In the wee hours...

The dishwasher swishes and hums. The Biker sleeps. Pandora plays. My heart has been many places today.  Since Christmas day many chairs have been emptied. One by one they have gone away.   With each one goes a little part of our hearts til they are bleeding, ragged holes: missing, aching, wishing. Life goes on.  With life is struggle. Fighting for life. Fighting to let go.  Life breathes. Hope. A bright small moon shines over a world awakening to spring.  Spring that follows winter. Seedtime and harvest = Promise.  Supper + Garden  + Cross + Tomb + Resurrection = Hope. Heaven waits. Hope rises. Bleeding ragged hearts hold on. He holds our bleeding hearts in His own bleeding hands. He holds hope and healing and heaven. He holds it all: life, death, breath, hope. Heaven.

The Power of the Resurrection.

"He went walking and leaping and praising God
 Walking and leaping and praising God..."

These words were running through my head as we stood in a small room hidden in the bowels of the hospital.  We were lead there through many twistings and turnings after those other words.  Life crashing, mind numbing, heart twisting, gut turning words: dead on arrival.  Later I would second guess myself and wonder.  And shoulda, woulda, coulda.  Wonder if I should have commanded him "In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!".  Would he have gotten up and walked?  Could I have done that?  I wonder.

Sometime in August I had a dream.  He was there on large plywood box in the yard, cold and still.  My sisters and I were gathered all around.  Someone cried "Get up!"  And he did. He came leaping down from there with a big missing teeth smile on his face.  We were laughing and crying, and all talking at once.  He was holding my hand.  Then he looked up at me.  His face was sad and his eyes  filled with tears.
"But I don't want to stay. I want to go back"
"It's OK" I said "You can go."
I woke up and he was gone.  I wanted so much to keep him but I had to let him go.

"For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."
1 Thessalonians 4:16-17

Waiting for the trumpet - Pat

2013 Ash Wednesday

"Come, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.
For He is our God,
And we are the people of His pasture,
the sheep of His hand.    Psalm 95:6-7

                    Sheep in Kenya by Julie Ann

"Our lives can become a wilderness when experiences expose our frail and tenuous existence.  Episodes of bewilderment, abandonment, and inner terror reveal our soul restless cravings and fundamental neediness.
In the wilderness we can lose our bearings.
Or regain them."  (Dr. Timothy S. Laniak)

"Amen is our cry of belonging to Christ, the one whose promises can be fully trusted, who is shelter and guiding star in the desert we sometimes make of our lives." (St. Mary's Press)

Amen! quite literally: "I will drive my tent peg into that."

Lashing one's tent so that when the sudden desert winds come up the shelter stands secure. Like the firm placement of a piton for a rock climber, the driving of a tent peg for a desert traveler can mean life or death.
                       
                           "On Christ the Solid Rock I stand,
                           all other ground is sinking sand."

Apple Pancakes

Tuesdays are busy days with Bible Study so the meal plan for supper is Easy. The afternoon had gotten gobbled up with year end/new year book keeping. I was getting hungry.  Hot dogs were penciled in but I was not in a hot dog mood.  As I was browsing online a fruit pancake recipe popped up. It called for fresh blueberries and raspberries. Hmmm...have frozen raspberries. The fruit pancake idea brought to mind a lined yellow paper that has been in my recipe collection for many years.  Autumn Apple Pancakes.

Written in the handwriting of a young teen girl it is a recipe that Leroy brought home. It may have come from our beloved baby sitter Tina but I do not remember. It is one of those memories that got lost in the fuzzy years after he died.                              

As I chopped apples, mixed and measured I reminisced how down through the years without him I have been given Leroy gifts. Another of our babysitters sent me a some pictures he had colored and given her. One year when I was visiting my Mama she returned to me all the letters I had written her the first few years of our marriage. Heart squeezing, breath taking diaries of my all little ones baby years spilling over with Leroy stories. 

As the bacon sizzled and the pancakes turned golden brown I savored my memories. Amanda and Levi collaborated on a photo book for the Biker and I for Christmas for this year. He secretly uploaded pictures from my Leroy file to her photo account. She created and ordered the gift. She also found a gift at the craft fair that she knew would be perfect for me. It was just my style: a little cowboy boot filled with twigs, red berries and rusty tin stars poking out every which way.  

What Amanda did not know is that this boot is also a Leroy gift. His very first pair of cowboy boots was almost identical to this one and about that size. We bought Levi a pair of black leather boots and a grey two-tone pair one size smaller for Leroy.  I placed it in the Harley window, tweaked the stars and tucked in a  wishbone. He always asked for the wishbone. Heaven is a place where all the wishes of every little wisher come true.  At the end of the pancake recipe it says ENJOY! with a smiley face. We did.

Love from Leroy.

Five Minute Friday # 1

Trying on some new things...I joined a 40-day group here. Julie invited us to join her with Five Minute Friday. It is impromptu writing without editing from a prompt by Lisa Jo Baker tales from Gypsy Mama. I edit constantly when I write. So this is my first try:

Welcome... it is my Mama waiting with open arms for her daughters to come home from all over the country. It is the tears in my daughter's eyes the first time she sees little baby Isaiah. It is walking into my best friend's house. Heaven. It is a son waiting on the far side banks of Jordan. Jesus when time shall be no more. The bright blue October sky receives my lifted arms. A hot car on a summer day as the heat wraps itself around me.

 Yup. Less than one hundred words. Hm...will do this again next Friday.

I did this. So can you.

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking.

2. Link back here and invite others to join in.

3. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is, like, the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community..


I love you bunches and words - Pat

The Gift of Friendship

The Runner had three first grade teachers, each unique and outstanding in her field. Quiet, gentle Mrs Ellis welcomed him into her classroom with a Clifford (the big red dog) name tag, which he was happy to wear.  He loved school (not academics) but art, gym, recess and most of all, his friends.  In early spring Mrs Ellis told me he was getting less and less of his paperwork done spending most of his time doing art work on those papers. He was getting farther and farther behind and it did not bother him at all.

Fall 1989 - First grade

We made the decision to have him repeat first grade.  Mrs. Jackson's classroom was a first and second grade blended class. Other than his ability to handle a pencil and his math skills, she said you would never know he had been to first grade before.  Every Monday morning in Mrs. Jackson's class the students were allowed to put their desk anywhere they wanted for the week.  Most of them stayed in the same groups of three or four all year but not the Runner.  He moved his desk every time and sat with a different group each week.

Fall 1990 - First grade

The first week of February 1990 was a week of turmoil in Mrs. Jackson's class.  The Runner had told them he was moving and it upset the whole classroom.  At the end of his last day before we moved the entire classroom lined up to give him a hug before he left.  When we were packing to travel each of my kyds was allowed to put whatever they wanted into a backpack to take with them on the trip. Their most treasured items went into those back packs. The address book from Mrs. Jackson's class went into the Runner's back pack along with his Lego set from Christmas and Rocky the Raccoon.

On the West coast the Runner was enrolled in Mrs. Martin's classroom. Every day Mrs. Martin's class prayed for her son John  deployed in Desert Storm.  When he came home he visited their classroom to thank them.  Mrs. Martin said the Runner never asked for anything but he asked to have his picture taken with John.

The Runner and John Martin

Because we held him back the Runner was in the same grade as his sister. Did that bother him? Not at all! He was delighted. They were in adjoining first grade classrooms. Those two classes did all their art projects, movies and field trips together. For Mother's Day they did the same project and proudly brought them home. Each was a large envelope covered in flowers with a handwritten card inside. Sister's envelope was splashed with brightly colored flowers higgledy-piggledy everywhere. Inside she wrote: "I love my mom becuz she lets me mak makrny and ches." The Runner's flowers were neatly colored and placed just so. His inscription inside in pains-taking printing read: "I love you Mother."

The Runner and Sister

I love you bunches and boys in Heaven - Pat

The Square Chair

There is a chair in the corner. A square block of a chair. It looks padded but it is not much. Sometimes it will not budge an inch when you want it too. Other times it just rolls away on its own. A foot rest bangs out when you pull the lever. It reclines all the way if you know the right combination of pushing and pulling. You can sleep in it. Helpful nurses get you a blanket and a pillow. You kick off your shoes and crunch up on your side. The pillow slides away on the plastic. You snug the blanket up as much as possible but it is still cold. Machines click and whir. Light bothers. Lights blink. Doors slam. Time for vitals. Time for meds. Of course you cannot sleep. The only reason you are in that chair is because you are keeping the night watch. Someone you love is in pain. Someone you love is broken. Your loyalty is forefront. You take the chair.

In the past three years I have kept vigil in the chair in three different hospitals. In the wee hours of Palm Sunday 2010 the Biker falls asleep at the wheel a couple miles from home. His truck straddles a stone wall at a high rate of speed crashing through brush and trees landing in a field. He has injury all down his left side. Gashes bleeding. Broken bones. Bruises. I keep vigil in the chair. Hosanna. The Lord saves.

Fast forward Spring 2011. The Writer is for scheduled double jaw surgery with chin reconstruction at Tripler Army Medical Center. "Mom, will you come?" They won't do the surgery unless someone is here." Fifteen hours and five thousand miles. Six hour surgery. Brutal recovery. Just brutal. I keep vigil in the chair.

Georgia Summer 2012. Our first granbaby. Induction begins. Mommie labors. Daddy and Amma take turns keeping vigil in the chair. Forty three hours later the lil Geogia peach is born. Perfect. Just perfect.

God has a chair. His throne sits in the center of heaven. Oh! How He loves us. When we are broken, when we are in pain, when we are being reconstructed and restored, when some new thing is being birthed in us God's loyalty is forefront. He takes the chair. He sits vigil and keeps the night watch.

I love you bunches and lil peaches - Pat