Category Archives: Life’s disappointments

What’s new?

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Half way through last Sunday’s sermon, a skirmish in one of the pews got everyone’s attention and stopped the pastor’s preaching.

“Someone call 911!” a man said, as he bent over the person having trouble. Several from the congregation jumped to help, and a uniformed security man entered the sanctuary speaking into his shoulder radio, “Yes, the Free Church on Douglas.”

I was sitting with my former next-door-neighbor, who’d had personal experience with 911 and had lost her husband to quick cancer shortly after we lost Nate. We both clutched.

The elderly gentleman struggling during the service was given a wheelchair ride to the parking lot where an emergency vehicle awaited, its flashing lights pushing their way through our stained glass windows. The service resumed, but Becky and I were lost in thought.

How quickly our minds race back to trauma. A soldier, newly home from a war, flinches when he hears what sounds like gunfire. An earthquake victim feels like running when a truck passes and the ground vibrates.

Trauma imprints our brains with extra oomph when it’s been life-threatening. A 911 call, death, gunfire, an earthquake – each stimulates us to act on fearful impulse. Later, when similar circumstances pop up, we react the same.

Some people organize their entire lives around an upsetting event, either by reliving it over and over or by making sure it doesn’t ever happen again. In both cases the incident dominates thought life and keeps someone stuck. Opportunities are lost, and a sad spirit dominates every day.

Is there a way to distance ourselves from past trauma when something like a 911 call yanks us back?

Yes, and God gives us the key: to set our minds on him.

If we fill our heads with his supremacy and sufficiency, other thoughts must leave. It’s easy to get mentally lost in our troubles, and immediately after Nate died, I felt that way, continually reliving his rapid decline and death, camping there for months. But calling out to God for comfort and peace slowly filled my mind with something other than Nate, and it was the Lord.

If today I was asked to hold someone’s hand as they died, even a stranger, deep sadness would cover me like a heavy blanket. But I wouldn’t stay under it for long, because I’ve become acquainted with a new mindset God has put in my head, thoughts dotted with hope and future plans because he is in them. Although I’ll never forget the details of our family trauma, I don’t live inside of it anymore.

God is our Creator, and he’s continually making all things new. When we believe that and watch for how he’s doing it in us, we won’t have to fear being pulled backwards by a 911 call but can quickly move forward into the fresh optimism he’s created.

“The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create.” (Isaiah 65:17,18)

Fathers Day, Part 1 of 2

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Today’s faithful fathers are fewer then ever before in our country’s history, and many children suffer intensely without one. Dedicated dads have a tough job, having to buck cultural trends by not just sticking with their role but pouring steady effort into their children every day. The energy and time for that has to be taken from someplace else in their lives, and those who commit and follow through deserve to be honored not just annually but once a month, or weekly, or better yet every day.

Although I shared in my brother-in-law’s Fathers Day celebration today, only one of my kids could attend (Lars), and I worried about the other 6, all in faraway places and all without a dad. Birgitta and I talked it through yesterday, and Linnea posted a beautiful blog-tribute to her father. (www.LinneaCurington.com) But how many of them have suffered pain today?

I remember the great joy I felt in watching Nate become a father for the first time in 1973. Baby Nelson gave him that title, and although Nate hadn’t been around babies (ever), the love he felt for his little guy was immediate and powerful. To me, as a young mama, watching him study the new baby on his lap was fulfilling and even sexy. (Go figure.)

He was committed to parenting for the long haul and was always mystified when another father would walk out on his children. “I can’t understand it,” he’d say, shaking his head. “That guy had a part in bringing them into this world. How could he leave them?” It was the farthest thing from his intention.

I know that scenario was heavy on his mind when he learned he would soon die. It was unthinkable that cancer or anything else would force him to leave his children, a picture too closely related to those fathers he vilified. He was silent on the issue while he was sick, but as he talked to the seven offspring he loved so intensely, his face confirmed the ache in his heart, knowing he would soon go.

Nate needn’t have worried, though. The Lord had immediate plans to step in for him. In Scripture God refers to himself as a Father, offering to treat believers as his own children. And Jesus refers to him as a Heavenly Father to those who accept him.

All of us need the guidance and protection of a wise father, and God is not just a substitute for an earthly father but a superior one. Although he places human fathers over children and uses them as the channel of his wisdom to, and care of them, in the absence of that important man, he steps in and does it himself.

I’m sure Nate’s children all missed him greatly today. I’m not sure how many of them suffered, but I do know God the Father was and is available to soothe their grief and fill their emptiness.

“His name is the Lord—rejoice in his presence! Father to the fatherless, this is God.” (Psalm 68:4,5)

What to wear?

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As a young mother, I worked hard to make sure my children were presentable when they went to school, church or anywhere else. The toddlers got their high white shoes polished every Saturday night, and I ironed all the little girl dresses and little boy shirts.

Outfits on school picture-taking days were especially important, and I tried to coordinate clothing colors with the eventual wall display of 8 x 10’s in mind.

Unfortunately I frequently forgot to look at the school calendar. One year picture day slipped past me completely, and the kids wore a haphazard array of shabby clothes. Klaus, then in his shark phase, had been given a white souvenir t-shirt from Florida with a picture of Jaws on the front and a splattering of fake blood on it. The shirt was a grungy white with a stretched neck, and completely unacceptable for picture day. But I didn’t catch it, and that’s what he wore.

I don’t think Klaus did it for any specific reason other than that he loved his shark shirt. When the picture proofs came back, I took one look and was disappointed, but Klaus saw only his great-looking hair. How could I then say, “I can’t believe you wore that awful shirt!”

This kind of thing is what drives moms crazy. But looking now at Klaus in his blood stained picture, I have to laugh. From today’s perspective, it’s no big deal. Actually, it’s a colorful story.

Buried in there somewhere is an encouraging word for today’s young mommies, not just on school picture day but any day. We mothers can get so caught up in our efforts to make our families look good that we’re swept into a parenting panic when they don’t.

The Bible reminds us that only one thing will matter in 100 years, and it’ll have nothing to do with our clothes. The important issue will be where we are, not how we’re dressed. Will we be spending the umpteen years of eternity with or without the Lord?

In the mean time, we shouldn’t let ourselves get stressed over things that eventually won’t matter. But if we’re into fashion and enjoy thinking about what our children will be “putting on” each day, rather than concentrating on them looking good, we can focus on their character. They put that “on” each day, too. Are they kind, patient, giving?

In the end, after all the polished shoes, ironed dresses and even the shark shirts are no more, character-clothes will still look good.

“Put on then… compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.” (Colossians 3:12)