“Why couldn’t I have sent them to my family?” I worried to John after his mom called me.
“Donna, the birth announcements you sent us and our family and friends?”
“Yes?”
I waited, expecting John’s mom to praise the patriotic announcements John had chosen, red, white, and blue, with the words, “Our First Lady.” Praise wasn’t her response.
“You forgot to fill them out. They are empty. No name, no birth weight, Nothing.”
I apologized profusely. I knew I was tired, but I didn’t know I was that tired. Back then I didn’t even have the excuse of brain surgery to offer! In my exhaustion, I thought I’d completed all the announcements, but I’d only filled out half of them. My family got the half with the information; John’s family got the blank ones.
Two boys and another girl followed “Our First Lady”, and I double checked to be sure the announcements had the pertinent information before we took them to the post office!
There’s nothing like having a new baby, unless it’s having a book baby!
Having a baby and writing a book have a few things in common.
Babies and books both arrive with pain. Both keep you awake at night. Both capture your hopes and dreams. Both have minds of their own; there’s no pouring them into your mold. You send both off into the world with prayers they will help and bless others.
If the Creek Don’t Rise is my newest book baby. It’s a stand-alone read, but it’s also book two in the Corners Church series.
The characters in If the Creek Don’t Rise are fiction, but they seem real to me. They captured my heart with their brokenness because I too have been broken, body, soul, and spirit. The glorious, redeeming truth is that God delights to use broken people.
The Pharisee who pounded his chest with pride and thanked God that he was not like “this publican” doesn’t capture my heart. I cry with the broken publican who heard him and wept, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”
The elder brother in the story of the Prodigal Son is a bit too perfect to be one of my people. I love the younger son who comes trudging up the dusty road, weary in body and spirit, only able to frame the words, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”
I love the broken people in the Bible because I am broken people. Aren’t we all? How wonderful for us, how beautiful, that we have a loving Father who runs to welcome us when we repent and turn toward home!
So, here is the birth announcement for my new book baby, a story of broken people:
He, Yahweh, the Name too sacred to speak, had given her a task. She wasn’t sorry she’d said yes to Him. But she was tired.
She hadn’t known before people could be this tired, too tired to cry.
But she had faith, and so she endured as seeing Him Who is invisible.
On and on she plodded through the darkness with Joseph. Surely, after all these days of travel, Bethlehem must be close. Yes! There it was, just ahead. And then the first labor pain hit. A moan escaped her lips.
“Mary?”
She nodded mutely, and Joseph looked worried, this gentle, quiet man who trusted her and God against all reason.
Mary loved her husband, but as the second labor pain tightened she felt lonely. She wanted her mother, her cousin Elisabeth, any woman family member. Mary had never birthed a baby; she had no idea what to do. Joseph was a carpenter, not even a farmer whose knowledge of livestock birthing might have helped.
She hadn’t known before people could feel this lonely.
But she had faith, and so she endured as seeing Him Who is invisible.
A fear she could taste replaced loneliness as one after another turned Joseph away. Must she give birth in this street crowded with pushing, gawking strangers? Was this how God took care of those who said yes to Him?
She hadn’t known before people could feel this terror.
But she had faith, and so she endured as seeing Him Who is invisible.
Finally, a resting place! The stable looked crude, but at least she’d have some privacy and not a minute too soon. Now there was nothing left in the world but pain; no yesterday, no tomorrow, only this unbearable agony.
She hadn’t known before people could suffer like this.
But she had faith, and so she endured as seeing Him Who is invisible.
Then it was over. Joseph placed the baby in her arms. She gazed into His tiny face and cried with joy.
She hadn’t known before people could love like this.
How could this be? She was seeing the God-man,
the
invisible
made
visible.
She hadn’t known before people could worship like this.
“Thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.” —Matthew 1:21
Ellie Porter trudged home from work through the dirty city snow. The wind chill was a bitter minus twenty and her worn coat barely cut the chill, but she wasn’t about to spend money on bus fare, especially now.
“Well, Grandma,” she muttered, teeth chattering, “at least I won’t have to make this freezing walk for the next six weeks. How’s that for playing your Glad Game? But I won’t get a paycheck for six weeks either.”
Ellie’s grandma had raised her after her mom had died when Ellie had been a toddler. The paramedics who’d responded to calls from worried neighbors had found Ellie lying next to her mother, crying. They estimated she’d been there for two days. Ellie had no memory of it or her mother. Her childhood memories were of happy, carefree summer days on the farm with Grandma, of decorated cedar trees, church music, and turkey dinners at Christmas. There were always gifts under the tree from Santa, a doll, clothes, a new book.
Grandma loved books and told Ellie her mom had too.
“Your mom named you for Eleanor Porter. She was the author who wrote Pollyanna in 1913.”
“Is Pollyanna your favorite book, Grandma? Is that why you read it to me all the time?”
Grandma had smiled. “The Bible is my favorite book, but I do love Pollyanna. We’re going to have to buy a new copy soon. This one is worn out from all the times I read it to your mother and now to you.”
Whenever Ellie was sick or sad, Grandma said, “Play Pollyanna’s Glad Game. Let’s find something to be glad about.”
Ellie didn’t like the book nearly as well as Grandma did, and she strongly disliked the Glad Game, but the year she turned ten she found a beautifully illustrated copy of Pollyanna under the cedar tree. The book’s inscription said, “Never get too old for the Glad Game. Love, Santa.”
Ellie had already been suspicious about Santa and almost asked Grandma why Santa’s handwriting looked so much like hers, but she didn’t.
Grandma died suddenly before New Year’s Day, and Santa died too. Ellie spent the next eight years in foster homes. She seldom spoke of those years. Her twelve-year old daughter, Roxie, was the result of living in one of those homes, and the foster father was in jail.
Ellie adored her daughter.
If only Roxie could have a Christmas like the ones I had with Grandma, with a cedar tree, turkey dinner, and a new book.
That thought had become an obsession this year. Ellie had laughingly even voiced it to a “Santa” who had passed through her line where she worked in a booth as a parking lot attendant at the hospital.
“And what do you want for Christmas, ma’am?”
“Goodbye, Santa.” She had laughed at him. “I don’t believe in you.”
“That doesn’t matter; I believe in you.”
He was so young and looked so serious in his red Santa suit. He must have a good heart; he was volunteering his time to cheer up children in the hospital. Why make him feel bad?
“Okay, Santa. I want a cedar tree, a turkey dinner, and a new book for my daughter.”
“A cedar tree? Not one of the beautiful Fraser Firs they sell in the lots near here?”
She shook her head. “Nope. A scraggly cedar like the kind that grew on Grandma’s farm.”
The driver behind “Santa” honked his horn.
Santa chuckled an authentic ho ho ho. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Right. Goodbye, Santa.”
That had been two weeks ago. Now, two weeks before Christmas, the hospital laid off all the parking lot attendants for at least six weeks. Because of COVID 19 they decided to use the kiosk only system to help prevent the spread of the virus.
“Wonderful timing, just great,” Ellie muttered as she continued plodding through the dirty snow. She stopped to catch her breath, pulled her collar up under her chin, and noticed a church sign and a manger scene. The three kings were close to baby Jesus, but the shepherds were outside the enclosure and had been splattered with salt and dirt from tires.
“This is all wrong,” Ellie said to the shepherds. “You’re supposed to be close to baby Jesus. Those kings didn’t even show up until sometime later when Mary, Joseph, and Jesus were in a rented house. You’re getting a raw deal. And now I’m talking to wood carved nativity figures.”
Ellie started laughing. She looked closely at the shepherds. The artist had done a beautiful job. The years of hard work and suffering lined their faces, but so did their awe and joy as they looked at the Christ Child.
Ellie looked at baby Jesus herself. She knew the story was the truest ever told, the one that offered hope in the mess of life. Ellie remembered baby Jesus had become a man who’d willingly suffered and died on a cross to take the punishment for the sin of the world.
“You never stepped out of the mess of my life, Jesus,” she whispered, “but I said goodbye to you too. Roxie doesn’t know a thing about you.”
The church sign advertised a Christmas Eve Candlelight service.
Ellie didn’t have Grandma’s cedar tree, turkey dinner, or a new book to offer Roxie, but she could share Grandma’s faith. She’d bring Roxie to this candlelight service, just like Grandma had taken her to one at a little country church.
Ellie kept walking. It was still too cold; her coat was still too thin, and her life was still a mess. But strangely, she felt stirrings of hope and joy despite everything.
As Ellie walked up the flight of stairs to her apartment, she caught a scent of cedar and laughed at herself. “First I talk to nativity figures; now I smell invisible trees.”
She pulled her key from her bag, looked up, and almost rubbed her eyes. It couldn’t be, but it was. She saw a small cedar tree with scraggly branches propped against her door. Next to it sat a box with a turkey and everything she needed to make Christmas dinner. Could there be a book too? She looked, no book. Well, it was still a Christmas miracle. She’d give Roxie the beautiful copy of Pollyanna Grandma had given her and teach her the Glad Game.
This was the real world, not a make believe one. Where exactly had these gifts come from? They couldn’t have been here long, not in this apartment building; someone would have walked off with them. Ellie looked down the hallway. Was she imagining that flash of red disappearing around the corner?
“We’re taking Potters and going to Adrian. You guys want to come?”
“Are you crazy? In this snowstorm?”
“Well, Meijer has an awesome sale on BB guns with a coupon, one per customer, until they run out of the guns.”
“No thanks, we’ll stay here! Unless you need us?”
“No, Potters have a coupon, and we do, so we can get guns for Johnnie and Danny. We don’t need you; we just want you!”
Kathy La-Follette laughed. “We love you, but we aren’t crazy. We’ll see you when it isn’t a blizzard.”
We picked up Pastor Potter and Audrey in our old Dodge Aspen station wagon. Off we went through drifting snow on beautiful but treacherous roads, laughing all the way. We got the coveted BB guns and made it home safely, sure La-Follettes would regret not going with us when they heard how much fun we’d had. La-Follettes didn’t regret it. Like I said, they weren’t crazy.
Oh, the crazy stories that old Dodge Aspen could tell! One winter I kept complaining my feet were cold.
“I don’t understand why your feet are cold, honey. I have the heat all the way up, and I’m too warm,” John said.
Then he crawled under the car to change the oil and found the floor on my side was almost gone; there was just a wet, frozen carpet. He pop-riveted a piece of metal to make a floor on my side. The third seat of the car, where the boys sat, faced backward. There was no heat back there, and their shoes froze to the floor.
But what fun we had in that old car! It served us well for a long time. One year the boys bought a set of battery Christmas lights for our annual trip to New York to visit family. They strung them in the window and felt as festive as two of Santa’s elves, even though they had no feeling in their feet.
We took that old car to pick up many of our Christmas trees, cedar trees Bud Smith let us cut in one of his fields. Some years the trees were more brown than green, but they always smelled wonderful.
Bud always said we could cut any tree we wanted. I remember one year, walking through the field, my hands frozen inside my mittens, while John looked at every tree. Finally, he found one he liked. He cut it; it fell with a satisfying thud, and separated into two trees, both quite ugly. We laughed, chose the lesser of two evils, and took it home—home where in winter it got so cold John’s books on the end of the shelves froze to the walls.
The kids didn’t think the cedars looked much like “real” Christmas trees. They sang, “Oh, Christmas bush, oh, Christmas bush, how lovely are thy branches.”
Decked out with our homemade ornaments, the cedar trees looked perfect in the little house we lived in then. We enjoyed mostly homemade Christmases back then. We always managed a few store-bought gifts, thanks to the generosity of our church family who gave their pastor an envelope of cash every Christmas, money they could little afford to give! We filled in with handmade gifts those years.
I can still see the kids in their blanket sleepers with holes in the knees on Christmas morning, holding their hands over the kerosene heater to get warm, and looking at the tree with its few gifts with stars in their eyes.
Before we opened gifts, John always read Luke 2:1-14:
“And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.
2 (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)
3 And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.
4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David:)
5 To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.
6 And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.
7 And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
8 And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.
9 And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
12 And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
14 Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
And then, even before anyone opened a gift, it was Christmas!
Danny was about eight years old the year of the BB guns; Johnnie ten, and Angie thirteen. She opened a beautiful pair of white ice skates. Kimmee wasn’t born yet.
Now we celebrate Christmas in a bigger home with a Fraser Fir tree. When the whole family can gather there are twenty-three of us. No one stands around a kerosene heater to keep warm; we get too warm with the gas fireplace.
Some things stay the same. Thirteen grandchildren look at wrapped gifts with starry eyes, and before we begin, John hands the Bible to our oldest grandson. Reece, thirteen-years old this year, reads Luke 2:1-14, and then, before anyone pulls wrapping paper from the first gift, it is already Christmas.
John locked the church door the Wednesday night before our first Thanksgiving at our little country church. We didn’t have any outside lighting at the church yet, so we held on each other and two-year-old Angie, laughing our way in the dark, trying to get to the car without falling. Johnnie was due to arrive in less than a month and my balance was precarious at best.
Our old car didn’t have a chance to warm up on the short drive home on the dirt roads. We were still shivering when we pulled into the driveway of the little farm tenant house the church rented for us to use as a parsonage.
“Honey, look at all the cars!” I said.
“Looks like everyone who was at prayer meeting and lots of people who weren’t,” John answered.
Prayer meeting didn’t start until 8 p.m. back in those days to give the farmers a chance to finish chores. By now it was well after nine o’clock. We were puzzled by the unexpected company so late. Many of them had to be up well before dawn to begin milking.
We were even more surprised when they all followed us in the house carrying boxes and paper sacks. They piled the packages on our table and on the floor around it.
They smiled at us. “Well, aren’t you going to unpack everything?” someone asked.
Our wonderful church people watched as we unpacked more groceries than our little house had room to hold: flour, sugar, soups, pasta, potatoes, spaghetti sauce, peanut butter, jelly, coffee, home canned goods, milk, butter, eggs, apples, and bags and bags of meat; turkey, chicken, hamburger, roasts, and steaks. They hadn’t forgotten Angie either; she squealed with joy when she found treats they had packed just for her.
John and I looked at each other trying to hold back tears. How many times had we stood in the aisle at the grocery store trying to decide whether to put back the coffee or the toilet paper? We knew the coffee had to go, but oh it was hard putting it back on the shelf. Bills came first; food came last. Now we had so much food we didn’t know where to put it all. Our church people couldn’t pay us much back in those days, but we weren’t going to go hungry that winter.
“Happy Thanksgiving!” they said. They hugged us and left. Then we cried.
There were many lean years like that at our country church, years when we saw God’s hand in a visible way meeting our needs week by week. Finally, the congregation grew large enough to give John raises. I began getting regular assignments to write curriculum, and finances weren’t so lean.
Then came 2020. John lost some income. The company that had hired me on a regular basis for many years declared a one-year freeze on hiring. New bills tucked themselves into the mailbox with the old ones we were used to seeing each month.
But our faith never wavered, right? We know God far better now than those two kids who unpacked all that Thanksgiving food forty-seven years ago, right? When the fuel bills came, I never asked John how we were going to pay them, did I? When vehicles broke down again, when we had to make yet another trip to a doctor, hospital, or pharmacy, we trusted without a shadow of doubt, didn’t we?
Why do we sometimes act like orphans when we have such a loving heavenly Father?
I wish I could tell you all the wonderful, unexpected ways God has met our needs this year. If I start, I know I’ll leave someone out. But I’ll share just a few. One vehicle died, and someone gave us another one. Who does that? Twice a neighbor knocked on our door with a large gift of cash that he said came from him and “others.” We don’t know who the others are; but we thank them and God. Once he brought the gift right after someone had just asked John how we were going to pay the LP gas bill. That someone wasn’t me, was it?
In big and little ways, God has met our needs through the years. This 2020 year was a lean year, and yet, it wasn’t. We got to see God at work in a way we haven’t seen Him since we were much younger.
The Sunday before Thanksgiving John showed me two envelopes from our church people. “Happy Holidays” was written on the envelopes, and they were stuffed with cash. Most of our church family doesn’t have much to give, and we were overwhelmed when we counted the money. We also got a gift certificate to a local meat market.
John put that money right in the bank. We know another LP gas bill will come soon, and we’re sure that gift from our loving church family will more than cover it.
We were so blessed our first Thanksgiving, and we are so blessed now. We’re ending the year with all we need and then some.
We might not have the pay and retirement packages pastors of larger churches have, but we have something far better. We get to see the hand of God at work in our lives, up close and personal.
Our kids sang their Thanksgiving song for years when they were growing up, “Over the river and through the woods to Aunt Eve’s house we go!”
Those were the days, my friend. The guys borrowed tables and chairs from the church and set them up in Eve and Bruce’s basement. Women and girls crowded into the kitchen, laughing, talking, mashing potatoes, stirring gravy, and carrying a plethora of side dishes down the steep stairs to the basement where cousins played and waited for the feast to begin. Love, laughter, and gratitude filled the house. And then we quieted as Bruce prayed before we ate; God was with us, and we really thought those days would never end.
But end they did. Six years ago, Eve lost her battle with ovarian cancer and our hearts broke.
Thanksgiving moved to our home. I knew it would never be the same without Eve, and it wasn’t, but still, it was good to be together. The first year without Eve we shared some tears. There were tears too when a nephew lost his battle with cancer, but still, we found comfort, healing, and even joy in a day spent together thanking God for each other.
This year cancer came to visit me. I didn’t want to give up Thanksgiving, but I didn’t know how I could do it either. I shouldn’t have worried; our sweet daughter-in-law Mindy offered to host it. But then one family after another got sick and our beloved patriarch, Bruce, entered the hospital. For the first time in decades our family will not be going over the river and through the woods to gather anywhere to celebrate our blessings.
Our youngest daughter, Kimmee, lives with us, so she and her husband will celebrate Thanksgiving with John and me.
“Mom,” Kimmee said to me, “I’m sad. This is the first Thanksgiving of my life I won’t see Danny.”
I had a hard time holding back tears. Danny is our youngest son, and Mindy is his wife. We have four children, and they haven’t all been able to spend every Thanksgiving with us, but both Danny and Kimmee have. This is the first time since he was born that we won’t see Danny on Thanksgiving. It’s the first time since he married Mindy that we won’t see her. It’s the first time since their kids were born that we won’t see them! Megan, our oldest grandchild, has spent twenty-one Thanksgiving days with us.
Get a grip, Donna! Thanksgiving is not the time to whine and dine.
This year, the infamous 2020, forces me to dig deeper to find gratitude and joy. Since I started writing this article Bruce closed his eyes here and opened them in heaven. We cry because Bruce will never again join us at our Thanksgiving table or any table here, but we rejoice because we’ll join him where no shadow of sorrow will dim joy. Still, I’m tired of saying goodbye to people I love.
Since I started writing this our plans for Thanksgiving dinner for four evaporated. One of us has Covid-19 and pneumonia and is confined to his room, and the other three of us are in quarantine. We decided to wait for turkey and trimmings until we can sit together at a table.
Thanksgiving doesn’t look anything like I wanted it to. The year 2020 doesn’t look like anyone wanted it to!
So what now? Pity party time? Mindy sent me a great devotional today from proverbs31.org. In “Life is Too Short to Live Unhappy,” Tracie Miles wrote, “We can still make the intentional choice to be thankful for the life we have, even if it looks different than we want it to.”
I’m grateful for a loving, caring, wonderful family and church family. I’m grateful for a God who loves me and sent His Son to die for my sins, even my sin of silly ingratitude about one day that looks nothing like what I’d planned. I’m grateful for my husband of fifty-one years who has walked through fire and hasn’t lost his boyish sense of humor. I’m grateful for Kimmee who lives here and cooks and cleans and spoils me rotten. I’m grateful for the spectacular sunsets we’ve enjoyed this November. My gratitude list is endless!
And I’m grateful for you. Some of you started wandering these backroads with me from my first blog on November 3, 2019. We had no idea where those ramblings would take us, did we?
So, for Thanksgiving 2020, let’s dig deeper. We’ll find gratitude and joy.
Thanksgiving 2021 will come. I’m planning on a full house. But for this year, I share with you something that made me laugh when I saw it on Facebook:
“As for me and my house we will stay where we at.”—1st Isolations 24:7
It was a “Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day,” just like Alexander had in one of my favorite children’s books by Judith Viorst.
Nothing could make him happy. Our normally cheerful little grandson was still sobbing when they strapped him into his car seat. He was thinking of little boy problems doubtless as consuming to little boys as grandma problems are to grandmas. Ignoring the happy sounds of siblings, he kept crying.
Until the car slowed, and he looked out of his window.
They were in the McDonald’s drive-through! Sobs stopped, and with tears still wet on his cheeks he exclaimed, “I like people now!”
Strapped in our seats on this backroad journey Home, we may hide our sobs from others, but our troubles can consume our thoughts and emotions until we are too exhausted to even like people. We’re numb. If any Scripture verse resonates with us it’s, “Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.”
We might even mutter with the long dead Shakespeare:
“Double double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble.”
We’re tired of the trouble, the fire, and the cauldron. Like my little grandson, head down, we ignore the happy sounds of siblings. Our focus is on our tears. Until we look out the window.
When we look out of the window our focus leaves ourselves and we find joy. We learn to say with Helen Keller who surely knew the sting of sorrow, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.”
Instead of sighing over “Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward,” we sing over Jesus’ words in John 16:33, “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”
I don’t know what the metaphorical window is that reunites you with joy, but mine is God, His Word, His creation, and His people. Sometimes a window opens when I read something breathtakingly beautiful written by one of God’s people.
This morning I read this by George MacDonald:
“The shadows of the evening that precedes a lovelier morning are drawing down around us both. But our God is in the shadow as in the shine, and all is and will be well. Have we not seen His glory in the face of Jesus? And do we not know him a little? . . . This life is a lovely school time, but I never was content with it. I look for better—oh, so far better! I think we do not yet know the joy of mere existence. To exist is to be a child of God; and to know it, to feel it, is to rejoice evermore. May the loving Father be near you and may you know it, and be perfectly at peace all the way into the home country, and to the palace home of the living one—the Life of our life.
“. . . My God, art Thou not as good as we are capable of imagining Thee? Shall we dream a better goodness than thou hast ever thought of? Be Thyself, and all is well with us.”
My window is open a bit more now, and I see people who need my prayers. I like people. I love them. And that’s where I find joy.
What magical sounds, sights, or smells transport you back to your childhood? When I hear the words, “Once upon a time,” I’m instantly a child again. I love story; it captures elusive truth and hands it to me so I can carry it close to my heart.
Once upon a time the prophet, Jeremiah, dared to tell a terrible truth. Judah, his homeland, was at war with Babylon.
“Babylon is going to win this war,” Jeremiah proclaimed in a message from God. “Everyone who stays in Jerusalem will die, but those who leave and go over to the Babylonians will live.”
What? Defect to the enemy? Traitor! That’s how many people branded Jeremiah. His wasn’t a message any red-blooded patriot wanted to hear.
Some politicians who were members of the royal family were outraged. “Kill Jeremiah,” they said to King Zedekiah. “He’s bad for morale. He’s weakening the military and the people with his words.”
“Do what you want.” The king shrugged. “I’m not strong enough to stand against your wishes.”
The politicians wanted Jeremiah dead, but they didn’t want to murder him outright. That wouldn’t look good, and they didn’t want blood on their hands. So, they lowered him with ropes into a deep, narrow cistern where he sunk in mud. He could die a slow and painful death from exposure or starvation there, but they hadn’t exactly murdered him themselves, had they?
Shivering and miserable, stuck in mud and his own filth, unable to climb out of the pit, Jeremiah began the slow process of dying. What would claim him first, starvation or exposure? No wonder Jeremiah’s nickname was “the weeping prophet.”
What had he done to earn such terrible suffering? He’d told a hard truth God had instructed him to tell. He hadn’t liked sharing it; Jeremiah loved his country and wanted it to prosper as much as the next patriot. Now he was dying in agony, forgotten by God and man.
Or was he? God never forgets, and God always has a man.
Ebed-Melech, an Ethiopian servant, was God’s man.
Bravely, he told the king. “Those princes of yours have done a wicked thing. Jeremiah is starving to death.”
The easily influenced king said, “Take thirty men with you, and get Jeremiah out of that pit before he dies.”
It wouldn’t take thirty men to pull one emaciated prophet from a pit; the men were for protection.
Ebed-Melech grabbed some ropes and old rags and hurried to the pit.
Someone defined compassion as “your pain in my heart.” Ebed-Melech felt compassion. He must have imagined what it would feel like to be in so much pain, half starved, and then hauled up by ropes. How could he make it easier for Jeremiah?
“Put these rags under your arms so the ropes don’t cut into your skin,” he called down to Jeremiah. Then they hauled Jeremiah up to safety.
Wanted: Kindness and old rags.
It seems that kindness felt but not acted out turns to callousness. We see and hear of so much need, so much agony in the world around us. People are suffering in pits of pain, mentally, physically, emotionally. We hear it on the news; we read it on Facebook.
What would Ebed-Melech do? We might want to haul everyone out of pits; that we cannot do, but a little kindness goes a long way to someone suffering. I think old E.M., if he were alive today, would find a way to send a rag even if it were just by a card or a name breathed in prayer. And if he could do more, he would do that too.
I love story, and Paul Harvey’s “The Rest of the Story” was one of my favorites. What was the rest of the story for E.M.? Jerusalem did fall to Babylon, just as Jeremiah had said, but God spared E.M.’s life. You can read about it in Jeremiah 39:15-18.
Ebed-Melech wasn’t even his real name; those words just mean “servant of the king.”
Once upon a time, there was a nameless man, who did a great deed of kindness with a heartful of courage and a handful of old rags. I bow to you, E.M. We desperately need more of you in the hurting story our world is writing today. May your tribe increase!
We were once again on our way to the small hardware store in Nashville, Indiana.
“I’m sorry you aren’t getting the nice vacation I wanted for you, honey,” I said to John.
It started when we couldn’t get reservations at Brown County, our favorite Indiana campground. We went somewhere else the first night and arrived well after dark because of camper repairs John had to make before we could leave. As he struggled to back the camper into our site, a group of retired people sitting around a campfire across from us laughed jeeringly.
“And now the entertainment begins!” one of them said.
People can be so mean.
We arrived at the next campground while it was still light, and John had an easy time backing in.
“What is that big fenced in area right behind our camper?”
John laughed. “Airport.”
The trains we heard all night were even louder than the planes. John only slept a few hours anyway. He was up researching how to fix the wiring on a camper because we had no electricity. We discovered the next morning it wasn’t our camper; it was a faulty electric box at our site.
An exhausted John drove us on to Brown County. He’d tried to get our favorite remote site when he’d made reservations, but it was occupied. The only places available were in a crowded area, not our favorite way to camp, but at least we’d be at our beloved Brown County.
I’d prayed for sunny weather; it rained every day, sometimes non-stop. I’d asked for a restful time for my tired husband; instead, he had to fix something daily on our old truck or on ancient Bertha, our 1988 fifth wheel. I’m sure you don’t want me to bore you with the list of things he had to do, and some he spent hours on turned out to be unfixable.
I learned long ago that God is not a glorified Santa. He doesn’t give us everything we request. He gives us what we need, and when we don’t agree with Him, we better be the ones who change. I also learned that God sends blessings with every burden.
We met a few earth angels on vacation. You remember the people who laughed at John trying to back in the camper in the dark? John heard a quiet voice at his truck window. It wasn’t one of them.
“Like some help? A little more to the left. Now straighten it out. A bit more to the right. Okay, you’ve got it. Just go back about three feet.”
“Thank you so much!”
“Think nothing of it. People help me and I like to help them.”
People can be so kind.
God sent another earth angel too. John bought a part to repair the truck, and he’s pretty handy, but he’d never done this before.
Before he left for town to pick up the part I said, “Honey, see if you can find a garage to help you put it on.”
He wasn’t sure; he didn’t want to spend the money, but he agreed to try. He found a tiny garage.
“Could you put this part on for me?”
“I’d really like to help you out, but I’m swamped today. I just can’t.”
“Okay. Well thanks anyway.” John started back to the truck.
“Wait, Let’s see. What do you have there?”
John showed him the part.
“That won’t take long. I’ll do it for you.”
When he finished, John asked, “What do I owe you?”
“Oh, just give me ten bucks.”
Earth angel!
John gave him twenty.
There were more blessings. I was recovering from chemo number six and couldn’t stay awake, but I didn’t have to worry about John getting bored. He didn’t have time to do that!
The hospital called the day before we left to go camping and warned me that my numbers were low. I had to be careful of infection, avoid all public restrooms and couldn’t eat any takeout food. A tiny country store in the area makes delicious cinnamon rolls. John didn’t want to get them because he thought they would make me hungry. I assured him they wouldn’t; I was having to force myself to eat anything, and I love the backroads drive to that store. It’s an awesome drive through the Indiana hills. They call that area the Little Smokies.
We picked a morning when John wasn’t repairing something and headed for the store. John came back out laughing. “They didn’t make the rolls today. But they said they’ll have them tomorrow.”
“We’ll come back! The rolls can be your treat, and this beautiful drive can be mine!”
And we did go back, in the pouring rain yet again, and the drive was beautiful, and we were together.
I never finished what I started to say in this article. I’ll finish it now and you’ll see why I say John is the best earth angel I met on the trip.
We were once again on our way to the small hardware store in Nashville, Indiana.
“I’m sorry you aren’t getting the nice vacation I wanted for you, honey,” I said to John.
“What are you talking about? I’m having a wonderful time!”
This? This after crawling under wet things and getting cold and muddy and spending hours trying to fix things that couldn’t be fixed and being the hardware store’s best customer and getting no down time at all?
“Stop quick! Pull this truck over! Fast!”
He stepped on the brakes. “What’s wrong? Are you going to be sick?”
“I’m fine, but I’m getting out! I don’t ride in trucks with crazy people!”
I do ride with an earth angel though; he takes me to check ups and blood work and tests and chemo appointments. He took me to my last chemo yesterday. I hope I have many more years to backroads travel with him and all the many earth angels in my life.
My next PET scan is December 3 and I see the doctor for results December 7. I’m praying Morticia has exited my lungs and then I’ll hang up a NO vacancy sign so she doesn’t think of returning. I’m smiling and hopeful. God is not a glorified Santa. But whatever the news, God is good.
This cancer journey took me down a backroad I never expected to travel, but I have seen some beautiful things and met some wonderful people. Thank you for traveling it with me!
For some reason, my little sister, Mary, and I took an intense dislike to our neighbor. To show our disgust we dug worms we almost gagged to touch and threw them over the fence into his yard. He probably collected them to go fishing.
Mary and I often whispered about our neighbor as we dug worms. I wish I could remember why we didn’t like him, but it was too long ago. Neither of us were school age yet.
I remember that day. That one day.
“Mary,” I whispered, “he is probably going to hell.”
From some vague Sunday school teaching it occurred to me that if our obnoxious neighbor were going to hell someone should tell him so he wouldn’t go there. It couldn’t be me; I was only as high as his knee, and I was a strange, funny little kid, ready to dream up and execute any adventure regardless of consequences but painfully shy around anyone but family. I couldn’t possibly find courage to talk to aour neighbor.
Worm after disgusting worm, I couldn’t get rid of the thought. That horrible man is going to hell. My own sins of hatred and worm-throwing didn’t bother me in the least, but surely that terrible man had terrible sins that would send him to that terrible place.
“I’m going to tell him he’s going to hell,” I announced to Mary.
“You can’t,” she whispered. I’m imagining now how she looked, brown-black eyes huge in her beautiful little heart-shaped face.
She knew I would. We’d both heard the stories about me. We didn’t remember them happening, but they had to be true, because Mom told them.
According to Mom before I was two, I ate a pound of raw hamburger, an entire African Violet, and got into many other things the minute she turned her back. I locked her in the basement when she went down to hang the laundry and refused to turn the key to let her out. There she stayed the entire day, probably frantic about what I was doing and hoping I wasn’t feeding baby sister Mary raw hamburger and African Violets. When I was about two and a half and Mary fifteen months, I led us both on an adventure. Proudly pushing our doll carriages, we walked down the center line of one of the busiest roads in town.
If I’d done all that, I could do this. Someone had to tell our neighbor he was going to hell. I would. But how?
I had a little chair.
I walked into the house and got my little chair. Legs shaking, I carried it around the fence into our neighbor’s yard, put it down at his feet, and climbed up on it. I still remember his face. It said, isn’t that cute? That little neighbor girl brought her chair all the way over here to talk to me.
He didn’t look terrible; he looked amused and kind, and that almost stopped me, but only for a minute.
I stood on tiptoe, reached up, yanked his cigar out of his mouth, and threw it on the ground. “You are going to hell!” I yelled.
His amused, kind look turned hurt and shocked. And angry.
I jumped off my chair, picked it up, and headed for home as fast as I could go.
I remember feeling triumphant, like I’d done something brave, and good, and important. I felt sure everyone would be proud of me. But I had to keep pushing away how hurt my neighbor had looked.
Telephone calls travel faster than little girls with short chubby legs carrying chairs. Mom all but hauled me in the house. I’d had many spankings before and deserved them. But this one?
Wait! Didn’t she understand I’d done something fearless and noble that deserved praise?
There was a man in the Bible who had a little chair. He was a religious leader. He stood on his chair to pray, careful not to let his fine robe brush any part of the man on the ground next to him.
This high-ranking ruler lifted his arms toward God and shouted, “God, thank You for making me better than others. I thank you that I’m not like this sinner on the ground next to me!”
Getting off his chair, the religious ruler walked away.
The man on the ground didn’t even lift his face toward the sky. “God,” he whispered, “be merciful to me. A sinner.”
Jesus told the story; I added the chair. Jesus said which of the two men found mercy. Can you guess?
I see so many people on their little chairs shouting in each other’s faces, and I don’t think it will end when the polls close on November 3.
We find so many things to judge and criticize each other for, don’t we?
My little chair still follows me everywhere. As determined as I am never to get on it again, I sometimes do, at least in my thoughts. I’m relieved it’s not going to heaven with me!
So, do I believe in heaven and hell? With all my heart. I just don’t think screaming from a chair helps people find the right direction. A road sign shared with love might though. Here’s one.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” –John 3:16
And my poor neighbor if you’re still alive somewhere and reading this, you doubtless wondered whatever happened to that incredibly rude child who had a little chair. She didn’t become the criminal you may have expected, she became a writer, and she asks you to forgive her. I hope that wasn’t an awfully expensive cigar.
