More than a Bug on the Wall

I was watching a television show the other day when a small gimlet of conversation landed on me with a rather emotional thud.

"Grief takes its own path. And it's a different one for every person."

It was said in regards to a woman who'd had a particularly calm reaction to the death of her husband. But it could definitely apply to many people. Including me.

Grief is universal. Everyone experiences it, if life is long enough. Loss is ALWAYS hard, but not everyone walks the same path. And we don't always walk the same path with each loss. My mother died in November 2014; my daughter died in February. My grief for them is remarkably different, and, yes, this surprised me. Mother, in turn, lost her mother in 1985, and missed her every day. My dad died in 1996, and I'm convinced Mother never quite got over that loss. One way that showed up was that she couldn't bring herself to sell the car he bought for her just before he died.

And I've come to realize that grief has blindsided me in ways I didn't expect. One of those is an intense forgetfulness, a loss of memory that is sometimes crippling. I try to recall something and it's like staring into a dark tunnel. I know what I need is on the other side, but I can't seem to get there.

So if I owe you ANYTHING--email, blog post, phone call--please remind me. Although I have a calendar I check every day, I've discovered that I haven't written everything down, relying one a memory that until recently was quite good.

Not now. So don't hesitate to ask. It will not bother me for you to do so.

That memory loss can be short term as well. I often forget I made tea--and sometimes lunch. I call editing projects by the wrong name, and blend due dates (NOT a good thing). 

I honestly didn't expect it to linger the way it has either. Some days I am quite chipper and productive. Others...not so much. The sadness comes out of nowhere and knocks me off my carefully reclaimed high ground. Unpredictable and dreadfully hard on the work schedule.

@2016 by Jerry Box

Friends have been patient, although I'm sure they get tired of me suddenly staring off into space as if I've spotted a large bug on the wall.

The good news in all this is that there ARE good days. A lot of them. More as time goes along. More good news is that I have great friends who have both left me alone (when I need it) and listened to me mourn (when I have to). My church has been spectacular. And God is there too, helping me back toward the high ground. But that journey to the high ground takes time, through the good moments--and the bad.

I tend to only socialize during the good times. So when someone asks how I'm doing, I'll say, "I'm fine." And I am. Truly. One step on the path at a time.

Where I've Been; Where I'm Going

Most folks who follow me on Facebook already know that the last couple of weeks have been consumed with the details and grief of my daughter’s death. Rachel, who had outlived the doctors’ prognosis by almost twenty years, was twenty-eight. Her memorial service was on March 5^th, a celebration of Rachel’s life that drew far more people than I expected.

This was a blessing, making it a day full of hugs, reassurances of love, and plans to come. Reminders that there is still a future for the rest of us can make such a time a touch easier.

Rachel was a true joy to be around, and I will miss her more than I can say. Going on with life will not be easy, as anyone who’s experienced great loss knows all too well. I walked a similar path myself, only 16 months ago, when my mother died. Six months passed before I began to write about her life, remembering especially what she’d left behind: her wisdom, practicality, faith, and integrity, along with a mountain of handmade quilts.

As all of those things began to weave together, her legacy formed clearly in my mind, and I began to write devotionals about Mother. The result was a book, My Mother’s Quilts, which releases tomorrow, March 8^th…only three days after Rachel’s memorial service. My author’s copies of the book arrived at my house the day Rachel died.

It reminds me of an event a few years ago, when I called my writer-friend Krista Phillips to offer her a contract on a book. My call came around the same time that she found out that her youngest daughter needed heart surgery to survive. It put the whole “publishing thing” into perspective for her…and me.

Perspective: That life is filled with extraordinary goodness and unbelievable sadness…and that God will help us through all of it, with strength and wisdom. He will guide us on the paths forward, even as our steps wander uncertainly.

My grief is still raw and unpredictable…but I also want to honor and respect those who have stood beside me. So, yes, I will try now to focus on deadlines and marketing, which are a solace as well as a responsibility. And the Lord, who gave me this gift that has gotten me through so much as well as providing a way for me to honor all those who have gone before.

2016: A Time to Bloom

When asked about a “word of the year” in 2015, I chose FLAME. I summed up the reason in the last line of this blog: “Flame. An indication that I’m putting the sad times behind me and lighting a fire under my career, my faith, and my future.”

I wasn’t sure what that would look like. My mother had died in November, and my job had changed dramatically. I chose that word on the spur of the moment at a time when I was still reeling emotionally and mentally. I hung a portrait of a firebird in my office as inspiration. And I had no idea that by the end of the year I would have put together a plan to launch my freelance career to the next level.

So when I was asked about a word of the year for 2016, I impulsively responded: BLOOM. I stared at it a minute, but realized it was a good choice. I thought I knew what it meant (a flower), but being the nosy editor I am, I went to the dictionary, where I found these alternatives:

• The state or period of greatest beauty, freshness, artistry, or vigor 
• The period of greatest prosperity or productivity 
• A mass of wrought iron from the forge or puddling furnace 
• Also, a moist, lustrous appearance indicating freshness in fish. 

Yeah…I’ll pass on that last one. But as a word to indicate a time of great prosperity or artistry? I’ll make that my vision for the year. To grow, to prosper, to produce my best work.

BLOOM.

Let’s get to it.

All in the Family

I will be a father to you,

and you will be my sons and daughters,

says the Lord Almighty.

2 Corinthians 6:18

I know two sisters who have not seen each other in more than two decades. The minor rift that caused their estrangement escalated over the years as hurt feelings and anger aggravated the situation. They never visit their parents at the same time; holiday visits are alternated or are skipped. This has caused no end of sorrow for the other members of the family, especially their other two sisters. But both are insistent. They will not forgive and forget.

In my own family, there have been arguments that lasted years. A friend hasn’t seen his mother since he was 23. He’s just about to turn 40. I’ve often heard from police officers that some of the most dangerous calls they get are about domestic violence.

Families, which are the bedrock of our society, can be clusters of loving safety and happiness. They can also be volcanic pits of emotion, unstable and damaging.

Is it any wonder that God’s children quibble among themselves?

We all love Him; one God. We have been adopted and loved by Him. His Son, Jesus, is our Savior, our Brother, our Lord. We have been called by God to be His children. His family.

So why can’t we get along?

Because we’re human. We have egos, which often tell us that we know better than that person over there what’s right and good. We desire what’s best for US, and we can have some pretty set ideas of what that means.

We also come to know our heavenly Father through His Word, scriptures that were inspired by Him, but—as we’ve seen—able to be interpreted in different ways. And we sometimes have serious disagreements with what one interpretation or another says.

And that’s OK. It really is. Because this is what families do sometimes.

What’s not OK is when we forget that most important of commandments. It’s OK to disagree. It’s even OK not to want to be anywhere near the people you disagree with. It’s not OK to hate.    

When someone has accepted Christ as their Savior, they are automatically your sibling in love and salvation. This doesn’t mean you have to take them out to dinner or even embrace the same doctrines they do. But if you fail to love them, you run the risk of disavowing the one thing God has asked most of you.

Personally, I’m not ready to do that. I chose to love. 

A Meal for the Future

They went and found everything just as he had told them, 

and they prepared the Passover meal. 

When the time came, Jesus took his place at the table, 

and the apostles joined him. 

He said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you 

before I suffer. I tell you, I won’t eat it until it is fulfilled in God’s kingdom.”

Luke 22:13-16 CEB

This week brings to one of the favored holidays in American culture: Thanksgiving. In most homes, it’s celebrated with food. Even folks like me (single, with little or no family close by), seek out a meal with friends—or just at a cozy restaurant—to eat among others and be thankful for our blessings big and small. No matter what the “fixin’s” (as we say in the South), the point of the meal is think beyond ourselves, to be grateful for the past and hopeful for the future.

But celebrating with food goes far beyond a single holiday in one country. Throughout the New Testament, Jesus gathered around tables to enjoy fellowship—and food—with those who loved Him. He ate with Matthew (Matt. 9) and fed the 5,000 (Matt. 14). What a celebration that must have been! He ate with Simon, and in the verses above, from Luke 22, Jesus sat down with His disciples for the Passover, also called the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This would become the ultimate meal of thanksgiving…and hope.

Tomorrow, I’ll travel about an hour north of Nashville to gather with my daughter and her caregiver, Phyllis. Phyllis’s sister Marti and her son Kingston will join us. We’ll have ham, sweet potatoes, veggies, and dessert. We’ll laugh and argue, pray and say thanks. The year has not been easy for any of us, and harder than most for two of us. The struggles won’t go away because of good food or prayer or the salvation we all believe in.

But because of that one meal held so long ago, we see that God’s love feeds us in a way that food cannot. He will provide the strength and wisdom to persevere, and the faith in an unseen future.

And for that, we are eternally grateful.

Discovering the Unexpected

Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction;

don’t neglect your mother’s teaching;

for they are a graceful wreath on your head,

and beads for your neck.

Proverbs 1:8-9 CEB

Moms give advice. It’s what we do. And anyone who has listened to Anita Renfroe’s brilliant “Momisms” routine will undoubtedly hear something they’ve said…or heard from their own moms…those day-to-day tidbits that guide our children into being better people.

We hope.

My mother was full of such sayings, and even today, if I start a sentence with the phrase “As my mother used to say,” my friends will roll their eyes. But I always found such scraps endearing. My mother’s wisdom, however, didn’t stop there.

Tormented by a classmate in junior high school, I finally turned to my mother, who gave me one suggestion that ended the trouble. When I got into a violent altercation with another classmate, who then wanted to flirt with me, she warned me about men who liked quarrelsome women.

But it was the unexpected bits of wisdom that came out in our conversations about quilts, men, and faith that sank deep into my soul. Stories about how my grandparents lived, actions they took that revealed their character, hope, and beliefs. My grandmother, who fed dozens of field hands every morning because she had eggs, bacon, butter, and flour, and most of them did not. Stories about quilting bees and community, people who were kind and helpful, who welcomed strangers and went out into the night because someone needed them.

It is within these tales that the sharpest wisdom is embedded.

If we listen.

To face an army of 400 angry warriors...so to speak

What do you do with the courage and knowledge God has given you? 

Anyone who’s spent more than a few moments with me knows that my favorite woman in the Bible is Abigail. This appreciation began in 1986, at a writer’s conference in Seattle. I was there as a teacher, but I wound up being taught far more than I shared.

One of the seminars I attended was led by John R. Kohlenberger III, one of the preeminent Bible scholars in this country. To be honest, I don’t remember the subject of the session. What I remember was John’s description of Abigail as one of the only women in Scripture whose brains are mentioned before her beauty (1 Samuel 25:3).

Now, to a writer—and a woman who’s never been known for her looks—this constituted pure music. I couldn’t wait to read more about a woman who was as wise as she was lovely.

One of the things I like about Abigail is her ability to face whatever crossed her path with wisdom and heart. She never set out to be the wife of a king; she expected to spend her life with Nabal. But when her world was threatened, she knew what she had to do. She wisely considered her choices and followed her heart and mind up a rocky mountain path, trusting David's wisdom and appealing to his judgment. She used her mind to appeal to his. Her intelligence and faith gave her the courage to face an army of 400 angry warriors.

Most of us never have to face down an army, thankfully. But more than a few of us have had to climb some pretty rocky paths. Life isn’t always what we expected or planned for. The past year for me has been particularly difficult; definitely nothing I had expected. It began when I moved in with my mother because her health was failing. After her death, I didn’t even have a chance to grieve before my life went through one upheaval after another.

But I kept climbing, trusting that any journey I make with God is going to be well worth the effort. I continue to do so. I now stand at the beginning of yet another journey, one I know will be filled with new people and new blessings. And I dearly hope God will lead me to share all that I’ve learned with the people who need it most.

Like Abigail, we can all use the mind and heart God gave us to change our world.