What a week, and it is only Tuesday. I have squeezed a lot of life in over the last few days. Instead of focusing on holiday festivities, I have been focusing on helping my mom.
Some people run marathons, some swim for gold, others dance with the stars, but my mom, stood up today and walked. I cheered, I clapped and I felt like my team was winning. I am totally into watching my mom go through physical therapy and occupational therapy. Each step, each moment of progress is thrilling for me. I know this may not sound like much to some people, but for me, I get excited seeing my mom get out of her bed, fighting through pain to get back what she once had; independence.
Today I sat in a chair next to her bed while the physical therapist and occupational therapist worked with my mom. They said, “Jayne, try to get up and get to the bathroom. Use this walker.”
I watched my mom twist and turn her body, wrestling to maneuver herself to sit up on the edge of the bed. It was tempting to reach my hand out and give her a little push, but instead I stayed on the side lines and cheered her on. I realized my mom needs to be able to do this on her own. Reaching out and pushing her would actually keep her from achieving her goal. She grunted, she struggled, but finally she was at the edge of her bed. Then I watched my mom struggle to stand. Again, I wanted to give her a little shove but instead, I watched….and she did it all on her own. She was proud. She giggled. Last Tuesday I sat with my mom in the emergency room as she agonized in pain from a broken hip and wrists. Today, I celebrated because she finally got her body up on her own.
Somehow I feel like there is a parenting lesson in this. How many times have I done things for my kids when they didn’t need it? How many times did I lift them up when they could get up on their own? Did I take away their victory of achievement? I do remember dressing my kids when they were perfectly capable, tying their shoes, wiping their….um…..um. Now I am guilty of cleaning up after them. Oh how they need this victory. They need to know they can do it themselves, oh yes they can. I love my mom. She continues to teach me great lessons to pass down to the next generation.
It can be difficult leaving a job, a church, a friendship, or a marriage. How do you finish well, especially if you feel you have been wronged?
Often how we finish is more of a truth-teller of our character than anything else. It’s so easy to want revenge. It’s easy to let our anger, our flesh and our desire for justice take control. We often see examples of anger gone wild with employees going postal. Anger in itself is not wrong but anger can lead us to do wrong things.
Lately, I have been thinking about the idea of finishing well. I have some friends that live about a mile away, and just the other night, one of their neighbors murdered his wife and committed suicide, leaving their 4 year old daughter behind. This little girl discovered the bodies when she came home from preschool. Yeah…that did not finish well.
There have been a handful of times when Stephen and I have had to walk away from jobs, churches and relationships. I am thankful this is not one of those times. But a wise friend told us during one of these times, you can’t teach a lesson when you are walking out the door. And, you can’t control what others say and do after you leave.
What is the best finish? The Bible speaks of peace. God calls us to be peacemakers.
Romans 12:17-19 spells it out. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay, says the Lord.”
So, to finish well means we have done everything on our side to live at peace. Maybe that means we get a counselor involved or a 3rd party to help mediate, maybe its simply a loving confrontation and sometimes it means ending a destructive relationship.
Second, we need to do right in the eyes of everyone. This means we don’t always walk away with everything we feel we deserve.
Last, to end well means we trust God. We leave judgment, wrath and revenge up to the Lord. We recognize that in this life, we may not see the justice we want, but we trust that God will take care of it.
A woman went down in our female clan, but she is getting back up!
I joked with my mom while she laid in her hospital bed and said, “at least you have one good leg left.” Then we had a good laugh, but only because she was beginning to feel better.
Two days ago, my mom took a bad fall. She was at church and was walking down some steps and tripped on the last step. She fell to the ground and could not get up. Someone called 911 and had her taken to the hospital. She was in a lot of pain and could not move her leg. I got a call from the hospital (never a pleasant call), letting me know that my mom had been taken to the emergency room and she wanted me to come be with her. Again, not a phone call that makes you feel good. Upon arrival, she cried when she saw me and I realized my mom was in a lot of pain. My mom never cries. Of course my heart sank at the sight of my mom laying in a hospital bed with a lot of pain. I could tell she was scared and shaken.
She ended up with a broken hip and two broken wrists. Seriously, if my mom is going to do something, she is going to do it well, whether that be making cookies, gardening, decorating, cooking and apparently falling. Uggg! She went into surgery and they fixed her hip, casted one of her wrists, and put her other wrist in a brace. We are down to one fully functioning limb.
My mom has been very healthy, walks daily, eats well, and is not on any medication. Pretty good for a 79 year old. Seeing her in this hospital bed is not something any of us are use to. My mom hates going to the doctor, and is that person who only goes if it gets really bad.
I called my brother and sisters and my aunt and put them all on yellow alert. My mom is so funny. She did not want me to call them at first. She thought they might get worried. Duhhh…. I told her that if they were the ones at the hospital with her, I would fully expect a call. My mom does not like being the center of attention.
The accident scared me. I saw her in such pain and she is not necessarily a spring chicken. My mom means the world to me and I just hate seeing her like this. My kids were equally concerned. My daughter, Isabel, has a very tender heart and took a day off from school to be with her in the hospital. She wrote:
I get scared and worried when my mom is at the hospital with my Grandma. I feel like something went wrong at the hospital with my Grandma and that is why my mom is there. That’s why I did not go to school today. I would be too worried about my Grandma, I would be distracted and only think about my Grandma.
My mom had her first physical therapy session on Wednesday. It was pretty painful for her and she realized she wasn’t going home as soon as she had hoped. I think she believed in a couple of days she would be walking out the hospital. In fact, she was pretty discouraged at the news of having to go into a nursing facility for rehabilitation for a couple of weeks. Of course she was thinking nursing home, dementia, diapers, you know, all the rough stuff of a nursing home. We were assured that she would be staying in a rehabilitation wing. It’s short term and about recovery, getting better, going home. I told her they would be working her butt off, making her strong, buffing her up, going bionic so she could be stronger, more balanced and better than before. I think she is up for the challenge now. Her spirit got knocked down, her body got beat up, but she is getting back up and before you know it Grandma Jayne, my mom, will be back in full Grandma action in a flash.
Pray for my mom. Pray for a quick recovery. I want her to be home for Christmas!
I was going to try and delay this post, but I just can’t. The emotions are on my sleeve, so I figured I needed to get it all out. My post is a bit raw, so forgive me.
Today, I got to ride along with Gary who runs our church food ministry. We went to pick up 10,000 pounds of food from the annual Walk and Knock which was his largest pickup all year. It was a big day for Gary and his volunteers so I was quite honored to witness the event. This is Gary.
and these are boxes of food being loaded into our trucks…
and then the boxes were unloaded….
Gary has been in the “food ministry business” for eight years now and has seen a lot of stuff. Last month alone he served 2,700 people a meal. Every Friday he hands out groceries to 250 to 350 families. He runs a soup kitchen four days a week. Gary cares for “the least of these.”
He has been through it all too. A drug addict for 20 years, married for 25 years and still married, homeless twice, he has 5 children, and 6 foster children, he is now saved from addiction, a born again Christian, he now runs a full time volunteer minister to the hungry, the homeless, the fatherless, the broken, the empty, the drug addicted, alcoholics, elderly, multiple-personalities, and crazy loonytunes.
But what gets Gary the very most is the children. 60 plus children show up on Friday nights with their parents. I saw Gary’s heart break and his eyes swell up with tears. He told me how it pains him to see children who live in impoverished conditions right here in America. “Often they are growing up with drug addicted parents and know nothing different,” he said. “They think this is normal and it sucks.”
After we picked up the 10,000 pounds of food we drove back to the church and were greeted by a group of guys for unloading. After all the crates were unloaded we went to have lunch at the soup kitchen.
Today, about 60 people showed up and we ate a hot bowl of chicken and wild rice soup. Perfect on a day that was a frigid 20 degrees. I watched one man lift his hand to his mouth with his spoon of soup and his hand trembled. I kept thinking….how does the soup stay on the spoon?
We prayed with a bunch of people that live under the bridge. One of their friends had died of a heroin overdose which had shaken them all up. Gary cried. He told me later that this man was his friend. He said, “I kept hoping for ‘George’. I kept thinking he would get off the streets.” He cried as he told me of his love for this homeless man.
After lunch we went out for another food pick up in Portland. Eggnog and Potato Salad in very large quantities. On the way, Gary told me about the homeless. He told me about Mark, who lived under the bridge. He said Mark went through a difficult divorce and lost everything. In the process he did not fight for much and ended up having to pay a lot of child support. Mark loved his son so much he didn’t complain about the child support, but could not afford to pay his rent and child support so he ended up being homeless. He would go to work everyday, live under the bridge at night, and paid his child support. Gary said not everyone who lives under the bridge are drug addicts.
He then told me about another guy who lived under the bridge. He said this guy lost his wife to cancer. It was a slow and painful death and this guy watched the love of his life wither away. In the process he started to drink. He lost his job, his church kicked him out for drinking, and he ended up homeless. “Its easy to judge these people. It’s easy to think they are second class, but they all have a story. They deserve God’s love.”
I asked Gary what he does when he sees people with signs on the streets. “Do you give them money?” He said, “No way, I don’t want to support their death.” I asked him what he meant and he told me most of these guys are supporting a heroin addiction. I asked, “What do you do then?”
Gary said, “I feed them.”
I realized today that there is a hero in our midst. His name is Gary.
Dear Girls,
I had a flashback the other day. I was walking into Costco when I heard the sound of a screaming child. It was the sound of a full on “Costco Meltdown”. I looked in the direction of the sound and saw this mother quickly unloading her basket of items into her car while her child sat in a car seat screaming as if the world was ending. I smiled because I was thankful it was not me.
But…it reminded me of days gone by. I can’t count the times your father and I had to deal with one of you having a “Costco Meltdown”. It was always during the busiest times too. We would be in the middle of the store when one of you would decide to go ballistic. It was as if your alternate evil personality appeared out of your little bodies causing you to throw yourself down on the floor kicking and screaming. I was always surprised your head didn’t spin completely around. People would walk by, look at you, then look at me with compassion. I remember one time carrying one of you ( you know who you are), out of the store while you yelled and screamed at the top of your lungs. I let you sit in the car while I stood outside and waited for you to calm down. Yes, that is the “Costco Meltdown”. These memories will forever be engraved in my mind and heart.
So, I have always wanted to know just why you had these head spinning, life altering melt downs in Costco? Were there monsters in the store that only young children can see? Was it the hotdogs? Was this just your early acting careers being developed? Were you testing my ability to withhold a public spanking? Did you enjoy the stares of people wondering if I abused you? No matter what the reason… you got me, yes, I admit to you now, you won during these meltdowns. Sure, I handled it well. I calmly walked you out to the car, we had the chat and then I would discipline you, but if you noticed, I stopped taking you to Costco with me. You scared me.
You girls seemed to pick Costco for your meltdowns but there are children that have their meltdowns in other stores like Walmart and Target. You will hear them screaming from the other side of the store. It’s a high pitched, blood curdling sound. Maybe there are monsters in these stores too. All I know is its the sound that never ends. It goes on and on my friends.
Well, those years have past. Maybe someday you will be with your children and experience a Costco Meltdown from the other end. Wouldn’t that be something?
Love,
Mom
PS. Grace, you never had the head spinning meltdown in Costco. No, you just giggled at your sisters while their heads were spinning. Ummm….that didn’t go over so well with them. I liked how you always went under the radar and seemed to be the one who could poke at your sisters and never get caught. You sneaky little thing!
“Lets do lunch sometime.”
Have you heard this before? It’s an easy thing to say but its an empty statement without follow through. Its almost like saying, “I enjoyed our visit but I am not committing to anything further at this time, except to tell you that the idea of spending time together in the future is a possibility…..if I have the time.”
If you really want to spend more time with someone, why not say, “Its been so good seeing you, how about lunch next week? When our you available?”
This is commitment and speaks truth into relationship.
Do people trust your word? One thing I love about my husband is he speaks truth. People can trust him. When he says he will do something, it will get done. He will go out of his way to follow through with a promise and a commitment. If he says, “lets do lunch”, he will call you and book it. He is not a fluffy talker, and if you ask him for an opinion, he will be honest.
Our world is full of smooth talkers; people who tell you what you want to hear rather than what is truth. Even in the church you will find conniving, dishonest behavior from people who serve their own interests.
Eventually your words and deeds will catch up with you. Maybe its a lie, maybe its your business practices, but once you prove yourself untrustworthy or unethical, its difficult to recover in relationships.
Here are a couple of verses to think about.
Just say a simple, ‘Yes I will,’ or ‘No, I won’t.’ Anything beyond this is a from the evil one. (Matthew 5:37 New Living Translation)
A truthful witness does not deceive, but a false witness pours out lies. (Proverbs 14:5)
Drama, drama, drama. Our lives are filled with drama this week, oh that Julia. Let me tell you…..
The girl is in her first theatre production in high school! Its the best kind of drama. She is one of two freshman who have a speaking role in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. She plays a pirate and Curio, who is typically played by a male but she doesn’t care. I think she will make a beautiful man, and her costumes are awesome. She has worked hard and rehearsed daily for the last couple of months. Thursday is her first of six performances, and we are excited.
Julia started her acting career at a young age. She played a munchkin in preschool when her preschool did a rendition of The Wizard of Oz. Her performance as a munchkin took my breath away. I watched my 4 year old daze off with boredom then pick her nose. It wasn’t just a pick and flick either. The girl went digging. I believe I laughed and cried that night, needless to say it took my breath away. Julia has come a long way since that play, and she left her nose picking behind. (To her credit she gave me permission to post this story).
Anyway, we are proud parents this week and excited to see our girl make her big debut. Woot woot, go Julia.
On Mondays I write open letters to my 3 girls hopefully to benefit them. I hope you enjoy.
Christmas 2003- Girls in the pajamas Grandma made.
Dear Girls,
Ok, I found your Christmas lists. Thanks for leaving them pinned up all over the house for me. I wasn’t sure how I was going to find out what you all wanted. I mean, you all are so quiet about your wish lists (NOT).
I have a few questions though. Uhhh Grace… a Hybrid car?
Since you are 12, were you planning on parking the car for four years?
I give you credit for wanting a car that is fuel efficient though. Nice try. I am glad you were joking…. I also liked the air freshener idea for your room. You are a creative girl.
Girls, girls, girls. It use to be you wanted things like dolls, Dora stuff, Polly pockets, and Easy- bake ovens. Now that you are older the price tag on items that you want has gone way up. Its iPods, stereos, computers, hybrid cars and cameras. Santa and I are going to have to sell kidneys to keep up.
Actually, I know you girls would be fine without the big stuff. I am confident you would survive without electronics. Did you know advertisers spend $17 billion a year to advertise straight to you? They try to convince you that you need things you really DON’T need. They are very sneaky and have studied kids like you to know exactly how to convince you that you need stuff.
I even struggle this time of year with all the advertisements. When I go out shopping I find myself wanting to purchase things I don’t need. I see the displays, I find the sales and I convince myself that these deals are too good to pass up. I start wanting things I can’t afford and start dreaming of things out of my price range.
Gifts are so much fun but its easy to loose your head this time of year. It’s easy to focus on those things we don’t have rather than the things we do have. I love it when you make stuff. Julia, your scarfs and blankets are so beautiful, and Grace and Isabel, I love your art. Great gifts certainly don’t have to cost much money. I am also glad you appreciate those special PJ’s that Grandma Jayne makes. Those are the gifts that come from the heart.
Love Mom
My daughter, Julia, shared her thoughts on our Thanksgiving. She is 14 and an amazing kid. I hope you enjoy.
Thanksgiving from a 14 year old perspective.
Today, we spent the morning at our church, setting up for a big community Thanksgiving meal for 500 people. My mom made some new best friends, Kevin the ghost whisperer, he believed that he was supposed to help spirits move on.
Then there was Jimmy the story teller, he told my mom about the time he was in Iceland and met Rosalind Carter.
Also, Henry, who thought he met my mom at a car auction, he didn’t.
Oh and the woman who heard voices.
I listened to church staff tell me about a homeless man named Crazy Larry who thought that all the rats on the streets talked to each other and told each other that “ Larry’s cool!”. I cant help but wonder sometimes, why do I go to this church? I mean, if I wanted to, I could get a ride to another church.
The answer is plain and simple, I love these crazy people. I mean I just spent two hours rolling plastic utensils into paper napkins for them!
I didn’t do it because my parents told me to, no, I did it because these people are lovable. Some people would disagree, but I grew up being told to love the poor, and so I do. They have so much gratitude, it surprises me how much they are thankful for. Some people fear the poor. Why? I will never know. I have brought friends to my church who are freaked out and won’t even walk around without me.
Working for the poor is a challenge both physically and emotionally. It tears at your heart and makes you think about what you have, or have done, and why it’s them and not you. It makes you question whether or not you are selfish or deserving of what you have. But serving the poor gives me a sense of purpose, when I’m serving the poor, I know that it’s right.
This Thanksgiving, I hope people remember the poor. Instead of thinking of the easy answer and saying you are thankful for your family, or your house, think of the things you are privileged to have that others don’t. I know that this Thanksgiving I am thankful for a heated home, and a table to eat my Thanksgiving meal on.
Do you ever find yourself in a place where you are not content with your life? You might have all your needs met, maybe everything is going well, but for some reason you are restless and dissatisfied.
On my daughters 5th birthday we had a lovely party for her. Butterfly cake, friends, presents, games, it had all the elements of a great day but for some reason she was not happy. 
Isn’t it true that we can act like this sometimes? We have all these wonderful blessings in life, but for one reason or another, it doesn’t seem to be good enough.
1 Thessalonians 5:16 says:
Be joyful always.
Pray continually
Give thanks in all circumstances for this is Gods will for you in Christ Jesus.
How do we do this, especially during the tough times? How do we live in the continual feast of thankfulness?
Some of the most gracious people I have met in life are those who have experienced the most pain. I think of people like Angie Smith and Molly Piper, both are beautiful women who have lost children. Though they have anguished over their situation, they choose to live in a joy that can only come from Heaven. I think of others like Danny Oertli who lost his wife at a young age. He was left to be a single dad with a baby and a toddler. Sad? By all means, but there still was a joy and a graciousness in Danny during some very dark times.
Several things kill our ability to live as gracious people:
Doubt – We doubt the maker of the world and we lack trust.
Selfishness – We want things our way, we want our kids a certain way, we want our husbands a certain way, on and on.
Critical Spirit – This is the person who is bitter and angry and negative. It’s the pain in the neck person who has an enlarged ego birthed out of pride. They are self-absorbed and are convinced they deserve better than what they have.
Impatience – Your day-timer and God’s day-timer don’t line up.
Then there is worldliness, apathy, anger, on and on.
There is a story about a man in Budapest. He goes to his spiritual leader and says, “Life is unbearable. There are nine of us living in one room. What can I do?” The spiritual leader answers, “Take your goat into the room with you.” But the man was not fond of the idea. The spiritual leader insists he take the goat into the house.
A week later the man comes to the spiritual leader more distraught than before. “We can’t stand it! The goat is filthy and smelly.”
The spiritual leader says, “ Go home and let the goat out now and come back in a week.”
A week later the man comes out and exclaims how wonderful life is. “No more smell, the home is clean, life is beautiful, and we enjoy every minute now that the goat is gone.”
I admit that it is easier to live in thankfulness when I am on the mountaintop rather than in the valley. Once in awhile I need a goat to move into my home to remind me of my blessings. This year I have met children with nothing who live in a continual feast of gratitude. How do they do this? They certainly see a world with spiritual eyes rather than human eyes. They get it, they live in hope, and they see a Big God.
The thankful heart has a continual feast.
