WIDOWED: It ends with an "E"

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

John 13:34-35

The phone rings at 6PM Sunday evening, the display flashing the number of the medical examiner's office.  The two older kids have gone home with their partners, Allen has taken over the computer in my office, and I am sitting in the living room, sipping from a cup of tea and trying not to look at Ron's empty chair. I pick up the phone.

"Hello."

"This is Jenny," says the voice on the line. "From last night." I inhale sharply, the images and sounds replaying in my brain. EMT's. Flashing lights. Ambulance. Police. Hurried phone calls. Panicked offspring. 

"I wanted to tell you that we've ruled your husband's death as natural causes, due to cardiac arrest. He simply fell asleep and his heart stopped. He would have felt no pain, had no warning."

I let my breath out slowly. "Thank you," I say. "It helps us to know that."

There is a pause on the other end of the line. I take a sip of my tepid tea. My relationship with this young woman will be brief, based only upon this heart rending loss. I know nothing of her faith, but I say it anyway. "It helps us to know that Ron fell asleep and, when he woke up, he saw God."

Jenny does not respond. I wait, years of practice in hospital ER's and trauma

wards teaching me patience. "You know," she says quietly, "this job is pretty sad. I see a lot of the same thing, day after day. And the families I meet sort of blend together. But," and I think I hear her voice crack a bit, "I'm going to remember your family."

I manage a weak laugh. "Well, we're pretty memorable," I say, thinking of how my tall children--most over 6 feet--towered over the petite young lady who came to examine Ron.

"You are." I can imagine a smile. "Because your family showed me something I seldom see in this job. Love."

Love. It hasn't always been easy. There have been too many surgeries, too many hospitalizations, too many chunks of Ron torn away from us in the last 19 years. Things that should have been his responsibilities fell onto me. And the last two years, when Ron needed help with everything, were particularly grueling. To the outside world, it would appear that Ron's later life held little worth.

But the world would be wrong. Every time he was hospitalized, we were given a chance to demonstrate our faith. Not a surgery or an infection or a treatment happened without prayers for doctors and nurses, without hymns and Bible verses filling his room. Without cards from my students, holiday decorations, visits from our children, and as much love as we could pack into a ten by ten foot space. 

Matthew 28:19-20 tells us to " go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." As a new believer at the tender age of fourteen, I wondered if I would have the courage to enter the mission field and go to foreign and unknown places.

There are few places more foreign, unknown, terrifying, and unpredictable than hospitals. Yet those became our mission fields. 

"When I was examining your husband," Jenny continues, "I could see he had been well cared for. He was clean, no bruises, no sores. It was evident to me that he'd had excellent care. But even more than that was what I heard from you and your children in the kitchen." She sighs. "Too often I hear people arguing when someone dies, blaming each other, fighting over possessions. But you and your children were telling stories about your husband, crying some and laughing some, sharing good memories." Her voice gentles. "He was someone I wish I had known."

I am touched by her words and I choose my own carefully. "We know Ron is in

Heaven," I say. "We have faith that his struggle is over and he is with God."

"It was nice to see that faith," she says. "And I just wanted to tell you that, well, your husband and your family shared something special with me. Gave me some things to think about."

Jenny and I talk a few more minutes. She says I should feel free to call her if I have any questions about Ron's death. I know I will not. Jenny's entrance into our lives has been brief, but I cannot help but believe she is richer for it.

As I hang up the phone, I see in my mind flashes of the many hospital rooms Ron has inhabited. We planted seeds there. It had not been our choice, but we went into the world we had been thrust into and preached the gospel the best way we could (Mark 16:15).

I get up from my seat and head to the kitchen to warm my tea and as I do, I pause at the chair where Ron so recently sat, the chair where he died. I give it a pat and smile.

Even at the end of his life, Ron was an example to other people.

YOU GET WHAT YOU GET. (And you don't get upset.)

²⁰ Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, ²¹ being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.

Romans 4:20-21

 

“I want a purple sticker,” said Astrid.

“There are no purple ones left,” said my daughter, teacher of this precocious two-year-old. ““There are green and yellow ones.”

Astrid stamped her foot. “But I want a purple one!”

‘Well,” said my patient daughter, “we don’t always get what we want. Sometimes we get what we get and we don’t get upset.”

While this philosophy is reinforced often in the pre-school classroom my daughter teaches, Astrid—and her age mates—don’t always agree. Astrid folded her arms across her chest and got upset. Very upset. So upset she was sent to the time-out chair.

Are we ever like Astrid? I know I am. I tell God all about the wonderful plans I have for my life, if only He would get on board with them. He tells me that He’s got better plans for me. In fact, the words from Jeremiah 29:11-13 hang on a plaque in my living room. But honestly, when I’m trying to juggle three jobs and find a way to pay for ever-increasing medical costs, I want to stamp my foot like Astrid and get my own way.

And I’ll just bet I’m not alone. The Bible is chockablock of people who didn’t wait for God’s plan to come to fruition but rushed ahead of Him. Sarah, wife of Abraham whose faith in God’s promises of many descendants never wavered, didn’t side with her husband. She took matters into her own hands by giving Hagar, her maid, to Abraham as a concubine. The result? Broken relationships and exile.

In Genesis 27:8-17, Rebekah conspired to have her husband Isaac bless Jacob when the birthright should have gone to Esau, the first born. The result was more broken relationships and exile. Rebekah never saw her beloved son Jacob again. And in Genesis 30:1, Rachel, wife of the banished Jacob, became discouraged at her lack of ability to conceive and gave her husband her maid servant as concubine. Guess what? Broken relationships and exile.

Yet the vast majority of Americans say they trust God and depend on Him for help. Writing for  The New York Times in 2010, Tara Parker-Pope reported on two surveys conducted to determine how people’s health was affected by their belief in God and His role in their lives. Data obtained from The Baylor Religion Institute Survey and the Work, Stress, Health Survey indicated that 82% of the respondents regularly depended on God for help and 71% believed the events in their lives were influenced by God.

So if everybody’s doing it, why can’t we?

The answer is surprisingly simple and has to do with something we all want: control. Just like it’s really hard for me to be the passenger in the car—even though I hate to drive—it’s difficult to totally give control of our lives over to a Higher Power, even if we claim we are. We might say we trust God and depend on Him-and 82% of us do—but when it comes right down to it, we’re a bit scared to put it to the test. We’d like a safety net under that ledge, please, and perhaps the firemen standing by.

But what if we REALLY trusted God? Not just said so on Sunday and went our own way on Monday. What if we whole-heartedly chose to believe in Hebrews 11:1 and put our faith in our pockets each day along with our cell phones? What if, instead of stamping our feet and crossing our arms and being upset we didn’t get a purple sticker, we decided to be grown-ups about it?

On Sunday, Pastor Aaron talked to us about having real conversations—not grumbles—with God. After all, He can take it. These are his five suggestions:

1.      Stop pretending. While 82% of Americans say they believe God plays an active role in their lives, the same percentage are likely to hold onto their disappointments and challenges lest anyone think they’re not trusting God. Let’s let God search our hearts (Psalm 139:23-24) and let’s share the truth about how we feel.

2.      Confess when you’re wrong. We all act stupid sometimes and we all want our own way. God already knows whatever you’re going to confess, be it to Him or another person.

3.      Tell God how you feel. It’s okay to be disappointed you didn’t get the job or win the lottery. David was honest with God about his disappointments! Once you get rid of the negative emotions, God can fill it with positive things.

4.      Tell God you love Him. That doesn’t mean you always understand where He leads you. But reminding yourself of God’s attributes will remind you of why you should trust Him.

5.      Tell God you’re puzzled. Life doesn’t always look good. Sometimes a fish looks like a gorilla. Sometimes we can’t tell what the heck it looks like. But we can trust that God has made it for us. So it’s got to be awesome.

And back to Astrid, who spent the allotted minutes in time-out and decided that a yellow sticker would be okay. So my daughter affixed a yellow sticker to Astrid’s chart and the child went off to play. The next day, when sticker time came around, my daughter held out the choices to Astrid. The little girl studied them for a moment, then put her arms around her teacher and said, “You choose. I trust you, Miss Bonnie.”

Good for you, Astrid! I’m trying to learn to trust God that way, too, no matter what color sticker He gives me.

 

E IS FOR...

 “And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, ’Do you see ’anything?’ And he looked up and said, ’I see men, but they look like trees, walking.’ Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. And he sent him to his home, saying, ’Do not even enter the village’” (Mark 8:22-26).

With my good eye, I saw my daughter sitting next to me in the office chair. She’d been watching over me for the last 24 hours, trying to keep me comfortable despite the inefficient air-conditioning in our hotel room and my need to lie flat on my back, my right eye bandaged from yesterday’s cornea transplant. She looked a little tired, worn out from a long night at a less than stellar hotel and an early appointment with the surgeon.

“It’ll be fine,” I assured her. “I’ll be able to see again.”

The vision in my right eye had declined gradually over the last four years. Diagnosed with Keratoconus when I was nineteen, I had struggled with vision issues for over forty years. Hard contact lenses, thick glasses, hybrid lenses, eye drops, eye strain, two previous transplants, and massive headaches were my companions. Keratoconus, a rare disease of the cornea that makes it disintegrate, causes doubled images, ghosting, blurs, and inaccurate vision. My left eye was only mildly affected with the disease. The vision was, on a good day, 20/60. But the vision in my right eye was another story. In the last eighteen months, the vision had decreased to what ophthalmologists call “fingers only”; if someone stood 10 feet away I could usually tell how many fingers they held up.

My vision made it difficult for me to see to drive and to teach. I also cared for my disabled husband and autistic son. Eye strain was constant, causing fatigue. Light sensitivity limited time I could spend on the computer, awkward since student assignments were submitted on line. And in the last few months, the constant ache in the eye had spread down to my shoulder and I had developed a sensation of “ground glass” as the cornea disintegrated.

My daughter, almost always cheerful, joked, “Well, we survived the hotel room. This will be a piece of cake. Let’s just take a moment and pray about it.”

Only the Book of Mark records the healing of the man born blind at Bethsaida. The fact that Jesus used his saliva to heal the man born blind is interesting to commentators because saliva was considered a healing agent in Biblical times.  But as I waited for the doctor to come and remove the bandage from my eye, more important to me was the fact that that event was a miracle in two parts. The man saw imperfectly in verse 24, but then his vision cleared with another touch from Jesus. I had worn glasses or contacts all my life. Without them, the world was a blur, “men walking as trees.” I was anxious to see again, but I knew that proper healing would take time. The doctor had told me that it would be three months before I could expect any real improvement in my vision. And, even then, I would need to wear corrective lenses.

But, like the man from Bethsaida, I was willing to be healed. And I knew that God saw me as an individual with my own needs. Friends who had laser surgery to improve their vision or had cataracts removed told me the improvement was immediate. But I could not compare their experiences with mine: I now had a cornea that had once belonged to someone else.

Would any of the vision in my right eye be restored? During the last evening, as I tried to lie motionless in a very uncomfortable bed, I had attempted to open my eye lid a bit and peek out of the bandages. Did I see light? Or was it only my desire to see light? Either way, sighted or not, I needed to know that God could bring good out of any circumstance, even blindness in my right eye.

My daughter and I prayed.

Dr. Raber entered the office a few moments later, crisp and efficient even at this early hour. He shook hands with both my daughter and me. “The surgery went very well,” he assured us. “Now let’s see what’s happening.” Slowly, he peeled the dressing away from my eye.

What a great moment this would be in a Hollywood movie, I thought. The bandages would be taken off the heroine’s eyes and she would instantly see, cured of her blindness. She would recognize those around her, not be at all bothered by the bright lights she had never seen, and say something trite such as, “How wonderful to see you all!”

But this was not Hollywood.

Once my eye was free from its shield and the coverings, Dr. Raber reached for the prescription drops. Expertly, he put them into my eyes one at a time and handed me a tissue to dab away excess. He examined the eye through a slit lamp and declared that it “looked good.”

“Okay,” said the doctor. “This is it.” He readied the light that projected the Snellen eye chart onto the wall and focused the first letter. “Can you see anything?” he asked gently.

I saw something very blurry. I blinked a few times and the object came more into focus.  “E,” I said. “I can see the E. It’s blurry, but I can tell it’s the E.”

To my left, my daughter gave a thumbs-up sign.

“Excellent,” said Dr. Raber. “It will take time, but it looks like it’s healing well.” He told me to make an appointment for the following week, wear protective eye gear at all times, follow his instructions for using all the many eye drops, and continue lying on my back as much as possible for the next two days.

“You saw the E!” said my daughter when we were in the car and on our way home. I nodded. It had been a beautiful sight to see. Even now, my wraparound sunglasses protecting the still fragile cornea and the air bubbles that held it in place, I could see blurs of scenery passing by.

Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

Perfect vision is hard to come by in our world. We may see physically, but not see spiritually. We may have many problems caused by our own unbelief. A few verses before Jesus healed the blind man, He had said to His disciples, “Do you have eyes and yet not see what I am saying? (Mark 8:18).” Often, the disciples did not understand what Jesus was teaching them.

And what about me? Many times in the last 40 years, I have not been able to depend on what I see. I spend time petting my son’s cat only to discover it is a gray jacket and stop at a mailbox because I thought an elderly man had fallen. And just recently I remarked to my daughter, “Why are all those people standing at the side of the road?” and she said calmly, “Mom, those are trees.”

Sometimes, I see men walking as trees. But today, I saw the Big E.

And I remembered that “E” is also the fifth letter in the Hebrew alphabet, pronounced Hei, and sometimes used to signify one of the names of God.

E is for Excellent.

E is for Exalt.

E is for Emmanuel.

GOD IS GOOD. ALL THE TIME.

Back when our husbands worked at the same plant, I knew her better. We'd get together occasionally; I thought her to be loud and a bit brassy. She wasn't someone I would really choose to be friends with.

God can bring change to people, though. She and her husband met Lord Jesus one day. They joined a faith community and found that God--rather than money--could provide for their every need. And it wasn't always easy. Jack lost a couple of jobs and they weren't able to go through with an adoption for a child they wanted. They moved down South, hit hard times, moved back North. Their daughter had a difficult marriage and divorced. They took on the task of raising grandchildren.

Still, she wasn't someone I would choose to be friends with. Except for both being teachers, we had little in common. She and Jack would still stop by the house occasionally, usually at inopportune moments--like the time the ceiling in the hallway had fallen down!--and we'd go back to our own lives. After Ron had the car accident, Cheryl sent a card and a meal. We visited their church once or twice. But ours was a fragile relationship; we were pleasant to each other, nothing more.

God, however, can use all sorts of people in our lives. We never know where encouragement or inspiration may come from. We never know who is watching us. If we are godly people, we need to remember who it is we represent.

I was on my way through Walmart yesterday, picking up a few items for a family party. I wasn't feeling particularly well. The heat had kicked up my asthma and I'd developed a cough. But we only manage one cook-out a summer, so I was still gathering supplies and determinedly plowing ahead. That's when I saw Cheryl outside the restrooms and while I was tempted to just nod and move on, I stopped. And talked.

It's been a year since I talked to Cheryl for more than a second or two. We quickly filled each other in. She'd lost her job a few months ago and was unemployed, trying to find another job. She'd had an interview at a Christian school, but she said the salary offered was pitiable. She was still looking. I told her I was going to a new school as a Title 1 teacher, not thrilled that it was further away then I'd hoped. I wanted to teach four more years, I said, until I could get full retirement.

She sighed. "God is good. All the time."

I nodded. People were always saying that. After Ron's car accident, I heard it ad nauseum.

"I really mean it" she said. "I wanted to stay three more years and get full retirement. Now I can't find a job and we're probably going to have to move. But I still believe it. God is good. All the time. Even when it seems like He's NOT being good, He is. All the time."

Her words gave me pause. I told her about my eye problems and the likelihood of a cornea transplant. I told her I was worried about driving into the city again. I told her I had left the school placement up to God, and this is what He had given me.

"God is good," she said again. "All the time. If He sent you there, He has a reason. Just trust Him." We exchanged a few more words until her grandchildren and my husband expressed some impatience and we moved on.

But Cheryl's words stayed with me. God is good. All the time. Even when it doesn't seem as if He is good. I wondered if one of the reasons I was having trouble finishing writing my latest novel in progress--Doodle Cat--was because the main character, a woman minister, seemed to be struggling with her own lot in life. God knew that while I tried to handle it all  with grace, I often struggled with my load. Why couldn't I, for example, have a husband who was healthy and worked? Why couldn't I have a school 5 minutes away? Why did I have to have a stupid eye disease?

Because God is good. All the time. I may not know why the things in my life have transpired as they have, but I have to believe in the goodness of God. My plans are not His. His are better.

So even as I struggle to reconcile all  the pieces of  my life and try valiantly to write faith into my woman preacher character, I need to let Cheryl's word echo in my heart.

God is good. All the time. I do not have to understand it. I just have to believe it.

Doodle Cat: Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE: “We Need a Kitten"

I was clipping my way around the side of the church, nearing the cornerstone with “1942” etched into it, when I saw the white box. I could have sworn it had not been there an hour before, when I had first arrived on the premises and gathered my weeding tools from the shed in the rear parking lot. I was using a pair of old, hand-held clippers; they reminded me of the ones my mother always used when she trimmed the flower beds outside our house. Frankly, there was an electric clipper with the appropriate power cord in the shed. It was the one that most of the lawn volunteers used because it made the chore of trimming easier. But I had not been after fast and easy today. I needed hard, physical work that would let me expel some of my pent-up frustrations. The old yellow shears were doing their work and blisters were forming on my right hand.

I stood for a moment to ease the crick that had developed in my back. Now that I had reached the golden age of forty, aches and pains were beginning to develop in various parts of my body. I feared that rheumatoid arthritis, an inheritance from my mother, would be my fate and I was ready to fight it tooth and nail, the way I fought against most things that had, in the last ten years, brought chaos to my neat and controlled world. I was rolling my shoulders and eyeing up the stretch of flower beds before me when I spotted the white box, sitting squarely on the front steps of the building. It reminded me of school box lunches and, from where I stood, did not appear to have any kind of label or writing.

Curious. But not enough to make me leave off my chore; I’d get to the box when I reached the end of the flower bed. I knelt back on the old bathroom rug I was using to protect my knees from the ground and hefted the clippers. Most of the lawn care volunteers for our expansive church grounds were men. I was happy to let them  operate the tractors and the mowers, careening over the fields like boys on summer break, but I liked to week. It kicked up my allergies and embedded dirt under my nails, but I liked seeing the brightly colored blooms in their neat and tidy beds on my way to work each day. I imagined that visitors and passers-by might see the flowers as a symbol of welcome and come join our ever-dwindling congregation.

Plus, being on my knees gave me the added advantage of time to pray.

I was being pretty successful at ignoring the curious box when I heard a sound. Slight, soft. I looked up and towards the box and saw it jump. Not a huge, gravity-defying leap, just a small, short little hop, like the Mexican jumping beans I remembered my brother having when we were kids. There were little, tiny animals in the beans, Marcus had told me. They lived in the beans for their entire short and jumpy lives. It was an early disillusion in my big brother to find out that the beans actually held the larvae of a small moth who jumped to try and release itself.

I hadn't seen any jumping beans lately, at least not the Mexican kind. Probably, I thought, some humanitarian group that protects moths had them outlawed. If only we gave as much thought to humans.

Back to the box. As I stood and watched, it moved again. Just a little. More a shake than a jump, I realized. And then, a faint, faint sound—like drying—was emitted from the box.

My mother senses kicked in. While it had never happened around here, infants had been left on the steps of churches; churches were regarded as safe havens for the drop-off of unharmed but unwanted infants. It would have to be a very small baby to be tucked into such a small box, I thought, but possible. I dropped the clippers to the bath mat, straightened from my crouch, and hurried towards the box. Motherhood is as much instinct as biology; I began to offer soothing words to the jumping and crying box as I neared it.

“Shhh. It’s okay. Everything’s okay. I’m coming, sweetie.” My own child was far past the days when he required soothing platitudes—okay, maybe no one was ever really past that stage—but the words came naturally.

The box had been left right at the front door, on the top step. It jumped a few more times as I approached it and I feared it might drop off the step. I hurried a bit, continuing my litany of comfort. The box stopped moving and crying and I felt my own heart skip a beat. A torrent of thoughts ran through my mind, most in the form of bold headlines: Baby Found on Local Church Steps; Dead Baby Found on Local Church Steps; Officials Looking into Death of Baby Found on Church Steps. I reached the box in a nanosecond—as Jeffy would say—and opened the lid, a difficult feat since I was still wearing gardening gloves.

And there, nestled inside on a pink blanket, its little nose equally pink and its little  mouth opened in protest at such shabby treatment, was a gray kitten. There was a plastic pink collar around her neck and fastened to it—unbelievably—was a note. The kitten mewled when she saw me and reached out a gray paw, touching my gloved hand. I pulled the note from her collar, peeled off my gloves, and unfolded the square of notebook paper.

Please take care of this kitten, the note said. You need her.

Using both hands, I picked up the mewling bundle. She snuggled into my arms and began purring. I stroked her kitten-soft fur and thought it through. The whole situation seemed to be both ludicrous and miraculous. Bringing the kitten to my cheek, I felt the corners of my mouth turn up into a smile. Her purring became louder. I felt like purring myself.

I had no idea where the box, the kitten, and the note had come from, but I did know that the unnamed writer was right:

We did need a kitten.