Category Archives: Learning from our past

Mom never worried.

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My mother was a yes-mom who loved trying new things and taking risks. She especially loved children and thought every idea that came from the mind of a child was a good one. As a matter of fact, many of her adult ideas were childlike. For example, she used to have us collect rocks in a bucket then climb in the car. She’d drive us around Wilmette with the windows down telling us to throw rocks at stop signs to see if we could hit the middle and make a “ping”. To her it was good clean fun. Today she’d probably be behind bars. But being raised by a mom who never worried about the what-ifs made for a delightful childhood.

Actually, mom never worried about a thing. She used to tell us, “I have nothing to worry about; your father does enough for both of us.” That was accurate.

As we move farther into the new year, my mind wants to wander forward through the months, wondering what will happen. All of us look back to last year at this time when 2009 was stretched out in front of us and shake our heads remembering how little we knew. Here we are at another January, and after looking back, today we worry forward.

Worrying comes naturally to most of us. Last January we had no concerns about pancreatic cancer, yet it came. So our brains follow that with, “You’d better worry about that and lots of other things for this year,” as if fretting about the unknown could possibly help.

As Nate’s illness progressed, I worried about quite a few things. What if he fell again? What if he broke a bone and landed in the hospital? What if we couldn’t get him home again? What if I got the meds mixed up? What if he got out the front door and walked away without us knowing? What if he cried out in pain as he died or left us with an expression of agony on his face?

What if, what if, what if. Not one of these things happened. In essence, I worried for nothing. That’s one reason why worry isn’t good. A second and more important reason is that stressing about the future betrays a lack of trust in God to care for it. Scripture tells us worrying never helps a thing. (Luke 12:25) And more serious than that, it chokes out God’s efforts to guide us while we’re trying to be our own guides. (Matthew 13:22)

All of us have enough to do living one day at a time. We don’t need to mentally travel into the future putting down roots of worry there, wasting time and energy on unfruitful thinking while eroding our relationship with the Lord. He’s watching and making a continual assessment of what we need. Better than that, he’s the only one able to satisfy those needs.

I believe God is constantly preparing to take care of our basic needs ahead of our arrival to the future. We saw it happen again and again with Nate’s cancer and related needs, sometimes in dramatic ways. I’m ashamed to say I was often surprised when the needs were met, considering it a rare gift each time rather than the fulfillment of what God said he was going to do all along. Didn’t I believe him? Apparently not.

I hope to do better on that score in 2010, expecting my basic needs to be met through God’s provision, then responding with gratitude. That is precisely what Jesus was describing when he told us to “have the faith of a little child.” Children have faith that their parents will care for them and don’t wrestle with the what ifs. When parents do meet their needs, security and trust are built into their lives and they can transfer that kind of faith-in-parents to faith-in-God without too much trouble. We could take a lesson.

Maybe that’s what mom found so attractive in kids, their complete abandon of worry. As she spent more and more time with them, she became like them in that way. Once again, we could take a lesson.

There’s only one thing to be worried about: buckets of rocks in the back seat of a car.

“For all these things [food, clothing, shelter, goods, possessions] the nations of the world eagerly seek; but your Father knows that you need these things. [You won’t be] forgotten before God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear; you are…  valuable.” (Luke 12:30, 6b-7)

Will it be a happy new year?

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On January 1, 2009, if someone had told me Nate wouldn’t be with us on January 1, 2010 because cancer would kill him before then, I wouldn’t have believed it.

In February of 2009, if someone had told me Linnea and Adam would be delivering a new baby in February of 2010, I wouldn’t have believed it.

In April of 2009, if someone had told me Katy and Hans would be delivering twins in April of 2010, I wouldn’t have believed it.

What might we not know now, on the last day of 2009, that will take place by the last day of 2010? What will happen by then that today we “wouldn’t believe”?

Happy New Year 2

This morning I spent time thinking about God’s omniscience. He knows it all, what will happen tonight, tomorrow and everything between now and next New Year’s Eve. God is superior to us in assessing every situation and in knowing what to do… ahead of time. He knows the specific negatives coming to each of us in 2010, whether by his wise design, by our own sin, or by Satan’s wicked plans. He also knows the positives coming, such as helpful employment, weddings, answers to prayer, pay raises, improved relationships, healings, new babies. Because God is all-knowing, I’ve often asked him to prepare me for whatever is ahead. I believe he did a great job answering that prayer ahead of Nate’s cancer diagnosis. Learning about it was a forceful blow, but when we looked back, we saw how he’d prepared us.

I’m still praying the same prayer, that God will prepare me (and others) for whatever is coming. He lets us in on some things well ahead of time, those things we can put on a calendar like graduations, house closings, birthdays, job interviews. But by Christmas of 2010, every calendar square will have been full of something. Only God knows those somethings as we stand at the beginning of the next 365 days.

I’ve chosen a verse to hang as a banner over the year 2010. It’s God’s invitation to prayer found in the Old Testament in Jeremiah 33:3. “Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” (Jeremiah 33:3)

That sounds pretty good to me and is about as close to being prepared for the future as I can be. There isn’t anyone more able to get me ready than God himself, and with this verse coaxing me to talk to him, even to ask questions, and with his promise to answer me, I’ll be calling to him a great deal.

The year stretches in front of us all, and I’m excited to find out what those “great and mighty things” are, the ones God has assured me he will tell me. By the last day of 2010, I have confidence I’ll be able to look back and say, “I was prepared, and it was God who did it.”

“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, says the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” (Revelation 1:8)

Different (by Nelson)

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Last night Mom wrote her blog entry about our outing to Marshall Field’s.  I woke up thinking about the dinner and the night’s similarities and differences to years past. Some things were the same, some were different. She talked about things that were the same…the lights, the giant tree, zillions of shoppers scrambling to buy and rush home with their treasures, waiting to be seated, and the cold wind in the city.  And then the things that were different.  Marshall Field’s is now Macy’s, even though I couldn’t see much change other than better food.

All of us kids have slowly turned from children into adults…not much interest in having the “Snow Fairy” come by our table and sprinkle silver glitter and wave her magic wand around.  I thought, “It’s hard to get a job these days. I bet that girl doesn’t get more than minimum wage to dress up and prance around like that.  I wonder if she gets high before she comes to work and that’s why she smiles so much.  Then again, maybe she is happy to make the kids happy.”  I hope it’s the latter. We see things through different eyes.  But the biggest difference is obviously Papa’s absence.  No matter how great the night was in every respect, he still wasn’t there at the table.  It tainted the event, “bad.”

This morning, as I walked Jack the dog down to the beach through the snow, I thought about what makes something “good” and something we try to repeat.  “Oh, that was such an awesome time!  Let’s do it again next year.”  Or “bad,” “I don’t know, it just sort of fell flat.  It wasn’t the same.”  What’s the difference?  How do we feel? Who was there?  The weather?  Good conversation? Or did I get that “good Christmas feeling?”  Why are some things “good” and some things “bad?”

I suppose it has to do with pain and comfort.  When I am comfortable and things are the way I expected them to be, I call it good.  When things are painful, uncomfortable, and not what I had in mind, I call it bad.  It is surely painful to sit at a table trying to enjoy a meal with our family when the head of our family is not there.  Grief is present instead of his laugh.  No one can deny that.  It hangs heavy in the room.  To deny it would be like a child whistling in the dark to keep from being scared to death.

This is a forced change.  Now things are different.  No two ways about it.  Different.  It’s different for Papa.  Different for us.  Is it good or is it bad?  I don’t know.  Probably bad for us but good for him.  I believe it depends entirely on my expectations.  If I think, “We will go eat downtown under the tree and it will be just like last year and all the years before that,” then I will probably call it “bad.”  On the other hand, if I think, “Papa is with the Lord now and we will miss him dearly, but we are going through all of this together.  I am going to enjoy these moments while they last,” then the night can be “good” no matter how it turns out.

Today, Mom and I went to Carmax to look at some four wheel drive vehicles so she can replace her van with something safer and more reliable.  We drove into Indiana and did a bit of last minute shopping and mailing before some test drives.  The whole day was filled with great conversation and quality time together.  It turned out to be a really “good” day.   I had no idea it was coming, and because I had no expectation about it being this or that, it was great.

To me, differences are a constant in my life and in my walk with the Lord.  The more I cling to “sameness,” the more handsClayfrustrated, useless, and stagnant I will be.  The more willing and open I can be to His changes in my life, the better.  I have made plenty of mistakes so far that have resulted in self-inflicted pain.  Other things happen and I don’t know why.  I can choose how I respond to the Lord’s dealings with me no matter what happens because I know He works all things together for good.  It’s possible that the only thing “bad” is my perspective.  I usually only grow through pain.

“So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.” (Jeremiah 18:3-4)