A life lived well.

 

“Some people you meet, life happens to them. That wasn’t the way with Charles, life happened through him.”

Rev. Joe Green, speaking at the funeral service for my Grandfather, “Pap”

Born in 1921, Pap truly lived every one of his 91 years. He was a Marine who served during and after World War II. He came home and helped build his parents a new home by hand. He married Loretta, a former Army nurse and true force in her own right, became a father of three (my mother being the middle child),  a grandfather of 6, and a great-grandfather of 9.

He attended four different universities.

He was a farmer, a teacher, a principal, a Sunday School teacher, a landlord, a fox hunter, and a “dyed in the wool” Democrat who never missed a rally if he could help it.

But first and foremost, Pap was a Christian, who heeded the call to service.

His life was a model of action. He wasn’t the type to respond with a passive “I’ll pray for you,” when he heard of a need. He did his praying, but with boots on the ground. He was present. He was willing, and he was able.

Semper Fi. Ever faithful.

A fence mended. An animal tended. A hand on your shoulder and his presence at your back. His love had hands and feet.

Invalid? Disabled? Retired? Can’t? These words were not in his vocabulary, or at least they didn’t pertain to him.  He came back seemingly stronger than ever after every adversity, of which there were many. Heart attacks, with major, lasting damage. Colon cancer.  The loss of his wife of 58 years, and soon thereafter his namesake son.

The pastor said at his funeral that he was slightly surprised when he’d been asked to speak at the service, as he’d always just assumed that Charles would be one that the chariots would come for. And as his family, we’d shared that sense that he would never die. He just seemed invincible.

Nothing slowed him until a serious car accident at age 89, which started a process of decline. He still walked into his 90th birthday party and blew out his own candles. But a series of strokes and other health problems ensued soon thereafter, eventually leaving this unbreakable man unable to speak, and yet still he smiled. His body continued to decline, until last Saturday, when he at last opened his eyes to see Jesus smiling back at him.

We know he’s in Heaven now, loving us from there, and trying his best to pull strings in the upcoming election.  We wouldn’t call him back, as he has more than earned his Reward, but we will surely miss him every day. His influence will be felt for generations to come, both in our family and in his community at large.

Life happened through him.

Until we meet again, Pap. I am so proud to be your granddaughter, and I love you.

The Story- Chapter Two

Maybe I owe you an apology?

Maybe, just maybe, I tilted toward depressed-sounding last time out. In fact, I’m pretty sure I did. Especially when a good friend called and said, “I read your blog and wanted to check on you!”

Thank you, sweet friend.

I re-read it, and yeah, I see what you mean.

But what I was trying to say wasn’t that I am hopeless, but very hopeful. So let me try this again, a little differently.

I’ve also promised some updated house pictures, and today you’re getting a two-for-one. Sort of. Today, you get to see what I really meant, and what my house really looks like. 

 

For the uninitiated, here’s the short story of what I was referring to the other day:  After I had Little Girl, I started to always feel like I was in the wrong place at any given time. If I was at work, I felt like I should have been at home. If I was at home, I was obsessing about work.  I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it: I had worked hard in school, I made it through, and now I had a doctorate, money, a big house, and a great little family, and everything I’d always thought I wanted. And all the while, I was miserable. Somewhere along the way, God started to show me that my definition of success wasn’t quite matching up to His. Sure, He was in there somewhere, but He didn’t really mean it when He said He wanted to be first, did He? Over time, I began to realize that He wasn’t kidding around. He meant business. And until I got with the program, I was going to stay miserable. And so about two years ago, I just quit. Got off the career track, threw in the towel, gave up. All that stuff I’d been hanging onto, to help me define myself, to make me feel worthy, I took a good hard look at it and decided to lay it down. This wasn’t an easy decision for me. While I wasn’t happy with what I was doing, and I felt like God was leading me in this direction, it was still hard to give up the money, the identity, and the idea that all this hard work I’d done, it didn’t mean diddly squat in the big picture? Geez. That was hard to swallow.

 

And it’s been two years, and I’ve been praying, and I’ve been waiting for God to say “OK, this is what I want you to do. Go do it.”  It’s felt a little like I’ve been perpetually on Do Not Pass Go.  There’s something next, right?

I am not a patient person, y’all. Nor am I necessarily gifted with discernment. So yeah, I kinda think I need trumpets, and a big, loud, booming voice from the heavens. Yesterday, preferably.

But He is patient. And while I’ve been waiting on trumpets, He’s been speaking all the while, right here in the everyday.  What’s He saying? Kinda not what I expected. Instead of “Go here, do this,” it’s

“MY GRACE is sufficient for you,” 

And what I meant the other day, the stuff about the struggle?

“for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  (2 Cor 12:9)

This is the good life, folks. It might be called struggle if, like me, you’re looking from the outside in. It might even be called failure in the wrong light. If you’ve been waiting on the trumpets, like me, stop. Look around. You’re standing in it. This right here, right now: the dirt, the mess, the humbling of ourselves, the realizing we don’t have it all together, and it doesn’t really matter because HE DOES.

We are enough, because HE IS ENOUGH. The face you present to the world? The one that has all the right labels, and the diplomas, and the stuff to go with it? He doesn’t care one whit about that. His strength is perfected in weakness.

He sees the dirt.

He sees the mess.

I can’t hide it from Him. He’s not interested in my Better Homes and Gardens version of me. He’s not company. He lives here.

When we don’t have it all figured out, when life isn’t conforming to our box, when we want to go there but it’s pretty clear He’s saying “Stay right here,”

He’s gifting us with the very best part of the story.

 

I always thought easy street was the pinnacle. I always thought the happy ending was the goal. And it is. There won’t be a happier ending than Heaven. My story will be completed and again just getting started someday, hopefully when I’m really old and gray.

But what I’m learning, and what I was trying to say the other day, was that it is an awesome miracle, what He’s doing in the trenches. What He does when I think I’m not in the sweet spot. When I’m feeling a little less than perfect.

He’s sending me love notes, and making me so gut-wrenchingly thankful that He cares for me enough to take this time to make me look like Him, from every angle.

He gifts me, in these moments right here. And sometimes, I don’t see it, but then He writes it down again….

Did I make it any plainer this time out, or did I just muddy up the water of that last post?

Can you see what I see?

 

The Story

This is going to come a little out of the blue.

As a preface, Preachy really isn’t my thing, y’all. I know I probably come across that way, but I’m mostly selfish, with a little slice of loving my neighbor on the side. If I’m writing about something heavy, it’s usually as some form of therapy for me, with a hope that maybe it can speak to you, too.

Ok, so not preachy. Sharing.  Selfishly. Ok?

Onward.

The other day, this one phrase stuck in my head. Whispered into my consciousness, hopefully by the Holy Spirit, but I haven’t totally ruled out mental illness.

“The struggle is the story.”

Now, this made perfect sense to me. But as I fear it might make you lean toward the mental illness explanation, let me try to elaborate.

I love to read. I can get lost in someone else’s story.  I like a happy ending as much as the next person, but what really appeals to me is character struggle. I love to see a person, or a situation, redeemed. Who doesn’t, right? But to call it a comeback, there has to be a fall. This breaks my heart and fills it up at the same time.

I’m currently (still) reading Les Mis for myself, and C.S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew (the first of the Narnia chronicles) to Little Girl. I’ve shed many a tear at the redemption in these two stories! And in both, it’s all about the struggle. They’re both full of the themes of heart-change.

So, being in that frame of mind, hearing what I already know to be true didn’t strike me as all that strange, albeit the mind whispers were a little unsettling. But it didn’t take much to make the leap from literature to my own story.

What I’m trying to get across, and not so eloquently, I’m afraid, is that I’ve always wanted my Story to read like a fairy-tale, not like War and Peace. I’ve wanted the struggle to be short. 

I’d like the easy way out, please.

I wanted to skip over the middle two thousand pages or so. I haven’t been all that interested in what is gained through hardship. I’ve wanted to know how this dang thing ends.

But the work that He is doing, the struggle here in the Land of Not Knowing, this is the story. This is my story.

The struggle is the story.

The patience, the perseverance, the hope, all gifts I’m being given now, smack in the middle of losing my mind. This is my story.

I could have kept right on trucking toward the epilogue in my old fairy-tale. I could have been all that I felt everyone expected of me. I could have had all the trappings of what some would call a “success story.”

And yet, if that story had continued, a tragedy is what I’d truly be. Because that story, it starts and ends with me. There is no room in that story for the Teller. 

The story of my life would not have pointed to Him.

Is there a sadder story?

He has seen to it that I fell.

The panic attacks, the not being good at it anymore, the self-doubt, all symptoms. I’ve fallen.

I’m off my game. I’m shook up. I feel decidedly undecided. And I really hate that. A lot.

He’s twisted the plot, and I can’t fathom a guess as to what happens next.

And I could not be more grateful.

He is giving me His version of my story.

My story, however it plays out, will begin and end with Him. If I get out of His way and let Him get me right, people will see redemption in my story. He’s giving my story its meat and potatoes, fleshing out my character, and making this a tale worth telling.

I’m excited.

Let’s call it a comeback, shall we?

 

It’s Spring. And I took a Break.

After that last post, I know I left you hanging. I moped off somewhere and stayed all dark and moody.

Well, for an hour or so, I guess.

Sorry about that.

But since then, I’ve been doing stuff, I just haven’t felt like writing about doing stuff, you know?

I get like that. I apologize.

Let me recap a little of the fun we’ve had.  This, the recap, seems to be a bad habit I’m taking up.

 

I hope you had a really great Easter. We went to church, and then to visit family. It was a great day. 

A couple weeks back, we also had a chance to visit with my Papaw, who turned 91 in March. We had a lot of fun there, too.  I’d post photos, but as you know, I’m a little weird about posting photos of others without permission, or at least knowing they’re ok with it. So I have photos, but I can’t show them to you. Great, huh?

My sister and her boys visited for a few days. We loved having them here! Little Girl had siblings for a few days, and was beside herself with glee. My sister is definitely anti-web-celebrity, so no photos of them either, sorry. I shamefully didn’t even get the camera out while they were here, bad, bad aunt that I am.

Little Girl has had a Spring Break of her own this week, and her dad had a couple of days off as well, so we’ve all been enjoying that. They had Daddy/Daughter day and built-a-bear and went bowling, and I’ve tried my best to bore her to death on the remaining days. It’s not been our most active spring break ever, but it’s been nice having her home.

I do have photos coming from this week, but maybe not the kind you’d think. Let’s just say Husband checked a few thing off the Honey-do list while he was vacating, and the basement has unpredictably become Little Girl’s new favorite place. I’ve got some other stuff going on here this week, and I’ll do a big House-O-Rama post as soon as that’s done.

I also have something lined up this week that may have me dusting off the old license and coming out of “retirement.” Too early to say anything for definite, but there may be a little employment on the horizon. Pray for me?

Changes coming soon! Stay tuned!