Category Archives: Pandemic

Minding My Own Business

29 Thursday Oct 2020

Posted by in "This is Us", Pandemic, Racial tensions, Recovery journey, Relationships, Tragedies

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Watching the “This is Us” season premiere this week I finally saw some of my own thoughts and feelings mirrored by some of the characters.

And it wasn’t a comfortable thing.

Talking about the hard issues that we’ve been facing over the last few months has not been easy. Racial injustice, police policies, political differences, COVID responses, there’s a fight ready to break out all over. There is the way we discuss in our homes, with people who know us well. Then there is the way people address things on their Facebook pages or tweets or snapchats or whatever form of social media they’re using today. And then the way the media portrays the world, one sensation at a time.

I have to say that I’ve been searching for a better way to even begin a conversation. I made a little stab a few months ago, talking about what the world and racial tensions was like in the 60’s and 70’s when I was a girl, from my point of view.

But I find it hard to sympathize with everyone out there pointing fingers and blaming this group or that, this ideology or that, this public figure or that law enforcement system, or … put in whatever ones you’ve been hearing.

I think that blame isn’t the place to start.

As I’ve watched and listened to various viewpoints it occurred to me that almost all of them approach the terrible things happening in our world by not only blaming, but proceeding to also explain the motives of whoever they are blaming.

As if one person can ever know the thoughts, values, intentions of another person.

I think a better place to begin to make a difference amongst all the oppression in the world is in our own hearts.

I’m not copping out here.

I think it’s important to have a moral compass, to have a value system on which to make sober judgments about what is good and bad about our world. And it is important to take a stand for what is right.

But I think before I charge off with half-formed ideas, joining up with the masses of people protesting, I should know where I stand.

How do I measure up against the standards I want to hold other people to?

Over the last five and a half years I’ve done a lot of facing up to my own issues. In Celebrate Recovery I’ve learned that in order to understand my own faults and failures, my own wrong attitudes and actions, I have had to do a lot of digging.

I’ve had to face the truth inside me.

That I’ve been hurt. By specific people, in specific ways. By the way the world worked when I was a girl, the way children were not believed and certainly weren’t protected like they should have been.

Those hurts led me to have what CR calls hang-ups. Because I had wrong ideas about relationships and love, I acted in ways that made sense in my warped viewpoint, but which weren’t right.

And so as I let my hang-ups have more influence over me than truth did, I sank into habits that helped me cope with life, ways I would behave to not have to face things I wasn’t ready to acknowledge.

It was a very self-defensive way to live. I know the effects of the way I learned to deal with realities I didn’t want to face have gone on to affect my family. And it may take the rest of my life to convince them I’m not the same person anymore.

As I started facing my past hurts, I found that I was eager to dig in, dig up, clear out a space where I could rebuild my life with better materials.

In order to do that, I needed to take the time to examine where I’ve been, what happened to me, what I did as a result, and how it has affected me and others.

It’s a very humbling process.

One thing I was miserably short on 5+ years ago was mercy. I felt that if I could live through and thrive in spite of childhood abuse, other people should be able to handle their much lighter (in my viewpoint) problems without whining about it.

I had little patience for people who couldn’t get their act together.

Until I realized that pretty much everyone has times when their smooth looking life is really just an act.

And the last thing I needed was to continue pretending I was in control.

So in this process of dredging up my issues, sifting through all the muck, I’ve been finding wisdom and strength coming through. It’s been hard work, but it’s been worth it to find the good that God has worked out of all of this for me.

And in this continuing journey of recovery I’ve learned that I don’t know what anyone else’s story is, where they are in their journey.

And I am not their judge and jury.

I have learned to feel and show mercy.

So what does “This is Us” have to do with this? Well, I’m not going to spoil anything, but I think the season premiere did a really good job of showing that even the people we know well, that we are closest to, have had experiences and felt things we would never have imagined.

And even those people we know best, we don’t really know as much about as we thought.

Then there are people we don’t know at all, the ones we look at and make assumptions about, assign motives to, trivialize for not reacting the way we would, for holding a different viewpoint, or dismiss because they aren’t in our normal frame of reference.

And we may never know just how wrong the assumptions we’ve based our lives on can be.

So I don’t have any revolutionary answers to the conflicts we’re dealing with in society. But I do know that I can’t read your mind, and vice versa. And as valid as I feel my feelings and thoughts are to me, yours are equally valid to you.

And whether we reach out to each other or not, I know there is great value in doing the work of figuring out what I feel and why I feel it. Because in the light, some of the ways I’ve dealt with life in the past proved to be so pointless.

Laying out my past convoluted attempts to control my life, and looking at them through the lens of truth I find in my relationship with God, in his word and his Spirit in me have shown me many ways I wasted opportunities to grow. Times when fear of not knowing the next step kept me from ever taking it.

And now I think our world is ready for us to take some new steps, because what we’ve been doing hasn’t worked out that well.

I’d like to start by not assuming anything about you. I’d rather you tell me about you. What you’ve seen in your life. How it made you feel. Why you believe the way you do.

And I’ll tell you about me. And maybe in one person-to-person exchange after another we can see the wisdom and strength we’ve both learned in life, the good that has happened because of the bad.

Then maybe there would be less diatribes, less rants about whatever other-than-them group people think are causing the world’s problems.

Actions have consequences.

And I thank God every day that mine are bearable because of his mercy on me.

I’d like to think that with a lot more mercy and a lot less blame, I can take a new step and move past the injustices of the past, starting in my own heart, and reaching out to yours.

Singing (or Praying) with a Mask On

24 Thursday Sep 2020

Posted by in Asthma, Childhood, Jesus, Pandemic, Prayer, Recovery journey

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When I was growing up there was a popular phrase ‘Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it’. People used it to promote something they enjoyed and you weren’t willing to try.

One of my favorite things to do as a girl was to sing. Especially when there was nothing else to do. Like driving 600+ miles to North Carolina every summer.

I’m sure it annoyed everyone else in the car, but I would take an Inspiration songbook along and work my way through it. I’m sure the times I sang only the alto part were especially enjoyable for everyone else.

As a pre-teen I challenged myself to sing louder than the riding mower I was on all summer, and without vocal lessons learned to breathe deeply using my diaphragm.

I imagined even the truckers I’d signal to blow their horns could hear my Top 40 set list.

I actually think it was God’s plan from the start.

My initial motivation was entirely self-focused – how can I hear my beautiful voice singing my favorite songs while mowing the grass? The results allowed me to become a good swimmer, a performer who could belt out my part with no need of amplification, and an asthmatic who can force air in and out pretty capably during an attack.

My kids don’t like that my “normal” speaking voice is also projected and loud.

Muscle memory.

So fast forward to this season of life when all of a sudden our interactions with other people have constraints we wouldn’t have dreamed would happen a year ago.

Churches stopped having in-person services right away, but quickly regrouped to offer online versions. In watching several different churches I found a variety of ways the different elements were handled.

Worship teams performed to empty chairs, or from homes, pastors likewise spoke from pulpits or offices or home settings.

Missing were lengthy announcements, taking up an offering, transitions. And any hurry to get there. I could watch it anytime online.

But what I have really missed is worshiping while singing with other followers of Jesus Christ.

Of course, that CAN happen in a home. If yours is like mine, though, you may have some eager singers (me! me!), and others who aren’t comfortable singing without lots of other voices to make them less noticeable.

I sing, alone or with others, every time I drive a vehicle and crank up YES-FM, but it’s not the same as being with a bunch of other people all praising God. Psalm 22:3 tells us God inhabits the praises of his people, and it really is a supernatural experience to be part of lifting those praises, as loud and strong as I can!

So it was with great anticipation that I returned to Celebrate Recovery in person a few Fridays ago, eager to raise my voice with my forever family, grateful for our continuing freedom and healing from whatever has been holding us down.

The only thing is, masks were required.

Hmm.

My immediate thought was, how can I sing with a mask on? Not happening.

I mean, I have asthma already, so normal singing sometimes takes it out of me. Add sucking in air through cloth? It didn’t sound even possible.

But I was desperate to join with others in thanking and glorifying God.

So I decided to heed that old advice and reserve my judgment until I had given it a fair shot.

Let me say, it was not pretty. (One good thing about social distancing!) Imagine the vocal equivalent of running a race, the wet, labored, tiny bit lightheaded, mask in need of a good washing panting that went on for those brief 10 minutes or so.

But man, was it joyful!

I found, incredibly, that it was not only possible, but that it didn’t reduce my ability to project my voice in any way. In fact, after a few weeks, I have felt a new dimension in my vocal chords and breathing that so far in my 59 years I had not explored.

(Like how I worked that in? I just had a birthday, and the only time I know for sure how old I am is around that day. And even then I have to subtract my birth year to be sure!)

When I first started exploring the idea of intercessory prayer the feelings were a lot like singing for the first time with a mask on.

How do I do this? What if I do it wrong? Will it come out sounding muffled and incoherent or will it be understandable?

While there are lots of passages that encourage us to pray for each other, there isn’t a clearly defined method to follow. One thing is certain. If I never give it a try I’ll never figure it out.

I don’t know about you, but I like to know what I’m doing. I like to read about it, study up, follow the instructions at least the first time out until I get the hang of something.

But some things are mysteries, especially when it comes to following Jesus. Like fasting. I’ve never seriously done it because I always think I need to study it. Then when I come across a “How to do a Biblical Fast” kind of article, it doesn’t hold my attention. (They’re so long! I need 5 bullet points and go!) I don’t know what I’m missing, because I talk myself out of trying.

In this case, I’ve felt the benefits of other people praying for me, more times than I will ever know in this world. And I’ve had people inspired to pray for me by God, and then come and tell me something God had given them to pass on to me.

That has been one of the most humbling things I’ve ever experienced, God speaking to me through someone else.

But that was only after another person took the time to pray for me.

Now, I’m not a person who seeks emotional or thrilling experiences as proof of God working in my life. But I also would not mind being in what I imagine to be a deep closeness in my prayer life that would invite God to speak to me for other people’s benefit.

I got to a point where I decided it didn’t matter if I did it wrong. God knows my heart. And it didn’t matter if I mumbled and spoke with disconnected thoughts, the Spirit can make sense of even moans and groans.

So I started taking advantage of any old time someone would pop into my mind to say, ‘Ok, God, how can I pray for this person right now?’

At first I’d think, how can I pray blindly, not knowing what they need.

Praying with a mask on.

And thoughts that are not my thoughts will come into my head, and I take the personality and imagination that God put in me to lift that person in my mind, to sit down next to Jesus (sometimes I dare to climb up into his lap), and have a conversation with the only one who can truly do anything worthwhile and everlasting for any of us.

I love the way God can calm my thoughts, and help me focus on just one other person for a while. I love being given just a word, or maybe a feeling, to help me identify what I should be praying for, but even without any prompts there are things I can always know, that I can ask God to do for any person on this earth.

To let them feel his love, to draw them to himself, to create in them a desire to know him, and many other things that pop into my head that I’ve read over and over and now get a chance to speak back to him.

Maybe you think I’m wasting my time, or deluded. Or maybe this is one of those things you’ve heard of, like the idea of, but never knew how to do.

So may I suggest just doing it? Right now. Ask God who you should pray for. And whoever comes to mind (yourself included!) ask if there’s anything in particular.

Then listen.

Who knows what will happen next?

But one thing I can tell you.

Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it.

Making Plans

03 Thursday Sep 2020

Posted by in Jesus, Pandemic, Prayer, Recovery journey

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When was the last time your schedule was full?

I can pretty safely say that, except for two short trips to a college campus to move a child out and then back in again, my schedule has been open for almost six months.

I’m not working outside the home, I’m purposely not going out where there are lots of people any more than I need to, and I have no social calendar.

So after last week’s post, I was really looking forward to time entering into God’s presence and praying for you, whoever and wherever you are.

I don’t know about you, but since COVID quarantine started I have felt like I was in limbo. I look at the new month on the calendar, and the only things on it are 2 birthdays and an anniversary, and a few health related appointments.

I feel like I don’t have the liberty to plan things more than a couple weeks ahead.

Who knows what the COVID prognosis will be even tomorrow. The level of emergency we are in could change daily. So how can anyone make any kind of solid plans?

Think about the end of last year, say in that week between Christmas and New Year’s when you start thinking about things you might like to accomplish in the next year. You plot out, at least in your mind, steps to take to get from point A to point B in your goals, and depending on how your mind works you may even make detailed lists of your plan of action.

I love making the lists. But for me, that’s fulfilling enough, just to think it through and write out what could happen if I did this and that.

Actually doing the this and that is much less interesting.

But even for a blowin’ in the wind kind of person like me, the futility of planning too far ahead has been unsettling.

For the first couple months of COVID sheltering at home, Dear Husband was recovering from a hip replacement, so I had already planned to be a homebody for a while. What I hadn’t planned on was life coming to a screeching halt.

A job that I had cheerfully worked for more that 14 years went away for now. Church went to online. Celebrate Recovery stopped meeting in person, and it was a couple months until I could get headphones and join the online meetings.

Anything in-person was canceled, and the things that went online were just not the same.

But here’s the thing. There was no point in trying to schedule anything for months. The rhythm of life got its legs knocked out from under it.

Doctors offices called to cancel or reschedule visits over the phone. All of a sudden it wasn’t as important to visit the dentist twice a year. School went online, and graduations were drastically different.

As we headed into the summer a passage in scripture kept going through my mind. James 4: 13-15.(NLT)

13 Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.” 14 How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. 15 What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.”

When I was growing up all the lovely older people at church would say as their exit line, “Lord willing I’ll see you again soon.”

I thought it was just a saying for many years. Until people I loved died. Then I thought about it more.

And in the last six months I’ve honestly thought about it a lot. Because it doesn’t matter what I want or what my will would like me to do.

It’s all about God’s will.

If there is one big lesson I’ve learned during COVID it’s that I am powerless to control much of anything going on in the world right now.

I’m sure that thought scares some people to death!

It’s a good thing I have more than five years of recovery under my belt, because that’s one of the first things I became reconciled to. (And it only took me a couple of years!)

Principle One of the Eight Recovery Principles states it pretty clearly:

Realize I’m not God; I admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and that my life is unmanageable. (Step 1)
          “Happy are those who know that they are spiritually poor.” Matthew 5:3a TEV

I am so thankful that I’ve already come to an intimate knowledge of how destitute I am without Jesus! Because if I hadn’t, I think I would be even more worried and anxious and frustrated and bored than I am now.

But just because I know I don’t have the power to change the world around me, I can choose to change my expectations.

I don’t need to have that power, because I am a grateful follower of Jesus Christ, and HE has all the power this world needs to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

And so as I think about you all this week, I’d like you to know that I will be praying that if you don’t already, you will come to know Jesus. He is the only friend who will never let you down.

Because he already laid down his life for you. And for me.

Even when we were all still busy sinning.

So as you come to mind, I will be praying God’s word for you, because HIS word never comes back void.

It’s not a very long-term plan, but it’s a step towards getting back into the rhythm of living.

And, if the Lord wants me to do it, this is something worth adding to my calendar.

So How Do I Do This?

27 Thursday Aug 2020

Posted by in Pandemic, Relationships

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How can I pray for you?

I don’t ask this because I’m some super prayer warrior. I’m not.

This past Sunday our pastor spoke about prayer, and I know I fell into the category of people who have good intentions but know they don’t take the time to pray as regularly as they should.

Praying without ceasing is a hard order to fill.

If you read this blog a couple of months ago you may recall my thoughts about Jesus interceding for us with the Father, A New Life to Live and Intercessor and Friend.

But something I never thought much about until the last couple of years is how often God tells us in the Bible to intercede for each other. To pray for, with and over each other. To lift each other up, to bear each other’s burdens.

Isolation makes it a little hard to stay involved in each other’s lives.

And the thing is, when I talk to friends and family, I find that lots of us are really struggling.

I “attended” the annual Celebrate Recovery Summit, held online this year at the end of July. There were some statistics given about how alcohol use is up 40% since the start of COVID quarantines, drug use is up but can’t be measured accurately, pornography is being accessed 25% more.

So while each of us is doing what we need to do to survive, to provide for and protect our families, the whole world is struggling.

Which means I am. And so are you.

Because I can’t assume that everyone I know is peachy keen.

I would not be surprised to learn that people I know and love are turning to things they think will distract them at the least, and numb them at the most, to the realities of these unsure times.

We’re all human. And sometimes we don’t have a clue how to deal with our fears, our anger, our frustrations, our grief.

Speaking for myself, I could really use some prayer.

I’m thankful I have family and friends, a church family, a forever family in Celebrate Recovery that I feel comfortable asking for prayer when I’m sick or having trouble dealing with life.

I’m also thankful I had praying grandmas and parents who interceded for me from before I was born. They rarely asked me what my particular daily issues were, but I know they prayed for me. And since God is not bound by time, I believe the prayers prayed for me decades ago are still being heard by God right now.

I don’t know much about intercessory prayer by one person for another, but I know it’s important. And I’ve been trying to wrap my head around how it’s done.

My mind keeps going back to that definition I mentioned in another post, how that it’s like someone takes another’s face in their hands, looks them in the eye, and says, “You know my friend? They really need help. Will you do what you can for them?”

I know sometimes I have a problem when I pray of asking for things that really aren’t important. They may seem necessary to me at the time, whether I’m asking for me or someone else. We all would like an easy, happy life.

The movie “What about Bob?” is one of our family favorites. It’s about a man who follows his new psychiatrist on vacation, seeking help for all the things he thinks are wrong with himself.

Sometimes my prayers feel like that. I can be as inward-focused as the character Bob. One of my favorite lines comes early in the movie when he first meets his new psychiatrist and is asked to talk about his insecurities and phobias.

Bob pleads, “I want, I want, I want! I need, I need!”

Yeah, I sound a lot like that.

So sometimes when someone asks me how they can pray for me, I have to think through the things that come to my mind. Are they things I really need to be a better person, to know God more, to love others better? Or are they only things I want to make my life easier or happier?

As I explore this duty and privilege of praying for others, I wonder how much of what people request as topics of prayer are as selfish as some of mine. How do I know the difference between other people’s wants and their real needs? And will they even go deep enough to tell me what they really need?

I am blessed to have people in my care group, in my Celebrate Recovery open share group, in Bible studies, in my family, who will let me see beneath the surface of how they’d like to be seen.

Because we all have things that trouble us, that we carry deep inside, that we need to be able to share.

How else can we bear each other’s burdens if we don’t know what those burdens are?

I’ve been reading from several different sources lately the passages about how God tells us that things that are done, words that are spoken, in the dark, WILL be brought out into the light.

When I get the same scripture popping up in several ways over a short period of time, I know God is getting my attention.

So in these times when, even though I see and feel a little letting up of restrictions on staying at home and getting out to do the things we need to do, we are still basically sheltering at home. It’s been really hard for us to reach out to each other, even harder to open up those things we are holding deep in the darkness of looking like we’re okay.

Fortunately, in order to pray for each other, we don’t need to have a lot of details. God knows them all.

In fact, I think some of the most effective prayers are those where we ask God to show us how to pray for each other. Because he loves when we care enough about each other to ask. And he will bring out into the light some of those deep needs.

So I want you to know, whoever and wherever you are, that I have been coming before God when I remember to, and I’ve been asking him to answer that question:

How can I pray for you?

Living Water

30 Thursday Jul 2020

Posted by in Jesus, Pandemic, sickness

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Last week I told the physical affects of ailments I’ve had recently.

But what about the non-physical?

There we were several weeks ago, a full three months into COVID sheltering at home, having navigated post-operative doctor visits and an emergency room visit, both for Dear Husband. I was hoping I could get through this pandemic with minimal needs for healthcare.

Just that week we had learned hospitals were allowing immediate family to accompany patients in the ER. So in a moment of extreme pain I agreed to go to the hospital.

Making that decision gave me permission to feel all my pain. With my high pain tolerance it’s like I have a barrier between me and pain, and I’m pushing with every bit of strength to keep it from breaking through and overwhelming me.

But it did.

By the time I was in a room I heard bits of what was said, but not all the substance.

After initial questions and decisions on what tests they would run, we were left alone. In the quiet my thoughts were wandering from trying to remember what they’d just told me, to what day was it (late Tuesday/early Wednesday), and the topic I wanted to explore in my blog that week (that never happened.)

Now, after getting back my energy (one step forward, two steps back for weeks), I’m amazed at my planner entries for that Wednesday following our wee hours return from the ER.

“strawberries began!” and “8 qt.”

See, strawberries are a big deal in our house. Last year I only put up five batches of jam, none in the freezer.

So that first day I processed those 8 quarts for the freezer.

And after a couple pain-free days getting an ultrasound and talking to a surgeon in case the results of the scan pointed me to surgery, my entry for Saturday was 10 more quarts that also got frozen.

Then early Sunday, a return trip to the ER with hallucinations. Side effects from the drugs.

Again, I knew the answer in my head. Quit taking them. But the fear of the pain returning after I’d had several “normal” and productive days?

It was enough to convince me. I needed to know what to do if the pain came back.

In the ER, I heard the same opening line.

“You’re severely dehydrated.”

Why did that sound familiar? Oh yeah, they said the same thing a few days before, but it didn’t sink in.

Over the next week my life revolved around how many ounces of Gatorade I managed to get into my body.

And while I vegged out I spoke very little.

But I thought a lot.

Then there was the mental agony of the poison ivy reaction I was having.

There is a deep, painful, unquenchable itch that is poison ivy. Seven weeks after exposure I still have bruises from the intensity of the scratching that needed to happen to deal with this demonic itch.

I spent a lot of my in-and-out-of-coherent-thought time sipping the nastiness that is Gatorade, pondering the importance of water.

You see, I only started with the Gatorade because the discharge papers from both ER visits, and my primary care, told me it was the fastest way to rehydrate my body.

And I so badly needed to replenish those fluids.

At first the thought of drinking anything, after coming off almost a week of nausea, was unpleasant.

And in my in-and-out state of mind, I kept going back to a passage in John 4. The one where Jesus sits down by a well, and asks a woman who comes to draw water for a drink.

Even people who have read little or none of the Bible have possibly heard the reference John 3:16. Seen it on a piece of cardboard at a sporting event, heard it at a rare occasion in a church, maybe a funeral or a wedding or something else not really church related.

So in that famous verse we learn that Jesus is a gift. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son…” To us. For us. Because of our great need for him.

Yet in the next chapter he’s asking for water. He had a physical need, a thirst, and it needed quenched.

It’s a universal need.

Jesus listens as the woman questions him, and he sees the great need she has for true, soul refreshment.

She lays it out for him, the reasons she can’t believe he’s asking her for water.

He’s a Jew, she’s a Samaritan. Jews don’t speak to Samaritans.

He’s a man, she’s a woman. Men don’t ask women for help.

And if anyone saw them? It just wasn’t done.

And here’s a part of the story that I’ve heard dissected many times.

They are there alone, a traveler whose companions have gone into the town looking for food. And a woman who doesn’t feel free to come and draw water when other women are there drawing theirs.

She has come at noon, when everyone else is busy.

And Jesus knows why. He knows everything about her, including her greatest needs.

But before he lets on that he gets everything about her, he makes an outrageous statement: “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

It’s quite the conversation that follows. You should read it for yourself.

Or better yet, have the conversation with Jesus.

As I sat, unable to do much more than refill my glass and hope I could produce some saliva soon, and enough urine to reassure me that my kidneys were getting back to normal, I thought a lot about water.

The liquid kind, and the Jesus kind.

I had let myself get so desperate for water that I couldn’t yet stand to take in much of it. I had to turn to a substitute, a concoction that would technically keep me alive, but did nothing to relieve my deep thirst.

A thirst as deep in my body as the itching was in my skin.

I longed for water, but had to settle for electrolytes and sugar. Thankfully for only a short time.

And that poor woman in John 4? She saw something in Jesus that she hadn’t found in her other efforts to satisfy her own thirsts.

He had told her that everyone who drank from that well would be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water he gives them will never thirst. His living water would become a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

Her answer was one I really related to. “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Then Jesus revealed that he was already seeing her deeper need, not just for a drink, but for the quenching of her soul-sized thirst for love and acceptance.

He told her the ways she had tried to satisfy those needs with inferior things and relationships, that seemed to hit the spot for a while, but were not lasting.

I was so happy the day I could stop drinking Gatorade and switched to all water all the time! After weeks of an inferior substitute, one I could not possibly keep up for much longer, that kept me alive but didn’t satisfy my real thirst, didn’t cleanse my mouth, didn’t refresh me, I was eager to refill my water glass again and again.

And as I thought about the living water Jesus offers me, and the things I used to try to quench my soul-deep thirst with, I’ll never go back to the old substitutes.

Not when I have a spring welling up in me that will never leave my soul thirsty again.

The Fabric of My Life

28 Thursday May 2020

Posted by in Death of a parent, Pandemic, Recovery journey, sickness

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This past week I found a home for most of my fabric. A friend is making lots of masks and other items healthcare workers can use, and I have good material she can have.

This is actually a big deal for me. One of the first things I started exploring when I began going to Celebrate Recovery and did my first Step Study was a two-part issue I’ve had as long as I can remember.

Saving things I’m not currently using or needing, and procrastinating.

About the time I began digging into these issues five years ago, my mom’s health was declining, and that fall she moved into a nursing home and we had to sell her house.

It became crystal clear to me that I came by both of those faults I was exploring honestly.

I spent several weeks that fall trying to pack up and sort through Mom’s belongings. Both she and Dad had kept records of our church that they were involved in from early on, Dad’s radio shows, and everything else.

Everything.

Clothes, toys from our childhood, tools, Christmas decorations, furniture, you name it, she kept it all, long after Dad had died.

And fabric. Actually she had made baby quilts for several of the grandkids and shorts and shirts to pack in her Operation Christmas Child boxes, so there were good reasons for some of her cloth. The rest she had accumulated over decades.

That was a stressful time. We were under a deadline hoping to preserve some of the value of Mom’s house by selling quickly, and we had just a few weeks to get it auction ready.

Several nights a week I would go and fill garbage bags to put in the alley, and box after box to take home to my house.

For the last couple of years Mom lived in her house I knew the day would come when we’d have to go through all her stuff. In my mental scenario it would have been after she had died peacefully in her sleep at home, and we would have taken our time and put the house on the market after plenty of discussion to decide how to handle her things.

I’d been through this with my in-laws, and for the most part it wasn’t too difficult.

For a couple of years I had tried to go through some of her things when the kids and I would come visit or take her grocery shopping. I’d carry an interesting box up from the basement and hand her things to look at and decide if it could go in the garbage.

We never got very far. Mom got talking about the memories the items brought back to her. Since she was starting into dementia I felt that was more important at the time than emptying out her basement.

So when the day came to tell Mom we were getting her house ready to sell, she wanted to go home one more time.

We spent time in every room. I asked her to tell me which items of furniture and keepsakes she wanted someone in the family to keep, and we put post-its on them. We had a list of things she hoped we’d want to keep for good, and others she just wanted to be able to see again if she had the desire before she died.

We prayed before we left to get dinner before going back to the nursing home, thanking God for her years in the house and for whoever would come to own it. She prayed for all of her kids.

At the restaurant, her favorite, she forgot that she liked iced tea to drink.

I think that was the day I knew Mom wouldn’t be with us completely any more.

So each night I came home with a van loaded with Mom’s stuff, I felt a weight of responsibility to keep some of her memories.That fall and winter my family room had a double row of boxes stacked as high as the couches running around two walls, and underneath a large, square coffee table. Also under and on top of Mom’s dining room table she had given me a few year’s before.

There I was, with plenty of my own clutter, and Mom’s added in to the mix. And being faced with a need to start digging into why I kept my own things, it was nearly impossible to figure out why Mom had kept all of hers.

That winter and spring I went through box after box, at first trying to organize, and then just trying to minimize the space it took up when I got overwhelmed.

I’m not an organizer by nature.

It was the next fall, after Mom had died in the summer, when I went through things a second time. I cleaned out a large closet in my family room and transferred the boxes into it.

This time I threw more things away, though there is still plenty I should let go. That will come another day.

Because in the past few years I’ve faced a lot about myself and learned much along the way.

I don’t know how I never recognized how much I rely on my senses for my memory. I’m known as having the best memory in the family, which is true. And I’ve learned my memories are sparked by my senses. Like Mom I start looking through a box of my own things and I want to tell someone the stories of times long ago, friends I’ve lost touch with, what my life was like back in the day.

It was no different this past week as I washed up decades of saved fabric, ironed it smooth and folded it neatly to send off to it’s new home.

I was amazed at the memories running through my mind as I straightened and pressed pieces of cloth that I’d used to make clothes for my family.

There were many more large lengths I’d bought because they were so pretty, but I got out of the sewing mood and never used them.

Those were hard to part with.

So I didn’t, entirely.

There were some smaller pieces, leftovers from projects I’d made, that I washed and ironed and folded up for me.

And one bigger one I’d always meant to make dresses out of for my girls and I. As I finished ironing the eight yards of purple flowers I asked Baby Girl to come look and see material I thought was really “me”.

She gave me a great idea. Wouldn’t that be a pretty backing on a quilt?

The smaller pieces I’d been setting aside, I had told her someday I’d like to make myself a quilt and include these pieces of my memories in it. In all the things I’ve made for other people, I haven’t made many things just for me.

It had been many years since I’d looked through so many scraps and lengths of fabric, and the memories are still clear. So I’m okay not keeping it all. I have small bits of many of them, and I have a purpose and a plan for them.

And someday I’ll wake up leisurely and my hand will play over the feel of the stitches and the segments, and as I focus on a random square a memory will surface.

Of the time when I made pajamas for my kids, a vest for my son and a dress for my daughter, or presents for extended family.

And also of the time that came when I was okay with letting most of it go.

Lifelines

21 Thursday May 2020

Posted by in Pandemic, Recovery journey, Relationships

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I don’t think I’m alone in feeling adrift while sheltering at home. I look at my phone to see the date, my calendar to be sure of where I am in the week. And since my out of the home job has dried up for now, I have nowhere pressing to go.

When we were first urged to stay home, so many things changed at once. Jobs let us know everything would be on hold indefinitely. Stores were chaotic and shopping trips had to be opportunistic, basing what we would eat on what was left on the shelves. Kids were sent home from college.

Our church suspended all activities and services, and it took a couple of weeks before they came up with a game plan to post recorded services online. Celebrate Recovery meetings at a different church were also put on hold, though they were able to get a Friday live broadcast up the first week.

Suddenly all my normal activities, all the people I’m used to spending certain days and lengths of time with, stopped.

My biggest outings have become driving across town to get samples of the new asthma inhaler I need every couple of weeks combined with a stop at a bakery we like for bread.

Exciting stuff here.

And then there’s the shopping days. We spend a couple hours making up the list.

Before this pandemic I was in our local store probably five days a week, picking up fresh meat and produce as we needed it and stocking up on staples as they were on sale.

Now we try to go at least two weeks between trips, and it’s exhausting to my blowing-in-the-wind personality to have to plot out meals and make sure I’m putting all the ingredients on the list.

Baby Girl has been doing the bulk of the shopping so far, with me running a cart full at a time home to put away, while she fills another cart.

It takes two to three hours, and we are worn out when we get home.

All my normal lifelines have disappeared.

That’s how it seemed in the beginning. All those people that I would stand and chat with throughout the store, or at the bank, or in the library. My friends at church and in our care group, the hugs and smiles and quick conversations, or the deeper ones at Bible studies and group meetings. My every Friday night Celebrate Recovery times of fellowship, teaching, and sharing.

These connections were suddenly inaccessible.

When I got over the initial shock, I realized that if I didn’t do something purposeful I would drown in all this uncertainty and change around me.

So I finally got back into something I hadn’t done for a couple of years. I started doing a Bible study with my Celebrate Recovery Bible that will have me reading the whole Bible in a year, along with slowly going back through the 12 steps and 8 principles of recovery.

I cannot tell you how much this has meant to me. When everything in the world seems like it’s spinning off into space, God’s word grounds me in his love. It has been my strongest lifeline, the thing that has given me strength to at least look like I’m unfazed by all the changes. And I’m getting insight into how I can take one day at a time and handle whatever we are faced with.

For several weeks before the pandemic I had missed my CR meetings because of other commitments, including Dear Husband’s hip replacement and my bout with pneumonia. So March 13 was going to be my first Friday back. Instead I tried to watch a live broadcast put out by the church on my laptop, but without headphones I couldn’t hear it over the other noises in the house.

So I didn’t attempt to tune in, even when they announced the broadcasts would be more organized, and they were setting up Zoom meetings for our open share groups to follow the broadcasts.

Then our little local computer store opened back up, my “b” key went haywire, and I needed to break down and buy a new laptop. And it didn’t occur to me until a week later that I could just buy myself headphones so I could “go” to CR!

We had already been watching our pastor’s sermons and designing our own worship sets with YouTube videos, but that we did as a family on the tv. For CR I really need to be able to keep the other participants safe and anonymous, and be in a room alone.

When you first stop doing something you are used to doing, you miss it at first but it can soon become easier and easier to sit it out. I was shocked to see, once I got out my calendar, that I had missed 13 weeks, a full 3 months of CR! No wonder I was getting pithy!

For those who have never been to Celebrate Recovery it’s hard to describe the benefits. But I’m going to try.

I think when I tell people that it’s a place where you can talk about whatever issues you are dealing with, there is a stereotypical idea of what that means. It includes complaining or whining, maybe looking for sympathy and wanting others to tell you how justified you are to feel the way you do.

Maybe people think it’s a place to reinvent yourself, to convince others that you really have it together, you can control your life, you just need to vent a little.

Let me tell you what it’s really like.

We all have things that bother us, things we don’t really like to take out and examine in our day-to-day lives. Things we know we need to name, examine, and figure out how to deal with them.

I have found that the sooner I can turn those things over to God, the sooner he helps me work through them. And that’s the only way he can heal me of my hurts, hang-ups and habits.

So the process of speaking out loud about those deep hurts and what they’ve led us to do to protect and defend ourselves and those we love is an important step. Saying out loud what we are struggling with takes away the power they’ve had over us, the control they’ve wielded.

It isn’t about boosting our egos, or making ourselves look good. It’s 3-5 minutes at a time to share whatever we need to speak out loud, and begin the battle to vanquish it from our lives.

And it’s a solitary thing done in the company of people who promise to keep our struggles private, to encourage us as we allow them, and to cheer us on as we meet week after week and watch each other grow stronger and more confident in our ability to let God be Lord over everything.

I’m so glad I’ve reconnected with another lifeline.

If you are struggling to get through these days, I would encourage you to seek out a Celebrate Recovery group near you by going to celebraterecovery.com. You can look for a group and call the contact to find out if they are doing online meetings. And every night of the week at 9pm(E) Celebrate Recovery national leaders are doing a half-hour live Facebook session I would encourage you to catch.

Because we all need something outside ourselves to help us get through this uncertain time. And I for one prefer to hang onto a lifeline I know will hold me safely through the storm.

Not Sick Enough

07 Thursday May 2020

Posted by in Pandemic, sickness

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Last week I was planning to add a part three on the general theme of intercession.

Last week I was sick.

Nothing serious, I hope. We had taken a road trip to move Middle Son’s belongings out of his college dorm room (during his finals week), and at first I thought it was possible food poisoning. Except after I’d thought I was recovered for a couple of days, it came back this week.

As I laid in bed most of a full day, in pain, I was faced with the question of what I could do if I thought it was something serious.

I also had to laugh (okay, actually grimace) at the irony that I, who has said probably hundreds of times that I have a high pain tolerance (with varying levels of pride), lay moaning and almost writhing in between naps.

The naps were to avoid the pain.

Can I just say that Sprite is a miracle drug? Not that it completely removed or cured my stomach and intestinal pain, but at least it relieved it quite a bit.

I lived on it for two days this week, and Vernors the same last week.

And on day two for the Sprite, I anticipated a slow day of recovery, trying some food and getting more refreshing rest.

Instead I found out a little of what to expect if I really needed to be seen by a health professional.

Baby Girl woke me up. She’d talked to Dad on the phone, and he wanted her to tell me he needed me to drive him to probably get stitches.

Hazards of his job.

Except it’s been about 34 years since he cut himself on a job badly enough to need stitches.

So, up and running, I was ready to chauffeur him to the local urgent care. Or as we’ve often referred to them, our family doctor.

As I pulled in the parking lot Dear Husband asked if I wanted to go in with him, like I had the last time he needed stitches, when we were newlyweds and every outing was an adventure, but I answered that I didn’t think they’d let me. Even though it would have meant more excitement than I’d had in a couple weeks.

And as he stepped up on the sidewalk outside the doors, a man in a mask opened the door for him, thermometer in hand, asking why he was there.

Nope, I was waiting in the car.

It wasn’t long until he came out, hand wrapped in a blue sterile pad instead of the paper towel he went in with, as well as a spiffy cloth face mask. They couldn’t stitch him up there, just in case he chipped a bone in his fingertip. So we headed just down the road to our little local hospital emergency room.

I figured, rightly, that there was no need for me to even walk in with him. Luckily there was no wait and he went right in, again met with a masked attendant, thermometer, fast and efficient check of vitals, and little wait for the doctor to come in ready to put in stitches.

While I waited out in the van, it was my first quiet moment to assess how I was feeling that day. Better but not great.

So I considered my own options for health care right now.

My primary care had already canceled my annual checkup, rescheduled from mid-March to this week, so I suspected I would have to be pretty sick to get seen in person. I could head in to our familiar urgent care, but in my experience the symptoms I’ve had aren’t anything that can be observed during an exam.

Prior to this pandemic, I might have gone in, just to find out what viruses are going around right now, and what the treatment options would be.

But now I hesistate. Not for fear of catching something, a little that I’ll pass something on.

Mainly I don’t want to strain the system in any way.

And I don’t like this feeling. I would want any person who is sick or hurting to be able to be seen by a knowledgeable professional, both for an accurate diagnosis and the peace of mind of knowing they are doing what they can to regain their health.

But in these strange pandemic days I feel like my probably minor illness is not serious enough to seek treatment.

I can’t really describe the way it felt to know I couldn’t go inside with my husband. Not that he isn’t capable of navigating it alone. We just usually do those kinds of visits together. Extra ears, at least one person thinking clearly and pain-free are pluses.

To be living in a time when health care is on an urgent level only is completely new to me.

And it makes me feel for the people I know who are dealing with truly serious health issues during this time. I pray for their safety, for their peace.

And after this week, I’ll be praying for strength in the times they have to walk into that emergency room alone.


Because even though the public service announcements assure us we’ll get through this together, when I’m sick and vulnerable, having someone with me who knows and loves me is what I want.

So I’m praying for you all, wherever you are, that you also can stay healthy enough to wait this pandemic out. And if you do fall ill, I pray that, like my husband’s mishap and my friends’ more serious issues, you receive great care and know the love of God that never leaves you alone.

Intercessor and Friend

23 Thursday Apr 2020

Posted by in Jesus, Pandemic

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I don’t know about you, but I am ready for some relief from sheltering at home. I’d really like to go to a concert right now. Packed with people. And I’d also really like to be all alone for a whole day, and eat dinner at a restaurant. Dining in.

People are debating whether we will all go back to “normal” or if we should never be the same normal again.

Me, I’d just like to take my laptop in to our local computer shop, once he reopens, and see if he can fix the “b” key. It was sticking so I took the little cover off it and cleaned it and the adjacent keys (that usually works) but it’s now to the point where I have to leave the cover off and push it just so with the flat end of a pen, and then quick hit the backspace key to keep it from typing that letter over and over!

My name is Becky. I type that letter a lot.

This is just a little thing, yet it irritates me and makes me a little pithy. Multiply that times however many hundreds of things are different and irritating during this pandemic, and I can see how people would long for normal, whatever that means.

I think it would be better to work towards a new standard where the little things don’t irritate me as much, where I have learned to handle the stress in better ways.

I wish there were someone who could help me face these things, who could feel my frustration, who sees my heart even when my mouth is spouting pithiness.

Which is why I am so thankful that Jesus is right now interceding for me, sitting at God’s right hand, telling him what it feels like to be human and scared and irritated and frustrated and all the other things I’m feeling.

This week I was reading in Job, and he went through a lot worse than we’re going through now, yet he also was thankful someone knew and loved him enough to plead his case.

Job 16:19-21 New International Version (NIV)

19 Even now my witness is in heaven;
    my advocate is on high.
20 My intercessor is my friend[a]
    as my eyes pour out tears to God;
21 on behalf of a man he pleads with God
    as one pleads for a friend.

These words were penned long before Jesus lived on earth as God inside the body of a man.

Last week I had been pondering the new life Jesus rose from the grave to embrace, and now this week I read this passage in Job and it gives me even more to think about!

What a unique perspective. Job lived very close to the creation of the first people. When I read Job I find it odd that unlike most of the Old Testament there are not references to Israel, so I wonder if he lived before Abraham.

He had wonderful conversations with God – “Where were you…!” God sets Job straight on his power and majesty, his creativity and provision.

And Job feels the very real actions of someone interceding for him.

“My witness” he says. Someone who sees inside him, who knows not only what he does but the state of his heart when he does or thinks anything.

John 1 tells us that Jesus is the Word, and that in the beginning, through him ALL things were made.

Even Job.

Who better than your creator to give witness to how you are made and everything you are capable of doing?

“My advocate…” The word means a person who publicly supports or recommends a particular cause or policy. Synonyms are champion, upholder, supporter, promoter, protector, to name a few.

Job was in the middle of being put through everything Satan could throw at him short of taking his life, and he felt someone in heaven was his champion, his protector.

And he seems to look at this supporter as different from the person of God, the one he feels he has not spoken against.

“My intercessor is my friend…” I just LOVE this! If there were someone advocating for me, I wouldn’t want it to be a stranger who is just out to promote their own agenda, and finds that if I am on their team it makes them stronger.

And it’s not someone who knows me casually, who is okay with me joining them, again to help their own cause have more support.

Job sees his intercessor as his friend! Someone who knows and loves him, who cares about his well-being, who has contributed good to his life.

Someone who would one day lay his life down for his friend.

I will never forget a long ago Beth Moore study I did in which one of the many words she went back to the original language and defined was “intercede”.

Her explanation was that it is when someone who has the right to speak to another, the right relationship and the authority, takes the other person’s face in their hands, looks them in the eye, and once they have their full attention, speaks on someone else’s behalf.

So whenever I read “intercede” in the Bible I picture it.

Jesus, equal with, part of, intricately related to God the Father, faces him. He takes the Father’s face in his hands, looks him straight in the eye.

And says, “Becky needs…”

“On behalf of a man he pleads with God as one pleads for a friend.”

I read Job’s words, and I get the sense that he had an image of someone looking Father God in the eye, pleading with him.

“Job needs…”

But there’s a difference I see between Job and me, between that time in history and today.

Jesus always was and always will be, but in the course of human history he had not yet inhabited the body of a man and lived a human life. He knew exactly how Job was made, what he had designed him to be able to do, so he could speak with authority.

Job could trust his maker to look out for him.

How much more can we? Can I?

Jesus not only made me, he lived on this earth and was tempted in every way. Every way I ever have or ever will be.

He knows what it feels like to be me.

So I can trust him to know what I need.

And so can you.

Attitude Check

09 Thursday Apr 2020

Posted by in Pandemic, Relationships

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Character doesn’t change in a crisis.

An old saying rings true these days: Character is how you behave when there’s no one around to see you.

While as individuals and families we are currently, for the most part, stuck in our houses, that means there are few people around to see how we behave with each other.

That’s a good thing most days.

Because there are certainly lots of situations where the worst qualities we have are being tempted to rear their ugly heads.

In our house when someone starts to get an attitude we are coming up with creative ways to describe it. Like …pithy. An old-fashioned word we often use to describe my mother-in-law, who died 20 years ago.

Dolores would get a look on her face, her lips pursed and nose wrinkled, and she’d say something…pithy. Meant to sting a little or cast a bit of a bad light on the subject of her comment.

She wasn’t a gossip, she didn’t egg other people on, but once in a great while she would let her feelings be known.

While we all can get a little edgy, I’m thankful that we are loving, concerned people, that we are looking out for each other, and that so far we don’t have any really obnoxious character flaws that could result in someone getting hurt.

At least up to today.

In our local area I’ve heard stories about a lot of people showing just how kind and other-centered they are. People making cloth masks to cover the official ones, groups assembling meals for health care workers, likewise for truckers and others who need to be on the road.

Food and supplies seem to be the main focus of those getting out to do some volunteering, taking care of people’s basic needs.

At least in the efforts they are putting forth, I think it shows their good character.

And then there are others.

I want to start by saying that I don’t open and follow and get sucked into all the so-called news items that I see scrolling on Facebook or that people send to me on my phone.

But I have heard about some of them.

And I’ve gotten phone calls that seemed opportunistic and were probably scams. I don’t engage with them either.

Because a person’s character really doesn’t change in a crisis, good or bad.

Actually, I think people tend to exercise their strongest traits when under pressure. People who would help any stranger they meet are frustrated at home, looking for ways to reach out and help. And people who are only out for number one will still find a way to advance their own welfare.

I bring this up because there is a lot of blame going around on social media and in many fake news types of posts (at least in the titles I see scrolling), and beyond being frustrating and … okay, I’m going to use what qualifies as a cuss word in our house … stupid! … it’s not doing anything to help anybody where they are currently living through this pandemic.

I wonder, as I’m sure many people do, where this novel coronavirus known as COVID-19 came from. Exactly how did it start. But I don’t want to know so I can point a finger and say, “Aha! You’re the culprit!”

I want to know that scientists are doing some real scientific investigation and figuring out why all of a sudden a virus that usually causes a cold or flu is sweeping around the globe leaving thousands of people dead and many more affected.

And I know that takes time, and isn’t glamorous.

I want to know that if this is like flus that tend to come back year after year, that some of those scientists are developing a vaccine to help us all fight it the next time around.

I want to see a list of symptoms that don’t change, sometimes daily. Perhaps there are official sites that have unchanging information, but what is being passed around anecdotally seems to have altered several times over the last few weeks.

I want to have an actual description from people who have had the virus and lived to tell about it as to what their personal symptoms were like, because as I hear from friends of friends about people who are sick with COVID-19, they seem to have symptoms different from what the media is telling us.

If those were the types of stories out for common consumption, I might bite and take a look at them.

But really people, is there any logic at all in saying that any country, government, or government official is to blame for the spread of this virus?

Because we just don’t have that kind of control over these things.

We can sit around with all this time on our hands and second guess each other. Or we could start studying to become epidemiologists so that we can then, and only then, say with any authority how COVID-19 got started and spread.

A virus cares nothing about any country, state or city’s public policy, nor will the amount of information shared about it and the timing of that information make a bit of difference in a pandemic running its course.

As I listen to and heed the measures our state of Ohio has been taking over the last weeks, I’m glad that there is at least a system in place that can communicate the current best practices to the general public.

But whether I choose to follow those guidelines or mandates comes back around to character.

I know it is frustrating for many Americans right now with the political season of presidential politics being disrupted by something too small to see. And it is very tempting to take out ones frustrations on people you don’t have any respect for, or who you feel have in some way adversely affected your life.

I would like to suggest that instead of spreading around these non-stories that only inflame one group against another, that we all look around us for someone whose life we can make a little bit more bearable until we can be out and about again.

After all the fake news people keep sending me, a newsy account of what’s been going on in your life and household, preferably on paper in your own handwriting, would be something I could spend all day reading over and over.

Even if you get a little pithy.