A Welcomed Grace

Saturday, April 7, 2012
I awake early. It seems not a moment passes until I realize what today holds. The pain of the last days coats my face with huge wet drops and chokes my throat. Breathing is only possible if I stand. I cover my face with tissues and quietly move down the hall, peeking at my sleeping grandchildren, closing the doors of their bedrooms with the skill acquired from years of motherhood and now Nana-hood. Ron is making the coffee, while I step onto the back porch, a box of tissues in hand, striving to control my sobbing, distanced away from the sleeping ones. The sun shines through the trees and pierces my soul with the faithfulness of its Creator. 
 

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God used a “Bird,” a very beautiful “Bird”!

Brilliant. Beautiful. Graceful. Pleasant. Stately. Confident. Cocky.
 
“Cocky.” That’s the trait that ended Gary Hancock.
 
     He couldn’t help being “cocky.“ That’s how God made him, the very peacock that he is (was). Through the years, I’ve witnessed  the “cockiness” of the wild turkeys that strut our yards and fields – of the pheasant that crosses the road as though he owns it, which he does! Likewise, it was the innocent, stately, God-given confident “cockiness” that brought about Gary Hancock’s demise yesterday afternoon as he crossed the road he assumed he owned.

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A House Where She Belongs

Daddy passed away first and Mama followed him just one month later. I’ve written about it before, and I’m sure I’ll write about it again. But today, I write about something they left behind

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Dear Mother (in purple crayon)

IMG_2982I almost tossed it away – it looked so insignificant, written with a purple crayon, personalized with my favorite drawings: a tree on the front and a swing set on the back. But evidently it was not insignificant to her,

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Broom Tree Love

“Neighbors bring food with death,” Harper Lee had written in To Kill a Mockingbird.[i] It was a line I had read dozens of times in those last years, as I had taught concepts from the novel in one of my classes. One day I found that statement to be true.

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Treasures from the Woodshed

Daddy and Mama bought the big yellow house when I was 13 months old. Surrounded by red barns, white board fences, chicken coops, and corn cribs, the house sat on 80 acres of fields, pastures, and woods, bordering a creek. They paid $10,000 for it. Grandpa Nutt said they’d never live to see it paid! But my Grandpa was wrong.

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Whispers of Comfort ~ Seeking Peace Within This Pain

Death was not in God’s original plan, nor was it a part of the life He had planned for us in that beautiful garden. But Adam and Eve chose sin, and death followed. Consequently we all know the grief suffered by every human being since. He didn’t want it for us, but

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#28 Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

You know how it is when you’ve gone someplace you were really looking forward to – then you head home. Oftentimes that drive home is simply a boring drive. There’s nothing more to see. Your trip is over and you just want to get home. I did not want to end  this awesome month-long journey in that manner!

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By her right hand . . .

I joined Mama in those last steps of her dying. As much as I could. From the outside looking in. This was Mama’s dying, not mine. I was very much alive and it made it all the more difficult to accept this separation that death was about to force upon us.

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Letters from War

Marion L. Nutt

May 18, 1920 – April 28, 1943

I never knew my Uncle Marion, yet my throat tightens, and tears roll down my face whenever I look at pictures of him, read his letters from war, or place a flower on his grave.

Perhaps it is because he reminds me of my father. They shared such a resemblance. Or perhaps it is because sometimes I try to place myself in my Grandma’s shoes – having five sons in the war at the same time

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