Taming Thanksgiving

I poured four cups of coffee into a giant mug from the hospital before heading to Perfect Image Salon this morning. A cut with highlights doesn't normally make my holiday list but with my son's wedding two weeks away, a trip across town was priority.

Heavy eyelids reminded me that last weekend's activity is still taking a toll, leaving me less chatty than normal. But when conversation turned to holiday plans, I tuned in as another patron remarked, "I just can't get it all together. I'm too stressed. My to do list is too long."

A faint smile turned the corners of my lips. While I empathized with her state of mind, for the first time in years, I relished inner calm on Turkey Eve. A calm that could even be described as quiet joy. When Anita, my hairdresser, asked me about our family plans, my stomach didn't tighten. My nerves didn't tense.

And it's not because life is tidy and together. It's almost 11 pm and I'm still trying to capture morning thoughts. Nathan's rearranging furniture one floor above while laundry spins in the dryer. Glorified hotdogs filled our dinner plates. And frozen rolls will adorn our Thanksgiving table tomorrow.

Holiday glamour doesn't exude from this abode. But in the midst of it all, I've finally accepted the me that I am.

It's OK that I won't be cooking a big meal tomorrow but rather enjoying a spread created by many others. It's OK that I can't get up at 4 am and shop with the masses on Black Friday. It's OK that I purchase store bought cookies and gift cards. And will sleep more than most once the hubbub dies down.

It's OK that I must live simply when the world spins crazy and the month cries, "Celebrate."

It took me years to accept the limits. To embrace them with calm. To not feel less than and unworthy because I can't accomplish what others can.

But after three surgeries this year, and three days of walking with a tennis shoe on each foot for the first time in eight years, I'm just grateful to be moving forward. Slowly. At a different pace. More at peace in the slow lane than before.

Lily, my mom's visiting puppy, is snoring beside me, reminding me I must go to bed. Thankful. At rest. Ready for family and food served on paper plates.

Happy Thanksgiving.
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Walking Out Pain

A coffee cup sits on my night stand this morning because I'm partaking in bed. A fluffy down comforter warms my legs while caffeine does it's thing.

I haven't been quite normal lately.

I started walking on my post surgery foot this week and while it's nice to be scooter free, every step provokes pain. I know it will ease in time, but the exchange tires me.

I changed the way I take a pain medicine knowing the transition was at hand, and find my emotions a little wacked out as a result. Round the clock anti-inflammatories dull my heart in the depressive way. So I skipped last nights dose in hopes of conquering the blues.

But there's another thing going on. There's a funeral today that is weighing on my heart. I'm not traveling the distance. But a slice of my heart is there.

In three weeks and half weeks, a sweet girl named Courtney will officially be my daughter-in-law. A dear friend of hers lost her mother this week. Voni died just three days after doctors realized she had stage four cancer throughout her body.

While that in itself stirs deep emotion, the hardest part is that Voni's daughter - Courtney's childhood friend - was sentenced to three years in prison just two weeks ago after causing an accident that killed a fifty-six year old woman while driving under the influence their senior year in high school.

She was allowed one hour in the hospital to say goodbye to her mom but was released for a few days this week to attend the visitation and funeral.

My right ankle and foot really hurt right now. Walking wears me out. But McKenzie will be maneuvering around a prison with some of the deepest inner aches this life doles out.

In reality, we're all pushing through pain. Some just more acute than others. Meds dull the ache sometimes. But the Redeemer of our souls offered His body for lasting life and His blood so we'll never thirst.

Let's partake today. Let's lay our burdens at the cross. Nothing surprises Him. Nothing is impossible for Him. He is enough when we let go and trust.

And when you read this, will you take a moment to pray for McKenzie and her family and for Courtney and Sam who walk the aisle in just over three weeks.
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Seventeen Years: Carried, Held, Broken, and Loved

It won't go away. That poignant moment from last weekend. The memory stirs as I savor morning coffee. And I know I'm changed.

Nathan (my oldest son) and I had attended a wedding shower for my younger son and his fiancĂ©e. When the festivities ended, the four of us drove to a restaurant: Mama Maria's Italian Grill.

Nestled in a booth in a corner all its own, I felt a world away from the other patrons. We ordered dinner and the discussion began.

Nathan grilled Courtney about her likes and dislikes. It was all wedding talk. Reception planning. At twenty-one years of age, he spoke with authority. Able to hone in on details I tend to float beyond.

Across the table, my other child listened with appreciation. He could care less about center pieces and shades of tulle. But he valued his brother's ability to help his future bride verbalize her vision for the celebration.

They were both grown up. Very grown up.

And then it hit me. The day. The date. The time. Even the family huddle.

Seventeen years before on that very same day and time, we'd huddled around the light blue recliner their daddy sat in to say our nightly prayers. We held hands. Sang songs with motions. And ended the day with our hearts towards heaven.

 
And that's when it happened. That's when our daddy's breathing changed for the last time and his body began to shut down in earnest.

Someone put the boys down while I called the doctor. Jason refused a trip to the hospital, so a neurologist agreed to let his sister (a nurse) drive to Emory and pick up morphine she could administer at home.

The next twenty four hours passed in a blur. I slept some. Read scripture over his frail body. Sang all the worship songs I could remember. Walked the streets with my parents. Visited with friends as they stopped by. And finally, around 7 pm, looked at one couple and blurted, "Either he's about to be raised up off that bed or I have nothing to worry about."

Confident, relieved, and ready, I went back to the sofa fold out bed where his body laid and nestled beside his tired frame. As I prayed, I felt as if his arms wrapped around me and the God of heaven came close. After relishing the peace for over ten minutes, a relative said, "I think he just took his last breath."

God had waited till I was ready and then took him in a way that left me assured that something supernatural had occurred in that living room. My husband had been set free. Heaven was real.

Tears slid  down my cheeks just ten days ago, as I sat in that booth, struggling to explain the emotion that overflowed. We've just been through a lot. The journey hasn't been easy. But God kept his word. He has taken care of us every step of the way. And as we planned Sam's wedding that night, I felt  a release I didn't even know I needed.

Our lives will most certainly be interrupted by more heartache and challenge as the years roll by. But right there in Mama Maria's Italian Grill, I breathed easier and left in awe of the God I trust.

"Praise our God, all peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard; he has preserved our lives and kept our feet from slipping. For you, God, tested us; you refined us like silver. You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance." (Ps. 66: 8 - 12)

Our family six months before he died:



And an upbeat version of the song I wrote a few months before Jason died and sang to close his memorial service.

Because He did it. God carried us through.


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Surrendering Fear, Embracing Joy

I wrote my oldest son as I sipped coffee this morning. He's navigating hard things with a grace that shouldn't surprise me, but does. And I finally realized why.

The father of my children died when they were three and four. A brain tumor took his life from us. In the days leading to his death and as we lived the first hours and weeks without him, I worried most that my boys would question God's love for them as they grew.

So I purposed to point out the many ways God provided, comforted, and took care of us as months turned to years and they navigated life with this single mom. And since scripture is full of references to God being the father to the fatherless, I parented with the awareness that God parented with me.

But after I remarried and boys grew to teens and then left for college, fear haunted me. A fear that during the years mitochondrial disease and blended family stress spun my spiritual compass, I hadn't been able to finish the job.

Did they know after years of watching me succumb to family strife dulled by TV crime shows that God was with us, for us, still the father who brought miracle one and two (aka: my boys) into my life?

In the last year alone, I could easily list ten ways God has purposefully restored my heart. Yet I realized last week I still worried about my boys. A fog of fear clouded my perspective about who they are and who God is in them.

But after attending two wedding showers for my youngest and watching my oldest perform in the UGA Vocal Quartet performance last week, I came home convicted that I'd forgotten who their father was. I'd forgotten I wasn't parenting alone.




And I wondered how many other ways I allow fear to cloud my perspective; to rule how I govern my time, my thoughts, my actions. Probably more than I know.

But I'm working on it again. Because there's something much bigger than me and my day to day fears going on down here. There's a story of redemption, hope, and love working it's way into our lives every day if we'll look for it.

Do you fight fear? Are you willing to surrender fear for joy? The exchange has been offered.

There's something more.

"Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the LORD your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you." (Deut. 31: 6)

For more scriptures on overcoming fear, check out: www.christianity.about.com
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Life Means so Much

We left in three shifts today. Don before sunrise. Nathan thirty minutes after. And me, an hour after Nate. Having dozed in and out during the wee hours, I filled two travel mugs with coffee, put them in a cereal Tupperware pitcher, and placed the pitcher in a bag hung on my scooter so I could get them down my stair chair to the car without spilling.

I succeeded. And soon warm coffee settled my insides as I drove to a doctor appointment and relived the weekend that included a fall break for my oldest son.

We enjoyed rich laughter during a dinner at Moe's. A sweet talk on our screened in porch. A wedding shower for my youngest and his soon to be bride way across town followed by a restaurant meal that led to a down payment on a rehearsal dinner. We sat together during Sunday morning worship and prayer. And hugged goodbye in a way that follows a weekend of growth and change and the knowledge that God is working in our lives despite the heartache and challenges life affords.

Because yesterday marked seventeen years since their dad breathed his last and God took over the father role in their lives.

Seventeen years.

And we're OK.

Our faith is intact. Our hope is eternal. And we know who holds the future.

I played this song over and over as I drove the highways to my appointment. Cause this weekend meant so much on many different levels. Colored leaves. Breezy days. Crisp air. Family. A celebration of life together... and life departed.

And it meant so much.


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