Funny, I thought I was done with this particular chapter - or group of chapters. We are back home in Maui, getting settled into our new place. But tonight, in the middle of the unpacking, we are packing once again.
You see, my mother died. Ironically, when I was noting the passing of one year since having a home with some security, my mother was passing from this world into the arms of her saviour. So, we are going back to the mainland tomorrow to celebrate her life with friends and family, then we'll return home here to our little island in the Pacific.
But I'm okay - at least as okay as one is in the face of losing a parent. In fact, my tears are equally balanced by a sense of joy and gratitude - not just for my mom, that she is without pain or worries any more, even though that would be enough to keep a smile on my face. I am blown away by the wisdom and tenderness and compassion of our Lord.
I spent a lot of time the past year crying out to God - and many mere mortals, as demonstrated in blogs - as to why we were going through what we were going through. And now it is so clear. He did it for me.
My mom and I have had some rough times in recent years, but this summer, they all seemed to fade away. I got to spend time with her. She was so tender and sympathetic with our plight, and genuinely thrilled for us when we returned a month ago. During our time in what we then viewed as our exile, I was able to complete a novel I had been writing for -literally - years. Mother read it, loved it, then kept bugging me about when it would be published and when was the sequel coming out!
I ask myself, would I have finished the book had we not been in that position? Likely not. Would we have spent that kind of time with her and the rest of our family had we not been forced to? Certainly not.
God is so good.
Mother was planning a cruise out here to Hawaii, but she had been becoming increasingly confused of late. I think that scared her and prevented her from making those plans firm. I praise God for sparing her the loss of her sharp mind. I praise Him further that my Mother's family has been spared the pain of watching their Matriarch slip slowly away, losing bits of herself as she faded.
So, I end this series of blogs with one blog more than I intended. Seems right. Because what I intend is never, ever better than what God designs.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Saturday, October 1, 2011
The Subjective Year
Technically, time is supposed to be an objective measure. It doesn't have an opinion or mood. It doesn't change with the weather. It can't change its tempo. Even though there are very smart people who invented leap years, minutes, and seconds to keep us calibrated, they do it at precise intervals - not at the whim of somebody whose name was drawn from a hat, for the honor of choosing when or how much to leap. Time just is.
Except...where our subjective interpretation is involved.
Take, for instance, a year. Is it twelve short months? Or is it fifty-two long weeks? Our granddaughter turned three earlier this year, and to have to wait another year before turning four is so impossibly long, she has to help it along in increments ("I am three-and-a-half!"). I, on the other hand, refuse to even acknowledge the passing of another year at warp speed. I am not another year older until it is the hour of my actual arrival into the world. A year left in college seems too much to handle for the twenty-one year old, while the eighteen-year-old who just began would give anything to have only that one year remaining. A young military wife spends the long year of her husband's deployment praying that the months will speed by. Tell that same young wife that she has only a year of life left due to the cancer spreading poison in her body and her fervent prayer is that the days will go so very slowly. Time is objective - until our perspective gives it value.
Our first year here on Maui was learning the rhythm of this island - and the time seemed quick, indeed. The next year dragged, as we lost any sense of rhythm in this or any place. A year ago today, we were moved out entirely from our lovely Ka'anapali condo. A year later, we have begun the process of unpacking in our new home, those inanimate objects which have personality to me, and have been in forced hibernation. It has been a year since we have slept in our own big bed. A year since we ate off our own dishes and sipped from our own glasses. A year since I have painted. A year since I have seen my existing art. A year since we have had a proper home office. It has been nearly a year since our own beloved dog has been with us. And now, one very long and difficult year later, it has all come back together again.
We could spend (waste) our time bemoaning the tough times of the past twelve months, but that would give short shrift to the work God was doing on us in that time. I, after all, want to pay close attention to the lessons He was teaching us in hope that we will NEVER have to be taught them again! So, I need to praise God for the year past - and that the year HAS passed. I need to trust in Him for the year ahead, know that I don't know what I don't know. Above all, I need to remember that time was an invention for man, and that Adam was the one who made it finite because of his choice for a fruity snack. In God's eyes, this is only a vapor, a momentary mist - a blink in eternity.
Amen.
Except...where our subjective interpretation is involved.
Take, for instance, a year. Is it twelve short months? Or is it fifty-two long weeks? Our granddaughter turned three earlier this year, and to have to wait another year before turning four is so impossibly long, she has to help it along in increments ("I am three-and-a-half!"). I, on the other hand, refuse to even acknowledge the passing of another year at warp speed. I am not another year older until it is the hour of my actual arrival into the world. A year left in college seems too much to handle for the twenty-one year old, while the eighteen-year-old who just began would give anything to have only that one year remaining. A young military wife spends the long year of her husband's deployment praying that the months will speed by. Tell that same young wife that she has only a year of life left due to the cancer spreading poison in her body and her fervent prayer is that the days will go so very slowly. Time is objective - until our perspective gives it value.
Our first year here on Maui was learning the rhythm of this island - and the time seemed quick, indeed. The next year dragged, as we lost any sense of rhythm in this or any place. A year ago today, we were moved out entirely from our lovely Ka'anapali condo. A year later, we have begun the process of unpacking in our new home, those inanimate objects which have personality to me, and have been in forced hibernation. It has been a year since we have slept in our own big bed. A year since we ate off our own dishes and sipped from our own glasses. A year since I have painted. A year since I have seen my existing art. A year since we have had a proper home office. It has been nearly a year since our own beloved dog has been with us. And now, one very long and difficult year later, it has all come back together again.
We could spend (waste) our time bemoaning the tough times of the past twelve months, but that would give short shrift to the work God was doing on us in that time. I, after all, want to pay close attention to the lessons He was teaching us in hope that we will NEVER have to be taught them again! So, I need to praise God for the year past - and that the year HAS passed. I need to trust in Him for the year ahead, know that I don't know what I don't know. Above all, I need to remember that time was an invention for man, and that Adam was the one who made it finite because of his choice for a fruity snack. In God's eyes, this is only a vapor, a momentary mist - a blink in eternity.
Amen.
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