans ridicule each other and neglect to put aside petty opinions for the greater good. We witness USA lawmakers arguing, road rage, impatience with family. We ridicule, hold onto hurts. We form opinions based on who we vote for.
But once in a while, the best of our humanness breaks through and we unite our thoughts, and prayers and opinions. Humans being the best of humans.
Recently I read a preview copy of How to Human by Carlos Whittaker @loswhit on Instagram.
An incident he relates in the book has stuck in my mind, and watching people unite to pray and cheer Damar on reminds me again how important it is to ‘do’ human.
Can we string a few of those kinds of human reactions together, back to back, day by day, harmonizing in our humanness? Maybe some day. Let’s pray for that.
Grief is stealthy. It doesn’t usually attack head on. It prefers to sneak up on me when my guard is down.
It very effectively did that yesterday, one day short of a year from my sister’s diagnosis of stage 2 ovarian cancer. But the realization of that isn’t what caught me off guard.
My brother wrote that he’d been in contact with a friend of my sister. The friend wrote that the last time he spoke with Helen, a couple of weeks before she died, she had asked for 2 of her own recipes which she had misplaced. He attached the recipes in the email.
The email didn’t hit bother me even though I immediately remembered overhearing that phone call.
That memory didn’t bother me.
I opened the attachment and there it was; the sucker punch, grieve’s modus operandi. The recipes were written in my sister’s handwriting. I wasn’t expecting her actual handwriting, which like a thumbprint, is unique to all of us.
My feelings started with just a gasp, but rose quickly from the void recently created by her death.
A gasp, a sigh, a groan, then deep silent sobs, and finally audible sobs, which summoned my husband to my side with a ready embrace.
Grief is never finished with its ambush of me until it reminds me it will compound my loss again someday when I lose another loved one. Grief reminds me how fragile my loved-ones’ lives are. How fast and fleeting is mine.
But grief, where is your victory? By reminding me of the fleetingness of life you remind me to treasure each moment, to store up memories in my heart, which you can not destroy.
Grief retreated. I know it will sabotage me again. But it can not win the day. I have a Savior Who has overcome death.
“O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?”
When I think of God’s overwhelming, never ending love I can’t add the adjective ‘reckless.‘
I just can’t.
Have you ever been in a car when the driver was driving recklessly? I have. There was no love motivating that thoughtless endangerment of lives.
Is God, as reckless is defined, without thinking or caring about the consequences?
Never.
He is always thinking, ALWAYS caring about circumstances.
Did He sing over me before I spoke a word?
Did He breath life into me?
Does He chase me, fight for me, pay the cost for me?
Yes
Is there a wall He won’t scale, a mountain He won’t climb? A debt He won’t pay?
No
God cares and watches and thinks and counts the cost of His Son’s sacrifice.
Does that sound reckless?
The verse of a very presently popular song tells me He is reckless. Although it fits well into the cadence of the song, I can’t utter the words, but these I can:
Oh the Overwhelming, sacrificial, endless love of God.
The thoughtful sacrifice of Jesus is redemptive, not a reckless one.
One word change and I can get behind it. Reckless? Not God
A friend of mine with several young ones under 5 years of age shared with me her desperate need for sleep.
I understand this, I really do. I understood first hand, as a mother of a newborn, why sleep deprivation was used as a form of torture. If I had been entrusted with the combination to the lock to a nuclear bomb silo, I am certain I would have called a communist leader and offered it to him, if only he could have arranged for a sleep long enough for REM sleep to kick in.
I recall how hard it was to make a simple decision. Baby is sleeping.
Should I shower?
Nap?
Make out a grocery list
Should I use crayon or pen to make out the list?
Should I call my husband and ask him to pick up dinner on the way home?
Should I tell him to get pizza or Chinese take out?
Should I call and ask him to help me make this decision even though earlier I called to ask to ask him what I should eat for breakfast? Or was that yesterday?
Is that the phone ringing or is the that the microwave or is the baby awake and crying?
What am I doing wrong?
Oh, I can answer that one…..nothing. I am doing nothing wrong.
That little body in the crib has been carried in a safe, warm, wet, dark place for months, and now is adjusting to life outside the womb.
So be ok with letting the laundry pile up and the groceries sitting on the floor until tomorrow, as long as you toss the perishables into the fridge-grocery bag and all.
Love your hair in a messy bun day after day.
Turn off the phone, catch a drooling nap on the couch, and whatever else you do, do not make major decisions when you are sleep deprived. Those will wait.
Best of all, remind yourself of the good news you already know: God knows your need and He will provide for you, just as He perfectly provided the parents for the tyke, who even now, is stirring in his crib, beginning to wonder where you are.
You read that correctly.
God perfectly provided your children with the parents they need for His plans for them.
God provided you.
Let the dust pile up, let the laundry mound grow, let the sink fill up with dishes. That’s not really part of God’s plan right now.
At the moment, that little soul is helpless and needs someone to take care of every need he or she has.
And God choose you for that; Sleepy, hair asunder, hormones surging and ebbing in an attempt to reach balance, just a little hungry, just a little lonely, and perhaps a lot insecure. God knows what He is doing.
When I see a sculpture I am always drawn to look at it from every angle: walking around it it slowly, looking at it from different angles, helps me to understand it, see its details and feel the emotions the the sculptor wanted to portray.
This is how I feel when I write. An idea comes to mind. It might seem distant and indistinct but the more I reflect on it the more it takes shape and its details are more clear. Turning it in my mind, thinking about something from different angles, asking and wondering about it, I can understand better what the idea is about.
Putting this idea into words seems to be a natural consequence; the way a person might sketch out a picture they see or a sculptor might take a lump of clay and pull and push and form it into what the sculptor imagines it should be.
I need to write. I want to learn to write more effectively for myself but hopefully in doing so others might also read what I have sculpted, understand it and recognize the emotion I have put into it.
My writing is an outlet. Not, hopefully, just to let a thought out, or for someone else to read but rather more like an outlet which a serves a body of water. The Dead Sea has no outlet and is slowly shrinking. Without an outlet a body of water dies.
If I do not write I will not improve my skills. I may not understand the thoughts I have and I may not be able to effectively communicate the emotions that come with the thoughts.
Not sure if I am moderately happy here, or in controlled terror, but I do know few people could say, or want to be able to say that they have had the same hair cut all their lives.
Until the other day I did not understand the power of the vine. When I was little my dad would carry me into the water at the Jersey shore. I was petrified. As strong as he was and how small I was by comparison, I always feared he would let go
Don’t misunderstand. He would not have let me drown. He was not cruel. But the fear of water washed away my trust that he would keep me safe. The fear that he would decide he’d held me long enough and let go of me was overwhelming; the fear that maybe he was not strong enough after all to keep me from drowning. A powerful fear that I can feel even today.
This is the distorted way I have viewed my heavenly Father. I know He will not leave me. I know He commands the water, and can part it, or calm it, or walk on it, for that matter. I know He has a plan to build me and not destroy me.
But the fear.
The fear He will decide He has held me long enough and has given me all that I need to face my challenges and put me down; the fear that maybe He is not strong enough after all to keep me in the palm of His hand; the fear that He would call me out to do the impossible, to walk on water as He did to Peter and that His arms might be too short to reach me.
But the vine.
The vine that gives me life and nourishment, energy, and even hope. A branch can’t cling to the vine the way I clung to my father’s arms. Even I-plants come to my garden to die-understand that branches don’t cling to their vines. The vine provides the energy and nourishment they need to stay with the vine. When did I distort which clung to which?
The vine holds the branch, and all the branch-and I-need to do is to abide in the vine. He will not let me go. He is stronger than any current and if He calls me to do what seems impossible His arms will not be too short to save me. Apart from Him indeed I can do nothing but it is to my Father’s glory that I bear much fruit, so why would I worry that He would put me down?
If I could have rested in my dad’s arms; threw my arms high, and leaned back; trusted him to keep me safe; what hilarious fun we could have both had. As it was all he could do was try to assure me of his intentions, as I white-knuckled my grip on him.
If I can lean back with abandon, knowing the Vine has me, will nourish me, will keep me, will be my strength, will enable me to do what I cannot do, and He does not have to reassure me of His intentions; well that indeed will be glorious.
I will post a u tube link. If it does not show up, google “Hoyt team, I can only imagine”and consider what is truly meant to abide in the Father, being helpless in our own strength, and what the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit does for us in our helplessness.
I Once Was Lost And Found 