It’s been three years since both of my parents passed. They were old; they had health problems; but those details did not lessen my loss. After their passings, I looked back upon their last minutes, their last days, and their last years. I saw the fulfillment of God’s word to both my Daddy and my Mama:
“I will be your God throughout your lifetime until your hair is white with age,” He said. “I made you, and I will care for you. I will carry you along and save you.” (ESV)
And I’m so thankful He did – care for them, carry them, and save them.
As I think about those last years of their lives, I wish I had been a bit more patient with them, a bit more loving to them, and a bit more compassionate for them. In other words, a bit more like the Father.
If you still have your parents or grandparents, how will you carry them along until their “hair is white with age”?
Pray:
Loving Lord, thank You for Your faithfulness to me, even through my old age. Help me to be faithful to my parents and my grandparents through their old age.
The soap dish held court at various locations in the old Victorian home—the big yellow house—as it sustained its royal status through the years the family lived there. It doesn’t look like much. And to most, it probably isn’t much. Just a soap dish, from Kresge’s, one might assume. Probably purchased in the 50’s. Pink plastic with removable drainer. The gold trim of its crown nearly worn from years of scouring with Comet Cleanser. One might easily overlook the esteemed position it held through the years.
Court was held upstairs beside the claw foot bathtub. The woman scooped the white Ivory bar from the dish, scrubbing the children’s skinned knees and alfalfa-entangled hair before wrapping them in blanket-sized towels and carrying them one by one to the warmth of the oversized register to dry and dress in their flannel pajamas.
At times, court was held at the newly added sink in the small half bath, which had been added many years prior, in the empty space under the stairway. The woman placed a new Dove bar (her favorite) in the clean soap dish, and the bar lasted a long time.
The years passed; the children left the big yellow house; and the soap dish with the Dove bar was one day replaced by liquid soap in a sterile, aloof, pump dispenser.
Court was then held in the back room of the old house, aside the jumbo cast iron sink and the old pitcher pump. LAVA soap filled the dish now, and the man used the LAVA bar several times a day, faithfully scrubbing his aging hands, shredding evidences of hours of labor on the land and in the woods. The soap dish was often covered with the dirty, dried bubbles of the resultant purification process. The woman used more Comet Cleanser, more often.
Again, years passed; the old man and the old woman left the big yellow house; and the pink, plastic, old soap dish sat alone, empty, and covered with dried pumice, a simple, quiet remembrance of the old man, the old woman, and their family.
Now grown, the little girl, who had overlooked the pink, plastic soap dish many years before, and to whom the soap dish had once seemed silly and unimportant, suddenly recognized its royal position and gently cleaned it and placed it at a prominent place in her home, allowing the soap dish to once again hold court . In a time of scented, foaming, liquid soap choices, the soap dish now holds a plain, white bar of Kirk’s Castile and is regularly but delicately cleaned in an effort to maintain its royal position. It doesn’t look like much. And to most, it probably isn’t much. But to the little girl, it’s another confirmation of her royal heritage.
Ron and I celebrated Christmas with our family yesterday. Five little ones sat around our small breakfast table; two babies were in their little chairs; and twelve of us sat around my big threshing table. The table was lined with various sizes of clear and blue Ball canning jars, each filled with snow (epsom salts) and tea lights or pine cones and red berries – all on a burlap runner. (Got the idea from Pinterest.) Johnson Bros. “Friendly Village” place settings (a gift from Ron – some years ago) covered the table. The room was filled with tiny white lights on realistic but artificial pine. (One of us is allergic to real pine!) The nativity (collected from our North Woods days) was placed nearby, a ever-present reminder of why we had gathered.
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I prepared a ten-pound boneless beef rib eye roast coated with peppercorns and served with horseradish cream. It was the largest and most tender Christmas roast I’d ever prepared. The potatoes were mashed from those I had dug from my garden late in the fall. Along with the salads and vegetables my girls brought, the dinner was delicious!
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Ron (Papa) prayed; Matilyn, our 13-year-old granddaughter, read the Christmas passage from the Gospel of Luke, and the children (young and old) rejoiced in the gifts that were shared.
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Memories of the day include the “abc” wad of gum I later found stuck on the butter dish, as well as the discovery of the baby crib mattress, taken from a bedroom, which I found in a battered and torn state at the base of the stairway, where two of the children had used it to slide down the stair steps while we adults sat talking in the dining room! Later, when they all went home, shoes and jackets and tiny pieces of toys were left behind, some small gifts remained to be exchanged, and I knew that the day had passed much too fast.
Sounds like the perfect day?
It wasn’t!
The tree was decorated just a few short days before this party! Not every planned recipe was actually prepared and served. I didn’t take the photos I wanted. (Photos of the canning jars, dishes, and rib eye roast are taken from online!) Some of the family were late; some left early. Our family has struggled with outside forces and trials throughout the last three years.
This Christmas day was not a perfect day, but it was a “turning point” day. It was the first time we were all together in a year; our hearts were joined in love for each other and unity in Christ; so I felt very blessed! It was the end of another difficult year and nearly the beginning of a new, victorious year; so I was also thankful!
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I share my “not so perfect” day because I know that many of you, my readers, have similar Christmas days – or similar Decembers – or perhaps similar, difficult last few years, as we have. Our homes do not look like the photos we see on Pinterest, nor do our lives appear similar to the vibrant postings we read on Facebook!
When I awake on Christmas morning, I think of you women who are alone. My heart aches for you. I think of you who are grieving a recent loss, the pangs of which were replayed in every Christmas carol you heard this season. Things are not always as we want them to be. Our plans do not all come to fruition at the very time we choose. But we can rejoice in our Lord and know that He is faithful all the time and know that what He tells us in His word will be accomplished!
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There will be another Christmas in the future – perhaps I’ll get a chance to take some photos. Maybe we’ll have a bit more time to relax with each other as a family. Perhaps you won’t be alone next Christmas. For some of you, another year will buffer the intensity of the grief you now so heavily bear.
Let’s speak and believe the word together – the same words spoken by Elizabeth when she met Mary. Let these words remind us that we are and will continue to be blessed:
“Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished.”
Believing that someone cares SO much that he wants to bring you a gift. (Seems to strengthen the heart toward loving God, the one who cares SO much that he gave the gift of Jesus.)
Kids laugh and sing at Christmas.
They anticipate the school party and Christmas morning.
Kids are excited to see a gift added under the tree.
They love decorating cookies,
They want snow.
Yes, Christmas is for kids.
Christmas is for adults wanting to be kids.
Wanting to give and receive.
Remembering Christmases past.
Tearing up when we hear, “I’ll be Home for Christmas” or “There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays.”
Understanding theimportance of “heavenly peace.”
It’s a time when we actually look at strangers and say, “Merry Christmas.”
Yes, Christmas is for adults wanting to be kids!
Christmas is for the believer!
Knowing redemption through the sacrifice, the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, we then contemplate the birth of our Lord and realize how Holy the season really is!
His birth!
The King’s humble birth. In a manger.
The King’s perfect birth. He had to be born of a virgin; otherwise, he wouldn’t be the perfect lamb of God – the spotless lamb. And we see that little baby for who He really is – the Savior of the world – the one who saves us!
Yes, Christmas is for the believer!
But most of all, Christmas is for the unbeliever, the one who does not yet know Christ as Lord.
After all, this is why Jesus came. This is why He was born to a virgin. He was God in the flesh. He came for us!
We who need Immanuel — “God with us.”
He came for us!
We who are lost in our sin and need a Savior.
He came for us!
We who are blemished and could never offer a spotless lamb of sacrifice.
He came for us!
So, this Christmas is for you, the unbeliever. If you have not yet believed with your heart and confessed with your mouth (prayer) the Lord Jesus, let this be the Christmas season that you become a Christian, a believer of the “little Lord Jesus” who “lay down His sweet head” and later lay down His life for you.
Christmas is God’s gift – Jesus!
He is the good news!
Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.. . For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. . . We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah)
When I was a little girl, Christmas was fun! And Christmas was filled with joy!
I remember hearing sleigh bells ringing outside our house in the dark of night. I saw Santa’s sleigh tracks in the middle of the front yard where he had landed his heavy sleigh and reindeer.
My brother Larry and I one Christmas morning with our perfect Christmas gifts. Larry got a Lionel train set, and I received Posey, who quickly became my favorite doll of all time! (I still have her today!) It looks like we must have received matching red slippers, as well!
Early Christmas morning, we three kids woke early, wrapped ourselves in warm bathrobes, and quietly stepped down each step of the big stairway to our living room where we were welcomed by the brightly lit tree, enveloped with big, cone-shaped electric bulbs of red, blue, green, orange, and white. Sleepy Mommy and Daddy met us by the tree and then made that moment and the balance of our day so special! They imbedded each fun tradition with the true meaning of Christmas.
Many years later, when I was the young mother of little children, Christmas was fun! And Christmas was filled with joy!
Santa ate the cookies and drank the milk the children had set out. On Christmas Eve, their Daddy read the Christmas story from his Bible. Matt, Kristen, and Amber slept in their warm flannels and fleece, on the floor, their heads on pillows under the tree lights. They never heard Santa place the Detroit Lions football helmet, the Cabbage Patch dolls, the 4-wheeler Big Foot, or the Care Bears under the tree, just inches from their sweet, sleeping bodies. One Christmas, when Daddy was out of work and the money was scarce, he made a 4-wheeler track for Matt and a horse stable for the girls. Those gifts were appreciate just as much or more than the store-bought gifts. Every Christmas was fun and filled with joy!
But after the children were grown and moved away, Christmas was not as much fun any more. And Christmas was not filled with as much joy.
Family gatherings, once a vital part of the season, now had empty chairs, once held by special grandpas, grandmas, aunts, or uncles. Songs and carols, once heard on the old, blonde 78-rpm player, and later on the cassette tape or CD, now brought a lump to my throat and an emptiness to my heart. Now Christmas was funonly for the brief time the children came home. And now Christmas was joyonly when I forced myself to find it.
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But then, in that loneliness, I began to take God at His Word and depend fully upon Him and upon His faithfulness! I learned to rejoice in the Lord always! (Philippians 4:4)
In the Word, I found a connection between joy and strength. I could be strengthened with all might, according to God’s glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness! (Colossians 1:11)
Strengthened . . . with joyfulness! Exactly what I needed!
I also read, the joy of the Lord is our strength! (Nehemiah 8:10)
So now, during the Christmas season, I find the joy that the Lord promises, and I let it strengthen me!
I find joy in remembering my father and mother and others who are gone. I cherish the legacy they left me.
I find joy in the arms of my faithful husband.
I find joy in my grown children who love and honor God.
I find joy in my eleven beautiful grandchildren.
And I find joy in a God who loves me and who grants me unmerited grace, increasing faith, and abundant hope through this year.
During the Christmas season, I will sing, “Joy to the world!”
finding joy that “The Lord is come!”
I will “receive” my “King!”
and “prepare Him room” in my heart,
and I will fill that room with the joy He promises in His Word!
When I awoke this morning and came into the kitchen, Ron was sitting at the island counter, finishing his breakfast and reading his Bible – not uncommon – but I noticed he was intently involved in a passage.
“I’m reading from John 15,” he said. “‘Ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.'”
As he stood and got ready to leave, the look on his face and the shift in his body language said it all. After 43 years and close to that many trials together (or so it seems), I can read him – the tone of his voice, the look in his eyes, the agitation of his jaw, the tenseness of his muscles, the “ahem” in his throat. So I knew exactly what he was thinking and how he felt about it and what he had asked of the Lord this morning. We hugged briefly, knowing and understanding the unstated burden, common to both our hearts.
Shortly after, we said our goodbyes and I love you’s, and he was out the door to work. Later, I opened my Bible to the same passage, wanting to connect to my husband through the word spoken to him, wanting to understand what he had read and embrace the truths he had grasped.
“. . . ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.”
As I read, I am reminded of the many times through our 43 years we’ve asked and it was given. I’m reminded of God’s faithfulness to Ron and me and our children, to give when we asked: provision in times of unemployment, healing in times of sickness, love and restoration in place of pain and hurt, deliverance from addiction, peace in the midst of suffering, and joy in the depths of grief.
I read John 15, thankful that I am a branch on Jesus, the vine, the source of my life; grateful that he loves me and promises that my joy may be complete; satisfied and amazed that he chose me and appointed me.
And once again, I, like Ron, ask. And I know it will be given. I’m a branch on His vine. My God is the gardener.
Believer, what do you need today? Ask Jesus, the true vine.
If you’re not sure you are a branch on the true vine, Jesus, click here and become a believer today.
We look and we judge. We examine her attitude, the words she speaks, her smile or lack thereof, her appearance, whatever. No, I don’t judge people in that way, I think – you think.
But we often judge her as having it “all together.” Everything’s perfect. She’s so happy. Because we think she has the best life or a flawless body or an awesome marriage or the ideal family or a successful career or oodles of money, we don’t think she needs us or our prayers or our encouragement or our time or our words.
But we’re wrong.
Our unwarranted assessments of perfection sometimes blend with bits of jealousy and bitterness, creating unfair thoughts:
She deserves that.
Well, it’s about time she learns how the other half lives.
Why, in the world, would she say such a thing?
I don’t understand her.
She has nothing to complain about.
But sometimes it’s what we don’t see:
The heart that still grieves long after the flowers have withered.
The husband that spews tiny bits of hate upon her every day.
Growing debt. Insurmountable. Overwhelming.
Income that doesn’t meet the needs.
Doubts and fears by the dozens.
The unfaithfulness.
Unruly children.
Broken Dreams.
Depression.
Loneliness.
Diffidence.
Addiction.
Sickness.
Regret.
Abuse.
Guilt.
Pain.
Lord, let me see her as a vulnerable woman, like myself, needing You, needing healing, needing a friend, needing a shoulder, a hug, and needing a word – a word of love.
Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.
I’ve been praying – for a long time – for one of my baby grandsons. Praying for the manifestation of his healing. You see, the healing has already taken place – at the whipping post of Jesus. He bore a stripe for my baby.
So, when I pray, I thank God it’s already been done – at Calvary. And I read all about the healing Jesus brought to so many children. They’re recorded in the gospels – the good news, and I’m strengthened to know that He healed all, and that He’s the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow – the same loving Jesus – the one who loves the children. He calls me “blessed” because I didn’t see him then, yet I believe. (John 20:29) Now I see!
Recently, my prayer has been, “Show me, Lord, what you would have me do for the baby – for his healing.” Today He answered.
“Daily Inspiration” devotions had accumulated in my email log. I opened and studied. Here’s what the Lord told me:
Day 1 – With foreign lips and strange tongues, I speak to people – this is the resting place, the place of repose. Find that place of refreshing rest, Kathi. Let the Holy Spirit speak to the Father in your behalf – for the baby. (Isaiah 28: 11,12)
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Day 2 – Stay in my Word, Kathi! Remember, I told Martha that one thing is needed – to be with me and listen to me. (Luke 10:42) My Word is powerful. It brings health – to you – and to the baby. (Proverbs 4:22) Hearing the word is vital. It builds your faith. (Romans 10:17)
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Day 3 – Nothing is too hard for me, your Sovereign Lord. I perform miraculous signs and wonders. My hand is mighty and my arm is outstretched – to you – to the baby. (Jeremiah 32:17)
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Day 4 – Watch what I will do, Kathi. Nothing is impossible for me. (Luke 1:37)
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Day 5 – I will restore a double portion of what the enemy has taken from your baby. Instead of disgrace, I give him an inheritance. I love justice. (Isaiah 61:7)
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Day 6 – Stand on my promises! When you are discouraged, keep the Word in your heart, where no evil will touch you – or the baby.
I am blessed! Because I believe!
Click here to learn how you can become a believer.
Bedtimes were part of the joyful time – a time of quiet talk – a time of prayer – an assurance of love. For Kaylee, the youngest, it included a time of singing. It was a song I had composed, just for her:
Sweet dreams, my Kaylee Joy;
sweet dreams to you.
Dream about rainbows,
dream about sunshine,
dream about teddy bears, too.
And as she fell asleep, my singing changed to humming, and the humming diminished as I tucked her blankie around her and tiptoed out of the room.
It was during one of those times of humming that the memory came.
Just two musical tones of my humming brought the memory – tones of a first, then down to a fifth. (You musicians know what I mean!)
With those two tones, I saw her – my mother.
She was young. Her hair dark, short, parted on the side, and wavy. I was a baby – how old I don’t know, but young enough that I was still in her arms. I looked at her through baby eyes. I saw my chubby forearm and hand. My hand was touching her soft cheek. And she was singing:
When I pray, I will pray for you,
For you need His love and His care.
When I pray, I will pray for you,
I will whisper your name in my prayer.
At the close of the day, when I kneel to pray,
I will remember you.
You need help every day, this is why I pray,
And I will remember you.
When I pray, I will pray for you,
For you need His love and His care.
When I pray, I will pray for you,
I will whisper your name in my prayer.
I knew the entire song – one I hadn’t heard sung in years, but now I heard only the first of it because, you see, the memory was so short. Perhaps only seconds. But long enough to place me back in my mother’s arms – to remember her holding me, singing to me, loving me.
The memory suddenly poured from my eyes and flowed down my cheeks.
I was glad Kaylee had fallen asleep. I left her bedroom and cherished the ever-so-brief thoughts, thanking God for that special reflection.
And I’ve since thought more about the words to that old hymn. Mama prayed for me. My faith first lived in her (2 Timothy 1:5). And her prayers for me are still worship before the Lord God (Revelation 5:8, 8:4).
When their mothers had gone to be with the Lord, both my friend, Becky, and my cousin, Sherri, shared their feelings of emptiness with me. Besides their normal feelings of grief and loss, they both said, “I feel like my most faithful prayer warrior is gone.”
When my time came, and my mother was gone, I understood. I felt much the same as Becky and Sherri, until I realized that my mother’s prayers were still powerful and alive before God. A golden bowl holds the incense, which are the prayers of the saints, and the smoke of that incense continues to rise before God. I was encouraged and in turn, encouraged Becky and Sherri with that insight from God’s Word.
Let it also encourage you, my friend. Gain strength in that knowledge, my friend. Your mother’s (and/or grandmother’s) prayers are still before the Lord God. The fragrance of those prayers continues to rise up to God, as sweet worship to Him!
And to me, it’s as though she’s still singing,
When I pray, I will pray for you, For you need His love and His care. When I pray, I will pray for you, I will whisper your name in my prayer.
The children have gone home. Plastic eggs are emptied. Candy wrappers, whipped by the wind, litter the corners of the yard. Pieces of chocolate are smooshed on the sidewalk. The children are happy and hyper, from oodles of sugar and time spent with family. It was fun. The hunt is over. Its origins were pagan, but our celebration today is not.
The celebration today is of new life — the new life Jesus brought when He came to us — when He taught us — when He died for us — when He arose for us. This is what we teach our children.
The celebration today is one of “realization.”
Oh! This is what He meant when He said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he died; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”
Oh! This is what He meant when He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him . . . Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves . . .”
The celebration today is “relational.”
We celebrate this new life in Christ, “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world . . . he adopted us as his children . . . “
We remember His suffering and His death — with reflection, worship, communion. A Savior whose love is greater than all love — for you and for me, His child.
We rejoice in His resurrection. Our Savior lives! Our Father loves!
The celebration today is “unending.”
It didn’t start, nor does it end with a date on the calendar. The celebration starts when you realize that Jesus Christ is your Savior — when you become His child — when you experience new life in Him. And it never ends.
