Seasons and Perspectives

The title of my blog is “Seasons and Perspectives”.  Seasons; because seasons, like life, have their time and their duty and then they give way to the next season.  Perspectives; we all have various perspectives of our journey through life based on our experiences and understanding of those experiences since childhood.  Our perspectives can mature and change, but they remain as varied a snowflakes; similar but different.  I don’t know everyone’s story and can never know their perspective because I’ve never lived their lives with their understanding and perspective of their life.  What I do know is that I can defer to God’s perspective.  His perspective in every season of my life can fill that season with wisdom, clarity and peace that I otherwise wouldn’t have. 

The thought of seasons made think of Ecclesiastes and the author's discourse on seasons which is sensibly based on what he’s observed. Everything has a season and a time. In every season there is a time to do one thing and then another. Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8

 I also believed that Christ has a time in my seasons; He has a time to plant me and a time to uproot me.  A time to kill something in me and a time to heal something in me.  A time to break down my destructive habits and thoughts and a time to build up habits and thoughts sourced in Him based on His truth, His love and His perspective.  I also have a time to choose to do my own tearing down, building up, sowing and reaping, destroying and healing.  The season is mine.  What I do with it and whether or not I let Christ take the lead in every season is my choice.  Every moment I’m given is just that; a moment. I can take the moment to be kind, or be mean. To observe, or monopolize. To speak or listen. To bulldoze or build.  I’m thankful for each moment because it is mine and it’s a gift and how I live each moment is a choice.  It’s my choice. This life does anything but leave us powerless.  Powerlessness or the feeling of powerlessness comes only when we don’t participate in our moments. When we think we don’t have a choice.  By letting a moment be; we have made a choice not to participate in it. 

May your every moment be passionately embraced and lived to the fullest, trusting in and from the perspective and understanding of Christ and the very good work He is doing in you-because of His great love for you.  

Grace

He gives more grace when your burdens grow greater,

He is endless strength when your labors increase;

To added afflictions He adds His mercy,

To multiplied trials He multiplies peace.

When you have exhausted your store of endurance,

When your strength has failed before the day is half done,

When you reach the end of your hoarded, meager resources

Your Abba’s full giving has only begun.

Don’t be afraid that you’ll exceed His provision,

Your God’s never ending resources He’ll share;

Lean hard on His strengthening Arms everlasting;

Your Father both you and your load will up bear.

His love has no limits, His grace has no measure,

His power no boundary known unto men;

For out of His infinite riches in Jesus

He gives, and gives, and gives again.

~Annie Johnson Flint

"Flavored Disposable Oral Swab"

... not the most glamorous sounding nor the most aesthetic. But that little cellaphane wrapped pink foam on a stick  is something that has tied me forever to my dad's last few days on the earth. 

 On Saturday, November 30th, 2013 I rode with my dad to the hospital in an ambulance. I had never ridden with him before, but felt so strongly compelled to this time. We were taken into the emergency room and as we waited for the doctor to make a decision on whether or not to admit dad, he complained of having a very dry mouth. He was thirsty. For reasons that only they know of, he was not allowed a drink, but he was offered this.This pink swab. Dip it in water and it becomes the stream in the desert, the balm to a parched mouth. I dipped it and swabbed the inside of his mouth, running it between his teeth and his gums as he murmured his appreciation around its spongy tip. "Do you want me to save it"? I asked half heartedly hearing the foolishness of my own question echo in dad's response; "no! I don't want it again! Throw it away!" And so, I did. About half an hour later as a decision was made and dad was admitted, it was time to take him up to his room. As we were leaving (I always walked with them as they took him to his room, always) I picked up this extra swab, the one in this picture. "Oh, they will bring him more" was the nurse's response when he saw me pick it up. "I know, but it won't be for awhile, and dad will need it before they bring one to him", I replied as I tucked the swab in my purse. The nurse looked at me with a somewhat sad smile and responded; "you've been here too many times, you know the hospital too well". I agreed. Together we walked pushing dad in his bed to what would turn out to be his final hospital room. His needs were taken care of so quickly and efficiently, I forgot about that tiny pink swab. A few days later, 4 to be exact, I came home with his things, but without him. I was devastated and was looking for something in my purse when I found it, that spongy pink swab buried, forgotten. And I cried. I cried because I wished he were still here to need it. I cried because not even a week earlier he had needed and even welcomed it. I cried because I missed him. Today I cry because I still miss him terribly. The little pink swab a reminder of his thirst; for not only a drink, but for life. He was thirsty because he had life. I don't know that I'll ever throw it away. 

I know it sounds crazy, but it keeps me connected to the time between dads life and death, time connected by a "Flavored Disposable Oral Swab".

Birthday

This was written to my dad on January 1st, 2014. He died on December 4th, 2013.

Dear Dad,
Today is your 77th birthday. While I know you're outside of time now, I'm still in it and so I am wishing you a very happy birthday. I thought about you at midnight. I remember you telling me how your mom would always call at 12:01 AM so that she would be the first one to wish you a happy birthday. I know how it would irritate you. But you'd laugh at the memory.
I wish you were here. I know you'd be in your room. You would have just finished eating the creamed crab on toast you wanted me to make for your birthday this year. I also know you'd come out to the kitchen in an hour or so and ask me when I was going to start your birthday dinner of ciappiano. And then you'd let me know that you want to have a hand in making it, meaning you wanted to come out and boss me around. I loved being bossed around by you, even though we'd butt heads sometimes. When you'd bow out of the head butting session, I'd feel so bad, I'd let you win anyway. But you knew it. I could never best you in mental games. Ever. You'd let me think I did, but we both knew better. I could always see the amusement in your eyes when I'd get irritated. Mostly irritated that I fell once again, sucker to your verbal prods and pokes. But, you left me a smarter, more tolerant person.

Thank you for teaching me how to preserve my own ideas and beliefs while listening to someone air theirs. You taught me how make a difference in someones day by just listening to them. I know that listening and smiling and finding positive things in what someone is sharing with me, even though I disagree, makes them happy and feel valued and how that is more important than sharing my opinions on what I think of their ideas.
You always listened to me. You always made me feel so valuable to you, to the world around me. You always told me I was beautiful when I seldom felt beautiful. You told me I was a great mom, after I cried over my kids, feeling like a failure. You told me many times, what a great daughter I was when I was so overwhelmed with the duties I had before me. But I learned. I learned to tell you the same thing. I started saying "I'm a great daughter because I have a great dad" and "You're an amazing dad to put up with a daughter like me". And then YOU had nothing to say! That was so fun!!! Thank you for teaching me so much.
I miss you, dad. But I feel strangely calm and peaceful today. Maybe you've asked God to give me a gift on your birthday. It would be like you. You're so selfless. Anyway, I've been blessed today on your birthday to be held in a beautiful pocket of peace and tranquility.
Happy birthday to the most amazing man I've ever met in my life.
I love you dad.
You are forever young.
Love, your daughter, Lonna

Abandoned?

Mom physically left me on August 23rd, 2009. It's odd that I write that because I've struggled with abandonment issues all my life. I'm sure it started when I was about 6 months old and my birth parents made a decision to give me up for adoption. It was furthered compounded by being adopted by a single mother (I think she was the first single woman in Oregon to adopt a child... part of what makes her so amazing) who had to work full time. I can remember missing her and being scared she'd never come back, but she did time after time. She smelled like cookies! (she worked at Nabisco). When she moved me to Kenya with her, I attended boarding school and so at 7 years old I watched her drive away not thinking I'd ever see her again. I did see her, after 3 months. (The school was 3 months at school, one month vacation). Throughout the years, as I grew older, had my own kids, etc, I no longer feared being abandoned by her. In 2007 after serious prayer, consideration and counsel, my dad, my husband and myself made the decision to allow mom to live in the safety of a Memory Care facility. She had Alzheimer's and we could no longer safely manage her care. I'll never forget the horrible day I moved all her things into her room. My dad dropped her off and I stayed to see her settled in. After looking around and claiming she'd been there before, I showed her the large social area where there was a TV. The TV was on, it was set to channel 12. It was just after the noon hour and like it's done for many, many years, KPTV, was showing one of mom's favorite shows, "Perry Mason". Her eyes lit up when she saw it was on and she made herself comfortable in a recliner. I hugged her and told her I'd be back soon. For the first time in my life I felt what it was like from her side. What she must have felt so many times during the years when she had to leave me. I felt like I was abandoning her. It cut me like a knife and after hugging her I hurried out, the tears spilling from my eyes and flowing down my cheeks even before I made it to the van. I sat there, not able to process it all, just letting the tears do what they do so well. In His mercy, when God took her home, I didn't feel as though she was abandoning me. And because 2 weeks before she died, I had given her permission to go, I don't think she felt as though she was abandoning me either. We were just saying "see you later". So today, I'm thankful for my mom, her strength, her influence, her legacy and mostly the lessons I learned from her just by being her daughter and watching her. Thanks, Mom. See you later.

Thoughts

Joyful in hope
Patient in affliction
Pray always.

Being joyful in hope most likely leads to being patient in the affliction because you're aware of the hope and you live in Joy. Praying always makes all this possible. I was thinking about the term "leap of faith". I don't think there is such a thing. I think there are steps of faith that must be taken, lived out every day. You never see anyone sitting around for years and then one day run a marathon. They take steps.. first around the block, then 2, then 1/2 mile, then a mile then 2 and so on until they are running 26 miles. That's the way it is with faith. With patience. Patience in affliction is arrived at by being patient in the grocery line, at the stop light, while waiting for the train to do its 15 minute back and forth dance on the tracks. If I can't be patient for the little things, how the heck do I expect to be patient when real affliction comes along? It's all interactive too; faith comes by hearing, hearing what? Hearing the word of God. And I can't hear the word of God unless I open my Bible and let Him talk to me.

Take a baby step of faith today. Not in what you can do, but what God has done for you. Chill and relax. Bask in His care. Nothing you can do anyway about what can't be done. May as well hang out and worship and enjoy the green pastures and still waters the Shepherd is always leading you (and me) to.
By faith today I will follow him and stop hindering the journey by stopping to rummage through the bags of garbage in my mind.
I have to laugh (somewhat sadly at times) at myself.... here I am skipping along behind Him and then... He turns around and there I am with the dirt of hurtful memories, regrets, resentment all over my hands as I'm digging through the crap. But He's so kind, and as a result of His kindness, I'm learning to leave my rummaging and get back on the path quicker. In fact, sometimes I even skip past the garbage bags!!! The war is not over until I go Home, but it's already been won and today I fight from victory , not for it.

Father

Father.

What comes to mind when you hear, read or say that word? Having grown up without a father or dad until I was 15, I didn't really have any ideas about what having a father was. I know I wanted one. Everyone else had one and I always felt like the outsider looking in on a cozy scene. The only human adult males in my early childhood were my uncles. I have great memories of most of them but not so great memories of one particular one who I was around the most. If that was what having a father was, no thank you! For those of you with great dads, you probably can't relate.
I've been thinking about the prayers that Jesus prayed in the Bible. I have a craving to read His words to and about His Father, who He instructed us to call "our" Father. But if your only memories of a father are bad ones, that can be challenging to think of God as a "loving" "kind" "compassionate" father.
I think the only way to think of Him as our Father is to allow Him by His spirit to heal us and to allow Him to show us just what kind of Father He is through His word and by faith IN His word. Sometimes it comes down to blind trust. Following though we can't see and it doesn't make sense. Reaching out in the snow storm and finding the line that leads us to safety. It's scary but it's worthwhile. He, unlike our earthly fathers, will NEVER leave us, He always thinks kindly towards us. He's slow to anger. He forgives readily and repeatedly and never holds our nose to our past mistakes. He is compassionate. He never shames us. He loves us unconditionally and completely. I think His father heart is broken repeatedly as He watches us hurt and struggle under some of the men we call "father" or "dad". And He longs to show us just what a father is.
What comes to your mind when you hear the word "father". How do you see God as your father? What kind of memories are you giving your kids as their parent; father or mother?
For the record, my mom was as tough as a man and could beat anybody's dad up. So, I did have that fine example!

I posted this on Facebook on December 4th, 2013 at 8:20 in the morning. My dad was in the hospital and was coming home that day. He did come home, but not to our house. About 4 1/2  hours after I posted this my dad, Patrick died of a pulmonary embolism. It was unexpected and it took my breath away for a long time. I love that God put father hood so strongly on my mind the day I lost my earthly father.