Grandparenting with Grace:So Ungraceful Am I

It's been a tough six months, although the stress level has dropped considerably since my father died last month. Oh, I miss him. But, now I can breathe a sigh of relief. He is Home. At peace. Yes all those cliches- they are true. Jesus has welcomed him home. I cannot grieve too much. You see, his pain is gone. He can walk again. I truly believe I will see him again. I have learned so much from this experience and from my father. A man who had such a lack of self-control became a master of self-control.  People do change. We must change with them and love them as they change. Grace and Forgiveness. I pray others will offer that to me. I am such a failure at being who I should be. God help me. I cannot do it alone. Life is brief, help me live as You will.

Grandparenting with Grace: Five Minute Friday prompt PREPARE

Linking up here with the FMF bunch (KateMoraung) where we write for five minutes on a given prompt. Tonight's prompt is prepare.

I am/have been preparing for my Dad's visitation and funeral over this past week. It was postponed so my son, his first grandson, could be present. I have planned the funeral and prepared the funeral bulletin. I have written an obituary. I have prepared a prayer service for the Visitation and will help lead it. I am now trying to prepare a eulogy for the funeral service per my father's request.

Prepare. Are we ever prepared for death? I prayed it would come as he wished-as he slept. He and I talked -prepared. For death. He wanted heaven and all God's splendor, yet was torn with staying here for us. He had prepared by making all his funeral arrangements. He had bought a cemetery plot. He talked about picking out a headstone, but we never made it that far. He had his hymns and old-tyme country gospel songs picked out. He wanted to be pain free.

 He asked God to accept him as he was, imperfect, with regrets, weak and unable to come on his own strength. And God said,  "Do not let your heart be troubled. You believe in God^[a]; believe also in me. ² My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. ⁴ You know the way to the place where I am going.” (John 14: 1-4)

Grandparenting with Grace: Mistletoe?

This year was going to be "different". We began doing the Advent devotional "The Greatest Gift" Coloring the ornaments to decorate our Jesse Tree. I had cut down on the secular ornaments and concentrated on my many Holy Family pieces. I was going to soak in the true Reason for the Season with my 5 year old grand-daughter.

However, God always has another plan. My father has been struggling with health issues. The past 3 months have been grueling as he has moved from hospital, to transitional care, to an assisted living facility. It's his last move that has rocked our plans though. My Daddy will be spending this Christmas with Jesus. Singing with the Heavenly Hosts. As we here, left behind, do our best to honor him with a beautiful Funeral Service. He is truly happier where he now resides; nothing can compare. We will see him again. But still, our hearts hurt. Our days lengthen with sadness. We reach for the phone-then stop. The Christmas decorations sit, spilling out of storage tubs as we put the details of saying goodbye to our father in order. The house looks like the walls have exploded inward, spewing debris from one end to the other. And I. . . I am having trouble focusing on any given task. Just walking in circles it seems, logging miles but gaining no ground. Yet, doing so much that is needed. And how does one grieve when you are happy there is no more pain and your father has a body made whole by faith in Christ? It's the Holidays of Mistletoe, but it's Bittersweet.

Grandparenting with Grace: Five Minute Friday-Dear

Tonight's Five Minute Friday Prompt is Dear.

Oh Dear Death. Oh Dear God.  Oh Dear. It is about all I can say. When a loved one is failing, is dying, is suffering-What is there to hold on to?
Dear God!!!!
And that is about all.
All you need.
 All you want.
But. Dear. God.
Come.

Yes, Dear God come. Take my father in your arms. Wrap him safe and comfort him.
We will grieve-but we already are, please Dear God welcome him.

Dear God help me to see You in this. Dear God subdue the enemy of my father--pain.
Dear God smite the second guessing regarding care, medications, fulfilling wishes.
Oh Dear God!! Hear.

Grandparenting with Grace: Finishing well

One of my New Year's resolutions was to spend more time reading God's Word, applying it to my life, and listening and praying quietly. So far I ave done this. I am unable to sit each and every day-something I am working on, but I am spending more time with God and finding He does speak through His word.

Today during my devotional time I read, Isaiah38:1-5 

vs. 1 In those days Hezekiah became ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, “This is what the Lord says: Put your house in order, because you are going to die; you will not recover.”

Isn't this true? We are all going to die. We had better get our house in order!! We cannot escape; we will not recover. 

vs' 2-3  Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord,  “Remember, Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

Oh if  I could say that!!
"I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.”    . . . with wholehearted devotion" I want to be able to say that!! Yes I do. I want to please God. 

I have been waiting for some one to come along side of me and listen, understand, and share in my struggle. However!!!! I have been counting on man!! Man cannot save me. For eternity, nor for the moment. Only Christ can meet me where I am. This trial has brought me to my knees, actually it has seen me prostrate.  I am nothing without Christ. Life is not fair. But I want to finish well. To do what is right in His sight. To know I have done my best for Him. I want to live for eternity, not just for today. I need to put my eyes on Him and run the race for Him, finishing well.


1 Corinthians 9:24-26 "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air."

Grandparenting with Grace: Easter-Contemplate the Cost

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Contemplate the Cost

It is well and good to celebrate Easter Sunday. After all, Christ has indeed risen!! Without the resurrection we would have no Savior, He would have remained in the grave and our hope would be in vain. Yet, perhaps we should not be so quick to progress to the glory without taking time to grasp the reality of Christ’s journey to that glory. If one rejoices in the resurrection, but fails to embrace the agony of the cross, part of what is glorious is lost, and the true meaning of our need for a Savior is ignored in celebration.

I have learned one cannot comprehend true joy without the experience of heart wrenching sorrow and pain. For without the sorrow and pain woven into the fabric of our lives- by what measurement do we establish the quality of our joy?  I can know the joy of holding my first born in my arms, but only after the pain and struggle of the birth process and the loss of another who was never to have drawn a breath. In the spring, new growth erupts and we marvel at the beauty of it after the long, hard, bitter days of winter. So, it is fitting to celebrate the resurrection of the Paschal lamb; what was thought to be dead has not only come to life, but in the process we too have been given the opportunity to taste a glorious eternity.

However, Christ was called to the cross to endure our judgment. By no means was it a walk in the park. Ours should be His naked body with its torn flesh. The spittle on His face, the curses ringing in His ears and the spasms wracking His body is what we deserve in the eyes of a Holy and righteous God.  But, God so loved us that He sent His beloved, precious and perfect son to make us to be righteous in His sight. If one truly grasps the meaning and intensity of such love, one cannot but be amazed. That is why I ask:

Can there be any pain or degree of loneliness as great as that which my Lord felt that day long ago when His Father turned His face away and abandoned His perfect and precious Son to my sin?  Jesus risked all He had to enter into relationship with me; what do I risk when turning to Him?  A bad habit?  A sinful nature?  What degree of loneliness am I called to endure for my Savior? And, am I willing?

Do we daily take up what God has called us to do willingly, or do we go about life believing there is no struggle to be had in this life for the cause of Christ? There are many ways to respond to such a question. We can refuse to acknowledge God’s call on our lives and live as we choose, never entering into a true relationship with our Creator. We can spout Bible verses, and sing Halleluiahs in praise, claiming all is well and we never feel alone and empty. Or, we can truly be Christ like and cry out in anguish when we feel abandoned and alone; we can go before our Father and ask to be spared the trial we are being asked to endure if at all possible. We can also humbly bow and say, “Thy will be done.” In doing so, however, we may be called to endure a haunting loneliness of soul. For many times what is in God’s will is not to be understood by others. Even Jesus experienced this as He prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, as He faced betrayal by the kiss of a friend, and as His disciples fled in fear leaving Him alone to stand before Pilate and hear the chosen of God cry out for His blood.

If we are truly listening to the voice of God, we should certainly expect our own Gethsemane experiences in life. On the other hand, the amazing reality to it all is that we can know that we never have to experience the Father’s turning away from us and leaving us in total darkness, void of His presence, for that is what Christ experienced for us. If the agony of the journey from Gethsemane to Jerusalem and on to Golgotha was torture, just imagine what it must have been like for the Son of God to experience the Father’s absolute absence.

Yes, I will celebrate Easter and the risen Lamb! Yet I remain humbly awed by such great love, me the imperfect made perfect through the grave suffering and anguish of the One without a single spot of imperfection, my what a price was paid for me. That is why I cannot forget the cross; for only where the pain and sorrow are truly embraced openly can the fullness of real joy take hold. 


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