That Time of Year

It’s that time of year again. Malls are full of back-to-school shoppers. TV ads blare back-to-school sales. (I’m reminded of my favorite ad from years gone by: a woman waltzing through a store gathering school supplies for her kids and belting out, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year . . .” ) A daughter-in-law prepares, with a full heart, to send both her kids off to school for the first time.  And mom Facebook friends have been posting since early August: “It should be time for them to go back to school by now, right?  Right?”

Then there are the conversations. “We just took our first child off to college . . .”  “I’m so proud of her . . . but how do you do this?”  It’s not the going: The excitement and trepidation and drama of getting ready. Lists checked off. Bedding and supplies gathered.  Goodbyes to friends. The iconic packing of the car. The trip down there, with lots of silence in the backseat. The butterflies in the stomach (all stomachs in the car, that is).  The trepidations about The Roommate. And then the excitement: New places. New friends. New vistas. Courageous smiles. No, it’s not the going.

It’s the coming home. Without them. Just you and him (if you are fortunate enough to have him). When we took our first son to college, I had just—ironically—finished the lesson on Hannah for our Mom to Mom curriculum.  Hannah’s words had been our verse when we dedicated this boy so many years ago: “For this child I prayed . . .”  (Read, if you have the courage, the rest in 1 Samuel 1:27-28.) Through the driving rainstorm between here and Williamsburg, Virginia, God gently reminded me: “Did you mean it, Linda?  You know, the part about “as long as he lives, he will be lent to the Lord”? Do you think you can trust me with him across state lines?”

Little did I know that was just the beginning.  There were two more taking-kids-to-college trips.  Then three long (and joyful) aisles to walk down.  Deployments and ministry careers and a mission trip that became a life across an ocean.  Countless exciting trips to and many long flights from.  And there’s Hannah again:  Each year she made a special little robe and went to visit her beloved Samuel at the temple where she had committed him to God’s service.  “Then they would go home.”  (1 Samuel 2:20b)  It still gives me chills every time I read it.

I’ve just done it again. Except in reverse. All our kids were here this summer for varying and overlapping visits. Sheer joy. Nana Heaven. Ecstasy, really. We read books together (Nana’s fav) and played games and went to the beach and the pool and ate lots of pizza and ice cream and had cousin sleepovers and celebrated a BIG birthday for the much-beloved Farfar (the grandkids’ name for Woody—it means father’s father in Swedish).  

Then they went home.  Home to New Hampshire and Virginia—and Ireland.  All of them.  Home to busy, God-directed (thank you every single minute, Jesus), meaningful lives which give us joy. Great joy. But still, they went home.

So you can imagine how these words hit me from the August 23 reading in Jesus Calling:

“Entrust your loved ones to me; release them into My protective care.  They are much safer with Me than in your clinging hands.  If you let a loved one become an idol in your heart, you endanger that one—as well as yourself . . .When you release your loved ones to Me, you are free to cling to My hand. . . . My Presence will go with them wherever they go, and I will give them rest.” 

Oh yes, and there’s more:

“This same Presence stays with you, as you relax and place your trust in ME.  Watch to see what I will do.”

I’m watching.        

No Matter What

Tell the truth—no matter what.  Worship God—no matter what.  Two things, in their very simplest form, I learned from Elisabeth Elliot.

Most of you probably know by now that Elisabeth Elliot, one of the 20^th century’s most influential Christian women, died this week (June 15) at the age of 88 after a 10-year struggle with Alzheimer’s.  In her living and in her dying, she left an indelible, eternal print on the lives of more women—and men—than we will ever know.

I was one of them. I knew her many years ago as my father’s friend. Betty, as he called her, and my dad shared the same publisher (then called Harper and Rowe), and they became friends.  She was in our home twice, I believe—once when she was doing a series of meetings at our church on Cape Cod; and once when she spoke at a writer’s conference at Wheaton College, where my dad was a professor and I was a freshman.

I will never forget the impact she made on my young life. I see her standing in our church singing all the verses of the great old hymns of the faith. “How Firm a Foundation” was one of her favorites. She told us that she particularly clung to one verse during the years she lived with her young daughter among the Aucas: “The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose/ I will not, I will not, desert to its foes/ That soul though all hell should endeavor to shake/ I will never—no never—no, never forsake.”  I think of her every time I sing that song (often, actually).  And I know all the verses.

I remember conversations with my parents about how frustrated Betty became with attempts to explain God that were based on either ignorance or the desire to tame Him, or make Him fit our image (rather than us His), or almost provide PR for Him.  There are so many things in life which we just don’t know, or don’t—and maybe won’t ever—understand, she would comment.  “But God doesn’t owe us an explanation.  He calls on us simply to bow before Him and worship Him no matter what life’s circumstances may be.”  The first part of that quote I know to be her very words (my mother quoted them often); the second part may be my paraphrase but captures her truth.

I remember her speaking in my Creative Writing class at Wheaton. When asked a  number of questions about the role of the Christian writer, the theme of her answers was always, in essence, “Tell the truth as you see it.  Your job is not to preach, but rather to write truthfully about life as you see it.  Of course as a Christian, you will have a certain perspective.  But simply write what you see.”  (my paraphrase—college was a long time ago!)

In my two favorite Elliot books (published long ago—not sure they’re even still in print), she did exactly that.  She told the truth as she saw it.  One, Who Shall Ascend, is the biography of a great man, R. Kenneth Strachan, who founded the Latin American Mission.  His life and his death. his doubts and his faith—all are recorded with a clear-eyed honesty that profoundly affected my young perspective on both ministry and “Christian death.”  The other, No Graven Image, (her only novel), tells the story of Margaret Sparhawk, a missionary among the Quichua in Ecuador who sounds a lot like the author herself.  Her struggles with doubt and faith and ministry and the “whys” of God’s ways are recorded with brutal honesty.  The hero of both books?  God. Not Ken Strachan or Margaret Sparhawk or missionary work, but God.

Authenticity. Trust, which leads to worship.  That’s what I remember about the Elisabeth Elliot I so admired and respected as a young girl.  She cast a very long shadow.   

I’ve thought of her often in recent years, as I’ve occasionally read the blog [http://www.elisabethelliot.org/ramblings.html ] that her devoted husband, Lars Gren, has kept up about her.  How painfully ironic that such a brilliant woman should stage her “last battle” with the loss of her remarkable mind.  But then, “God doesn’t owe us an explanation.”  And in some space deep in her soul, I like to think she held fast to her own words (and God’s): “Remember, you are loved, and underneath are the everlasting arms.”   Remember.

Faith of our Mothers and Grandmothers

Today’s my mother’s birthday.  She would have been 92.  She left us quietly from a hospice room one sunny December day in Ft. Myers, Florida, nearly 7 ½ years ago.   She was a deep believer, and I know one day I will see her again. So why am I still crying?

Well, for starters:  She was, next to my husband, my best friend. Being my mother, she knew me in a way no one else could.  Mothers are really the only ones on the planet who know us through and through, know us from the very beginning—and love us anyway!

She was also a great listener. She felt my sorrows along with me—maybe even more deeply than I did.  You know that old saying: “This hurts me more than it does you.”  I never believed it as a kid.  It took becoming a mother to “get it.” Now, as mother and grandmother, I get it. Big time!

And she was funny.  And spunky.  And smart.  Not highly educated—but very smart. Once a hugely successful realtor, she retired “cold turkey” when she moved to live near us.  She channeled all that energy and drive and love of people into her grandchildren, and into the many women she mentored in Mom to Mom and at Women’s Bible Study at our church.

She was also my biggest prayer partner.   She was the first one I called with every prayer request, large or small.  Or even trivial.  I would blab my heart out, and she would listen and empathize.  And pray.  When I hung up, I felt so much better—and I bet she felt a whole lot worse!  (Remember the part about mothers feeling their children’s pain?)

Recently I attended the funeral of a wonderful woman of God who reminded me a little of my mother.  Her daughter, the mother of three daughters herself, read a beautiful piece she had written for her daughters about their grandmother—and the two generations of women before her. It began: “You stand on the shoulders of four.”

I was immediately taken back to memories of not only my mother, but my two grandmothers. They were very different. Grandma was a farm lady from a tiny town in western Minnesota.  The other, my mother’s mother and my Nana, was the wife of a jeweler/postal carrier/watch repairman in Springfield, Illinois. They had very different lives and they had very different personalities.

But they had one thing in common.  Each of them came to faith through evangelistic crusades in their towns. Each of them got out of their seats and went forward alone, eventually leading their husband and families into Bible-preaching, Christ-centered churches in which to raise their children. Each of them became strong women of faith and faithful prayer warriors.

My dad loved to tell the story of how when his mother (Grandma) went forward, her husband (Grandpa) said, “Anna, you sit down.  You’re a good church woman.  You don’t need to go up there.” But Anna did not sit down. How thankful I am for that—I, along with her six other grandchildren, now having raised our own children in the path of her prayers. 

Her prayers. And Nana’s. And my mom’s and dad’s prayers as well. 

It’s those prayers that live on. What did E. M. Bounds say? “Prayers are deathless.  They outlive the lives of those who utter them.”  It’s those prayers that help me this morning to turn my tears into gratitude, my mourning into dancing. 

But I still wish we had phone lines—or at least internet connections—with Heaven.    

Happy Mother's Day -- No Matter What!

Mother’s Day always launches me on a roller coaster of emotions.  Memories sweep over me like wind in my face—and there’s lots of speed and power in that little roller coaster car.

There were the many painful Mother’s Days of infertility. Then—eventually—the ecstatic joy of celebrating Mother’s Day holding a new (or relatively new) baby in my arms. The babies grew up and “helped” Woody serve me breakfast in bed.  A great diet plan, as they were mostly interested in eating whatever was on my tray. The helpful eaters grew into teens, and then, just when they were becoming truly wonderful, went off to college and beyond that into their own lives. Poignant years of missing having them at home became celebrations of joy for the Godly mothers my daughter and daughter-in-laws were becoming.  Mother’s Day = A day of joy and gratitude.

Another burst of wind in my face: memories of my mother.  She was, next to my husband, my best friend. When she died  7 ½ years ago, she left a huge hole in my heart that no one else can fill.  I had the great blessing of having her for far more years than many of my friends have had their mothers.  And I had the privilege of having her—one very special, Godly, praying mother—as my mother.  I am grateful.  But I still wish I could send her a note.  Or better yet, give her a call.  Or, best of all, a quick visit.

But this Mother’s Day I’m feeling extra emotions on behalf of many mothers I know.  Mothers who have recently buried children.  Is there anything more heart-wrenching?  Mothers with new babies or “too many toddlers—or teens!” or life circumstances that leave them so depleted they barely know it’s Mother’s Day.  Isn’t every day Mother’s Day?  That is, “Mothers on Duty 24/7” Day?  Women who long to be mothers, for whom Mother’s Day can be excruciating.  Women who mourn the loss of their mothers—or even of the mother they never had but always wished for.

The roller coaster.  The swirling wind in my face.  That’s why I’m so glad we have assurance from God that we can celebrate mothers no matter what.  No matter what mother you had—or didn’t.  No matter what mother you are—or aren’t.  God promises to be like a Mother to us. We’re all familiar with the many wonderful references to God loving us with a perfect Fatherly love.  But in a few cases He also compares His love to that of mothers.

Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!  (Isaiah 49:15)

As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you . . . (Isaiah 66:13)

But I have calmed and quieted myself, I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content. (Psalm 131:2)

 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem . . . how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings . . .”   (Jesus weeping over His people and longing to gather them with maternal love and protection—Matthew 23:37)

God assures us that, whatever else we may not have, we have HIM.  Because of this powerful, sustaining love of our God, I feel confident in wishing you a joyful Mother’s Day—no matter what!

A Wall, a Window, a Door...and Whooping Joy

I’ve been thinking about walls and windows and doors lately. 

No, we’re not building a house.  I’ve seen a number of people “hit the wall” recently, in various ways (and I seem to do it myself all too often).  We’ve also had some precious times with grandchildren this winter . . . I love driving up to the house in New Hampshire and seeing eager little faces watching out the window for us to come. And oh yes: we’re getting ready for a trip to Ireland soon to see our family there.  I just can’t wait to walk through the door into their house and be engulfed by hugs and smiles and tangles of bodies in the joy of happy reunion.

Also, it’s Easter week as I write this.  In the past 10 days or so, there have been too many funerals: A much-too-young husband and father cruelly snatched from his family by a car crash on slippery roads.  A much-too-young mother slipping away after a long courageous battle with cancer.  Our daughter-in-law’s grandfather.

I keep thinking of author Peter Marshall’s unforgettable proclamation that because of Easter, death is no longer a wall, but a door. 

And I am, of course, reading Walter Wangerin’s Reliving the Passion again.  He writes of the paradox of the window of heaven being opened to us even as the heavens were, for a few horrific moments, closed against Jesus on the cross, becoming a door into heaven for us: “a doorway made out of nails and wood, a crossing, a cross” (p. 134).

Wangerin also writes of joy, of part of the purpose of Lent being that we prepare for joy.  Against the backdrop of all these funerals, against the backdrop of my own life, amidst a world of walls, his words ring truer than ever this year:

“The difference between shallow happiness and a deep, sustaining joy is sorrow.  Happiness lives where sorrow is not.  When sorrow arrives, happiness dies.  It can’t stand pain.  Joy, on the other hand, rises from sorrow and therefore can withstand all grief.  Joy, by the grace of God, is the transfiguring of suffering into endurance and of endurance into character, and of character into hope—and the hope that has become our joy does not (as happiness must for those who depend on it) disappoint us.”   (p. 31)

This is the joy we celebrate at Easter.  A joy birthed out of the Hope and Triumph of our resurrected Lord.  A durable, stubborn joy for all seasons.  Not only the endless winter we’ve had (and still have!) in the Northeast.  But a joy that sustains us even in our grief. Wangerin, again:

“Grief, while you are grieving, lasts forever.  But under God, forever is a day.  Weeping, darling Magdalene, may last the night.  But joy cometh with the sunrise—and then your mourning shall be dancing, and gladness shall be the robe around you. Wait.  Wait.”  (p. 138)

“Whooping joy,” Wangerin called it, describing the exhilaration he felt as a young child when his pastor father read the climax of the Easter story.  Because of the window and the door, because of the triumph of the Resurrection,  I wish you “whooping joy” this Easter—and far beyond.