He is Mighty to Save

My daughter complained that I haven't written a blog in a long time. She's right. I haven't.

Sometimes I feel I have so much inside me I want to express, but the words just aren't there. Maybe those words are not complete, or maybe they are just too precious to share. Or maybe there isn't anything there after all. So I'll begin and see what comes out.

This year has been different from any I've spent in my life. Having major surgery and trying to get my energy back has given me a whole different perspective. The weather,low systems in particular, affect my joints. I don't want to say I have arthritis so I just say "my joints ache." The feeling is unlike any I've ever felt so it's hard to explain exactly how it feels or how it suddenly comes on.

The new perspective is this: I am no longer in control of my body. (As though I ever was.) I am nearer death and that thought bothers me. I don't mind going to Heaven. What I do mind is not being here any longer.

When my mother was close to her death, we talked about it. Her comment was, "I just don't want to leave you." I'm sure I gave her some dumb response like "We'll see each other again." We will, but that wasn't the point. Now I know what she meant. I don't like thinking that I won't be around when my great-granddaughter grows up, goes to college, gets married, has children. I won't be able to stand beside my grandson and watch all this happen. Right now, thinking about it, I already miss it.

What will it be like to be gone? To no longer be on this earth and in this life? My daughters and grandchildren and a few other relatives will remember me, but after that I'll be nothing but a---what? I'm not even sure. I won't be remembered like Abraham Lincoln or Princess Diana. How will I be remembered and is that even important?

I never met my grandmother's father. All I ever knew of him was a big photograph in her upstairs bedroom. The picture made him look austere and harsh. My cousin and I were scared to sleep in that bedroom because of Grandpa Nichols.

Will I be remembered like that? Just a picture that one of my great-great-grandchildren may accidently find in their parent's box of family photos? And if so, does it even matter?

What I'd like for my children and grandchildren to remember is that I loved God with all my heart and I lived my life in a way that everyone knew it.

Surgery at 74 isn't like surgery at 42, the age I was the last time I went under the knife. I kind of knew I'd come out of the anesthetic this time, but there was that slight doubt. All during the night before I had a song going through my mind: "Saviour, He can move the mountains, He is mighty to save, mighty to save." Friends and family were in the pre-op room when the anesthesiologist gave me the shot to make me forget. Later my grandson, who was there with his dad, told me I started singing this song. The others in the room sang with me, he said. The shot had done its work and let me express what was in my heart and spirit.

I didn't die. In fact, I learned a great deal during recovery and rehab. I've expressed that before on this blog. God went out ahead of us and made our way straight.

One good thing about dying. Once it happens to you, you don't worry about what you left behind. I'm getting there. I do know this--God is with me here and there. He is mighty to save under all circumstances.

Plan B and the Knee

I've been thinking about what to write all day. A few ideas have come and gone. What really perturbs me is the total lack of creativeness since all I can think of is this stupid knee!

This morning I tried to dust. I had no idea how much I use my knees to dust! I did a room or two and will save the rest for later.

Next Tuesday is Knee Day. I will have a total replacement. Months of rehab then I will be back to normal. I'm not sure I know how to walk normally any more. Surely that knowledge doesn't go away in just 4 1/2 months.

The book I'm reading now is by Pete Wilson, the pastor of Cross Point Church in Nashville. It's titled "Plan B" and subtitled "What Do You Do When God Doesn't Show Up The Way You Thought He Would?" A shorter subtitle is "What do you do when your life isn't turning out the way you thought?"

I am grateful to my cousin's daughter who turned me on to this book, and I'm grateful to Pete for writing it. Most of all I'm grateful to the Holy Spirit who gave the words and thoughts for this book and somehow had it on the shelf at Border's when I looked for it. Why? Because I'm living in Plan B and have been for a long time only I didn't know it. This book tells me how to do it.

On the first page Pete sends this book out to those "who choose to believe in the midst of their Plan B that one day faith will win over doubt, light will win over darkness, love will win over hate, and all things will be redeemed and exist the way they should."

I'm not even sure what Plan A was any more. I expected to be in a different place than I am today. I expected my children to be in a different place. What I found out was that all my expectations don't matter a hoot when life gets going. How can one child meet the expectations and the other child be so far from them? How can a few years and some serious road blocks change a person's life?

I have many more questions today than I have answers. It used to be the other way. I had many answers and few questions. But those answers I was so sure of have fizzled. I'm only sure of one thing.

Jesus.

Without knowing Him and that I'm now in God's family because of Him, I'd never make it through this day and into the next.

Years ago, after leaving Plan A and not knowing if there was a Plan B, Jesus told me, "I'll never leave you or forsake you." In fact, while I was in the darkness between the Plans, He was there with me. I didn't know it then, but after what He said, now I know He's with me in this place, too. And wherever it leads.

I haven't had surgery since 1978. I didn't think about dying back then. Now I do. What if I don't wake up this time? I expect to wake up, but what if I don't? Where will I be? I think the scripture teaches that we sleep and wake up when Jesus returns. I don't like that--years, centuries of being nowhere? But time to God is nothing. If we die and sleep, we don't remember sleeping and being nowhere because in the instant between death and awaking in His Presence, it is that--an instant. And maybe we go straight to be with Him. Whatever He decides is all right with me.

Okay. I think I'll be all right. If I didn't think that, I'd be writing last letters to everyone I love. If you don't get one from me and I don't wake up, I want you to know I love you and am thankful you were in my life. But I'll wake up and have to go on living in Plan B, which, by the way, hasn't been all that bad so far.

In a couple of weeks I'll limp into the office and send out an email telling you all about my new knee and rehab and what it was like being in the hospital. At least it will give me something to write about. The next thing I want to do is get back into the writing mode. Surely all those books haven't gone by the wayside?

I'll let you know.

Time

Tomorrow is our sixth anniversary. Six doesn't sound very long but it seems it has been much longer because we've experienced so much. Those years have been full. New grandchildren, a book published and numerous books read, trips to faraway places, new friends, new churches. Time filled with laughter and heartaches, all in a short 2190 days.

Six and a half years ago I was single, worked four days a week for a chiropractor thinking I would probably be shuffling around in his office until I died. I had no idea I'd ever marry again. Then God transcended distance and brought Reid and me together.

Twelve years ago I was widowed.

Thirty years ago I got married for the second time. I hoped I'd marry again, but when I met Jim,I wasn't sure he was THE ONE. I asked God. He spoke to me, words that gave me a choice and told me if I chose to marry, all the things I'd been praying about for years would come to pass. I did and they did.

Sixteen years ago Second Daughter's son was born. That same year Mother died at the age of 89.

Twenty-five years ago First Daughter's son was born.

Thirty-four years ago Daddy died.

I could go on, of course. Years pass and they seem like nothing, but when we look back at them, they are forever ago.

What do I have left to do in my life? What's on my bucket list? I can think of one thing that I plan to do in two years--send Second Daughter and her husband to Italy on a Tauck tour. Other than that, I'd be happy to have books published and sold. Mostly I just want to keep living; keep loving life; keep seeing friends and family; meeting new people, loving God and knowing Him better. When I finally die, I'd like for people to say they were glad they knew me. What could be better than that?

I Can Only Imagine

I talked to my nutritionist yesterday and he gave me a new diet to follow. Guaranteed to lose weight diet! I may have to try it but not today. I haven't even had time in a week to get on the elliptical much less think about what I have to eat.

What's up with this weather? Where did winter go? The juniper and cedar and everything else that makes a person sneeze is out in force. I put a picture of snow on my cell phone in hopes that would draw a little moisture our way.

Still and all, even with all the craziness going on here, I'm so at peace with where God has me. I can make a list of things I SHOULD be doing or things I WANT to do, but truth be told, it will either get done or not and the world will keep turning.

The main reason I started this post today was to talk about a man I've never met. His name is Oliver Foster. He was one of Reid's cousins. Oliver never progressed beyond about 6 years old. As his parents got older they made arrangements for him to be taken care of the rest of his life in a home in Stamford, Texas. His care fell to Reid's mother, and when she passed, it fell to Reid. The past few weeks Reid has been on the phone with the home, with the doctor and some of his staff at a hospital in Abilene. The decision was made to put Oliver on hospice care and he passed into the next world last night. He's to be cremated and his remains sent to Hereford, Texas. Reid and I will go there soon and have a small graveside service for him.

Although I've never met this man, I have a certain sadness about his passing. Death is that last victory that will be overcome when Jesus decides to do away with it--whenever and however that will be. We don't have any idea what it's like on the other side. We call it Heaven and we like to think it's much like our lives here only perfect. That's because we can't imagine beyond our own manner of existence on earth. Did Oliver meet, recognize and rejoice over seeing his family again? Was there a wonderment about having a clear, mature mind?

A few months ago I wrote a blog about one of Reid's relatives who watched from another realm while doctors worked to save him. He said he experienced God and a peace like he could never describe. He said it isn't what we expect? Was he in what we call Heaven? Is there more? I've read dozens of books by people who have been on the other side. They all have difficulty putting their experiences into words.

The questions of life after death have been with mankind since the Garden, and we still don't know.

What is life like for those who don't believe in an after life? I'd hate to live without knowing there's something more when I leave this life. But all I know for sure is that somewhere, somehow we will be in the actual presence of God in a way we won't know until we get there. The song says, "I can only imagine." I'm not sure I can begin to imagine, can you?

Who Do You Miss?

I received another one of those emails today that asks you to answer several questions about yourself--something that's supposed to help your friends get to know you better. This one asked, "Who do you miss the most?" The person who sent it to me wrote her mother, father and the family she grew up with.

I stopped and thought. Who do I miss? My parents? The husband I lost to cancer? I couldn't honestly say I miss them. They're better off than when I last was with them: my dad had heart failure, my mother was 89 and her mind had gone from me, my husband couldn't breathe. As I thought about it, one name came to my mind. It was the name of one of the oldest friends in my life. We met in second grade. She stayed with us for about six weeks in high school while her parents went to Africa. She rode to school with us every day from junior high through high school.

After I graduated, we moved from our home town, and after she was married, she and her husband moved to the same town we were living in. We moved back to our old home town and so did they. Then they moved to New Mexico and we didn't see each other for a long time. She wrote letters, called, sent needlework presents, and never let go of our friendship. She got cancer and fought it for years, but finally she just gave it up. I remember the last time I spoke to her. What could I say? Not much. I just cried. I wasn't ready to live in a world without my friend, but I had to.

I guess I miss her more than anyone I've known, and the reason is probably a selfish one. Someone who hangs on to you for over sixty years must love you. What I miss is not just talking to her, but knowing she's still holding on to me.