Late afternoon shadows lengthened; mama robins sang soft lullabies to babies cradled in nests, and all the world began gentling for the night. Twilight was E’s favorite time of the day. It was almost time for his evening walk.
Every evening E’s walking partner arrived. The two of them ambled along the backroads, talking over the day’s events, admiring the paintings in the sky, or sometimes walking in comfortable silence. E felt most himself on these walks, most understood, most at home. When they arrived back at E’s home and his walking partner left him and walked alone off into the distance, E always felt a pang of regret as he watched him go.
One day the two friends walked farther than they ever had before. E realized they were on an unfamiliar and strangely beautiful country road. The breeze caressing his face smelled sweet, like something from a half-forgotten dream. He’d never seen such a vibrant sunset, and when it faded the stars appeared so close E impulsively reached his hand up to touch them.
His walking partner laughed.
“We’ve walked a long way this time, and it’s getting late. We’re closer to my home than we are to yours now. Do you want to come home with me?”
E had never wanted anything more.
The Bible puts it this way, “And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.” –Genesis 5:24
I think that’s one of the loveliest stories in the Bible. I’d love to go for a walk with God on our country road and just keep walking on to heaven, but not just yet.
I don’t know how close to heaven I am. We’d hoped to find my friend, NED, (No Evidence of Disease) in my recent PET scan, but he eluded us again. Morticia, my lymphoma lung tumor, is still active, although my radiation oncologist thinks she’s shrinking. He gives me a twenty percent chance still of living. On Thursday I’ll visit my chemotherapy oncologist and see if he thinks more chemo can possibly kill off stubborn Morticia, who has lived in my lung almost a year now, without paying a cent of rent, and has in general made a nuisance of herself.
Lest I be unfair to Morticia, she has given me some gifts too. One of them is an appreciation of every day I get to walk on this earth with God, my family, and my friends.
Despite how man has mishandled it, this earth is still incredibly lovely. We haven’t yet disfigured it beyond the point of being able to see in it the face of our Creator.
And isn’t life a breathtakingly wonderful yet fragile gift? Morticia tells me that every day. Each time I’ve done anything this last year I’ve been poignantly aware it may be the last time. That’s not a morbid way to live; it’s beautiful. It makes everything so deeply meaningful. I only wish I’d been aware of this gift years before Morticia handed it to me.
I want to leave precious memories for my loved ones, not so they remember me dying, but so they remember me living life fully and loving them unconditionally.
So, thank you, Morticia, for all that. And now that I have your gifts, you can leave. For good. I won’t miss you; I promise.
Tim McGraw sings, “Live like you were dying,” and it would be wonderful if we could only do that without a Morticia to remind us.
I want to stay here to see all my grandchildren grow up and my children grow old. I’d like to someday retire to a quiet little place with John. But when my time comes to die, I’d like to go when late afternoon shadows lengthen; mama robins sing soft lullabies to babies cradled in nests, and all the world begins gentling for the night. I’ll be waiting then for God to come walk me Home.
She’s capricious; kind one day, the day next malevolent. We’re foolish to trust her, but year after year she captures us with her charms. Who can resist the reddening of bushes on the back roads, tiny leaves on lilacs, the cry of the red-wings, or evening magic of spring peepers? She gives us all these, but she sometimes slams us with ice storms or blizzards.
She’s Michigan March. She’s like the eye of a hurricane, tricking us into thinking the danger of winter storms is gone.
I have a writer friend with recurrent ovarian cancer. She calls her between-treatment times the eye of the hurricane.
I’m in the eye of the hurricane right now as I wait for the results of my fourth PET scan.
“Can’t you get it right this time?” I asked the PET scan tech. “You guys keep messing up, and I have to keep coming back for another one.”
He chuckled—once I explained I was joking.
As they fastened my head firmly between wedges and strapped me to the narrow scan table, I asked the two techs, “Can you help me find a friend I lost in here?”
I couldn’t move my head to see them, but I could feel the looks they were giving each other. Oh boy, here we go; she’s the crazy one of the day.
“Um, you lost a friend, ma’am? In here? In this room?”
“I sure did! His name is NED! Have either of you seen him?”
Long silence. I imagined their thoughts. Do we call psych before or after the scan? How well do we have her strapped down?
“You guys know NED! Lots of people have found him in this room, but I haven’t found him yet. He’s an acronym for No Evidence of Disease!
One tech laughed, relieved. “Oh! NED! I think he’s going to be my new best friend!”
“Mine too!” I said, as they slid me back into the machine.
Arms in an uncomfortable position over my head, I still managed to fall asleep. That’s my shining claim to fame, being able to sleep anywhere. Once I fell asleep on the phone talking to my daughter, Angie, and terrified her. When I didn’t answer her, she thought I’d had another stroke. I’ve fallen asleep in church. I know lots of people have done that, but how many of them are the pastor’s wife?
Not only did I fall asleep during the scan, I made a funny noise, woke up, and jumped. You aren’t supposed to move in those scans, but they said I hadn’t done any damage.
As I got ready to leave, I asked the poor tech if he’d found NED. It was unkind of me to ask; I knew they weren’t allowed to give any information to patients.
“I didn’t really see all your pictures….”
“It’s okay.” I smiled at him. “If you didn’t find NED this time, you can help me look for him next time.”
“That’s the spirit! If we didn’t find him today, we’ll help you find him next time.”
And now.
Now I wait for results. Did the cancer shrink or spread? Did they—glorious thought—did they find NED?
If NED is still winning at this hide and seek game, what comes next? So many questions, and only God knows the answers. He gives us hints in March.
I held my daughter Kimmee’s arm the other day and we walked around the yard looking for March’s signs of early spring. The lovely snow drop flowers always bloom first. We found rhubarb and tulips bravely forcing their way out of darkness into light. We saw trees full of birds singing loudly in a decibel competition. We felt the warm sunlight on our faces.
A bone-chilling blizzard might still come. An ice storm may make the birds wish they’d stayed south a bit longer, but spring, real spring will come. It always does.
The storms always return too, sometimes with a fierceness that freezes tears. What then? Which is true? Spring’s softness or her dangers? Both are true. How do we reconcile it; how do we understand?
What of life’s suffering; crushed hopes, unbearable pain, the death of kittens, and children, and young brides, and old grandparents, how do we understand that? We don’t.
We cling to God’s love and the fact that an eternal spring will win in the end.
The only thing that can thaw our frozen hearts when suffering and tragedy destroy hope is the cross. We don’t judge God’s love by how we feel or by circumstances we face; we can’t understand any of that. We evaluate God’s love by one thing only: Calvary.
I don’t know if softness or danger is coming to me, but meanwhile I’m resting in the eye of the hurricane and loving every bit of spring I find.
“God, make me brave for life: oh, braver than this.
Let me straighten after pain as a tree straightens after the rain,
Shining and lovely again.
God, make me brave for life:
much braver than this.
As the blown grass lifts, let me rise
From sorrow with quiet eyes,
Knowing Thy way is wise.
God, make me brave, life brings
Such blinding things.
Help me to keep my sight;
Help me to see aright
That out of the dark comes light.” –Author unknown
I wish I knew what Mom was like as a kid. She didn’t talk much about her childhood, other than to say her dad beat her with a razor strap, and I was too busy being a kid myself to ask her questions. I could have asked her only sibling, Uncle Tom. He was twelve years older than she was; I’m sure he could have told us stories about her. Mom was born in March; did she arrive like a lion? I imagine her being a lion. Mom died in March, and I know she died like a lamb.
The mom of my childhood years was more lion than lamb; we didn’t often see the gentle, more affectionate side of her. I used to mutter she’d make a good drill sergeant, or prosecuting attorney, or a general. Mom never cried and was proud of that and impatient with the tears of others. She was exacting in her demands that we keep the house spotless.
Mom did love us, but her love often expressed itself in anger; anger that she couldn’t find us when we got lost on our bikes, anger that we ducked when she reached out to fix for us a stray lock of hair, anger that we dared to disobey.
Mom could wield a belt with more skill than Zorro with a sword.
They say the Pharisees of Jesus’ day had 613 rules in addition to the biblical ones; Mom had at least 6,130!
And I didn’t like any of them.
We knew where we stood with Mom. She drew her lines sharp and clear, and I usually stood on the wrong side of them.
Poor Mom. She didn’t know what to do with me. When shoutings and spankings failed to achieve her desired results, she often said the one thing that sent cold chills down my little girl spine: “I wish the worst possible thing I can think of for you. I hope when you grow up you have a little girl who acts just like you do.”
Even as a child, I knew that was a curse I didn’t want fulfilled. Please God, no, not a little girl like me. We had four wonderful children, and though they weren’t the angel my husband was growing up—according to his mom—neither were they the little devil I was! See why I believe in grace and mercy?
When Mom was in her late forties and I was twenty she had a major stroke that paralyzed her right side and left her unable to speak. She regained her speech and limited use of her right leg but none of her right arm or hand.
The most striking change was Mom’s personality. Our lion became a lamb; gentle, emotional, and loving. Life was difficult for Mom for the next five years until God allowed a second major stroke to carry her home to heaven.
I’m glad I got to know both of my Moms, the lion and the lamb. We all have a bit of each, don’t we?
When March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, I think of Mom. When March comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lion, I think of Mom.
Jesus is called both the Lamb of God and the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He came to earth the first time as a Lamb, meek, and willing to give His life as a sacrifice for our sins. When His feet touch the earth the second time He’ll come as a Lion, ready to conquer all evil and set up His glorious kingdom of joy and peace.
When March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, I think of Jesus. When March comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lion, I think of Jesus.
Evil, hatred, and cruelty may triumph now, but their tyrannical reign is crumbling. The day is coming when right here on this earth the lion will lie down with the lamb, and a little child will be safe with all God’s creatures. –Isaiah 11:6
When Mom and I meet again, I wonder if we’ll remember her curse and laugh. Her angry lion days have already ended, and my days of defiantly standing on the wrong side of the line will end when I get where Mom is now. My breaking of her 6,130 rules will be forgotten, and there will be nothing left between us but love.
“Goodbye, honey,” I whispered, seeing the tears in John’s eyes, and blinking back my own.
We both knew I was in God’s care and the expertise of a top brain surgeon, but it was still difficult to let go of hands and be separated, one to face surgery the other hours of waiting for news.
When I let go of John’s hand, I slipped my hand into God’s hand, and the beautiful flute music my friend Vicky had played at church the day before wafted through my thoughts. “His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He cares for me.”
God did care for me. Eight years ago yesterday, God brought me through the craniotomy with thirteen pieces of hardware left in my head and some artificial dura covering my brain. I had hydrocephalus, but the fluid buildup was mild. My surgeon left the choice up to me: have an additional surgery to put in a shunt, or, go home and let my body heal itself.
“Your body will absorb the fluid, but you will have horrible headaches,” Dr. Thompson warned me.
“I just want to go home.”
He chuckled. “I knew that was what you were going to say.”
Home I went. I’m allergic to pain medications, so I couldn’t take any. The headaches were horrendous, and my dreams were vivid. Every night an angel rowed up to the shore where I waited. We didn’t say anything to each other. I got into the boat, and he rowed me out onto a calm, black lake. It was wonderfully quiet on the lake in the darkness of midnight; no stars or moon ever appeared in my nightly dream. I laid on something soft in the bottom of the boat, my head on a pillow. The pain that tortured me when I was awake dared not follow me into that sacred place.
Once I trailed my hand through the water. It was warm and soothing.
“No!” The angel scolded. “Put your hand back in the boat. It’s not safe yet.”
Before daylight, the angel rowed me back to shore.
Gradually I began feeling better, but I kept dreaming the same thing every night for six weeks. The last night I dreamt it I waited on the shore, and the silent angel rowed up as usual. I hesitated, looking at the boat, then back at the land.
“Well, are you getting in or not?”
I was shocked. God’s angels were grumpy? Apparently, some were.
“No, I don’t think I’m coming tonight.”
“Fine. But I’m not coming back for seven years.”
I puzzled over that dream for a while. I’m not one who thinks every dream means something, but the same dream every night for six weeks had to say something to me.
Had the man in my dream been the death angel? I didn’t think so; why would he take me home every night before sunrise? I finally decided that the dream was reminding me that regardless of pain, the One whose eye is on the sparrow would give me rest. But what did the seven years mean? I didn’t have a clue.
Seven years came. Nothing happened. Seven years and three months passed, and I found out I had cancer. When the chemotherapy began and my old friend pain returned, so did the dream. The angel doesn’t come every night in my dreams, but he comes sometimes. I’m happy to see him; I get into the boat, lie down, and rest. I know God’s eye is on the sparrow, and I know He cares for me.
However dark the night, however searing the pain, God sees His children. He knows, and He cares. He can stop the pain, and sometimes He does. Why doesn’t He always?
Oh, we all know the pat answers, and they are true. Pain is a great teacher.
But we will never fully understand the why of some of the horrendous things that happen to God’s people, when a family is ripped apart by devastation more sudden than a tornado from a midwestern sky. Caught in a whirlwind of agony, what then? God’s children grasp for anything then to keep from being pulled into a pit of despair so deep there is no return. The blessed ones find the wild winds slamming them up against the cross.
We can’t fully understand all that took place on the cross either, but we can comprehend what we need to know. There, Jesus said, “It is finished.”
On the cross Jesus conquered pain, sin, death, and hell. The empty tomb assures us the day is coming when He will wipe away all tears from His children’s eyes and sorrow will be swallowed up in joy.
But that day isn’t here yet, is it?
Until then I need the reminder of the sparrow and my grumpy angel.
The angel isn’t any more talkative now than he was all those years ago. Is he still grumpy? I don’t know because we haven’t exchanged a word. Maybe I’ll dream that I put my hand in the water and see how he reacts. If he yells at me, I’ll let you know.
I have a fireplace, cozy throws, warm drinks, and some snow stories to tell if you’re interested. We were snowbound this morning. This is the first storm when I haven’t bundled up and walked out through deep drifts. I’m not strong enough yet for that, but I did go from window to window, as excited as a child. I love freshly fallen snow undisturbed by footprints, shovels, or plows.
Even John, home from the hospital after knee replacement surgery, used his walker to hobble to the window and exclaim over how much snow fell overnight. If our neighbor hadn’t plowed us out, we’d still be snowed in.
Spring energizes the poets, but so does snow. Think of some of the songs, idioms, and hymns inspired by snow:
“Let it Snow”
Where are the snows of yesteryear? –a nostalgic sadness for time past
Snow on the roof—white hair
Snowball into something—growing quickly larger like a snowball being rolled
Snowed under—overwhelmed with work
Pure as the driven snow—a person of high integrity
Get snowed—to be deceived
Snowbird—someone who heads south in winter months
“Whiter than Snow”
Here are a few idioms I didn’t understand until I looked them up. To “roast snow in a furnace” means to attempt something impossible. “Snow stuff” and “Lady Snow” mean cocaine.
John is allergic to codeine and before knee surgery he laughingly told the nurse anesthesiologist about the time he’d confused his words and had told a doctor he was allergic to cocaine.
“Some people are, you know,” the nurse replied, “and we need to know that, because we sometimes use it as an anesthetic.”
I thought he might be giving me a snow job, but he was serious, and a Mayo Clinic web search confirmed the truth of what he’d said.
We were so glad to get John home from the hospital before the snowstorm hit. When it started, I wanted to post Dean Martin’s version of “Let It Snow” on my Facebook page but I didn’t have time; I was too snowed under taking care of John. If you’re still reading this you’re either chuckling or groaning at the way these idioms are snowballing.
This storm’s snow piled up quickly and reminded me of the blizzard of 1978, but we didn’t have the winds we did then, and when you live in open farm country, it’s the winds that close roads. In 1978 the winds wouldn’t quit; they howled over the open fields, scooped up the snow, and dumped it on the roads. We were snowbound for three weeks. At first it was fun and cozy; we’d been way too busy, and it was wonderful reconnecting as a family. But, eventually we got cabin fever; we missed the outside world, church, and friends. We missed people!
We felt almost delighted when a snowmobile sunk in a huge drift in front of our house. On it was a person, a real live person! John helped him dig out his machine and invited him in for hot chocolate. We asked him what was open in the rest of the county. His reply was brief.
“Nothin.”
Another day a loud knock on the door startled us. We opened it to see a smiling, snow covered, half-frozen George Fee. He pulled off his gloves, shoved a hand in his pocket, and pulled out a wad of bills.
“Here you go, Pastor. I figured you might be needing some money. We haven’t had church in weeks, so I know you haven’t been paid.”
“But George,” John asked, “where did you get the money? And how did you get here?”
“Well, I just drove to the homes of church folks who lived on main roads and asked them, ‘You got any money for the preacher?’ And I got all this!” George grinned, proud of himself. “And how I got here was I left my car parked out on Squawfield Road and hiked in through the fields. There’s more snow on the roads than in the fields!”
We loved George, his wife Florence, Bud and Izzie, and all our wonderful early congregation. Most of them are in heaven now, having adventures we can’t imagine.
A few days after George came, we got more company. Like George, they left their car on Squawfield and walked to our house through the fields. Our good friends, Pastor Potter and Audrey, and their son came to visit. Pastor unzipped his coat and we all laughed. Their tiny poodle, Buttons, poked out his little nose.
The four of them, three humans and a dog, stayed for supper and spent the night. We stayed up late, laughing, talking, and playing games. Someone had the idea of rewriting the Luke 15:11-32 story of the Prodigal Son. We wrote it in the key of D. I can’t remember all of it, but we thought we were hysterical as we wrote, “The despicable dude departed his dad’s domain….” The later it got, the funnier we thought we were.
Where are the snows of yesteryear? Yes, I feel a nostalgic sadness as I tell you the story of the night we spent with our friends. We were young then and getting old seemed so far away. Now, those of us still alive have snow on the roof. Buttons crossed the rainbow bridge long ago, and Pastor Potter is in heaven.
That man could preach, and that man could sing! I’m sure he sang “Whiter Than Snow” many times, and preached Isaiah 1:18: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
I miss the snows of yesteryear; so many people I love are already in heaven. The best really is yet to be, and I’m looking forward to it!
But before we go to heaven, anyone want to write the Prodigal Son in the key of C? I have a fireplace, cozy throws, and warm drinks if you want to get the party started.
The patient sits next to me working on his physical therapy exercises.
“I just might get this blog written and posted this week by the skin of my teeth,” I say to John.
He answers with a groan. Even the heavy-duty medications can’t erase the pain of his exercises today.
“Now it’s time to get back on your CPM machine.” (Controlled passive motion machine)
My kind, loving, normally cheerful Valentine glares at me. “I just got off it.”
“You still have four hours to go.”
People warned us that total knee replacement surgery wasn’t easy. John’s surgery was Monday; he came home Thursday, and he had his first home physical therapy session yesterday. He’s hurting today. But he’s glad to be home, and I’m happy he’s here. He’s home for Valentine’s Day, home by the skin of his teeth.
John had a painful, weak day near the end of his hospital stay. When it took three nurses to get him adjusted on his CPM machine, we both wondered if he should consider inpatient rehab. It wasn’t our first choice, but we weren’t sure he could handle coming home. We prayed about it, and John told me to call our local rehab center to see if they had room for him.
“I’m sorry; we don’t. We’re only taking Covid patients this week.”
We were relieved, and John felt like he’d escaped going to rehab by the skin of his teeth.
“By the skin of my teeth.”
Isn’t language fascinating? I love exploring the history of old sayings. “By the skin of my teeth” means “I managed it but only by a narrow margin.” People use the ancient phrase to express an escape or an achievement that barely happened. It’s a distance too small to measure.
The Geneva Bible of 1559 was the first to use the expression in Job 19:20 “I haue escaped with the skinne of my tethe.”
I avoided being fired once by the skin of my teeth. I sold flight insurance at the Broome County Airport in Binghamton, New York. Joy, my boss, flew in occasionally from New York City. I always heard her coming by the brisk click click of her high heels on the terminal’s tile. She was tall and lovely with perfect make up, and she made me want to throw up. Not because she was so perfect, but because I knew she was going to yell at me.
In training I learned the tricks of selling flight insurance, how to subtly play on the fear of first-time flyers, how to appeal to a senior citizen’s love of a grandchild, how to “sell up.” Our policies cost from twenty-five cents to five-hundred dollars, but Joy warned us to never sell a twenty-five-cent policy.
“What if someone asks what our cheapest policy is?” another trainee asked.
Joy said, “Start out selling high. Come down to twenty-five dollars only if you must. If a customer asks for the cheapest say, “Well, we also have ones for ten and five dollars. I will fire anyone who sells a twenty-five-cent insurance policy!”
Day after day I sold twenty-five-cent policies. Many of them. When someone asked for our cheapest, I sold our cheapest.
“Joy is going to be furious,” the long-time employees warned me.
And Joy was furious. Every time she came, she hollered at me and warned me it better never happen again, but she didn’t fire me. She often threatened to. She demanded my reasons. I explained my ethics. She looked puzzled and shook her head.
“I think you have potential to be one of my top salespeople. Try to sell a lifetime five-hundred-dollar policy before I come back. It doesn’t matter if the person will never fly again. I’ll feel good about you selling it.”
I shook my head. I wouldn’t do it, and she knew it. She sighed. “I’m going to have to fire you one of these days, Donna Piarulli. You know that don’t you?”
I loved every job I ever had except that one. I was so relieved to give my notice when John and I were going to get married and move out of state.
On my last day, Joy gave me a wedding shower. The decorations were beautiful, the food delicious, and the cake amazing. I was overwhelmed by the generous gifts, especially the lavish ones from Joy.
Joy had to leave the shower early to catch her flight to New York City. I walked her to her gate and thanked her. She bent down and hugged me.
“You do know, Donna Piarulli, that I would have had to fire you eventually, don’t you?”
“I know.”
Then we looked at each other and laughed. Joy flew off to New York City and I never saw her again. I ended up on a dirt road in Michigan happy not to be a big city boss who only escaped by the skin of her teeth having to fire someone she really liked.
We knew a man who only made heaven by the skin of his teeth. He was dying in the hospital, and his family asked John to go see him. John asked him if he’d ever repented of his sin and accepted God’s gift of salvation.
“Jesus died on the cross to take the punishment we deserve for sin,” John explained. “We just need to believe He died in our place and accept His gift of eternal life.”
The man replied, “I did that when I was a kid.”
John looked troubled when he told me about it. “He was lying, honey; I know it.”
John was preaching Sunday when the man’s son-in-law burst into the auditorium. “Can you come quick, Pastor? Dad’s dying and asking for you.”
A deacon finished the service and John raced to the hospital. The man could barely talk. He managed only two words, his last. “I lied.”
“You lied when you told me you had asked Jesus to save you from sin and give you eternal life?”
The man nodded, looking terrified and miserable.
“Squeeze my hand if you are praying this with me. Dear Father, I know I’m a sinner and I’m sorry. I don’t deserve heaven.”
The man gripped John’s hand.
“I believe Jesus took my punishment for sin when He died on the cross. I accept what He did in my place. I thank You for the gift of eternal life.”
The man squeezed John’s hand again. John looked at his peaceful, smiling face. “Do you know where you’re going when you die?”
The man nodded and squeezed John’s hand one last time. He died peacefully a few hours later and opened his eyes in heaven. He made it by the skin of his teeth.
Have you been to the Father’s Backyard? Some scoff and say it’s an imaginary place, but I’ve been there myself and assure you it’s more real than anywhere else I’ve ever been.
It’s a more beautiful backyard than you can imagine in your best dreams; the sun always smiles, and the grass makes a year-around carpet for bare feet. People say there’s a house just over the hill called “The Father’s House,” but none of us have ever seen the house or the Father, just the Father’s mailbox, and his backyard, perfect for adults who haven’t forgotten how to play.
Artists gather daily in the Father’s Backyard to play at their work. Phyllis perfects her photography. Patrick paints with oils and watercolors. Weston weaves lovely patterns from lamb’s wool. Grace grows lovely flowers and vegetables in her garden. Archie designs architectural marvels. Bella practices ballet as Orville leads an orchestra. Sarah sculpts statues that decorate the garden while Wilson writes beautiful stories. Caleb makes masterpieces with his carpentry skills. Catherine creates meals that feed body and soul.
Newest to the group and greatly loved is young Paul whose poetry captures dreams and turns them into words. He often reads them aloud, and creativity being contagious, the work of the others becomes even more beautiful.
In groups and in solitude artists use the gifts the Father has given them to enrich the lives of the rest. Every evening, as the magic hour of twilight falls, each artist stops creating and admires the work of the others. There is no envy. The one who sings like an angel doesn’t wish to be the ornithologist cataloging the beautiful birds. The writer in the wheelchair never envies the ballerina.
The artists end each day relaxing around a campfire, contented with their own work and proud of each other. They talk softly, draw warmth from the crackling flames and from friendship, and watch the first stars appear. Then they stop by the Father’s mailbox, go home to sleep, and return refreshed to the Father’s Backyard to play at their work again the next day.
I remember the day things changed.
Paul’s poems had always been a bit melancholy, but no one minded. Sorrow and tears added beauty to all our work and reminded us we were only in the Father’s Backyard, not yet at his house. But Paul’s poems began to take on an eerie darkness. It seemed he’d forgotten what Helen Keller often said when she’d played in the Father’s Backyard in her day, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.”
Paul’s poems had sometimes reminded me of the beautiful face of a baby who smiles through tears on his cheeks, or of a rainbow after a storm when the sun breaks through the clouds. Now there was no smile, no sun, just tears and storm clouds.
There was no overcoming left in Paul’s poetry. When he read it aloud, the other artists’ hands and minds grew heavy.
Then Paul stopped writing. Day after day he sat with his chin in his hands and refused to talk or be comforted. Not even the warmth of the evening campfire helped.
I wasn’t the only one who caught my breath in horror when Paul came to say goodbye. His face looked like an ancient oak; he shuffled slowly, and he bent from the waist and could no longer stand upright. His entire back looked like it was covered with lumps.
“I can’t come to the Father’s Backyard anymore,” Paul said. “It’s too painful. I have nothing left to give, and your beautiful work makes me bitter.”
And then Paul pitched face forward. He was still breathing, but barely.
Our own Doctor Dan rushed to help. “I’ve seen this only once before here in the Father’s Backyard, but I think I recognize this poison.”
“Poison?” I stared at him. “Someone is poisoning Paul?”
“Not someone, something,” Doctor Dan said as he removed Paul’s shirt.
Paul’s back was covered with layers of sticky notes.
“Quickly, please help me,” Doctor Dan said to those of us standing closest to Paul as he began pulling off the sticky notes.
“What are these?” I asked as I yanked them off by the handfuls.
“Something too heavy for any artist to carry. Something the rest of us leave in the Father’s mailbox every night before we go home.”
I glanced at the notes in my hands. I recognized the words on one of them; they were my own. “Paul, your poetry captures dreams and turns them into words.”
I read a few more, all of them praise, most in prose far more eloquent than my own.
“A man is tested by his praise,” Doctor Dan muttered grimly as he kept working. “Who was responsible for this man’s orientation?”
We looked at each other. No one had told Paul about the mailbox? The poor man had been hoarding praise, keeping all those compliments for himself?
Doctor Dan pulled the last of the notes from Paul’s back. Paul stirred and began to cry. The sun shone through his tears and made a rainbow.
We drifted off to our work-play as Doctor Dan quietly told Paul about the Father’s mailbox and how each night before we went home we whispered Psalm 115:1 and put into the mailbox all the praise given to us that day.
Paul was weak, content to sit in the sun, feel the grass carpet under his bare feet, and eat the nourishing soup Catherine created for him.
That night we began a new tradition around the campfire. As the flames died down to embers, we stood, hands clasped over our hearts, and chanted together, “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth’s sake.”
I was young then, and now I am old. I haven’t seen another case of praise poison and almost destroy an artist, but just in case someone else misses orientation, we still recite our fireside chant. Paul, our beautiful old poet laureate, reminds us to stop by the Father’s mailbox before we leave each night.
And that is how our souls stay young and light enough to laugh and create. Our bodies slow and sag, but we are still joyful children, playing in the Father’s Backyard. Come join us!
The round, plump Grandma who loved to laugh and talked a lot, got sick and slept a lot. Grandma had cancer.
She lost all her hair; she wasn’t so round and plump anymore, and she wore a funny little hat to keep her head warm.
“I look like a lawn ornament!” Grandma laughed. “A yard gnome.”
Grandma got quieter. On her hardest days, Grandma didn’t have enough strength to say many words.
But inside, Grandma was still the Grandma who laughed. And she talked a lot to herself and to God.
“Please, God,” she whispered, “let me have Family Christmas.”
She wanted to have Family Christmas like she always had for her four kids, her four in-law kids, and for her thirteen grandkids. Grandma was never too sick to smile when she thought of her grandchildren.
Family Christmas was going to happen, a week after Christmas Day! This would be their oldest grandchild’s twenty-second Family Christmas at Grandpa and Grandma’s, and it would be the youngest one’s first. Grandma wanted it to be the perfect Family Christmas. Just in case, it had to be the best Family Christmas ever.
When she could stay awake long enough Grandma had fun thinking of each family member and ordering gifts. Packages she’d ordered came in the mail. On her good days, Grandma couldn’t wait to open them. On her bad days, the boxes and envelopes sat neglected until she felt strong enough to look at them.
But, good days or bad days, Grandma thought about the Christmas tree. Grandma loved Christmas trees, especially ones with lots of lights. They reminded her that Jesus is the Light of the world. Grandma loved Christmas lights. On this Very Dark Year, she wanted more lights on the tree than ever before.
Grandma couldn’t wait until the day after Thanksgiving, the day they always got the tree. Youngest Daughter always picked out the tree; it was part of the tradition.
Every year Grandma told Youngest Daughter, “I love this tree. It’s the prettiest tree we’ve ever had!”
This Very Dark Year, because of Covid, Youngest Daughter couldn’t pick out the tree. Grandpa paid for a tree over the phone and a man at the Christmas tree farm chose a tree and put it in the truck when Grandpa drove up.
Grandma didn’t ride along to get the tree like she usually did; she stayed home and took a long nap. But when Grandpa brought the tree in the house, she was as excited as a little girl. That’s what Grandmas are, you know, just very old little girls.
“It’s beautiful!” she said. “I love it.”
Grandma didn’t say, “It’s the prettiest tree we’ve ever had,” because Youngest Daughter hadn’t picked it out.
As soon as Grandpa put the tall, lovely tree into the tree stand, it began to drop its needles.
“Maybe the man at the tree farm forgot to shake the tree before he put it into the truck,” Grandpa said.
“Maybe,” the family agreed.
But they doubted that was the problem. Too many needles were falling.
Grandpa put on many, many lights, perfect for the Very Dark Year. Grandma smiled and remembered Jesus is the Light of the world.
Grandpa put the lighted star on the top of the tree, but it fell to the floor and broke.
Grandma looked at the fifty-year old star as it lay in pieces. It was a rotating star that flashed colored lights on the ceiling and walls. She was sad, but she didn’t want Grandpa to feel bad. It had already been hard enough for him this Very Dark Year.
“It’s okay, honey,” Grandma said. “We can put something else on top of the tree.”
Grandpa, famous for fixing things, just smiled. “I can fix it,” he said. “I can glue it back together.”
And he did. Grandma smiled at him.
“I wish I could fix you,” he whispered in her ear.
“God can fix me if He wants to,” she whispered back.
“I know, honey.” He hugged her. And the Very Dark Year was not so Dark.
Grandpa, Youngest Daughter, Youngest Son-in-Law, and Grandma decorated the tall, beautiful tree. Grandma didn’t do as much as the rest. She got tired and watched, but it was a wonderful day.
Grandma loved looking at the tree and all the beautiful decorations Youngest Daughter had put around the house. Had any Christmas been so lovely? She didn’t think so.
But she felt uneasy when every day Youngest Daughter swept up the growing pile of needles under the tree.
“You’re sick like I am, aren’t you?” Grandma asked the tree when no one could hear her. “I feel sad for you. Can you try to stay for Family Christmas? I know we don’t need a tree, but I love your lights. You remind me that Jesus is the Light of the world. And my grandchildren are used to seeing their gifts under a tree. I want this to be the perfect family Christmas, one for them to remember, you know, Just in Case.”
Grandma didn’t have to tell the tree what she meant by “Just in Case.” He knew.
Another of the lovely branches dipped toward the floor. “I want you to have the best Family Christmas ever, and you will, if I am here or not. But I will try my best to stay. That’s all any of us can do, is try.”
Grandma heard Grandpa tell Youngest Daughter the tree was starting to be a fire hazard and they needed to throw it out.
“Not yet, please not yet,” Grandma begged. “I need him for Family Christmas. Could we just not light the tree again until then and light it one more time that day?”
Grandpa looked at her sadly. “Not unless you want to burn the house down and have no Family Christmas at all.”
One day Grandma got up from a long nap. Youngest Daughter had undecorated the tree and she and Grandpa were taking him out the door.
“I tried to stay for you,” the tree whispered to her, “but I got too old and sick. It’s okay. You don’t need me to light the Very Dark Year. You will have a wonderful Family Christmas.”
Grandma knew the tree had to leave, but her eyes filled with tears. Thank you for trying your best, beautiful tree. That’s all any of us can do, is try.
Now there would be no tree for Family Christmas.
Grandma didn’t know Youngest Daughter had a plan.
Youngest Daughter had contacted the Christmas tree farms and had explained about the cancer and the Family Christmas and how much the Grandma wanted a tree.
“Do you have any trees left for sale?” Youngest Daughter had asked.
Christmas Day had passed. “I am sorry, we don’t.”
A lady who worked at one Christmas tree farm had said, “I am done with my tree, and it is still very much alive. You can have it if you want it.”
Youngest Daughter and Grandpa went and got the tree. It was a lot shorter than the first tree. The lights that had been enough for the first tree were dazzling on the smaller one. It almost made Grandma forget the Very Dark Year.
Grandma was having one of her good days. She and Youngest Daughter decorated the second tree.
Youngest Daughter smiled at her. “I know how much it meant to you to have a tree here for the grandkids. I had to get you a tree. So, in a way, I guess you could say I picked this one out. Do you like it?”
“I love it!” Grandma said. “It’s the prettiest tree we’ve ever had!”
And it was true, even though it was short and a little crooked. Grandma laughed when she and the tree were alone.
“You’re just like me,” she said to the tree, “short and leaning to one side, like I do when I walk. You look like a gnome yard ornament too.”
The little tree smiled back at her, glowing with light.
Finally, the day Grandma had waited for all year came. It was Family Christmas. The house was full of light, love, and laughter. Grandma tried to memorize every smile. She watched each family member open a stocking or a gift. She cried happy tears when a grandson read Luke 2, the most beautiful, and the truest of all stories.
Grandma listened to the kind words her family said to her and to each other. The Very Dark Year slunk out the door; it couldn’t live in so much light.
It was the best Family Christmas ever, one to remember, Just in Case.
The little tree lived on and on. Grandma didn’t want to take it down. She sat alone in the dark living room, several nights after Family Christmas, enjoying the lights on the tree and thinking.
What an unusual year. It wasn’t all dark. We had so many blessings. We even had two Christmas trees! I bet that won’t happen next year.
Suddenly, Grandma realized she was planning next year’s Family Christmas. It would be the best one ever.
Danny finished second grade with excellent grades in every subject, so we were surprised when he flunked his first test in third grade, then his second, and then his third. When he’d failed his first test in every subject his dad talked to him.
“Danny, you were getting really good grades when school ended a few months ago. Now you’re flunking everything. What happened?”
Our golden-haired, fun-loving boy with the charming dimples flashed his dad a smile.
“Oh, I don’t know. I think something must have happened to my brain over the summer!”
When his dad told Danny what was going to happen to him if he didn’t start studying, he failed no more tests. His brain made a sudden and remarkable recovery.
My first bright red “F” on my report card devastated me. I was in second grade and couldn’t even read the word “cat”, so I’m not sure why the F in reading surprised me, but it did. I kept looking at it, hoping it would disappear before I got home and had to show it to Mom, but no such luck.
Mom taught me to read by methods I don’t recommend, but I did quite well in school after that. I didn’t flunk anything else until high school. After breezing through Latin I with all A’s, I started Latin II with confidence.
Before long I was muttering with the rest of the students who were struggling, “Latin is a dead language, dead as it can be; first it killed Julius Caesar, and now it’s killing me.”
When Mom learned I was failing not only Latin but also chemistry, she ordered me to quit every “unnecessary” activity and class, including band.
I loved band. I played third clarinet last chair, and our band director, Mr. Pinto, often told me, “Piarulli, it’s a good thing for you I don’t need one less clarinet.”
Even though the band would be better off without me, Mr. Pinto felt bad for me when I told him I had to quit. He didn’t agree that music was “unnecessary.”
“Give me your phone number. I’ll call your mom. I never yet met a mom I couldn’t reason with.”
“That’s because you haven’t met my mom.”
Mom didn’t mention the call, and I was afraid to ask, so I showed up at band the next day at the usual time, hoping against hope.
Mr. Pinto shook his head. “I’m sorry, Piarulli. Now I’ve met a mom I can’t reason with.”
Despite Mom’s best efforts, I flunked Latin and Chemistry and had to repeat them the next year. I still graduated with a good grade point average because of high grades in the classes I liked. I hadn’t yet learned life doesn’t just give us classes we like.
I worked hard for my college education; one semester I worked sixty hours between three jobs and took nineteen credit hours at school. I couldn’t keep that pace for long, but I always worked full time and took a full load of classes. I enjoyed learning.
I started my college missions’ class with anticipation. I’m fascinated with biography and expected to learn about heroic lives. Instead, I found long lists of facts and figures to memorize: how long had this and that mission been in this and that country and how many missionaries did they have here and there?
“It’s a sin!” I complained to John. “That class should motivate people to go into missions not bore them to death!”
I dropped missions with a WF—withdraw failing. Twice.
In our last year of college John said, “You do know that missions is a required class, right? You can’t graduate without it.”
“What?!”
Back I went to missions’ class, this time expecting our first baby, but my attitude hadn’t improved. Looking back, I’m sure the problem was me, not the class. Many fine missionaries came out of that class.
I barely passed missions, but our first baby and I got our diploma two months before she was born.
Recently I flunked something else, R-chop chemotherapy. R-chop is an acronym for a combination of chemo drugs given to fight cancer. I put up with all the nasty chemo side effects, confident it would work. I’d never heard of it not working.
Sometimes chemotherapy doesn’t work, and it didn’t work on me. Morticia, the name I’ve given my lymphoma lung tumor, had the nerve to grow during those brutal treatments. Like a giant Pac-Man, she gobbled up that chemo for lunch.
Another big red F for me, I failed chemotherapy!
Next came radiation treatments, but my doctor stopped those early when they affected my esophagus. So, I flunked radiation too!
I love the crafty sign at the radiation check in desk at the University of Michigan Hospital. It says “hope.”
John and I have been quoting a college acquaintance of ours who recently died of lymphoma: “Now is the time to practice our theology.”
What theology? We believe God loves us and we can trust Him in the dark, and that gives us hope.
Darkness is a test of faith, and one I don’t want to flunk, but sometimes I do, for a minute or two.
In the middle of the night I sometimes whisper, “God, are you even here?”
The answer comes, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” –Hebrews 13:5
God is with me while I wait for the doctors to decide what to try now.
I don’t know what comes next for me; you don’t know what comes next for you. But the big test is coming for all of us, you know, the one we can’t afford to flunk because our eternity depends on it.
That test has just one question: Why should God let me into heaven?
I can never be enough or do enough to meet God’s standards, and I’m glad I don’t even have to try. As my substitute, Jesus lived the life I should have lived and died the death I deserved. Good news! That’s true for you too.
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” –Ephesians 2:8-9
I’ve flunked a few things in my time; reading, Latin, chemistry, missions, chemotherapy, and radiation. I passed my driver’s test only because an angel with a golden trumpet tucked under his arm swooped out of the sky and parallel parked the car for me. Don’t laugh; it’s the one and only time I ever managed that feat. If it wasn’t an angel with a golden trumpet, what was it?
I don’t know how soon I’ll knock on heaven’s gate, but if Peter or someone asks me, “Why should we let the likes of you into a place like this?” I know the answer; I’m jumping up and down like a kid because I know the answer, and I pray you do too!
Let me in because Jesus paid it all! Eternal life, joy, and happiness are mine because I repented of my sin, turned to God, and accepted His gift of salvation!
Then, that beautiful gate will swing wide, and I’ll find all the love and joy I’ve ever lost and more than I can imagine besides!
Maybe the angel with the golden trumpet will proclaim, “Here she is, the girl who flunked a few too many tests on earth, but she passed life’s final exam!”
Please, be ready to pass life’s final exam! I really want to spend eternity with all the people I love, no one missing from the joyful circle.
Media, especially social media, is gloomier than Michigan in January, and that’s saying a lot.
Michigan has many superlatives. For one thing we have the longest freshwater coastline in the world, 3,288 miles of it. We’re a big old peninsula surrounded by four of the five Great Lakes, and that’s wonderful, but all that water causes gloomy, cloudy days in November, December, and January.
If Michiganders aren’t careful, gloom seeps right into our bones and turns us all into Eeyores, the dismal donkey of Winnie the Pooh fame.
Media, especially social media, is gloomier than Eeyore, and that’s saying a lot.
I saw a meme—we Boomers used to call them cartoons—that made me feel like laughing and crying. A woman jumped out of a window in a burning building labeled 2020, landed on a fireman’s trampoline, and catapulted into another window in a burning building tagged 2021.
We get that; don’t we? Are we, perhaps, a bit jaded and gloomy after the year we just finished?
And yet, hope remains. It might peek out for just a minute a day, like the Michigan sunshine did on a recent morning; it might be tattered and jagged, but it’s there.
I saw bright sunshine amidst Facebook gloom today. A friend posted a Tigger minute: “Addicted to hope.”
“Me too!” I commented. It’s poor grammar; I know I should say, “I am also,” but “me too!” seemed more cheerful and Tiggerish.
I am addicted to hope.
Hope is why we read mystery books, put together puzzles, or play Spider Solitaire. We like to see complicated, hopeless things come together in a satisfactory conclusion. We long for all the things we aren’t finding in current events or perhaps even in our own lives: peace, answers, and everything in its proper place. We’re desperate to find that one puzzle piece missing under the table.
Hope sneaks up on us when we smell a trailer load of new lumber, or open a new notebook, or turn the first page of a book. Hope and anticipation are almost inseparable. Many new things inspire hope; there’s a reason a new year is often depicted as a baby.
It’s hope that makes us try that exercise program in one more effort to rid ourselves of the SpongeBob SquarePants silhouette.
It’s hope that makes me pick up my tiny, two-pound weights. I want to regain a little of the strength cancer is stealing. And I want to do something about this skin that kind of just lies here next to me in a puddle. I’m sorry about that word picture; blame my niece, Sheri.
Years ago, when she was still in school, Sheri worked at a nursing home. “I like my patients, but their skin! It just lies there next to them.”
Now I’m one of those people; cancer caused weight loss too fast. I hope to do something about that skin. What, I don’t know, except laugh and remember Sheri!
Laughter aside, I do have serious hopes for 2021, and I’m sure you do too. I know we’re all beyond tired of the fighting and the violence. We hope for many things to change in the world and in our lives.
We could easily give into hopelessness when dreams not only shatter around us but almost crush the life out of us when they fall.
Sin and suffering are a creeping darkness enfolding our planet, but even for that, there is hope.
I looked but can’t find the George MacDonald quote where he wrote that sin and her children; sorrow and suffering, are sickly and dying, but joy and her children are strong and will live forever. That’s hope!
Faith, hope, and love entwine in a strong three-fold cord in the Christian’s heart (I Corinthians 12:13). The King James Bible uses the word “hope” 129 times!
Hope is the one thing we can’t live without.
My heart paraphrases Psalm 43:5, “Why are you sad and upset, oh my soul? Hope in God!”
Unlike politics, health, exercise programs, or dreams, hope in God is a sure thing. God never fails. For those who know Him, far, far better things are coming than we have the imagination to even begin to hope for.
So, here we go again! So far, 2021 looks as bleak or bleaker than 2020, but only if we leave God and hope out of the equation. That I don’t intend to do. I’ve had enough of cloudy, gloomy days. I’m ready to sit in the sunshine of hope. Anyone want to sit with me?
