millie's memorial day

I met a darling 90 year old woman last week.  One of the first things I noticed when I entered her room was an 8x10 picture of a handsome soldier hanging next to her bed.  "Is that your husband?" I asked.  "Yes, that's him at the beginning of World War II."  She answered.  "He was one of the two miracles in my life."  I sensed a good story and settled in.


Millie met Thomas right after she turned 17.  There was something about the young man that drew her.  Something beyond the big smile and clean, pressed uniform.  Her interest didn't wane when he told her that he was leaving in one month to fight in Germany.  When Millie found out that Thomas wasn't a believer she committed to pray for him while he was gone.  That turned into a lengthy commitment.  "God hovered over Thomas for years even though Thomas wasn't a Christian.  God took Thomas through 5 years of war, through 4 major battles. Then He brought him home to learn the truth."


Thomas finally returned home.  He joined Millie's church and then he and Millie got married.  Thomas returned to school and entered the ministry.  For the next fifty years he was a traveling preacher, moving throughout the Carolinas, Virginia and Tennessee.  If a church was without a pastor for a while, Thomas would fill in.  If a church was dwindling, Thomas would come to help strengthen it.  And after "praying Thomas into the truth",  now Millie turned her prayers to her unbelieving brother, Jim.


Millie's mother was a "shouting Methodist".   I had never heard the term before but love this description.  "Frontier Americans cracked jokes about the "shouting Methodists" but the Wesleyans wore the label as a badge of honor. They felt their own joy was one of the best advertisements for the truth of the message they preached."


Millie found her mother's faith inspiring and longed to be a shouting Methodist.  But instead she was a "crying Methodist" like her father.  She began to pray for the gift of shouting, and one day, clear as a bell, she felt God telling her that He would give her the gift just one time.  At the right time.  So she waited.


When Millie was forty years old, she moved with Thomas to serve three churches in Western Carolina.  They moved to the same town as Millie's family.  One prayer meeting night was made challenging by hail, thunder and lightening.  Millie's mother offered to watch the youngest children and stay home.  Millie's brother, Jim offered to drive the rest of the family going to prayer meeting in his car to keep them dry.  That night while Thomas "laid out the gospel plain as day", Jim gave his heart to God.  As he walked to the altar, Millie began to shout, hearing God's voice saying "See!  I done told you the time would come."


The joyful group packed into the car to return home.  Millie couldn't wait to tell her mother the good news.  But she didn't have to.  When they drove up to the house, Millie's mother was standing in the doorway shouting.  "God told her plain the moment it happened, and she didn't stop shouting til we was all home."


"So there was my miracles."  Millie smiled as she wrapped up her story.  "Thomas came home from war, and Jim joined the winning side of the battle."  And Millie got to shout.


The LORD will march out like a champion, like a warrior he will stir up his zeal; with a shout he will raise the battle cry and will triumph over his enemies.  Isaiah 42:13

beautiful

I've been thinking about beauty a lot lately. 

I just got People magazine's Most Beautiful In The World edition.  Lots of pretty there.  We just watched the season finale of Hawaii 5.0.  Lots of pretty there.  :)

And I've been planning for our 25th high school alumni weekend in Maryland.  If there is ever a time to look your best, it's alumni.  With all your old friends who knew you when you were all youthful, cute and fresh.  So hair has been cut and highlighted, clothes have been bought, nails have been done.  I even signed up for a half marathon in mid May, so by alumni I would be hard into my training.  Tight muscles and many, many calories burned.

Then April arrived and brought with it HIGH pollen counts and off-the-chart allergy levels. My immune system went into "full, exaggerated response mode."  Fresh air and an elevated heart rate became my worst enemies.  My new look is bloodshot eyes, red and cracked nose, a puffy face and starting-to-atrophy muscles. 

I made it through Friday night and Saturday morning of alumni.  Wore my new clothes, saw my old friends.  But by Saturday afternoon I was curled up in our friend's guest room with a box of kleenex and a cold washcloth over my face.  In between my sneezing and nose blowing, I could hear our friends laughing and talking upstairs.

The last straw was a text from my friend Barbara, five states away, commenting on an alumni picture.  "You are looking beautiful right now!  Love the new top."  I rushed to facebook to find a number of pictures posted from that morning.  It was worse than I thought.  Much worse.  Bad angles, bad lighting, and most of all, a bad dose of reality.  I picked the pictures apart, found all the unfavorable comparisons and plotted my move to a distant land.  Then I put the wet washcloth over my red, runny nose and curled up again.  Not so pretty....

After a while, in that dark room, I had to get strict with myself.  Allergy season will pass.  It always does.  My cracked nose will heal.  I can start exercising again.  Those things will help.  In the meantime I do have control over some truly unattractive facets in my being - like envy, jealousy, resentment, anger, self pity.... I identified these little monsters and released them out into the pollen filled yard.

I thought about people I know and love whose inner beauty shines so brightly.  I remembered how much I want to be filled with the qualities of grace, gratitude and generosity.  I practiced them right there in the dark room.

And I thought about how "beauty is in the eye of the beholder."  I am so blessed to have friends who see the same pictures I am so critical of and find something lovely in them. 

That night I read this inspiring prayer from Seven Sacred Pauses.  It takes the focus off me.  It elevates beauty to so much more than a magazine cover or outfit.  It draws me to a better place.

O You whose face is a thousand colors...look upon us in this twilight hour, and color our faces with the radiance of your love.  As the light of the sun fades away, light the lamps of our hearts that we may see one another more clearly.  Let the incense of our gratitude rise as our hearts become full of music and song.  May the work  that we bring with us into this hour fall away from our minds as we enter into the mystical grace of the evening hour.  Amen.