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I know those God-colored glasses are around here somewhere…
I had a call today from the oncology nurse. The CT scan showed “borderline enlarged” supraclavical lymph nodes. The doctor wants me to have a repeat chest CT scan in 3 months to see if there has been any change in their sizes.
I very politely and sweetly spoke with the nurse, but the moment I hung up the phone, I fell apart. I cried buckets of tears…called my husband. Called my mother-in-law. Cried some more.
Not another CT scan! I lost four pounds in one day the last time I had to endure the xray tube. The anxiety is just too much to handle, and I feel bruised and broken all over.
Then I came across a mommy devotion by Lisa Welchel. The title? ”Where is God in all of this?”
Lisa quotes a devotion from Oswald Chambers:
Behold, He cometh with clouds. -Revelation 1:7
In the Bible clouds are always connected with God. Clouds are those sorrows or sufferings or providences, within or without our personal lives, which seem to dispute the rule of God. It is by those very clouds that the Spirit of God is teaching us how to walk by faith.
Cloudy is an apt description of the state of my thoughts and my faith. I do take comfort, though, in knowing that hidden within those clouds is a rainbow.
Again, I need special glasses to see it.
Until then, a song keeps running through my head. I share it with you here:
Saying “Blessed be the name of the LORD,” while walking in the wilderness, is a CHOICE. It is not easy, especially for someone like me who likes very much to be in control, to let go. To bless the name of the Lord…because…
- HE is holy
- HE is the light
- HE is my Creator
- HE is my Salvation
- HE is my hope
- HE is my strength
- HE includes me in his family
- HE collects all my tears in a bottle
- HE cares for me
- HE knows me…and loves me anyway.
So I will praise Him through these clouds until I catch a glimpse of the rainbows hidden inside.
Psalm 148
Praise the Lord !
Praise the Lord from the heavens!
Praise him from the skies!
2 Praise him, all his angels!
Praise him, all the armies of heaven!
3 Praise him, sun and moon!
Praise him, all you twinkling stars!
4 Praise him, skies above!
Praise him, vapors high above the clouds!
5 Let every created thing give praise to the Lord ,
for he issued his command, and they came into being.
6 He set them in place forever and ever.
His decree will never be revoked.
7 Praise the Lord from the earth,
you creatures of the ocean depths,
8 fire and hail, snow and clouds,s
wind and weather that obey him,
9 mountains and all hills,
fruit trees and all cedars,
10 wild animals and all livestock,
small scurrying animals and birds,
11 kings of the earth and all people,
rulers and judges of the earth,
12 young men and young women,
old men and children.
13 Let them all praise the name of the Lord .
For his name is very great;
his glory towers over the earth and heaven!
14 He has made his people strong,
honoring his faithful ones—
the people of Israel who are close to him.
Praise the Lord !
What more can I say? Our vacation was glorious. If there had been a way to consume the tropical, flowery scents around us, I would have eaten until I burst. As it was, I stood on the shore, taking in the majestic scene as far as my eye could see, and I shivered with awe. It was our last evening, and I expected that I would feel sad about leaving. Instead, I told my daughter that this was one of those moments that we try to take a picture with our hearts. I will engrave that sunset on my memory — may it ever serve as a reminder of the glory, majesty, creativity and splendor of the Creator!
Yet….
Every single day in that paradise had storms. Tropical raindrops are bigger and wetter than the ones that usually fall on us in North Texas. Even the rain smells like salt. Salt water is corrosive, and residents must be very vigilant to keep rust at bay. Everywhere on the carefully maintained resort was evidence of past furies; Hurricane Charley devastated the region in 2004 with such force that the shape of the coast itself changed, and a new island was born. The peaceful lushness of the island is bought with a price.
Just as my peace with our Lord was bought with a price.
To experience myself the way God made me to be, I must also endure storms that make my legs grow heavy and whip my hair into my eyes so that I cannot see clearly. Then, at those moments of helplessness, I find that the Lord is right there leading me through. He does not shield me from the furies of the world, but He never leaves me alone.
I was highly anxious about making this trip. Planes are not my favorite modes of transportation. I was so weary from the noise of travel that I wished my husband would turn off the radio once we got into a car. I craved silence. Instead I got the heavy pounding of fat raindrops on the roof. We traveled through such a heavy wall of rain that light literally could not penetrate. There were islands just offshore that our eyes could not see due to the rain. My eyes traveled the horizon, looking for waterspouts and other such anxious monsters. But we persevered. My husband kept driving. We kept trusting. And the reward we received was this:
Whatever storm may be pounding you, rest assured that it will pass by. I’m left with a peaceful realization that the storms the Lord is allowing in my life are shaping me, just as Hurricane Charlie shaped the coastline of Captiva. To my Creator I am an expanse of sand just waiting to be made into something that glorifies Him.
We are leaving for vacation in a few days. Aside from the usual anxiety over the airplane ride, I am tasting tiny tidbits of bittersweet fruit. My daughter’s “only child” status has never seriously bothered her….until the last few months or so. We tried to find a homeschool friend to go with us, but at her age, most parents aren’t too keen on their kids flying halfway across the country with people who aren’t family. I don’t blame them; I wouldn’t let my child go on vacation with someone else, either! But, for her sake, we asked three friends. The answer for each one was no.
Then the day before yesterday I overheard her telling a younger friend that since no other children could come with her, she’s going to take a “fairy friend.” My heart shattered; its pieces clattered around and around in a swirling mess. I blame myself for the fact that she has no sister or brother. As many times as I remind myself that the LORD is in control, I shovel hot coals on my head and still shoulder the blame, playing the IF ONLY game. IF ONLY I wasn’t so afraid of throwing up, I would have eaten more and stayed hydrated. IF ONLY I didn’t have intense panic attacks, I would have tried again. Two episodes of intense nausea and marathon panic attacks that ended up in nightmarishly painful miscarriages were as much as I thought I could handle. But what if God wanted me to try again? What if I have denied Him the chance to work another miracle in me because I gave in to the fear?
I wonder if I will ever get over this anxiety affliction or if it will be to me a thorn in my side. I don’t know what purpose God had in taking my babies, and it is so difficult to let it go. Most of the time I don’t dwell on it. But today…thinking about my ten-year-old inventing an imaginary playmate because she doesn’t have a sibling to share in the joy….
And now…for something completely different….
This is a photo of an ovarian cyst. It’s not mine, but it is exactly like the image I saw today while lying sprawled quite uncomfortably on the examination table. I have been having cramps pretty much all the time and passed it off as anxiety, but then some abnormal bleeding showed up. So I went to the doctor. I nearly came up off the table during the very embarrassing exam because the pain was so severe.
The sonogram showed that my cyst is filled with fluid. It has no blood flow.
There is no treatment at the stage in the game unless it does not go away on its own or gets significantly larger. I have to say, it is disconcerting to walk around knowing I have a 4-cm balloon on the side of my ovary that could rupture (causing severe pain) at any moment. But it is also comforting to know that I am in the LORD’s hands. My doctor is a good one. I guess I can look at this as an opportunity for the Lord to heal me spontaneously of the cyst and the associated pain and bleeding. Like the woman with the 12-year bleeding disorder, if I could just touch His robe!
For a moment there, lying on the sonogram table wondering about this sudden change in my health, I got a little shaky. Nobody wants a cancer diagnosis! I was almost giddy when the doctor told me there was no evidence of blood flow inside the cyst or of tissue inside; it had all the markings of a benign growth that he felt would go away on its own. Phew! For a brief moment, I had a glimpse of my mortality on this earth.
(it didn’t help matters that the kiosk lady at the mall tried to sell me anti-aging cream!)
It’s interesting that my daily Bible reading from YouVersion spoke explicitly about life and death, from Deuteronomy 30:
This command I am giving you today is not too difficult for you to understand, and it is not beyond your reach.12 It is not kept in heaven, so distant that you must ask, `Who will go up to heaven and bring it down so we can hear it and obey?’13 It is not kept beyond the sea, so far away that you must ask, `Who will cross the sea to bring it to us so we can hear it and obey?’14 No, the message is very close at hand; it is on your lips and in your heart so that you can obey it.
15 “Now listen! Today I am giving you a choice between life and death, between prosperity and disaster.16 For I command you this day to love the Lord your God and to keep his commands, decrees, and regulations by walking in his ways. If you do this, you will live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you and the land you are about to enter and occupy.
The message is very close at hand. It is on my lips and in my heart. That’s a truth that most people (including me!) forget! God’s message is not trapped in a black hole somewhere out in space. The Holy Spirit brings it to my heart and to my lips, giving me the ump I need to get up and obey it, and to embrace those things that I cannot change. This verse gives me great comfort…that one day when I see my Lord, his promise that I will “live and multiply” will be complete, and the “mish mash” of my heart will be glued together again.
Today was one of those days when the sun seemed too bright. The bird songs outside my window were irritating, and I felt a strong inclination to drop kick the bunnies into next week when I discovered — again — that they had resumed setting up housekeeping right underneath the strawberry patch. Piano lessons today were sour, not sweet, as I stumbled and fretted over Amazing Grace. I feel guilty that my husband still has a job and we have a house compared to those who don’t, I want to help the poor but don’t know how, and I’m madder than a wet hen that my attempts to be self-sufficient failed when last night’s freeze totally wiped out the sweetly green seedlings in our garden . I spied my old dog’s collar tucked away in our closet and lost it as I caught a whiff of his Shiner smell. I’m out of trash bags and paper towels, desperately need a haircut, and my husband has been gone on a business trip since Saturday. (cue the violin, please)
Whine, whine, whine, right?
I actually started a post earlier today that compared the state of my heavy heart with King David’s in Psalm 68, but the LORD must have had mercy on me and allowed the computer to freeze up and erase my 650 words before I had a chance to post them. David was a King who had real enemies pursuing him, ridiculing him, gunning for him…um, quite a bit more than the silly stuff on my plate.
A glimmer of sunshine kept the darkness at bay, though. That’s one of the blessings of my inheritance with the Lord. I might be in a funk, but He is still there, still the same, steady rock. So as I wallered in self pity today, the old hymn, It is Well With My Soul kept springing to mind, in between my fusty ruminations. I have only the Holy Spirit to thank for that! So tonight I did a search on YouTube and found a version of the song that I absolutely love by The Newsboys!
If you are going through a rough patch and are a child of THE King, drink in this song and let its truths fill your soul.
Man! After listening to that reminder, it really IS well with my soul, thanks to Jesus…(cue the sunshine, bird songs, and bunnies, please!)
One moment I was on the phone with my husband who had called to say he would pick our daughter up from her gymnastics class…
One moment I was considering how much house I could clean in the few minutes I had until they got home from gym class…
…when suddenly, in two seconds, everything changed.
My daughter fell off the balance beam at the gym. She told me later that she screamed as soon as she hit the floor and that she just knew her arm was broken. What we didn’t know at the time is that not one bone but both bones in her forearm had completely snapped in two. What used to be two bones was now four.
So I jumped back in the car, put on the hazard lights, and flew back to the gym to meet my husband who had just arrived. There is something horrifying about knowing your child is in pain and you can’t do anything to stop it. If I could have put her pain on me, I would have.
Suffice it to say it was a long night. The local ER sent us by ambulance to the very busy Children’s hospital downtown…and, because of an overload, the orthopedic specialist sent us back home with instructions to return in the early morning for surgery.
Despite the bad news that my daughter had a broken arm, the Lord carried us. I have so many praises it’s hard to put them all in a cohesive list, but, for His glory, I will try:
…I did not have a panic attack. Yes, I had the shakes when it was all over and we were home, but that was a side effect of all the adrenaline that kept me going through the ordeal. Perhaps for some of you this is not a praise, but believe me when I say that this in itself is a divine intervention of the tallest order. First of all, I had to ride in an ambulance. Backwards. This normally would have turned me completely green. And the nausea would have induced panic. But my daughter kept up a steady stream of nervous chattering which both put me at ease and even had me in stitches. She told the paramedic that her bed was very comfortable and she wondered why it was called a ’stretcher’ since ’stretcher’ seems more like a torture device!
…I did not freak out in the Children’s ER despite the large numbers of…well, sick children…and despite that fact that, of all the times to be OUT of hand cleaner, it was that night. I had no hand cleaner in my purse. I was in a germy hospital. My daughter had on a hospital gown and socks, and I had to help her in the germy bathroom. Yet I did not freak out. That, my friends, was one of those God things!
…My daughter’s biggest fear was that she was going to have to get a shot or an IV, or both. The tears started flowing in earnest when she thought that might actually become necessary. God answered that prayer by providing us with an anesthesiologist who used gas to sedate her rather than an IV.
…She did not have any complications from the anesthesia except for throwing up in the car on the way home. It’s ironic. I made my husband ride with her in the back seat because they told us some kids do get sick after receiving gas sedation. She made it fine almost all the way home. Then we stopped by Target to get her a movie. My husband ran in to get it…and while he was gone…she got sick. Of course! But I didn’t freak out and neither did she.
…She did not have to have invasive surgery! The surgeon was able to use the xray machine to help him set the fractures. Adults who get her kind of fractures need pins and plates; kids don’t need them!
…The cut on her arm was NOT due to bone poking through, which was a concern at first.
…This ordeal happened when my husband was IN town and not when he was out of town. I needed him with me; he needed me with him; our daughter needed us both.
…The ER nurse was a Christian who came to her and gently laid her hands on her and prayed over her…praying for quick healing and for pain relief. Her presence was a blessing; I watched my daughter’s face get brighter as this nice nurse prayed. I wish I knew her name so I could write her and let her know that her prayer for my daughter in the middle of that stressful time was the biggest blessing, and that her prayers for my daughter turned into peace for me.
…Today her pain is much better and her spirits are higher. The swelling in her hand was significant today, so I took her back in to the clinic where she received immediate relief when they loosened up the cast.
Unfortunately, despite all the praises and the awesome way God was was faithful to us, I let him, and myself, and my daughter down today. I must have had some stored up stress in me because I totally blew it this morning. Totally. I got angry. Said very hurtful things to my sweet girl. Said a bad word. Why? Because she smiled at me and I saw that her teeth, which had been perfectly straight one week ago — the result of braces that had just come off — were getting a gap in between them again! The whole tooth ordeal started because she had something called a “tongue thrust.” We’ve done the speech therapy route to correct that. When I saw the tiny gap, I freaked out. Man, I’d rather I freaked out in the hospital than today! I am ashamed. I accused her of not keeping her tongue in the right spot. I told her she might end up with an ugly mouth. I cried. Inwardly I yelled at God for putting all this — broken arm and a tongue thrust — on this sweet little girl. Outwardly I yelled at this same little girl. Who is this person saying these things? Oh Jesus, I am emotionally bankrupt and took it out verbally on my child! When actually, as my husband reminded me later as I relayed the story to him, her teeth probably moved a little because she hasn’t yet gotten her retainer. A fact I forgot.
One day last week, she compared me to a “sweet little snake.” Most of the time, she said, I am very sweet and loving. But sometimes, and she never knows when, I turn into a mean snake!
Okay, so she was trying to wiggle her way out of her own responsibility for not picking up her toys as I’d told her to do. But, you know, she wasn’t far off the mark. I do tend to get “snake-like” and hiss every now and then, shaming the very Christ who is in me. God is showing me a look at myself in the mirror, and I don’t like what I see. I am reading the book Shepharding a Child’s Heart and am learning that I have sooo much to learn to be a parent who nurtures the heart…who parents in ways that are Biblical and that mirror the way the Lord parents me.
I apologized to my daughter immediately, and she had the grace to forgive me. Now if I can just forgive myself! (Even as I write those words, I remind myself of the fact that it is an insult to the Lord to not forgive myself when Jesus died for my sake.) Forgiving myself has never been easy for me. But I will. I will take this experience and repent and praise God for daughters who forgive their mothers when they mess up and for mothers who forgive their daughters and for the Lord who forgives us both.
In two seconds, our lives changed. My sweet girl now has to learn to live left-handed — a task to which I was born to do — but her little right hand has been dominant since the day she was born. I’ve been stressed, but not panicked. I’ve seen vivid evidence of God’s presence and peace…yet I’ve thrown that to the wind and “lost it” anyway. My parents always used to tell me that making mistakes is not a bad thing as long as you learn from them. My daughter has learned to follow her coach’s instructions about where her hands should be when she’s on the balance beam. I have learned to hold. my. tongue. when I feel the frustrations crushing in on me. It would be better for me to take a stroll around the back yard with God. Give HIM my burdens. Then His patience will flow into me. Hopefully.
Thank you, Lord, that I’m not “done” yet! You aren’t finished with me. May somehow, in some way, this journey my daughter must now take will glorify you. I want the experience to be one that is like a giant beacon pointing to Christ. You will be the one to help her with her own impatience at the inconveniences of being one-armed for awhile. You will be the one to cultivate character qualities in her in ways that I can’t even begin to try. You, Lord, will be the one to give her confidence and to help her find the bright side of the rainbow no matter what…in fact, you are already doing that! When she realized she could only play piano with her left hand, she mentioned that she has needed more work on that hand anyway! You will be the one to mold her heart and her perceptions so that her experience in a cast will help shape the woman you have created her to be. I put my trust in You. And I can’t thank you enough for your faithfulness and your peace…no matter what each moment brings.
One of my dad’s favorite snacks are Fig Newtons. I never understood his love of them; I prefer the Newtons that are filled with apples or some other fruit. I never did “get” the taste of figs. Then again, I didn’t grow up in the Middle East. Jesus apparently liked figs, just like my dad.
There is one story about a fig tree that has always fascinated me because I never quite understood it. I know there’s a point to it somewhere, but so far it’s one of those elusive – maybe – God – will – tell – me – about -it – when – I -get – to – heaven stories.
Have you ever cursed a plant before? Last spring and summer I tried to grow vegetables. The garden was beautiful for a very short time…and then nasty beetles swarmed in and took up residence in the roots of my squash plants. I wanted to curse the beetles…but not the plants themselves!
Jesus cursed an actual fig tree. The very next day, it was dead.
The surprising thing about the story is that the disciples acted like they were surprised! Maybe they woke up every morning thinking that they had already seen every miracle that was possible. I also always wondered why Jesus cursed the tree to begin with. It turns out you have to know a little about fig trees to understand his frustration.
Usually, a fig tree’s fruit develops right along with the leaves. When the leaves are full and leafy green, the figs are ready to eat. But this tree was a facade. It was a sham tree. It was just pretending to be “all that.” Its leaves were full and promising, but there was no fruit in them. Its leaves were full before their time — it was too early in the season for figs, but since the leaves broadcasted their apparent presence, hungry Jesus went to look.
Jesus’ frustration was probably like mine when I have my mouth set on a cold bottle of water only to find that the Dasani cold drinks machine is sold out. Maybe it still has cokes and lemonades and sprites…but the water that it advertises so boldly on the outside? Missing.
That’s kind of how I am feeing about my faith lately. Like the fig tree, I feel like a sham.
I go to church. I smile and respond to people’s questions about me and make small talk. But on the inside, I am plastic. Hollow. Empty. My faith hasn’t gone anywhere, but I feel as if I have left my faith, if that makes any sense. My mind still knows the truth…but my heart just isn’t with it these days.
My mother-in-law’s father had open heart surgery today. Maybe it’s still going on — I haven’t heard. But she called me yesterday to ask me to pray. She seems to think that I have some kind of telephone line from me to God — once, when their house wouldn’t sell, she asked me to pray that it would sell. I prayed. It sold. Within two weeks. I tend to believe God allowed that to happen to increase her faith…not to show that I have any sort of higher chance of having my prayers answered. But I still prayed and am praying still for the surgery to go well…for the doctors to have wisdom…for his recovery to be amazing…for God’s glory to be displayed. I believe the Lord can do all these and more than we can even understand, if he so chooses…
Yet I’m frightened. What if…what if I am so separate from God right now that he turns his back on my prayers? Surely he wouldn’t do that, because he’s not a God of spite. And I have found I am in good company when it comes to feeling this way. In Psalm 38, David writes:
I am bent over and racked with pain.
All day long I walk around filled with grief.I am exhausted and completely crushed.
My groans come from an anguished heart.You know what I long for, Lord;
you hear my every sigh.
My heart beats wildly, my strength fails,
and I am going blind.Do not abandon me, O Lord.
Do not stand at a distance, my God.
Come quickly to help me,
O Lord my savior.
But I still have hope…and a glimmer of faith still lingers. God was faithful to David. He rescued him. And I know he will rescue me from this angst. He will fill me with peace. He will strengthen my faith…and I will have a stronger character for having gone through the fire. I do not know why I continue to be plagued with anxiety. I do not know why I continue to feel so empty inside or why I feel like becoming a recluse. But I know. I do know that one day I will be able to join David and say, as he did in Psalm 40:
I waited patiently for the Lord to help me,
and he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the pit of despair,
out of the mud and the mire.
He set my feet on solid ground
and steadied me as I walked along.
He has given me a new song to sing,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see what he has done and be amazed.
They will put their trust in the Lord.
Today, I will wait for the new song he’s giving me to sing. I know it will come.
There is a distinct connection between the heart and the body. No, not the mechanical connection between the muscle that pumps life giving blood to the rest of the body, although that is a definite. Our bodies house our souls while we are on earth. And when something goes awry with the soul, the body follows.
At this moment I do not have a cold. But my body feels sick. I am not physically sick — just got a clean bill of health in my annual physical yesterday — yet I have that “about to get a cold” achy feeling from the top of my head right down to my toes. It’s followed me ever since last week, and it has everything to do with my grief at losing Shiner.
The feelings have been so intense that you could say I am having a crisis of faith. After stubbornly yelling at God in my head for awhile because he allows us free choice…which led to sin…which led to death due to old age and other means…and yelling at him because he did not give dogs a life span anywhere near that of those in their human “packs,”…and after yelling at him for not letting dogs instead of parrots live at least 80 years or so…
…I finally opened my Bible. It’s a good thing God is a tough guy. He can handle my anger. He can handle my grief.
So I began flipping through the gospel of Mark. Mark reminds me of a newspaper. It presents the facts. I needed a good refresher on the facts because I was drowning in so much sorrow that I’d forgotten all about Jesus. It’s not all hunky dory between God and me yet. I’m still mad. This time as I read, I kept having questions run through my head…and, here’s the key — I wrote them in the margins of my Bible. The questioning is not so unusual — I always have questions scrolling through my brain. Usually I push those that are about God and Christ to the back burner because if I examine them too closely, something bad might happen. Maybe I’ll turn into a frog. Or maybe I’ll decide that faith is useless and Christ was just a man who read up on all those Old Testament prophesies and then somehow arranged his life to fit them. Okay, yea, it’s probably more likely that I’d turn into a frog before I’d conclude that one person could somehow make over 300 prophesies come true in his life. The unusual part is that I gave voice to my questions.
I still don’t have answers. But the fact that I wrote them down means that I’ll be looking for them. And Jesus himself says that those who seek will find.
Since I need to shut off the bleeding, I need to focus my writing on something other than Shiner, at least for now. For a little while, I’ll explore some of my questions. I hope and pray they don’t harm you or your faith in any way. Please understand that, for the first time since I became saved as a little girl, I think I might have a glimmer of what it felt like when Jacob wrestled with God. I’m wrestling. I’m fighting the fight. I’m trying to understand some things — clearly — that have buzzed around in the back of my brain for a long time. It’s not that I don’t believe — it’s that I need to remind myself why I believe. Does that make sense? For example, if I have faith in Jesus to bring me comfort, why am I not feeling comforted? If I have faith in Jesus to heal me of my anxiety, why am I still anxious? Many of my questions have to do with my own faith. Maybe this is what “working out your faith” really means. Wrestling.
My questions today come from a passage in Mark 8. Here’s the passage in question:
31 Then Jesus began to tell them that the Son of Man[c] must suffer many terrible things and be rejected by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but three days later he would rise from the dead. 32 As he talked about this openly with his disciples, Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things.[d]
33 Jesus turned around and looked at his disciples, then reprimanded Peter. “Get away from me, Satan!” he said. “You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.”
Why did Jesus call Peter Satan?
I’ll be brutally honest here. Something inside me smarts at Jesus’ rebuff of Peter. I can’t think of a WORSE name for someone to call me. The fact that JESUS did it speaks volumes. Was he just trying to get Peter’s attention? Sort of like I use my daughter’s full name when she’s in trouble? Or was it because Peter was unknowingly doing Satan’s bidding by trying to prevent Jesus from doing the task the Lord had already set before him? Or was it because at that moment Peter was Satan? The only way I know of to dig deeper here is to look at the original text. I don’t know Greek, but the website at Blue Letter Bible has a great concordance that allows you to get the original wording.
The first thing I learn is that when Jesus turned at looked at the disciples, he didn’t just look. He eidon them. The word can mean to perceive, to discern. To look at in order to examine. This means that when Jesus looked at his disciples, he was likely reading their minds. He knew what they were thinking. And they were all thinking that they didn’t want their messiah to be killed. So Peter, the spokesperson, took Jesus aside and began to reprimand him.
Has anyone under your authority reprimanded you? It stings, doesn’t it? I remember a first grade student I had who was a bona fide cowboy. On picture day, he brought in his hat. Of course he couldn’t wear it inside the classroom, so he handed it to me to put back on the counter. It’s sufficient to say that I was a complete ignoramus in all things cowboy, including hats. I didn’t know you weren’t supposed to sit the hat down on its brim! The glare and instruction that six year old cowboy gave me makes me squirm even today!
But unlike me, Jesus was not an ignoramus in all things God. He was God’s son, and he had a job to do. When he looked at Peter, he saw the thoughts running through his mind. Peter was probably thinking the same thing I would have thought –
you mean to tell me that this person I’ve been following around, the One who can raise the dead and feed thousands with just a few loaves of bread…the One who can calm the seas with a word from his mouth…who can restore the sight to the blind and drive out demons…is going to DIE? Inconceivable!
What about Jesus using the actual word…Satan…? The word Jesus used was Satanas. It is a word used for two purposes: it is the name given to the prince of evil…it is also a name given to a Satan-like man. That brings up another question. What’s a Satan-like man? It’s one who is adversarial to God. Peter’s rebuke to Jesus was clearly, then, adversarial to God’s ultimate plan of redemption. Peter was rebelling because the plan Jesus had just revealed to him was not the one he had expected.
It makes me wonder: would Jesus have had any disciples if he had revealed God’s ultimate plan at the outset of his ministry? Probably not. This is just a reminder that God’s timing is perfect. Ours is not.
In my mind, Peter was acting perfectly human in his dismay. Yet Jesus rebuked him in the harshest way possible. He told him that he was only looking at life from a human perspective. Which brings me to my next question:
How is it possible for a human to see things from God’s point of view?
This, I don’t know. Perhaps Jesus was implying that Peter, a mere human, needed to trust Him, the Son of God, the Messiah, in ALL things, even in those that appear, to the human eye, to be ludicrous. I struggle with this concept over and over. I am trapped by my human perception of life. As I mope around this house, feeling tears well up at the sight of a outdoor couch cushion that has seen much better days because my Shiner used to sleep so happily on it, I have a distinctly human perception of life. Peter’s focus was on the here-and-now reality. It was not on heaven.
That pretty much describes me even before this doggy death experience. How does a person go around focusing on the things of God? What are the things of God? The Blue Letter Bible doesn’t really spell it out for me this time. The word used is theos, and it means “the things of God…His counsels, interests, things due him.”
My best guess is that Jesus was telling Peter — Dude. Have you forgotten Who I Am? Get your mind off the things you THINK you know about (death) and back on Me (life.)
I’m going to be chewing over “the things of God” for awhile…not sure I’ll ever get that one…at least on this side of heaven. I don’t even know if I’m supposed to be able to see things from God’s point of view. Wouldn’t that be wrong? I’m just a person. I probably couldn’t bear to see even a millionth of what God sees. So why did Peter get in such trouble when he was only doing what came naturally? Are we supposed to be able to think more like Jesus (God) the closer we come to him? If we don’t think like Him, does that mean we aren’t really saved? If Peter, who was physically right there, touching Christ, could not see things from a godly perspective, how could I do that thousands of years after He walked the earth?
I think this is where the Holy Spirit comes in. And that opens a whole other set of questions that I’ll have to get to in another post.
For now, I’m wrestling with questions. And with depression. But the bright sunshine today and the promise of a spring-like afternoon brings a smile to my face. Hopefully the warm sunshine will relieve some of the pain in my body and my heart.
As sweet as my Dalmatian was, no one told me before we got him that Dals shed. A lot. I’m sure we’ll be finding hair in obscure places two years from now. I haven’t emptied his water bowl yet because he drank from it on Saturday before we said goodbye, and there are little Shiner hairs floating on the surface. Soon I’ll take care of it. But not today.
My husband and my daughter are doing really well. Both of them are dwelling on the fact that he’s no longer suffering. I guess I am the one who is walking around moping all the time, dwelling on the empty places of my heart. I was the last one to see how much he was suffering because I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to face that I’d have to tell him goodbye.
So today I’ll think about our first hello.
My niece and nephew had just left after a week-long visit. The house seemed so empty and quiet. As we drove back from the store, we saw a sign in a neighbor’s yard: Dalmatian Puppies For Sale.
Oh, let’s just look!”
I said, and my pleading baby blues convinced my husband to stop the car. I had always been interested in Dalmatians. I had met one at my father-in-laws home years previous. As a first grade teacher, my students were in the throes of “Dalmatian Love” because Disney’s 101 Dalmatians had recently been released.
We walked into the house. The owners were keeping the puppies in the laundry room, but they let them all out to meet us. A jumble of spots rushed all over the place, and I feel instantly in love with their beautiful faces. Dalmatian puppies are unlike any other breed of puppies I’ve ever seen — they are the wiggliest, happiest pups and possess enough kinetic energy to power a small city! Most of the puppies we saw interacted with each other…rolling, tumbling, cartwheeling. But one of them came and sat directly on my husband’s foot. His tail wagging joyfully, this dog had just “picked” us. Naturally, we walked in to “just look” and walked out new puppy owners. Coincidentally, this was the day before Father’s Day!
From that moment on, my husband and I wore black and other dark colors at our own peril! We should have bought stock in the lint-roller company…but it was all worth it. Now that he’s gone, I’ll smile every time I pull on the color black. It will remind me of my sweet friend.
(by the way, today’s shirt has…you guessed it…Shiner hairs!….embedded in some of the fibers. I wear them with love.)
Well, it’s Monday morning, and I’m sitting here trying to figure out how to live normally without my best friend. I can barely stand to sit at the computer because he used to curl up at my feet. I can barely stand to walk into our bathroom because that’s where he slept at night, and, at the end, where we had to confine him. I can barely stand to cook…or put dirty dishes in the dishwasher…or watch a movie with my family…or, let’s get real — I can barely stand to breathe sometimes.
Having said all that, I am okay. Not great. Not anywhere near approaching “normal” enthusiastic self — but time does march on.
My husband and I are having what we call “moments.” I’ll be doing just fine, when all of a sudden I see his food bowl that we can’t bear to put up yet, and then the tears flow. There are moments when the reality — he’s NOT coming back, EVER (on this earth) — hits me like a semi-truck. At those times I feel like I did when I took a nose-dive on the tennis court — it feels like the breath has been knocked out of me. The in-between times, we’re just living life, although sometimes a bit differently.
- Today I’m going to move my computer desk to a different area of the house. I haven’t quite decided where to put it, but I need to change its location. I need a new spot for it so I can create new memories with my other sweet doggy friend.
- I got a new purse. Yes, it’s irrational — I couldn’t bear to look at the purse I was carrying when we went to the vet on Saturday. It was an old purse I’d had for about five years and was in the “backpack” style. Shiner unzipped that purse and stuck his head in it looking for gum, candy, mints, cough drops, dollar bills, even chapstick so many times. So I got a new purse and put up the old one. I’m going to save it because in a strange way it reminds me of him.
I saved the sweats I had on when we took him to the vet. I hugged him tight and kissed his sweet forehead before bolting out of the room. I couldn’t stay…but my sweet husband was with him to the end. He told me that when they gave him the sedative to make him sleepy, he laid down on the blanket and sighed a deep, restful, contented sigh. He was happy, and the sedative made his pain go away. My husband said he hadn’t realized how much pain he was in until he saw his little face relax. After they administered the sedative, they gave him the dose of barbituates that took him home to the Lord. He died at 11:17 am. I know this because, even though I was sitting outside in the truck, I felt it. I can’t explain it. But all of a sudden I felt him, and my daughter’s words came back to me:
Home is where Shiner is.”
Home — our heavenly home — is indeed where Shiner is. He’s chasing tennis balls in fields of gold. Oh, how he used to run like the wind! Now he can do that again.
Hear this: he was dying anyway. He was losing weight at an alarming rate; I doubt he would have made it through another month. I’ve come to understand that his bowel incontinence was God’s way of letting me know that it was time to let him go. If it weren’t for that, we would have kept him going. To what end? To pain and suffering? That last morning the mess was so monumental that my daughter — ever the comedian — called it “The Grand Finale.” My sweet doggy didn’t need to keep living that way. He was embarrassed. But my husband cleaned him a little outside and then brought him in to take a very long, warm shower, which he liked very much. I think the warm water felt wonderful to his aching bones.
My only regret is I wish there was some way to KNOW what it was that was slowly eating away at his insides. Cancer? Organ failure? We’ll never know. But I can rest in knowing that it doesn’t matter because now the Lord, the one who created him in the first place, is now his caretaker. And what a life that must be!
I may or may not take a break from blogging and facebooking for awhile. There is a giant empty space in my heart, and I don’t want to bore or depress you. Just know that the Lord is near. Know that your prayers made a huge difference and gave us the backbone to do what we had to do. They are what bring us peace in between the moments of grief. I appreciate them, and you, more than you know. (on the other hand, writing is a release. So you may see more posts than usual! I haven’t felt my way yet through this new fog that is enveloping my life.)
I’ll end on a happy note. Our other doggy is a constant comfort. She is polar opposite to Shiner’s food-gobbling, ball chasing, alpha-dog self. Whereas we could set the clock by Shiner’s “please feed me NOW” behavior at precisely 7am and 5pm, Lacee is more nonchalant about food. What she craves is lovin! I’m afraid during the last month or two when Shiner took up so much of our time that she felt a bit left out. Now I can make it up to her and give her all the snugglin she needs. I think she knows that he isn’t coming back. Yesterday she spent some time sniffing all over the bathroom floor and rubbing all over the coat my husband wore when we took Shiner in to the vet for the last time. So we’re all giving each other some hugs and some grace. And the Lord is giving us wonderful memories that come up at the perfect times to lift us out of our foggy moments.
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 4:4-7
(picture is of Shiner in better days!) Last night as I cried while looking at Shiner’s doggy bed, I felt a nudge to contact the veterinarians we used when we lived in Florida. Actually, I had felt this nudge several times in the past couple of months, but I always chalked it off to me missing Florida. We really “clicked” with Drs. Fred and Sheri Cone at Plantation Animal Hospital. They loved Shiner just as much as we do, and they were there to help us first with the TPLO surgery referral and then they did the surgery when the other knee went out. Actually, I mourned the loss of them as our veterinarians as much as I did the tropical sunshine and views!
Today I can say that the nudge was the Holy Spirit. God knows just what we need, doesn’t he?
So last night I found their website and sent them an email via the appointments scheduler. This evening, Dr. Cone called me. She remembered us even though we’ve been away for over two years now. Shiner was one of her favorite patients. In her gentle way, Dr. Cone listened and said that she agreed that we are indeed at the end of the road. There isn’t anything else to do for him. If he were in his “right mind,” he’d be mortified at the messes he’s making. She said it’s possible a brain tumor is wreaking havoc — but the only way to know is with expensive scans — and then what do you do? Either way, as difficult as it is, the time has come to say good-bye. We have done everything we could possibly do to make him comfortable. She said she agreed with our decision to say good-bye.
As I sat and let her words wash over me, I felt a peace inside that I haven’t known. Several nights ago as I lay sobbing in bed, I told God all about it. I told him I couldn’t handle this anymore, and I laid it all at his feet. Then last night I felt the prompting to contact Dr. Cone. When I obeyed that prompting, God used her to help me see that we are on the right track. We aren’t being mean, horrible pet owners. We are doing the right thing for the right reasons.
I am still unbelievably sad…but a measure of peace that I can’t explain is enveloping me like a cloud.
So thank you for your warm prayers. Keep them coming! Each day brings new challenges, new thoughts, new griefs. But for this evening at least, I am feeling a measure of relief. Thank you, Lord!
