Category Archives: Learning from our past

So Jealous

Posted on by

For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved babies. As a child I begged God to make my dolls come to life and fantasized about one day having a big family. So when I was five-years-old and learned Mom was going to have a real live baby, I was thrilled. Although I wasn’t allowed to name him, my parents told me he would be “my” baby brother, a dream come true.

Tommy and MargaretSometimes Mom let me feed him or hold him, but she never let him out of her sight. It didn’t take long to figure out he wasn’t really “mine”, and eventually I sensed he had become more important than I was. The camera clicked only in his direction, and when company came, it was all about the new baby.

Gradually, all the good parts of having a baby (like letting me own him) were eliminated, and the bad parts (like everyone ignoring me) increased. Feeling set aside, I became very jealous.

Jealousy is hideous. It produces intolerance, suspicion, and bitterness, but worst of all, it always grows. As little Tommy grew, so did my jealousy. By the time he was a pre-schooler, I teased him continually, which required steady reprimanding from both parents and filled our home with friction.

It wasn’t until my friends became more important than pestering a little brother that my jealousy slowly subsided. I took an honest look at young Tom and saw he actually had a few good points. And by the time I went off to college, I missed him a great deal. When he eventually approached me with questions about dating, I was honored.

In recent years I’ve studied what God thinks of jealousy, and it’s not good. Although he has the right to be jealous over people because we all belong to him, the rest of us put ourselves on several very condemning lists when we’re jealous.

For starters, God equates jealousy with drunkenness, sexual immorality, wickedness and corruption. Later he adds idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, rage and discord as jealousy’s bedfellows. Another list cites slander, anger, quarreling and arrogance. None of that is company I want to keep.

Tom and MargToday Tom is absolutely dear to me, a champion brother for whom I have nothing but respect and gratitude. When I see how close I came to letting jealousy destroy this valuable relationship, I’m overwhelmed with God’s grace (and Tom’s) in letting me off the hook. And, no thanks to me, the Lord protected and preserved our sibling bond through that ugly storm.

Amazingly Tom has never retaliated for my jealous misbehavior… unless of course he’s got that scheduled for next week.

“Don’t participate in the darkness of wild parties or drunkenness, or in sexual promiscuity and immoral living, or in quarreling and… jealousy.” (Romans 13:13)

Loud Objections

Posted on by

Last night at about 3:30 am, I was woken up by ear-splitting screeching coming from the woods behind our cottage. In my stupor I couldn’t decide if it was human or not, but as it continued for nearly a minute, I determined it was an animal. I found myself thinking, “Hurry up! Finish it off!” Whatever it was, it was in agony.

OwlToday I’ve tried not to envision what might have been happening out there in the dark. Was it an owl having dinner at the expense of a rabbit?

Before sin existed, every person and animal got along. One day that’ll be true again. In the mean time, much of what happens in our fallen world is unpleasant. Some of it is downright gruesome, like last night’s attack. God could have protected that poor animal and provided food for its foe another way, but he didn’t.

Even though humans aren’t attacked as food, we sometimes (like the animal being attacked) come to a place of shrill screaming. Our lives ebb and flow, dipping in and out of negatives and positives. Some of it has to do with the laws of nature just as the attack in the woods did: hurricanes, viruses, drug addictions, floods. And cancer. The labels are different for each of us, but none of us is exempt from situations that make us want to scream.

Although we often rail against circumstances, what’s rumbling beneath our objections is probably anger at God. Wise counselors say, “Go ahead and yell at him. He can take it.”

But should he have to? If we’re trying to lead godly lives, our response to the negatives ought to be, “Yes, I hate this, but because of God, I know good stuff will come from it.”

Our family has seen the truth of that repeated again and again as a result of Nate’s cancer and now Mary’s. For one thing, all of us are less likely to take the others for granted or to assume, “Life will always be the way it is today.” We’ve become aware, in a poignant way, that everyone’s hold on life is fragile. A second positive is that we’re thanking God continually for the years before cancer. As a result of living in a world that includes trouble, these two good things are now ours.

None of us would appreciate happy times if there were no bad ones. So we learn to endure, experiencing agony and uttering a shrill scream now and then, but bearing up under the misery, because at the end of it, we know there are blessings that can’t be gained any other way

“We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance.” (Romans 5:3)

Flight of Time

Posted on by

One of my favorite singers, Eydie Gorme, sang a song so thought-provoking that several years ago I wrote out the lyrics and filed them in a manila folder under “Time”, which was the name of her song.

She sang, “Back when I was young and summer was forever, ‘good’ was your first name.”

Nate on Healey StreetFor most people, good times fill their youthful years, along with hope for a happy future. I love looking at this picture of Nate taken in early 1971, because seeing him there in our first apartment, dressed as he is, floods my mind with good-time-memories. He was finishing law school, and I was teaching first grade. Although we had very few possessions and minimal money, it was all good times.

And then the clock began moving, ticking even as we slept. Nate graduated, we moved, he became a lawyer, I became a stay-at-home mommy. Seven kids grew up, went to college, moved away, and made us proud. We had weddings and then grandchildren. And in what seemed like a quick minute, time ended, at least for Nate. And my time as his wife ended, too.

Eydie sang, “Time, when did you begin trading your tomorrows for worn out just-todays?”

In January of 2010, when I’d been a widow for three months, I remember sitting in a chair at twilight, my hands in my lap, doing absolutely nothing but listening to the tick-tock of a wall clock. Immobilized by sadness, I didn’t know what to do. It seemed appropriate to just listen to time slipping away. I was worn out by grief, and life had morphed into a series of “worn out just-todays.”

The same wall clock is still ticking today, but I’m feeling much better. Sitting in a chair doing nothing isn’t something I want anymore. I remember Mom saying, as a new widow, “Life will never be the same.” I’m sure that thought floats through the mind of every new widow or widower who has had a satisfying marriage. It dominated my thinking for a long time, too.

It’s true that life can never be the same after a mate dies, and I know I’ll never stop wondering what today, tomorrow or next year would have been like, had Nate been with us. But today, tomorrow and next year can be good again. It’ll just be in new ways.

Eydie sang, “Time, you rolled into years, years that left me walking, when you began to fly.”

WalkingTime is indeed flying, and I may be walking rather than flying, but sometimes a long walk can turn out to be a really good time.

“The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong… but time and chance happen to them all.” (Eccl. 9:11)

Praying and Praising with Mary

  1. I’m thankful my nausea is mild after today’s chemo. Also, my painful feeding tube will most likely be replaced next week.
  2. Pray for strength and energy to cope with non-stop commitments for a week or so.