Category Archives: parents

Tap Dance Anyone?

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At around six years, my mom asked if I’d like to take tap dance or piano lessons. I never hesitated and chose tap. My little sister and I began weekly tap dance lessons at a studio some miles away. I have no recollection of getting into the car to go, but I do recall the regimental “Heel, Toe, Shuffle Step” and “Pointer Step” commands. I think there was a “Slide” command in there, too. Little did I know this was leading up to a formal recital presentation which was announced, some months later. I begged to be excused. Mom was having none of it. So when the morning came to dress up and go, I was so nervous I threw up. She was boiling mad.


“That does it!” she said, “You’re going to take piano lessons now!”


I think Daddy took Karen on to the recital while I stayed home with Mother. I admired Karen that she went without me: she was only five at the time. (She discontinued the tap, thanks to me but took piano and voice lessons and has done numerous solos at church, plus directed church choirs, her fondest love. She has the presence of mind to perform with composure and confidence.)

Next month, I began the disappointing piano lessons after school once a week from Mrs. Bloomer, our church organist. She lived three blocks away and once I learned the route, Mom allowed me to walk home on my own, even though I had to carefully cross a busy thoroughfare called Division Avenue, to reach our house on Garland Street. It wasn’t long before I discovered that the piano was great fun even though practicing was a chore. I worked hard to get that lick- and-stick shiny star on every song I could. I also grew to adore my patient and good-hearted grandma-like teacher. Her first name was Jenny.

I regret not sticking with the tap dancing, for I so love to dance or watch tap dance and Irish clogging. Alas, I chose foolishly to abandon that opportunity just because I had a nervous stomach.

But life throws us curves and sometimes that’s not so bad. Because of my mother, I now can read music well. I played piano for my high school choir and most of the churches we attended, and accompanied soloists. I played the piano in my classrooms and each student had a sing-along songbook of all the tunes we learned in a year! Sometimes good intentions or hopes that don’t work out can spur something else just as amazing! Thank you, Mom!

How wonderful that our Creator gives each of us a talent or two, to add blessing to ourselves and others, and return blessing to Himself. My newest venture is re-learning how to play the flute. I am a long way from being able to play songs publicly, but it is worth working for.

What is/are your talent(s)?

The Yellow Kitchen

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Our Michigan house was built by my parents, and its rectangle kitchen was cleverly designed, with three entries: one to the bedroom hallway, one to the dining room where we took our evening and Sunday meals, and one to the back porch beside the telephone desk. On either side of the hallway door’s entrance began two paralleled counter tops, the stove on one side and the sink in the other.  The fridge stood adjacent to the stove side. The sink’s counter side stopped short, to provide passage into the breakfast room. Behind the sink was more counter, making its section an island with a rounded end graced by lower shelves to match the curve. An overhead cupboard was to the sink’s right and the rest of the island opened into the breakfast room. In that sweet room lived a yellow linoleum covered table that matched the floor, seven chairs, and the small telephone desk.  If you sat on the north side of the table, you could see evidence of the current season in the backyard, through divided window panes. If you sat on the south side, you saw the kitchen’s floor plan:  island sink, stove, refrigerator and door to the dining room and bedroom hallway.

In this warm room, we took breakfast and lunch, played table games like Monopoly, War, Parcheesi and checkers and my live-in grandpa played Cribbage every Friday night with Uncle Bernie there. On those kitchen walls, this three-year-old got crayons and scribbled from one corner to another before my mother caught me. And on the kitchen island my father laid me flat, to stitch a cut over my eye, when I fell headlong on the back-porch steps one rainy day in 1955. I still have the scar from that cut on my body.

Deeper still, I have the imprint of that yellow kitchen, in my memory.

What indelible scar do you carry in your body? What memory from your childhood home?

 

~A Prayer~

Thank You, Lord that You see all that happens to us. You see us in our childhood kitchens, you see us today.  You heal us of our cuts and wounds, because You love to show us mercy and kindness. Please bring this to those who are without it. Put them on our minds, so we can pray for them.

Please bless our good memories and heal us of what brought us scars. Thank you that scars are evidence of Your presence, then and now. Thank you for salvation through Jesus who for our sake, endured scorn, false accusations, assault and battery, and a criminal’s death, to provide for us a life where we can have a kitchen place on earth, where we might learn of Your love. But even better, a place in your heavenly kingdom, the Big kingdom, the One that matters most of all.

“May Your kingdom come and Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Amen.  ~Matthew 6:10

Things to Remember

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I will remember the cold of 2017 on several planes. And actually, having returned from a cold snap in Tennessee, the onset of a new year still feels cold.

Without the presence of some beloved family members and some dear friends, life can feel like the blast of a cold wooden floor under your not-yet-awake morning feet.

The joy of working on an adorable Vintage investment home turns cold when your clay sewer system and basement leaks, forcing the relinquishment of big funds for repairs.

And being rejected by a promising publisher can chill your bones, as well. When I was told in a two liner email that my historical novel did not line up with their company’s plans for the coming year, it seemed as though they’d taken a needle to my lungs and deflated them.. I did not even tell my husband about it for months.

But one must not sit on their hands.

To wit, it so happened that two sweet ladies at church asked me to read my story to them, as often as we could meet. We are more than halfway through. All the while, I see flaws and oversights, character development needs and basic errors that couldn’t otherwise be detected, without an out loud read with an audience. They have fun speaking up, suggesting tweaks and turns, which I as the author weigh in the balance. Without realizing it, I am learning how to be a presenting author, learning how to defend my story with confidence.

Perhaps the cold will turn to warmth this next year. Revision is never foolish.

I must go on. In fact, I take hope in the words of Kathleen Kelly, the protagonist from the movie You’ve Got mail. She answers her second co-star Greg Kinnear (one of my favorite actors , as they break up, that no, she does not have a boyfriend, but there remains the hope and promise of one. Stars are in her eyes.

Unpublished writers, be pro-active and keep the stars in your eyes.

 

Another Kind of Goodbye

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As long as ten years ago, I would sometimes drive by a beautiful building, or a well cared for small house, and wonder who owned it, and how they obtained it. It wasn’t an envy, more like an admiration kind of thing.  But I did wish and ponder if I would ever be able to own a second piece of property, as an investment.  I had a conversation with the Lord about it— asked Him what he thought of such a notion, would it be all right with Him?  Then I went about life, and didn’t think too much more about it.

The Lord remembered me.

My parents were blessed with the ability to leave my siblings and myself a good inheritance. Though the summer God plucked my Mother was a forlorn one, it opened up an avenue for me, heretofore untraveled.

I was happy for Mom’s new eternal residence, but my spirit felt dampened. Curiously at the end of a few weeks, I felt a heart tug, to go back to Grand Rapids, my birthplace. It was a yearning, a longing.  I knew things were not as they were sixty years hence, but I still wanted to go. To see my childhood house again, and to walk down Garland street, find my playmates’ houses was compelling. I could find two of my grandparents’ homes, and see the South Methodist church and my old elementary school. Best of all, perhaps I could find our cottage on the lake, a thirty minute drive from the city. A cousin did some hunting, and through her efforts, found the area of the cottage on Big Lake. Astoundingly, it had become listed for sale/Open House, two days after my mother’s death.

I did not take this as a sign, nevertheless thought it remarkable, and by summer’s end, made plans to fly “home” to answer what felt like a call on my heart.  Having grown up in Grand Rapids with summers at this cottage, it was a powerful thing to do.  My joy abounded.

Recently, I read Psalm 87 and at verse 6, was caught in its wonder. “The Lord records as He registers the peoples, ‘This one was born there.’”  Following the script, it said ‘Selah.’  This means stop or pause and think about it, something my mother taught me.

I flew to Grand Rapids that August, with my husband. It was exclusive and thrilling to re- visit our 1950’s dollhouse cottage, put myself inside its walls, climb its steps, touch the knotty pine kitchen cabinets my father had made, go down to the lake and sit on the dock, (albeit a different one)and find the old fish house, with some of its foundation blocks still in place.  As I stared at them close up, a Daddy Long Legs came up over the top edge of its wall, as if my own father sent it, to acknowledge he knew I was there. He was the one who taught me not to be afraid of spiders, and I still remember how he did so, letting a Daddy Long Legs crawl over his hand.  Emotion washed over me.

Long story shortened, God did not have the cottage in mind for us to purchase.  It was too pricey, and too remote—on a dead end road, not safe to be there on my own. My husband said a lake property didn’t interest him, and he would only come twice a year. Other things soured the option. There was no internet service, no city water, no sewer service, it had a propane tank, and the nearest town was ten minutes away. I realized I wasn’t a wilderness kind of gal. I wanted to live in a small town, where there was a sheriff.  Because God drew these parameters for me, I could let go of the cottage.

We looked at other houses.  The nearest fun town was Allegan, so we took that road. After months of searching, and a major rejection on an offer, by December, a perfect little house near the historic downtown opened up for us.  It was ideally suited to our needs in every way. And it was for a price that if in Tucson, would sell for three times as much! Amazing.

A 1933 home requires a lot of tender, loving care and grueling work.  We enjoy it three times a year, to partake of three seasons: spring, summer and fall.  We are making improvements that are safety driven, function driven, and beauty driven.  We have found a loving church family nearby, so what more can we ask for?

Now the hard part is leaving our home in Arizona to come here, and leaving Michigan to go back. I hate good byes. It was hard enough to say goodbye to Mother, and I can’t say I did it well.  I leave both Arizona and Michigan reticently, when it becomes time to depart.

Recently, it became that time again, to return to Arizona, and the blues set in. I was bothering myself about it, for days. I didn’t know how to help myself past this.

God remembered me, again.

I was babysitting/playing cards with the pastor’s kiddos, when it was near time for me to say goodbye.  I told them, “After this game, I need to leave.”  (Giving cues is helpful to small children.)

The second oldest boy’s face lit up and he said,“Oh boy!”

Talk about laugh out loud!  His mother heard, and corrected his manners. She explained she told him he could play a video game after I left.  No wonder he was thrilled.  Ha!

Immediately, I realized God had given me a gift.

If the Lord calls us from one place to another, we can receive it with some component of joy, if not in full measure.  Sorrow has its place, and is appropriate in its timing.  But at some point, sorrow needs to take a back seat—it cannot be so big that it rules us.

God has things to give us, sometimes elsewhere or without the person or things we want to cling to.  He has things to show us, because He loves us so much.

So, I’m flying back to Arizona tomorrow.  Oh boy!

 

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Set Aside

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Part I of a treatise on the miraculous, for Lent

Everybody wants to be loved, we latch onto it. Love helps us cope with life. In 1958, Phil Spector cut a song, To Know, Know, Know Him and I thought it was cool. Here are the first nine lines.

To know know know him
Is to love love love him
Just to see that smile
Makes my life worthwhile

To know know know him
Is to love love love him
And I do
And I do
And I do

As a young girl, I began to feel I was not quite like other people.  That I was different and not preferred.  I wore glasses from the age of two. When I was five,  I was given penicillin for a boil on my behind, and broke out with a rash that never left. I was the middle child of three. My older brother liked my sister more than me. Or at least it felt like that. And my foster brother also liked Karen more.

Happily, there were some reprieves from my poor self image. I did well in school and I learned piano well. I also had two good friends, Marilou Hage, and Marcia Dorman.  My parents and grandparents loved me dearly, and my sister adored me. These things brought me great happiness.

Still, when winter came to Grand Rapids, Michigan, my life got hard. The harsh and frequent snow, and icy weather had an immediate effect upon my skin.  It chapped, cracked and bled.  I had scabs and sometimes staff infection entered the wounds.  I’d have to stay home from school to recover. My parents gave me support and understanding.  I was taken to doctors and later, the Mayo clinic to seek solutions.

Kids asked questions about my rash and scabs and it was embarrassing.  I can remember how I flushed, as I gave them a reply. I tried to hide my skin, but the eczema broke out everywhere there was a joint or flap:  behind my knees, armpits, my neck, at the bottom of my ear lobes, every finger knuckle, my wrists, and then on my lower arms, where there were no joints at all. Though my siblings never made fun of me, my classmates’ curiosity and probing made my self-esteem plummet.  Michigan winters gave me a good understanding of what it was like to feel ‘set aside.’ But I think God used those winters to offset my life in a permanent way.

I think each of us has a life experience that leaves a lasting mark. A relative of mine was abused as a girl.  My mother lost her thirteen year old brother when he ran away from home to find his mother who left the family. Georgie jumped off a train from a bridge, into the river below, and drowned.  My grandfather’s eyesight failed in his twenties, and he lost his accounting job. My former husband was mistreated by both his parents his whole life without reprieve, and no apology was given him later on. These kind of things make us feel as if we’ve been ‘set aside’, singled out, a product of the extraordinary.

Could it be that God marks us, as if to distinguish us—in love?  Surely the One who made us couldn’t want that we should have a life of unrelenting hardship and abuse.  Yes, there are cultures where cruelty and persecution goes on for years.  In The Immortal Irishman, we read how the English Parliament suppressed and battered the Irish for years, believing them to be inferior Catholics. How sorrowful that some cultures must endure dictators, oppression or depraved poverty without relief.  These things defy understanding except we know that in this earthly life, evil sometimes gains an upper hand.  A good God raises up the good to fight against the evil, for His intention is for it to be conquered and replaced with goodnesses.  Praise God this is so.

The Lord marks all of us, one way or another.  He calls all people to come to Him in earnestness, to “know, know, know” Him. True followers are given a gift, His Presence inside them. Philippians 4:11 says, “The Lord is near.” With this gift, we are ‘set aside’ from the world.  In good ways, in servitude.  For to know His presence is to love Him.

Part II will consider this amazing presence of God within us, a most miraculous thing.

Smart Counsel

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Smart Counsel

Per chance, I found a poignant book called: My Lord and I- Daily Meditations, by Harry Tippett in a thrift store some months back.  I was smitten, given it was a cross-hatched 4.5 by 6 inch thick book, and published in 1948, the year of my birth.  Its entries are nothing of regular nature.  It’s a pearl. I relish each reading, albeit not all entries are just for me.  You know what I mean.

But on my August birthday, I was hoping for a gem.  I wasn’t disappointed. Its title of Jesus Our Counselor was followed by Eccl. 9: 11 “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”

To wit, this could mean that no matter how quick, strong, wise or skilled a person, it is not these that God blesses, but rather He bestows in time and through His own choosing what will happen.

And on this note, I’m at peace.  We live in crazy times, a world with crumbling order, terrorism gone wild and denial of its threat thereof, race relations under attack, corruption in highest levels by-passed, it would appear, by our justice department.  Harsh statements, falsehoods, accusations, misleadings are the deluge— how shall we be saved from this state of affairs?

I bewail a lack of integrity in but a few leaders today. Can the Lord intervene and do something miraculous?  Of course!  “Time and chance happeneth to them all.”  Yesterday in a sermon, I learned about Don Piper who was killed in a head-on collision in 1989.  A passing by pastor was directed of the Lord to stop and pray, but was told the driver of the car was dead; they tarped the gruesome car, waiting for authorities to come remove the man.  The pastor went into the car, and prayed for the deceased Mr. Piper. After an hour, he ran out of things to pray and began to sing, ‘What a Friend We Have in Jesus.’  Suddenly, a voice joined him.  Mr. Piper rose to life!

Who in this world would follow such a God directive, to pray for a dead man?  To believe it mattered?  Instead, we gauge the worth or progress of something by outward appearances, or numbers, am I right?

The author Tippett:  This emphasis upon worldly advantage has captured modern thinking…our measurements of value…often gauged by mere bulk or numbers.  Counting noses in God’s work has been frowned upon by Heaven ever since the days of the numbering of Israel against His express command.  We triumph in majorities and hold contempt for minorities.  We honor men who boast, “Is not this great Babylon that I have built…by the might of my power?”  Dan. 4:30.  This veneration of size and truckling to power…{is called} megalomania, the craze for bigness.

But Jesus was never overawed by size or majorities.  The temple of Herod was the greatest pride of the Jewish church.  The priests were dismayed when Christ predicted its destruction.  In the teachings of the Master, mountains of difficulty give way to simple prayer, and “out of the mouths of babies and sucklings” He ordains strength.  End quote.

My former pastor’s young daughter recently took issue with the gender bathroom controversy.  On her own but with her parents’ permission, she gathered signatures and sent them to the state legislature to protest the allowance of the cross gendered to enter the bathrooms at her elementary school. She petitioned for a bathroom of their own.  She sent it to her legislator and now, the legislature is voting on a law that will make all persons use the bathroom of their birth.  This child has been invited to come speak to the legislature about her concerns. Is not this phenomenal? I rejoice to see how the Lord is using this young girl to accomplish His ways on earth. If the bill is passed, this child’s name is going to be on it!

Tippett: “He ordains strength.”  Psalms 8:2.  All through the Bible, greatness in worldly evaluations is in sharp contrast to the humble heart and teachable spirit Christ lauds as Heaven’s true cloth of gold.  [It is}…not the cause with the greatest financial backing nor the leader with the best education, nor the artisan with the swiftest skill—none of these are necessarily signs of favor with Heaven.  “Not by might and not by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord” is the formula.  End quote.

I believe that when we pray, we invite Jesus’ counsel. It doesn’t get any smarter than that.  May’nt this be a way out of the current bungle of politico?  His plans are remarkable; He directed a pastor to stop and pray for a dead man, a child to gather signatures of protest. He directed me to pray for my mom’s rescue from death often.  I prayed with a friend and then on my own as I drove to my sister’s side, not knowing she was having a fibrillation attack.  I called out to Jesus by name when I was nearly hit head on with my babies in the car with me.  He so wants our prayers, prayers for others, prayers for our needy country. Time and “chance” belong to Him. Pray, pray hard.

 

When did Jesus send you a directive to pray and what was the result?

The Gift of Darkness

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We live in a difficult world. There is darkness all around.

Once years ago, my parents treated my husband and I to an all expenses paid New England bus tour trip with them. It was a blessing beyond belief. We saw sites in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont. I remember all of it and developed over a hundred photos.  While in New Hampshire, we were in a place peppered with trees. Every turn in the road revealed something breathtaking.
I asked Mom, “Wouldn’t you like to live here, Mom?”
“No way!” she said without hesitating.
“What? Why not?”
“Because the trees block out the sun. It would be dark all the time.”

There is so much to be said about that.
We moved to Tucson from Michigan when I was twelve.  The doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester said I needed a warm, dry climate to be healed of severe skin eczema.  It was a tremendous sacrifice to do this.  But the frequency of the bright and sunny days were of such benefit.  And in time, we came to love the area.  It is rarely dark in Tucson, rarely gloomy. Even on our rainiest days, usually the sun peeks. I completely recovered from eczema, it is gone, it left in less than two years.

There has to be light in life or darkness takes over.

Following the unforeseen death of my mother this past summer, the absence of her beauty felt like darkness. Varying degrees of depression took me over for months.  But also without warning, on a day in October, I was surprised to find that I could feel the sun again.  Surely it had been there all the time, but just not for me.  Dark Days had come for a spell, and I could not find a way out of them.

“The Lord is my light, and my salvation,” says a Psalm.  The Lord is our sun, our rescue.  Another psalm says, “In Him is no darkness at all.”

Could it be that darkness serves a purpose?

The evil think so.  They love it.  They dwell in darkness and perform their dirty deeds there, thinking they are hidden.    They have abused the darkness, using it to perpetuate and manufacture more sin.   They think they are safe there, unseen.  Are they?  With the Lord God, His vision is unlimited.  He sees without physical light being present.  He sees right into all darkness.  He waits. He will requite all evil.  God’s design for darkness is not to provide sanctuary to the evil.    

But He did create it.  There must be a divine purpose for it.  Maybe multiple ones.  I see two.

Darkness provides a resting place for humans.  In darkness, we are excused from the brightness of the day.  We can sleep, and our eyes and body organs recover their strength, heal. Darkness is a blessed reprieve, a covering, a nest.  Where grief is present, darkness’s gift of sleep nourishes the heart, nerves and emotions.  It’s no wonder those in grief sleep more than usual.

Also, darkness provides a contrast for us, that we might see our need of light.  How would we notice our need of a savior if we did not recognize Him against a backdrop of depravity?  He wants to be noticed.  He wants to “pop” out.  He wants to be distinguished.  He deserves to be distinguished.

Dark Days may occasionally come. But God has not banished us to them.  They are for a season to rest us, give us a reprieve.

Bright Days will return. Happily, the Lord is present in both darkness and light, and He is with us.

Do you see another purpose for darkness?  Please comment.