Archive | March 2011

What would you like said?

Mar29

Sometimes it is funny how God works to bring a topic for this blog to mind.  We had my mother-in-law’s funeral a few weeks ago and it was interesting the things people said about her – especially the pastor.  Really? Was that the woman I knew for 25 years? Hmmm. 

I have had several women I know, who recently buried their moms. Another one her grandmother. We lost a police officer in the line of duty in our town a week past. Thousands of people died in a tsunami and many more are dying in the Middle East. People get cancer or other devestating health diagnosis on a daily basis. Death is a part of living in this sinful world.

Yesterday in my journal I was trying to ponder this question: “What would you like said at your funeral about you and your life?” How do I want to be remembered and am I living up to my own ideal? It made me think about what I need to tell others whom I love and who have impacted my life.  What in their character helped inspire me?  What are the kind of things I might say of them at their funeral? Why wait till they are dead to tell them how I feel? I even started making a list of people to write to. Sometimes even the people I talk to the most I may not be expressing to them how I see them and how much they mean to me. Just a thought of an area where I hope to maybe expend some effort.

Make yourself an encouragement file if you haven’t one already – and when you get notes that speak to your heart or affirm you and encourage you – put them in there. Some day you may need those words again to remind yourself that you are important in the lives of those around you.

In my daughter’s Sunday classes at church, she is encouraged to be a “bucket filler” to find ways to encourage others by word or deed. Maybe we need to be “casket fillers.”  Does that sound morbid? But what a better way to impact the lives of those around us than to know that when they die, they will have had a bucket/file/casket filled of love and affirmation? Just a thought.

This morning I came across this blog post by Leslie Vernick on “What would you like said about you at your funeral.” I think she did a better job than I could have.  Please click the link and check her out.

What would YOU like said about you at your funeral?

Can I have some Cheese with that Whine?

Mar21

I hate whining. Seriously. My kids do it often and I find it annoying. As I sit and type, my son is next to me doing homework and complaining loudly all the while about everything under the sun.  The room we are in at school. Relational issues with friends. The work itself. The size of the desk he is sitting at. The light being on. Noise in the hallway.

We do this about the weather. We complain winter is too long, spring is too wet, summer is too hot (and full of mosquitoes) and that fall, well maybe we don’t complain much about fall except that it’s a prelude to winter.  It’s like we cannot just be content in the moment God has given us. Right here. Right now.

I know that deep down inside, I whine just as much as my eleven year old son. I want to blame all my problems on others just like he does. I complain and moan and groan to God about, well, pretty much everything. My weight, my wardrobe, money, marriage, kids, bed, messy desk, dishes, laundry, the impossible to keep clean toilet. . . I just may not speak the words out loud. But they are there.

Then God starts to change my circumstances. Not everything, but I can subtly see Him working. I asked for Him to show me that He was at work. I knew He was (He always is, even when I cannot see Him) and now, well, I don’t have a good excuse to whine so much. It’s a bit

humbling.

It kind of takes the wind out of my self-righteous sails so to speak.

We sometimes ask our kids if they want some cheese with their whine. (they don’t get the joke).

I don’t want to have a complaining spirit. I don’t want to be someone who is looking for the negative and basking in the glory of victimhood of events beyond my control. That sounds so

ugly.

I’m just vain enough to not want to be ugly before God. In reality, my whining is simply a cover for my anxiety and fear. This is why I so desperately need to be spending time daily meditating on truths from God’s Word. Then I need to reorient my thinking to who GOD says He is, regardless of my circumstances and rejoice in that, hold tight to Him and focus my thoughts on better things.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me–practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. (Php 4:8-9 ESV)

How about you? Do you have a list of complaints, (i.e. prayer requests) that you give to God but continue  to hold on to as a mantle of all that is wrong in your world? How do you fight against the urge to complain?

Strange Grief

Mar7

So I haven’t posted here for a bit, because my 89 year old mother-in-law was dying. Regular visits, encouraging family members, providing taxi service to elderly relatives, listening to stories and shepherding my three kiddos through the process of death, dying and grief have sucked up much of my time.

She had been in a nursing home for close to five years and had Alzheimer’s disease so in many ways, she had left us years before.

The interesting thing about holding vigil over someone who is dying, is that you have the opportunity to say “good-bye.” An opportunity you don’t have when there is a sudden death. We knew it was coming at some point. Christmas was celebrated with her at the nursing home because we knew – this was her last Christmas. I actually missed that little party as I was home sick with influenza. I got a quiet Christmas – and my kids got a memory with a Grandmother they have never really known without the specter of Alzheimer’s. 

 I knew my mother-in-law for 27 years and yet through all of this, I felt kind of like an “out-law” instead of an “in-law.” My role was more supportive and I have found that my grieving process is hitting me on the back side of things. While most are feeling a relief that the waiting is over, I still have to deal with other areas of fall-out from her life and legacy. That part is not fun. I won’t go into details. I’m sure every family is different and it is interesting how people will revert to less than functional behaviors when they are under stress. Some of that is hard to deal with and move past, but I am trying.

The next few months will be challenging too. My mother-in-law would have been 90 in just a few weeks. Her birthday will pass without her here. Then Mother’s day and my husband’s birthday. The homestead that she raised her family on with her husband, who died many years prior, is due to be demolished by the end of summer to make way for a much needed, safer highway. We live on that homestead currently. I think moving will be really hard for my husband especially.

So we grieve. We laugh, shed a few tears and remember. Last night we heard our son talking to his siblings and the words he was saying we realized were exactly the kind of thing Grandma would say. In this case it was not a good character trait! Oh, the DNA runs strong and true in his veins!

I’ve been trying to give my kids some memories that they can’t recall so they have some connection to this woman called “Grandma.” I’m going to post a very old video of a song she once taught my son when he was all of 4 years old. He came home from a visit singing this, although I remembered slightly different words. It’s a memory I will cherish. Maybe it will give you a smile and if you love someone, maybe you’ll have cause to sing it too. . .