The Wave

My sisters and I all grew up in the same house. Two of us even shared a corner bedroom. Still, sometimes when the 3 of us get together and talk about something from our childhoods, I almost never remember it the same way the other 2 remember it. I don’t know if they will remember these things the way that I do.

In the house we grew up in, which is the same house our parents lived in for over 40 years, there were two hall closets. The smaller of the two was, I think, by design supposed to be a linen closet because its breadth was narrow and it had shelving from ceiling to floor. As far as I can remember, we never kept sheets or towels in it. The shelves were filled with books. There were two sets of Britannica encyclopedias that took up most of the shelf space. There was also a pencil sharpener that Dad had mounted front and center on the middle shelf, which was most often the reason any of us even opened that closet door.

Near the bottom shelf were a stack of our mother’s yearbooks. Some of those were from her own high school days, others were from the schools where she worked as a bookkeeper. Right next to those was a couple of other tattered, old books with dingy brown covers. The binding on them was worn and frayed. The pages were glossy, but not in color. Each page had two black and white photographs on them. The entire book was nothing but photographs. The only typed print was a couple of caption lines under each photo. There were no descriptive paragraphs, just pictures of war. They were very graphic pictures of Europe during World War I and II. I don’t think I ever opened that closet door specifically looking for those books, but they often sucked me once I was there. The photographic images of extreme devastation and death always left me speechless as a child.

From that perspective, it’s not hard to understand why my dad never talked about it. We have pictures of him in his sailor’s uniform as a young man, but for a very long time that was about the only evidence we knew that showed he had that served in the Navy. He was in his eighties before I ever heard him actually tell the story of being in the English Channel on D-day.

Even though he was a man of few words about his participation on World War II, his patriotism showed throughout his entire life. Today’s evidence of that is the full size flagpole bearing the stars and stripes waving in his front yard. Only today, that flag is at half mast.

The bottom shelf of our hall closet housed books of our mother’s school memories and our dad’s war memories. Those war books were indeed our dad’s yearbooks, because he never finished high school as a boy.

He never said much about that either. But like the pictures of the handsome sailor, there was a little evidence about his education and schooling. In the dining room of that same house was a china cabinet. It was just an ordinary, everyday china cabinet. The top half had about 3 shelves enclosed with glass-paned doors. The bottom half of the cabinet consisted of 3 or 4 drawers. The top drawer was shallow. I think maybe it was designed to put napkins and tablecloths in (come to think of it, I have no recollection of where we kept any kind of linens in our house) but this top drawer was filled with papers. In among all the insurance papers and official looking documents from the Duval County School Board, from where Mom and Dad both eventually retired, there was a folder of papers that always intrigued me. It looked like some kind of standardized test and I remember that there were math equations on it. It was the test our dad took to get the certification he needed to be classified as a high school graduate. I don’t ever remember him taking any kind of class, nor do I remember him actually taking the test. He never really talked about it. He just did what he had to do in whatever way he could get it done.

I did a lot of my own school homework at the dining room table that was positioned right next to that china cabinet. On one occasion, I was in the fourth or fifth grade and we were learning about the 50 states and their capitals. Each student in the class was assigned a state and given the task of making a drawing about the state. In addition to a map of the specific state we were supposed to draw pictures of the state bird, state flower, state seal, and anything else the state was known for. My assignment was Maryland. I tried again and again to draw an outline of the state of Maryland and failed every time. Have you ever tried to draw the Chesapeake Bay? It was my demise. I wadded up several sheets of drawing paper and eventually ended up in tears because I just couldn’t do it.

Dad, always one to rig up something unconventional to make a broken thing work again, stepped in. From his garage where he kept everything but cars, he got a 10 gallon bucket, a small lamp minus the shade, and a large piece of glass. He put it all together to make the most innovative light box ever. He took a map of Maryland from an atlas and put it on the glass top, he then put my drawing paper over that, and turned on the lamp. All I had to do was trace the outline. My assignment and sanity had been rescued. He never finished school himself, but he did everything he could to make sure his three girls finished not only high school but college too.

Once we three girls started college and began leaving home for long periods of time, and eventually getting married and moving away, we developed a little ritual with each of our departures. It’s probably something a lot of people do when family from out of town leaves to go back to their own homes after a visit. We pack up the car, make one last bathroom visit, fill up our cups in the kitchen, and then we all walk outside. Standing in the driveway we hug and kiss. We pile in the car, crank it up, roll down the windows and back out of the driveway onto the street. Mom and Dad stand in the driveway and wave. They continue to stand there and wave until we have driven out of their sight.

This driveway scene has occurred every single time we’ve ever been to visit our parents, no matter where they are. The last time I left Mom at the assisted living facility she lives in now, she insisted on walking me outside and stood there with her walker in the driveway until we had driven out of her sight.

For several years now, I’ve had the very same thought and feeling every time we drove away with Mom and Dad in our rearview mirror standing in the driveway waving.

Grief. I have grieved every single time. I grieve because I think to myself, “Will this be the last time I see them?” With parents in their seventies and eighties and not living nearby, that is what you think when you leave them. So in some way, I have already grieved this passing.

It hasn’t been until now that I have thought about what they must have been thinking as they stood there in the driveway waving goodbye.

For one, longing. Longing for time to stop. Wishing things could just stay the way they were. Wishing we could all just stay together.

The other thing, they must have felt some relief. Relief in not only us taking the chaos of our own lives back to our own homes with us, but also realizing that we have outgrown the little corner bedroom of that house and sensing relief in knowing that we have homes of our own to go to that fit us better now.

I know that, because now it’s us standing the driveway waving goodbye.

We long for time to stop and wish things could stay the way they were and that we could all be together all the time. But today, Daddy, we know your spirit has outgrown this world and the only place that can house you now is a mansion built for you in glory by the King of Kings himself.

Welcome home, Daddy.

Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate. 2 Samuel 12:20

There are no words

Monday, September 13, 2010 Scott was called into a meeting where the stewardship committee chairman, the chairman and another representative from the personnel committee, the deacon chairman, and the pastor all sat around the conference table. Scott was not aware that this meeting was taking place until they called and asked him to come in.

At that meeting they informed Scott that due to budget constraints, his full time position as minister of music was being eliminated. He was given a sheet of paper that outlined 3 severance package details. The first of which stated that he could leave that very day and the church would provide him with one week’s pay for every year of service, which on that day would have been 13 years.

Let me say that again. He could have walked out that day. Monday, September 13, 2010.

They also gave him the option to stay until December 31, still collecting the one week’s pay for every year of service as severance. By then it would he would have reached 14 years of service.

The third detail in the severance options provided that if he secured another full time minister of music position before December 31 then he would only receive 2 week’s severance pay.

I was out of town that day. By the time I got a break in what I was doing and was able to call and check in, it was a little later in the morning. I had no idea any of this has taken place. Scott told me the news over the phone. He said that after the meeting he walked out of the office and down the hall to the choir room where he had been and still was sitting in darkness and silence. What do you say to your husband at a time like this?

There are no words.

Scott and I were very much aware of the budget difficulties. We knew something had to be done. We also knew the difficulties go way beyond just the budget woes. He and I both have been praying for 4 or 5 years, at least, for something to happen in our church; something big enough to stir the long-still waters. Losing his job was not exactly what we had been praying for, but almost instantaneously we saw it as perhaps clearing the way for that BIG thing, whatever it was, to come through. If this is how God was going to get through, then by all means, let us go. We started packing boxes immediately. I started giving things away that I didn’t want to have to move. Neither Scott nor I were totally devastated or depressed about the situation. We were just hopeful that something really grand was on the horizon for both us and for this church. How do you tell people you’re really at peace about losing your livelihood?

There are no words.

Being so ready and willing to accept what he’d been dealt and seeing it as the hand of God working in all of our lives, the most likely choice was for Scott to walk out that day, Monday, September 13, 2010. We were eager to get on with it.

However.

Back in the spring, months before any of this, Scott picked out a musical to do for Christmas. His vision was to invite as many different church choirs and individuals to join us as we could. His vision went beyond our little choir to the entire community. By the time September 13 arrived, we had already had 2 rehearsals for this musical. We were already overwhelmed by the number of people that showed up for those rehearsals, from all aspects of our community.

Scott was committed. He was committed to this event long before he ever bought the first piece of music for it. The first rehearsal back in August solidified it for him. The second one only made his commitment stronger and deeper. It was the only thing that kept him from walking away on September 13. The ONLY thing. And I will say it one more time: He could have left that day. But he wanted to see this thing through, regardless of his job. He found himself in the middle of something that was so much bigger than he and his own vision and he couldn’t let go even if he tried. How do you tell the employer that just laid you off, “well, thanks, but I think I’ll stick around for a while anyway”?

There are no words.

Since then Scott’s whole job situation has been revamped, thanks to some other church members who had visions of their own. Scott’s job has been reinstated, but with a 10% pay cut. There are two other ministers whose jobs and salaries have also been affected too, but I can’t speak for them or their stories. And really, all of that is a separate story in and of itself which maybe one day I’ll tackle. Or not. But today my focus here is the musical.

With all that has happened since this whole thing started, we have prayed diligently for this musical event. I continued to pray, as I have for the last 5 years, for something incredible to happen in this church and acknowledged that this event was a wonderful opportunity for that to happen. Specifically, I prayed that the building would be full of people to hear the message, no empty seats, and that all the other space would be taken up by the Holy Spirit, that there would be absolutely no room whatsoever left for satan to find his way in. Scott prayed for chairs. He specifically asked for the need to put out folding chairs because of the overflow crowd. He said it out loud several times over the last couple of months.

While I don’t think anyone really knows for sure, our sanctuary seats approximately 450+. Our average Sunday morning attendance is about 140.

The presentation of this musical was this past Friday night, December 3. It was set to begin at 7 p.m.

Here’s the scene at about 6:40 p.m.

Chairs, y’all. There are chairs. Some didn’t even have chairs and had to stand throughout the whole thing.

Even before the music started, something besides people began to fill up the sanctuary. As the program began it was almost as if what was going on inside the building was bigger than what the walls themselves could contain. The Holy Spirit did indeed fill the room. It’s just so hard to explain the presence…

Afterwards, the comment I heard over and over again from those who were there… “There are no words.”

Ironic, I think, that the title of the musical was “The Voices of Christmas.” There are no words for the Voices of Christmas. The thing that happened and the praises that were raised were in a language only God could understand.

Afterwards, the crowd went home, the furniture was moved back in place, the trash picked up, and the sanctuary set in order for Sunday morning. We went to get something to eat then headed home. I would have thought Scott would have been on top of the world after all this. Instead, he seemed more quiet and distant and unreadable. He had no words.

The next day I woke and got out of bed long before Scott. I went to the other end of the house to work on a project on the computer. A couple of hours later I came back towards our bedroom and saw Scott sitting on the vanity stool in our bathroom. He was just sitting there in the quiet looking at the floor. The closer I got to him, the more I realized his eyes were filled with tears.

I think in that moment we both realized the enormity of what God had done. That Scott was not capable of or responsible for whatever it was that happened with the Voices of Christmas. That in spite of his inadequacies, God used him anyway. That his faith in leaving the unknown up to God in not giving it up on September 13 resulted in a greater blessing for 500+ other people.

It was just too much; there are no words.

I suddenly understood what Isaiah meant when he said “Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

We saw the King, the Lord Almighty, fill our sanctuary Friday night and it ruined my husband. Ruined him because he will never be the same. And there are no sweeter words than that.

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.” Isaiah 6:3

I can't resist the Pillsbury Doughboy, especially when he says please

Earlier this week Scott and I had to go to Wal-Mart. We had to pick up a prescription at the pharmacy. I also wanted to buy some Halloween cards to mail to my sisters and parents.

Scott had been out of the prescription nose spray for several days and the doctor had finally called it in earlier that day.

If I didn’t get cards in the mail by the next day, they would not arrive before Halloween.

Needless to say, the trip to Wal-Mart was overdue. We vowed before we went in that we were only going to buy those two things – nose spray and cards. This was NOT going to be one of those spend-$100-in-less-than-1-hour trips. We were just going to run it, get the stuff, and run out before we were sucked in. Thankfully, the pharmacy and the card aisle are just a few yards apart and right by the exit. We didn’t have to walk far. Or run, as was our case.

As we walked between the cards and the vitamin aisle on the way to check out, for some strange reason Scott just happened to think about the cherry turnovers that, in our town, you can only buy at Wal-Mart. Or course, they are in the refrigerated grocery section in the complete opposite corner of the store.

Knowing that our cupboard is completely bare but not wanting to take the time to do the full re-stocking shopping, I agreed to at least one treat. I’m anticipating a glorious trip to Publix this weekend because we’re out of cereal and soup and grits and deli meat and cheese and everything else, but we do need to eat something in the meantime. Cherry turnovers it is.

We put our blinders on and headed to the cold corner. Even though their shelf placement had changed, we found the cherry turnovers and turned to leave.

Almost free. But then something else caught our eyes.

I’m not a big cherry turnover fan. I’m really not a big sweets fan, but I do like a good sugar cookie every now and then. The Pillsbury Doughboy was calling my name. In the spirit of Halloween, of course. I reasoned (justified…rationalized…!) that we weren’t buying any candy for the occasion, so 24 Spooky Cat pre-cut ready to bake cookies would be OK.

So, with nose spray, Halloween cards, cherry turnovers, and ready to bake sugar cookies, we finally got out of there. Whew.

That was a couple of days ago. It wasn’t until last night that I pulled the cookies out of the fridge to actually put them on a pan and bake them. Of course, my first reflex when I opened the box was to want to put one of the raw cookies in my mouth.

But then, I must tell you, I never felt more loved than when I read this on the box:

“Please do not eat raw cookie dough.”

They said it like they actually cared about me. And they put it right there on the front of the box instead of in small print under all the unpronounceable ingredients.

They could have said it like this:

"WARNING: Eating raw cookie dough could be hazardous to your health."
This would have sounded like they were trying to scare me, and they would have. I would have heard James Earl Jones’ voice in my head saying, “Danger, danger…”

Or they could have even just “Do not eat raw cookie dough,” without the “please.”
This one would have been voiced by Ben Stein in my head. Emotionless and not really caring one way or the other about the effects of raw dough on a human.

But, “Please do not eat the raw cookie dough” is written as if the Pillsbury Doughboy himself were saying it, followed by that giggly little chuckle that comes out when you poke him in the stomach.

Of course, Mr. Doughboy. Since you asked to nicely, I’ll not eat that raw dough.

Funny that I even noticed those words.

Interesting that they actually influenced what I was thinking and my subsequent actions.

How we say things is just as important as what we say.

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. 1 Corinthians 13:1

Rescued

A couple of weeks ago we came home and found this guy hanging out on our back door. We left him alone and let him be. Anyone, or anything for that matter, saying prayers over my house seemed like a good idea.
Yesterday afternoon, when I walked in the house, this is the scene I saw at the same back door:

It scared me at first because I thought it was some kind of reptile. I am not friends with the reptiles. At all (Thanks, Eve). We frequently have little skinks running around, but Marbles the Cat usually takes care of them before they get too big. I thought this was one of those icky things and it was enormous. Since I was home alone, a small panic attack ensued.

After a little closer inspection, I saw that it was more rodent than reptile. A little baby squirrel. I was relieved somewhat that it didn't have scales, but the relief didn't last long because I had no idea what to do with a little furry thing either.

I opened the glass door to take a closer look, thinking the noise and movement would scare the poor thing enough to make it run away. He didn't move. He just clung to the screen door.

Still on the other side of the screen door, I tried to get a closer look. There were flies buzzing all around him. There was no movement in him. That led me to believe he was dearly departed. I had no idea how in the world a dead squirrel could be hanging on to my screen door. Looking closer still, I saw his little chest move up and down. He was breathing.

Well, what do I do now?

After shedding some tears over the demise of this little thing, I donned some rubber gloves, gathered up a towel and a shoe box and went outside.

I exited the house from the front door and walked around to the back yard. Along the way, I saw one of his siblings on the ground. Motionless. Gone. I'll spare you the gory details about that one but let's just say I didn't have to get very close to that one to tell if he was alive or dead because, um, there were some parts of him missing.

A few steps further and there was another one. She was gone too. She still had all her parts, but the ants had taken control.

Finally to my little friend clinging to the screen door.

I took that picture before I got too close. I didn't realize he had a yellow jacket on his head until then. Poor thing. His right arm and leg had been sliced open and his head had also taken a beating, but he was still hanging on.

So far, Marbles remains mum. No confession yet.

I wrapped him in the towel. I sat down holding him in the towel. I thought he would expire soon, so I just waited. I was thinking about putting him along with both his siblings in the same hole in the ground.
Then I started thinking about everything but the squirrels just to get my mind off of it. I sat there waiting for Squirt (yes, I gave him a name) to leave this world, I talked to God about families around me; one has a newborn infant in the hospital trying to fight his way into this world; one has a barely older than teenage daughter that just made it through a double lung transplant and is fighting to stay in the world; one is a mother my age that just started chemo, again. I think she's living like she's preparing for eternity.

Life is precious. Life is hard. We need some help. We need someone to wrap us in a towel and just hold us; to hold us until we find a way to make in this world or until we find the way to make it out.

Squirt? Well, his breathing never slowed. At first when I held him in that towel he didn't move. The longer I held him the more comfortable he became. Slowly he came back to life.

When Scott got home he called the vet for advice. Squirt was alive but too weak to be just left outside. You'll be happy to know that we loaded Squirt up in the shoe box that I thought would be his casket and delivered him to an emergency vet clinic that rescues wildlife. They were very happy to have him there. And so were we.

Oh, and this other guy was out there again, too. Just above the door where little Squirt was hanging on.

Pray. Rescue the perishing. You'll be rescued yourself.

If you fall to pieces in a crisis, there wasn't much to you in the first place. Rescue the perishing; don't hesitate to step in and help. If you say, "Hey, that's none of my business," will that get you off the hook? Someone is watching you closely, you know - Someone not impressed with weak excuses. Proverbs 24:10-12

Where's the Aflac Duck when you need him?

Does anybody remember that commercial where a little chubby-cheeked boy says, “Blueberries are our friends”? I’m thinking it was a Welch’s grape juice commercial from the 90’s, although I’m not sure why a grape juice commercial would be promoting blueberries, so I’m not really sure. (If you have any confirmation or YouTube link, hook a girl up, K?) Still. Every now and then, I find opportunities to quote that phrase about the antioxidant fruit.

It’s kind of like the little old lady at Wendy’s wondering, “where’s the beef?”. You would be amazed at how often I find “where’s the beef?” to be an appropriate question in an ordinary day conversation even after a whole generation has grown up never knowing that commercial even existed.

But don’t get me started on this new generation’s fast food commercials. I mean, really. The Burger King??

I was a big fan of the Barry Manilow commercial jingles. “You deserve a break today, so get up and get away, to McDonalds.” And, “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there…” I’m not sure I know any current commercial jingles. Do commercials even have jingles anymore?

Lately, every time Flo from Progressive Insurance comes on the TV screen, Scott instantly changes the channel. He simply cannot look at her with all her eyeliner and perkiness nor can he tolerate her chirpy voice. I kind of like her because she can be happy about something as boringly miserable as insurance. Oh, to be that naïve and blissful about something you have to pay dearly for but pray you’ll never need.

I have my own personal issues with Jamie Lee Curtis and Activia yogurt. I haven’t seen one of those commercials lately so maybe they realized it was a bad idea, but for a while there Jamie Lee was trying to convince us to take the Activia Challenge for 14 days. But here’s the kicker, she asks us to video tape ourselves during the course of the 14 day challenge and then submit them to her.

First of all, if you didn’t know, Activia yogurt contains bifidus regularis, aka probiotic bacterium Bifidobacterium animalis. In Jamie Lee’s words, it helps regulate your digestion. In my words, it helps you “go” more regularly instead of every couple of days.

My question is, what exactly is it that Jamie Lee wants me to film?

I mean, if I eat a cup of Activia yogurt every day, chances are I’m going to eat it the same way every single day. I’ll peel off the foil lid and dip in with a spoon. I’ll likely do in the privacy of my own home and not out in public because who wants to be seen eating digestion regulating yogurt? It would only fuel my nemesis’ impression that I am full of it. So, if I were filming that portion, even my surroundings would be the same. Every day for 14 days.

The one thing that would change would be, well, my digestion. Does she really want me to film the evidence of that?

It would certainly be easy to do. So easy in fact that I think a caveman could do it.

Too bad they fired him and hired some weird, plastic googly eyes with dollar bills for a mustache. Ok, that’s enough. I gotta go.

No, not that kind of “go.”

Which, by the way, I would not film even it I did.

You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it's a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honor just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn't you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair? 1 Corinthians 12:20-24 The Message.

The Emperor's Expectorant

Some people are visionaries. They are able to see things the way they hope and dream for them to become. They are the ones that are goal setters and star reachers. “To dream the impossible dream….”

Some people are idealists. They see things from an absolute perfection perspective. They are the ones that know all the rules and proper procedures and are usually pretty good instructors in such methods. “If you do it this exactly like this, then this will be the positive result….”

While both types are quite admirable, I am not either one. I may have attempted to be them a time or two, but I have a hard time seeing anything other than stark reality. “The Emperor is not wearing any clothes…”

Yes, I have hopes and dreams and a few ideals, but the reality I see far outshines anything else. Funny thing, though. With hindsight sometimes it becomes obvious that the realist in me had a clearer picture of the future that my future-minded friends. Often, if you take a good look at the way things really, truly are, it is not difficult to see where they are going.

In looking ahead and trying to face the future, there has been one word that always gets thrown at me. It’s happened all of my life. I’ve written about it before because, well, it just keeps coming up. (Here’s what I wrote about the last time I got the reminder.)

The word: EXPECTATION

The realist in me has eliminated the need for a lot of expectations. Again, I do have hopes and dreams. I just don’t tie my entire future to them and I can still find peace and satisfaction even if they never come to fruition. When and if they ever become a reality, then I’m all the more blessed and thankful. Mostly I’ve learned not to have great expectations for other people. Especially those close to me. It makes me love them all the more when they actually do something that I hoped they would do, but didn’t bank my happiness on it.

What I’m dealing with right now is, however, other people’s expectations; those other people being the visionaries and idealists living in my world. They have such great expectations of me.

I want to tell those people a few things….

First of all, thank you. Thank you for your vote of confidence. Thank you for thinking that I can be better than I am. Thank you for thinking that I am capable and talented enough to achieve all that you envision. Thank you for setting your standards high.

Secondly, I’m sorry. I have failed you. I am sorry that I have let you down. I have tried, but I have not been able to live up to your expectations. Your absolute need to see me accomplish what you’ve prioritized is only filling your life with strife and disappointment. The anger that you have over what you see as my failure is killing you, not me.

You set those priorities, not me.

Yes, I have failed. But my failure is in trying to please you and not my Creator.

Yes, I am at fault. I’ve stepped over the fault line several times and have accumulated a great big pile of rubble all on my own, even without your expectations. I have more guilt that I can carry.

But my faults are not your fault. They have nothing to do with you.

As much as I might want to be, I am not responsible for your expectations. Only you can control that.

I hope that you will keep reaching for the stars and showing others the proper procedures because you will be an inspiration to someone else along the way.

But please, release me. Let me go.

You will be the one that ends up with the true freedom.

Of course, I have no expectations about what you’ll do.

I’ll just wait to be surprised and blessed by even more than I could have hoped for.

Amazing Grace will always be my song of praise.
For it was grace, that brought me liberty,
I do not know, just why He came to love me so.
He looked beyond my faults and saw my need.

I shall forever lift mine eyes to Calvary,
To view the cross, where Jesus died for me
How marvelous, His grace that caught my falling soul
He Looked beyond my faults and saw my
need.
-Dottie Rambo

They even did more than we had hoped, for their first action was to give themselves to the Lord and to us, just as God wanted them to do. 2 Corinthians 8:5

The Neighborhood Watch

Again. I’ve written a thousand paragraphs that never get posted on this blog. There are a thousand reasons why they never get posted. Mostly I write things and then think, oh my goodness, I can’t let anybody else read that! I’m prone to embarrass myself when I open my mouth and then commit my words to paper, but usually it feels so good to get it out. Basically, this is just my version of inexpensive therapy.

However.

The past couple of days I’ve been thinking about one unpublished post that’s been saved on my flash drive for a while. Not sure why it has been on my mind. Actually, it’s not what I wrote that has been on my mind; it’s the event that inspired me to write it down in the first place.

Here’s the original post I wrote:

This past Sunday afternoon we had a special choir rehearsal at church. Once it was over, I had another hour and half before Scott would be done with his other rehearsals.

Ahhh, a little bit of ME time.

I went home, poured myself a glass of iced Coke Zero, grabbed my book, and made my way to the rocking chair on the front porch. The weather was sunny and breezy, but not hot. It was quiet and peaceful. If I hadn’t wanted to finish my book so much, I would have just closed my eyes and enjoyed a long overdue Sunday afternoon nap. It was just a perfect outdoor kind of day.

I had not turned too many pages in the book I was reading when I began to hear someone talking. And then I heard a rake scraping across the ground in slow strokes. The continuous talking and raking was a little distracting, so I looked around to find the source.

It was coming from across the street and two houses down. That house on the corner lot has been empty a good bit of the last few years. Several years ago, its long time residents moved to an assisted living facility. Since then it has been occupied off and on by several different people who I believe must be renters. To my knowledge, no one is living in the house now that I am aware of.

A woman was outside raking up the oak leaves (the ones from the trees that shed their leaves in the spring when the new growth comes in. It’s awful. We rake year-round in our neighborhood!). She obviously had a blue tooth device in her ear because she was also chatting away with someone else that I could not see or hear. She kept the rhythm of her rake going as she talked. I couldn’t hear everything she was saying, just a few words every now and then. After a few minutes, I did hear her say she had another call coming in, one she had been expecting, and she needed to take it.

She ended that first conversation and picked up the second one. She stopped her raking and leaned on the rake as if it were some kind of staff. The volume of her voice went up several decibels and I could hear her clearly. She said, “I just want to pray for you right now.”

And she did. Out loud. Over the phone.

As she prayed her voice got louder. The hand that wasn’t holding the rake lifted high over her head.

I gathered from her prayers that the man she was praying with/for had a wife in the hospital and the prognosis did not look good.

She prayed for a miracle.

She prayed for God to make a way where there seemed to be no way.

She prayed for her brother to have the strength to let his wife go if it came to that.

She quoted several scriptures claiming the promises in them.

She prayed on and on. She prayed loud and hard and long. She was oblivious to anything else around her as she talked to God. Cars drove by. Kids on bicycles rode by. She had no idea I was sitting on my porch within earshot and eyesight of her taking in the whole thing.

After a while, I was raising my hand too. I couldn’t help myself. She was praising God so strongly that not only did the Spirit come down and cover her, it spread all the way over to my front porch and covered everything in between like hot lava.

After 20 minutes or so I could tell she was winding down and about to end the prayer and the call. I stepped inside my front door to put down my drink and book. By the time I turned around and went back outside, she was gone.

I wanted to go other there and speak to her and tell her thank you. Where we live we hear a lot of gunshots and sirens on a regular basis; not a lot of prayer in the streets. I wanted to tell her how unusual but refreshingly wonderful it was to hear someone acknowledging God boldly and without apprehension in my neighborhood, on the street where I live.

It was something that had nothing to do with me, but just because of my close proximity I got a residual blessing. I wasn’t expecting it. The original intention of the prayer was not for me, but the blessing was mine for sure.

Praise Him out loud. You never know where the blessings will fall.
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So that was the original post. I’m not sure why I never clicked the publish button. I guess I kind of felt like it was unfinished. Like there was more to the story or something. I suppose it could be that I never got to speak to her and that I still wanted to meet her and tell her thank you.

I went back to my flash drive earlier today to retrieve that post and realized it was written on April 15. Today is June 17. It’s been 2 months. I have not seen her, nor anyone else, at that house since that day. No one.

Does anyone else think that’s a little odd?

Maybe that whole thing was intended for me after all. It is a rare occasion that I am home alone. If I am, I’m usually busy inside trying to get something done, like cook dinner or finish up the laundry, before my husband gets home. Not this day. God knew I would be home alone that afternoon, sitting on my front porch purposely taking a sidebar from a busy Sunday. He also knew I had an unrecognized need for a sighting of His Spirit in our world. In my world. On the street where I live.

He came. Just for me.

All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. 2 Corinthians 4:15