I always forget napkins. The table will be set, food is hot, family gathered, and someone will say "do we have any napkins?" I will jump back up and grab a handful of paper towels. Because "no we do not EVER have napkins." The paper towel thing is fine when it is just the four of us on a week night. We aren't fancy. But for Thanksgiving or Easter or weekends with company? When a lot of work has gone into making the table look nice....the wad of paper towels just doesn't cut it. Must remember to get napkins!
Which is why I was so tickled when my in-laws showed up around noon on Christmas with a package of beautiful Christmassy paper napkins. "We thought you might need these," my mother-in-law said as she handed them to me. I did! They brought many other things, boxes of presents, food and drink, but those napkins are still making me smile. I think it's the great combination of being truly known, and truly taken care of.
I felt that combination with the cozy pink coat from my parents. It's a continuing gift of fresh color and warmth as I stand outside and greet students every morning. And the afternoon trip to Sensibilities Spa with my sister-in-law from my brother's family. It was the perfect mix of quiet relaxation and fun chattering. And my fitbit from Steve and the boys - just the right incentive and social competition that I needed. I could go on...
Christmas can be a great physical reminder of God's abundant love. My God will richly supply all your needs through Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:19 . It was for me this year, and I am so grateful.
And there were more napkins. Later in the day I unwrapped a package of cream-colored cloth napkins with words of gratitude printed in black script. I had seen them at Pier One, thought they would be great for Thanksgiving and hinted that I wanted them. (Can it still be called hinting if you call your mother-in-law and say "I really want these specific napkins from this specific store"?)
One of my resolutions for 2015 is to Use It Up. Don't save things for later. I tend to tuck things away for a special occasions -soft scarves, gift boxes of unique tea flavors, pretty candles, the good plates or better silverware. But NOW is a special occasion. Dinners on Wednesday evenings and baths on Tuesday nights, and getting dressed for cold Monday mornings. Use It Up is a regular reminder to live in the moment, that my family is worth it, that I am worth it. I have been inspired by Gretchen Rubin's call to spend it out and Shauna Niequist's burn the candles post, and want to live into this paradigm.
So Friday night I pulled out the beautiful Thanksgiving napkins and set the table with candles. I controlled my wincing as spaghetti mouths were wiped on the new napkins. They can be washed. And if they don't make it til next Thanksgiving think of all the gratitude-infused meals we will enjoy in the mean time.
The paper towels can wait.
At school today a little girl was marched into my office. Her eyes were red and her shoulders were shaking. She listened defiantly as I talked about how kindergarten students can not throw screaming fits over the shape of crackers served during snack time. She was not convinced. Or very sorry.
Actually I felt for her. I know that helpless, angry frustration that sometimes wells up inside me looking for a way to escape.
I felt it this month. After years of praying a very specific prayer and years of silence from Heaven in response. After laying out over and over and over what seemed to me a God-honoring, mostly unselfish plea. After trying to be positive and grateful and teachable in spite of not seeing a light at the end of my tunnel.
Recently in my car I listened to an inspiring sermon on Daniel's three friends facing the wrath of the king. How these men of faith faced the angry king and told him to his face "Our God is able to deliver us from this furnace. But even if He does not we will still serve Him to our death." The point of the sermon was sometimes God delivers us FROM the fiery furnace. And sometimes God delivers us IN the fiery furnace. We don't always get the rescue, the answers, the solutions we want or need, but this doesn't have to shake our faith.
As if.
I love my faith. It's the air I breathe and the road I walk on. It is guiding, helpful, comforting, delightful, interesting, challenging, grounded. What it is not is Unshakable.
I falter in front of a furnace. Or in pitch blackness. Or dead quiet. I need more burning bushes and wall writing and nets overflowing with fish. I'd like a city falling down and seas parting please.
But no. What started with a hope-crushing text last week, ended with me in the bath tub having a spiritual hissy fit. I didn't renounce my religion or curse at God. Just kicked and cried and pouted. "God, what in the world is wrong with you? How clear do I have to be?"
When I was still doing hospice full time I ordered Barbara Brown Taylor's new book Learning to Walk in the Dark. I thought I would be good for my patients. I pulled it out recently and found that what it is really good for is people in mid-tantrum. This paragraph spoke to me.
This darkness and cloud is always between you and God, no matter what you do," wrote the anonymous fourteenth-century author of The Cloud of Unknowing, "and it prevents you from seeing Him clearly by the light of understanding in your reason and from experiencing Him in sweetness of love in your affection. So set yourself to rest in this darkness as long as you can, always crying out after Him whom you love. For if you are to experience Him or to see Him at all, insofar as it is possible here, it must always be in this cloud and in this darkness."
I climbed out of the tub, spent and resigned. Red eyes and shaky shoulders. So be it cloud and darkness.
And then the next day. The next day! Things dramatically changed. Better than I could have scripted or hoped for. Steve was offered a new job. With people that valued his years of commitment and consistency. People who said things like "Wow, we are so excited to get to work with you." With plenty of stable work, affirming staff and new challenges. The desires of my heart. What feels like the warm smiles of God.
And with my joy and gratitude comes sheepishness. Why couldn't I have held that tantrum off twenty four hours? Why couldn't I have embraced one more night of the darkness and announced "Even if He does not!" Why such a vivid reminder that my faith is sometimes still in kindergarten?
There will be other cloudy nights and long tunnels. I know that. What I hope is that I can carry this experience and so many others through the darkness. That I will remember there is a fourth being holding my hand in the furnace. That instead of yelling at I can cry out after Him whom I love.
And maybe a little less pouting and kicking.....
What started as a normal Saturday, made a detour. I was walking into church when my on-call phone beeped. Minutes later I was driving into down winding country roads. I walked into Fred and Anna's home, minutes after Fred passed away. I was halfway across the living room when Anna wrapped her petite body around me and sobbed. After a while we made our way to their bed room and sat on either side of Fred. As we waited for her sons to arrive, Anna began to share stories for their sixty+ year marriage and their childhoods on the other side of the world. Some of the stories were filled with happy memories. Some made us weep.
Fred was one of nine children. One brother was killed in the war. One sister died from injuries when bombs hit their village. Anna was a few years younger and lived a couple hundred miles away. She talked about soldiers invading her village. About beatings and rape and murder. With the men off fighting several mothers decide to flee to safety. Anna's mother wrapped her children in blankets and laid her baby in a buggy that she and her neighbor pushed through the snow. Two solders stopped them mid hike. One soldier demanded that Anna's mother remove her boots and give them to him. He tried them on but realized they were way too small. This angered him. He threw them back at her yelling "stupid woman!" Anna realized that if the boots had fit the soldier, her mother would have been left barefoot in the snow.
The story got worse. Anna's baby brother died toward the end of the hike to the next village. Anna watched her mother lay the baby on a table and wash his emaciated body. She remembered her mother saying "This is so much better. He will never have to suffer again."
And now it was Anna's time to say that as she looked at Fred. "He will never have to suffer again." In the midst of Anna's grief she realized that Fred would get to meet her little brother for the first time in Heaven. She talked about how glad she was Fred was no longer in pain, that he had poured so much love into their family. She couldn't wait for the resurrection.
I drove home with a heavy heart, trying to understand a world where husbands die, sons are sent to war, where women stand barefoot in the snow and lose their babies. I tried to wrap my head around experiencing that level of loss and grief and still having rich, funny stories to tell and a warm heart full of love. It felt confusing to carry Anna's story home through blinking Christmas lights and Christmas carols.
But beyond Silent Night and Oh Little Town of Bethlehem I thought of the whole Christmas Story. The part about all baby boys under the age of two being killed, about weeping and mourning and the holy family escaping in the night through the desert. How in a world "dark with the misapprehension of God" an angel said to shepherds, "do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord."
This Christmas we need a Savior as much as Bethlehem did. This Christmas we need Hope as much as we did in 1942. This Christmas, once again we are given Good News of Great Joy.
Oh come, oh come Emmanuel....
