Hindsight, 2020

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It has unquestionably been an awful, terrible year.  For me, it started with the worst illness I can remember having in decades.  I tested negative for strep.  Negative for the flu.  Sick for a couple weeks then still puny for several more.  Just as I'm feeling better, covid-19 makes it's U.S. debut.  Or maybe it was already here... shutting down schools, jobs, stores, everything, for two weeks.  Even longer in some places.

For many of us, we settled in to binge watching our favorite series, catching up on our reading list and baking.  Lots of baking...  It was a forced vacation and we werent really sorry to get it.  At least, not at first.  

Things slowly opened again only to repeatedly shut back down while governors added further restrictions in what seems to have been fruitless attempts to stem the relentless spread of this new strain of coronavirus.

Meanwhile, across the country, a senseless death sparked riots and looting.  And a meaningful movement for justice was quickly overshadowed by those rioters and looters.

Social experiments, government over-reach, financial struggle for so many, weddings attended by zoom.  Funerals attended by zoom.  Fear.  Overwhelming despair felt by those we love but whom we cannot hug, cannot visit.  We stand six feet apart, like strangers on a first date.  Awkward.  Our personalities masked by the covers on our faces.

We watched loved ones go into the hospital or into quarantine and barely make it out weeks later, after they've looked Death in the eye and lived to tell about it.  We've prayed over them.  We've prayed for the families of the ones who dont live and for those who cared for them and bore the exhaustion and the weight of the loss with those families.

We've voted.  We stuck campaign signs in our yards like it's a 'normal' year and we went to the polls.  But, like so many other things this year, the election was anything but normal and we are still in limbo.  Questions of fraud.  Legal wrangling.  Demonstrations.

Treatment options are explored and rejected.  Use this, dont use this.  Mask up.  Dont mask up.  Open up the restaurants.  Close them down again.  Open the schools.  Struggle with distance learning.  Churches are divided.  Families are divided.  And the 'science' is anything but settled.  Even the experts contradict each other.

And we cried.  Daily.  From grief, isolation, depression, frustration, exhaustion.  I've cried more often and more easily than I may have done ever in my life before, and I wasnt alone.  There's been an epidemic of tears.

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Yesterday, on the last day of this horrible year, my reading fell to Psalm 65.  It's possibly  my favorite passage and I often post verses from it in images with beautiful photography and carefully chosen fonts.

But yesterday, as is often the case when you are re-reading a long loved passage, I read and saw something new.  Something stood out that hadnt registered in quite the way it did yesterday.  At the end of this awful, terrible, HORRIBLE year God gives me a reminder.

His Providence is lavishly displayed through every verse of Psalm 65 and, because I read in images, I see the fields and streams, I see the crashing waves and the mountains.  I see the earth dressed in it's finest with flocks and grain and hills 'robed with joy' and I'm grateful for such a good God.

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But then, verse 11.

This year?  This horrible year?  How can I find the goodness in this year???  It feels like the entire year was just....lost.  Psalm 65 speaks of God's goodness in such extravagant measure yet, I feel like we barely squeaked through this awful year.

Then, right on the heels of that question to myself, I hear answers.  Little feet come bursting through the front door.  Little voices call for me and I leave my reading for a while but the question stays in my head and I ruminate on it over night. 

Those little ones are safe and well, along with their parents.  I had family members nearly die, who were spared and others, who got covid, are recovering without serious illness.  Before the restrictions hit, I traveled and renewed old ties with family and friends who live far away.  I went to weddings!  One by zoom and one outdoor wedding.  I had a new friend visit as they passed through to thier new home.  There were babies born, engagements announced and degrees earned and celebrated in subdued fashions.

I was given a sweet glimpse of the hearts of my grandchildren every time they colored pictures and wrote notes to a Great, Great Granny that they rarely saw but loved so much anyway.

I saw family members go home to Christ and, despite the pang of loss, I have the deep blessing of knowing that their hope is complete!

Many of us are seeing a renewed appreciation in ourselves for the smallest gifts of joy.  We've learned to savor every hug, every conversation and yes, even every wave of the hand from six feet away.

I am reminded that momentary tears are just that.  Momentary.  Yes, it was a terrible year.  And it was a very, very hard year.  It wont be the last hard year, I'm sure.  But, I was reminded in Psalm 65 that, what is out of our control, is not out of God's control.

  

Despite what was a bad year, it was crowned with goodness.

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November will be the anniversary of what should have been a very normal walk to school for a very normal little girl.

  

But it was anything but 'normal' in that place and time.

November of 2020 will be the anniversary of the day 60 years ago that Ruby Bridges walked into an elementary school classroom of an all white school in New Orleans.  The first African-American child to attend a white elementary school in the south.  She was one of several children given the opportunity and a test was devised, deliberately difficult, to decide if the children would qualify.  Ruby was one of six children to pass the test but, the only one to enroll in the school.  

 I wonder what her mother prayed over her child when she tucked her in, the night before the testing?  Testing that would insure few, if any would qualify.  I imagine her mother's elation at her daughter's good scores must have been tempered by the dread of knowing what might lay ahead for their family.

Recently, Ruby said that, at the time, she was not really aware of the impact of that first day at William Frantz School.  That she was just a little girl going to school and
innocent of the full weightof that simple activity.
By the end of that year, she knew.  But not that day.  Not fully.

Ruby's mother would not have had the luxury of that innocence.   She had been raised in the south and denied education.  She knew the way of the world at that time.  She understood the risk.  I cant imagine how her heart must have felt, as a mother, to expose her oldest child to such public hate.

Every time I see this black and white picture of little Ruby, flanked by U.S. Marshals, walking to school, I think of her mother, who sent her beautiful child out among those who would speak ugliness to her with angry faces, twisted by hate.

When I look at those tiny feet in little black Mary Jane shoes, the dress ironed, crisp and full, the white sweater that looks brand new and fresh, I see a mother who has given her daughter the tools to present herself confident and capable. 

I cannot fathom the kind of courage it would have taken.  The depth of faith.  To count the cost and determine to have more for her child than she herself had.

And the cost was steep.

Ruby's father lost his job over their family's involvement in integration.  Her mother was turned away from the grocery store she frequented and her grandparents were evicted from the farm they had lived on for 25 years. The family had bricks thrown at their house, threatening letters and phone calls.

Ruby had perfect attendance that year despite walking through shouts and name calling on the way to school every day.

And I go back to that image of the little girl with the starched dress.  From her toes to the bow in her hair, her mother clothed her in  HOPE.

A conversation with Ruby Bridges

You're Going To Miss This

You're going to miss the military.  I know you know that but, it will be far deeper than you might think.  We know our husbands will miss it and we expect that.  We're prepared for it.  We're at the ready to support them through the transition and help them settle into civilian life, just as we have been there for them through countless deployments and TDY's.  But we aren't ready ourselves and we don't even know it.

That final, long awaited PCS.  The day he retires.  We've talked about it, planned about it and suddenly it's here.  There's a lot more work involved than you think but, that's ok.  The busyness will keep your mind occupied at first.  You'll gather up all the shot records, school records, dental records, resumes, and umpteen copies of that DD-214.  You'll go to those exit briefings about everything from retirement pay to disability to insurance after retirement and desperately try to keep track of all the information crowding your head.  You'll have a file for the paperwork and the pamphlets handed out at those briefings but it will all look like Greek to you.  Meanwhile, you plan your husband's retirement ceremony.  There are invitations to send, lodging to arrange for out-of-towners and a cake to order.  You go through photos to put into a slide show to be shown at the retirement and the process takes way too long because each photo reminds both of you of dear friends and favorite stations and your heart cracks a little.  In all this chaos you might be starting to realize, you're going to miss the military.

As he leaves the house for his last day of active duty, you watch him walk out the door and you catch him back for a kiss, then let him go.  He's in his uniform for the last time.  Pressed with heavy starch and with hard-won stripes on his arms and his name on his chest.  His boots!  Those boots have been from Korea, to Alaska, to Panama, Afghanistan, Somalia, and places you don't know the name of.  They are so well broken in and so well traveled but the toes are still kept shiny.  His putty green beret with the silver flash on the front that designates his career field, is molded to his head from countless hours of wear.  He's worn this uniform, or some variation of it, for decades.  You'll idly wonder if he even knows how to dress himself without it.  He wont look like this again.  Ever.  And now it's starting to hit you.  You're going to miss that beret.

As military families, some of us embrace the lifestyle.  We jump in with both feet and view each new base, each new culture, as untapped opportunity to learn, to grow, and to be better.  Some of us spend our entire time as a military family dreaming for the day when we are just 'average' Americans in our average home town, surrounded by family and familiar accents.  But most of us do both.  We volunteer in each new place.  We join churches.  We mentor new, young families and we babysit each other's kids.  We celebrate birthdays and holidays with other families who, like us, couldn't go home for Christmas or Easter or Thanksgiving.  And we mourn with each other when we cant go home for a family funeral or when on of our own never makes it home at all. We make friends fast because we have to.  We pray for each other and, sometimes, we fight like siblings.  No matter what type of military family we are, when that season ends its.....well, life changing.  You're going to miss this 'family'.

The last time you pull over to the side of the road as the bugle call for retreat is blasted on the loud speakers, mark it in your memory.  Look around you at the children who dropped their bikes and stopped their  swings to stand, hand over heart, at the sound of the first note of retreat, and who stayed that way til the last note of the anthem drifts away.  You dont know it now but, in a few months, you will crave to hear that.  

When you go to a movie in a civilian theater, you'll wish that they would play the national anthem before the movie and that everyone would quietly stand like they do at the base theater. Nobody directs the response.  It just happens because it's important to everyone in the theater.  You're going to miss this community.
When neighbors and co-workers that you barely know and will likely never see again, come over and help you pack boxes and load the heavy stuff onto that ABF tractor trailer you'll realize afresh, this community, this military community, is special.

So, after the paperwork is all completed and filed, and the last going away party attended, your world goes quiet.  His phone abruptly stops ringing.  And, for a while, the silence is deafening. Your life after will look more 'normal' after leaving the military.  At least to everyone who never served.    You'll get used to the changes for the most part and even embrace some of them.
You never really figure out what to do with all those uniforms.  You can't bring yourself to get rid of them.   You'll keep his final shadow box award displayed for the rest of your life most likely.
Your children will mourn on the day they age out of their dependent ID cards as they suddenly find themselves cut off from the only life they knew.
Yes, we know our husbands will miss the military.  The camaraderie.  The sense of a shared purpose.  We've braced ourselves for that, and so have they.  But, be prepared.  Some day it will sneak up on you and steal your breath with the intensity of it.   YOU are going to miss the military!

For a few terrifying moments on the evening of this past Thursday night, Thanksgiving night, my heart stopped.  

And the hearts of my entire extended family.  Stopped.  Our breath came to a collective catch and we held it, listening, blood pounding in our ears.  

We had finished the traditional Thanksgiving dinner, the back field had been walked,  Sugar Creek was flowing through the sycamores at the back of the property as pretty as a picture and I was feeling so blessed!  My brother and sister and their families, my children, my parents, my grandchildren, nieces, nephews.  Rarely since Dave joined the military had there been so many of us here at the same time!

We had begun to pack up kids into car seats and left-overs into Tupperware for the short trips to our own homes.  My husband and brother left to return folding chairs to my Grammaw's party barn and my niece Jeni, and her husband Lee, along with their little family had left a few minutes before to begin the long drive back to the Lafayette area.

 Then the phone rang.    

There had been a head-on collision on 252, less than 3 miles away, and it was Jeni and Lee.  Our hearts stopped.  Our breath caught.  The busy, noisy, happy, house full of family fell silent and we strained to listen above the pounding  in our ears, dreading what we would hear.  Every eye glued on my mother with the phone to her ear, her face drained of color.

 Although it's just a stretch of two lane country road, we all knew how dangerous State Road 252 can be.  My grade school principal, Don DeHart, one of the truly nicest people I had ever known, had been killed in a head-on crash on that road a few short years ago and the community was devastated.  I thought of his family in that brief moment when time moves in slow motion and we waited for mom to relay the rest of the news.....they are ok!  They are ok!  We breathe.  In unison, we exhale, then breathe deep with tears stinging our eyes  as we whisper prayers of thanks.  They are ok!

As it turns out, Jeni, who was driving, is a black belted ninja master of defensive driving. (who knew?!)  She saw the oncoming driver drifting into her lane and began moving over to avoid him.  They ended up in the ditch with their car scraped all down the driver's side but, instead of the head-on that was initially reported, it was just a really bad side-swipe and no injuries.  The car behind them took the head-on but that family will be ok also.  God is so merciful!

I guess it's natural to reflect during this holiday and mentally check off all those things you are thankful for but, I'm afraid that I often do this in a rather distracted manner.   Events like last Thursday's scare, tend to wake me up from my everyday fog of life and reminds me how much I truly have to be thankful for.    I pray that I would always be grateful and aware of each blessing.  That I would be able to "Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."  (1 Thessalonians 5:18)  I have a good example to look to.

I almost never talk to my Grammaw without her telling me of how she has been blessed.  She gives examples and tells stories of how God has provided for her.  Grammaw was a foster child because her mother died when Grammaw was 5 months old and her father could not care for his small children.  But, even as a child, long before she knew Him, she can look back now and see God's hand in her life and is grateful for His protection and providence.  She regularly stops mid-story to thank Him for her memories because they remind her of how God has cared for her all her life. When I listen to her stories and her thankfulness, I too am thankful for her memories.  And I always leave her house thanking God for the every day blessings that I may have overlooked before.

So, on that day of Thanksgiving, I thanked God for his protection.  For the blessing of my extended, loud family.  I prayed for Mr. DeHart's family, who celebrate holidays without him now.  And I prayed that I can make it a habit to always see the blessing of God's provision in the midst of the business of life and always be aware that, "The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning..." (Lamentations 3:22-23a)

Our pastor at Trinity shared some wonderful news with us one Sunday as he introduced an elderly gentleman who was joining our church.  He had just been saved about a month before, and I had heard about it, (after all, it isnt every day that a 94 year old man accepts Christ!) but I hadnt heard all of the story.

This man was born and raised in another faith but had never truly heard the Gospel.  His wife, a christian, had been praying for his salvation for 58 years.  Let me say that again, FIFTY EIGHT years!  They are old now and surely she may have feared that she could pass on first and never see God move in  her husband's heart but, she kept praying. She trusted God when he says in Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."   How wonderful the blessings God has for us in HIS time!

Our pastor posed this question to the congregation,

 "Can you trust God, even if you are NEVER given the 'why' of it?"    

Imagine that. Trusting without EVER, in this world, knowing the plan! In the finiteness of our human minds we pretend to trust God, believing He will reveal His purpose over a period of time. But, what if  'in His time' means long after our death?  Or twenty years from now?  Or next month? What if, instead of having clear assurance of a favorable, tangible outcome, we have no indication that our prayers will be answered with anything but, "Wait."?  What if, in fact, we are pretty sure we WONT live to see the fullness of His plan?  Do you snatch up your ball and refuse to play any more?  Or do you stay in the game, and choose to trust Him even when there is no earthly benefit that you can perceive?  Trusting Him only because He is God and because His glory is more important. No matter the outcome?   Do we really believe His glory is more important than anything we may ask for? 

I knew my answer as soon as the question was given but most of us DONT.

I had been given the mixed blessing of the deepest despair paired with the profound peace that God graces his children with in their need.  The grace that allows us to shelter ourselves behind the shield of faith and KNOW that, no matter what happens, God is faithful.  How amazing to KNOW that even if we dont get the answer to prayer that we would like, God assures us that all things will STILL "work together for good, to those who love God and are called according to his purpose!"

There is deep peace in trusting God. REALLY trusting him.  Peace in resting all your faith on Him even when you see no way for the outcome to be favorable for you.  Even when you are fairly certain that you may never see the desire of your heart fulfilled in this life and it's still okay! And  not just peace but JOY and peace!  Imagine that!  Joy in your deepest despair! 

I've been so blessed to have been given an opportunity in my life to personally see that peace, but some wouldn't see it that way.  Two and a half years ago, God used the worse time of my life to teach me to trust him.  I mean REALLY trust him!  To let go of everything I had made important in order to make HIM important.  To teach me that He is truly sovereign, and that he truly DOES work all things together for good.  To remind me to trust him and that he will "guard my heart and mind in Christ Jesus" (Phil 4:6&7).  No matter the earthly outcome.

I wont lie, it's not an easy journey.  It generally begins in the deepest, darkest despair with no glimmer of hope that we can see but, as a friend of mine reminded me recently,  when Joseph's brothers threw him into the pit and discussed how to rid themselves of him....the camels of the Ishmaelite traders were already on their way! (Gen 37:23-28)  It must have seemed a weak reprieve to be sold into slavery rather than killed but God's plan is always bigger and grander than we can see in our human constraints.