Perfectly Ordinary

That young, beautiful girl, one of the dearest and best, milled around after church to talk to this middle aged me with these eye sockets looking a bit droopy and years of mistakes behind me like Hansel and Gretel’s bread trail.

She tells me how she’s student teaching little kids from the other side of the tracks, and the love light twinkles in her kind, life’s-all-in-front-of-me eyes.  She cares about these babies, really cares. But she dips a little low and wonders if she’s making a difference.  She wonders if she should be hiking to some cliff in Central America to help a hurting child in the backwoods of nowhere.

 I nod, because I understand.  Sometimes the daily of life feels insignificant.  But with over half a century behind me, well, there’s a lot I don’t know, but this is true for sure:

Ordinary people, doing ordinary things, by way of an extraordinary God, couldn't be less ordinary.

Ask me how it was when the men from church came with their ordinary tools to make my house wheelchair ready for my main squeeze, after he was nearly killed by the drunk driver…Ask me how it was when the ordinary secretary at the doctor’s office found a way to get me in (with a dose of kindness to boot) when my baby girl was suffering so…Ask  a thousand ordinary people about what it meant to have one person smile and care when they had a rotten Monday, or their car broke down and someone stopped with a jack, or when the Panera girl went back to get a fresh baguette because the ones up front felt a little too stale.

Here I am, not wrestling so hard with this anymore, because I have seen the beauty in the ordinary works of ordinary people.  I love how Helen Keller puts it:

“I long to do a great and noble thing, but it is my duty to do small things as if they were great and noble.”

I have that up, over my desk, reminding me that every phone call I make, every conversation I have, every email I send can be and should be seasoned with the salt of the love of Jesus Christ.  Oh, how I wish it were true all the time.  But it is what I attain to…and what that girl just starting down the road is learning too.  She told me how she got the revelation…”DUH” she said, “I’ve got hurting children right before my eyes!”  And what a wonder they have in her.

How I wish I saw that at 21.  How I wish I searched less for my own significance, and spent my life making others significant…mostly, letting others know their unmatched significance to the most Significant One ever.  We learn, we grow, and regret never nourished a life.  Forward, onward, upward to the high calling of being a servant to all.  That’s the real business of life.  Marley’s ghost phrased it perfectly in his conversation with Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”:

“Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business! "

I remember when that girl with the radiant smile and bright mind sat in a highchair in my house, stuffing bananas in her mouth and making us laugh.  Filling our house with joy.  Those ordinary moments, they are the highlights of my life.  The mundane, everyday gift of love in all its multiplied facets is what Jesus came here for.

What could be more significant than that?

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

The Hurricane, The Wind, and the Anchor that holds...

My friend and fellow word lover, Bob LaCosta asked for a blog post as an update to the powerful storm that hit us as a family 4 years ago.  You can catch it and more of his authentic, insightful writing at http://belovedblogger.com/  I’m sharing it here too, at Christmastime… when we wait in great hope for the only answer to the disasters and heartaches of a fallen world.  Jesus Christ…who makes the crooked straight, and the rough places plain.

Often I've wished I could write the “perfect” testimony for the ongoing trial, all wrapped up with a bow, neat and clean, hallmark beautiful.  Something to say I understand all that God was and is doing in the mess…

 It ain't that way.

On November 8, 2009 a hurricane hit our family in the form of a drunk driver on the wrong side of the road.  It took 3 days to charge the offender, as police waited to see if my husband would die from the catastrophic injuries he sustained.  My then 14 year old daughter was forever changed by the bleeding on her brain, referred to in the vernacular as a traumatic brain injury.  In a single moment the words of the Holy One took on flesh and bone:   “They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support.”  Psalm 18:18

It would be impossible to adequately describe the road we have taken lo these past 4 years.   Loving God certainly does not exempt any of us from the pain and trouble of “this present darkness”.   The word of God promises trials, separations and sufferings.  But as the great hymn says, “He giveth more grace…”

Folks have wondered if I’ve asked the cosmic question…WHY?  Why did God allow a drunk man to senselessly careen into my beautiful daughter’s head, making her life harder than we ever could have imagined? Why must Stephen continue to suffer the ripple effect of the world gone mad, with continued pain and surgeries?  Why would a God who loves us so, with the power to stop it all, take off the brakes of His permissive will and allow such a violent event in the lives of His own?

I don’t know.

But Joni Earikson Tada, rendered a quadriplegic in a diving accident at the age of 16, has helped me tremendously with her attitude, and I paraphrase:

“ I long ago stopped asking why.  The question now is always HOW?  How do I continue to love God in the midst of my own brokenness, and the mess of a fallen world?  How do I cheerfully and robustly love my fellow man on days I can’t go on.  How do I keep from becoming bitter, selfish and sorry for myself?” 

And always the answer to these questions is found in the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit, who cheers the troubled heart and gives power in great weakness.  I can’t explain the mystery of grace.  I can only attest to the truth that He holds on relentlessly in the worst of circumstances.  And remarkably, there can even be joy…

The magnificent grace of Jesus Christ proves itself in the storms.  God did not spare His own Son from the impact of the fall.  In fact, He laid the whole shooting match squarely on shoulders of the Perfect One, born in obscurity, killed in violence, raised in glory.  He stepped into the mystery with us.  And He stays there, all the days of our lives.

My daughter is still struggling, but attends the University of Buffalo, studying her beloved English, Shakespeare, Latin and Poetry.  There is multiplied grace.  One day she will be restored to the One who has never left her.

Stephen returned to work from his wheelchair a few months after the accident, and never went on disability.  He goes to the gym for an hour every morning, and works hard these 4 years later to care for his family.  There is gracious provision.

My boys have been forever shaped by both the sorrow of the fallout and the powerful example of the love and beauty of the church, they who displayed relentless love…and were the hands and feet of Christ.

Whatever wind blows, friends, fear not.  The anchor holds.  You cannot plan for the day of trouble.  But you can trust in the Great One, who will take you through the messy business of life.

There will one day be a testimony all wrapped up in a bow.  Likely not til heaven. Then the winds will calm forever. 

Merry Christmas, no matter what!

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann 

On the floor with Kermit the Frog

I had the privilege in my early career days to meet the inimitable Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets and a wildly successful businessman.  Jim Henson made his puppets, breathed life into them and cared deeply about his work.  I was in my 20’s when I met Jim, but had a long standing love affair with Kermit the Frog from my childhood.  When we found out Kermit would indeed be making a guest appearance on our show, Reading Rainbow, my heart went pitter pat and I hoped to hear that little green frog say those iconic words “Heigh Ho, Kermit the Frog here…”

 

The set was busy that day.  Sets are usually busy, dynamic places….They aren’t noted for the quality of thoughtfulness or the exercise of slowing.   Jim Henson arrived quietly into the hubbub with his box of puppets and the wheelie thing he used when he got down on the floor to roll around while manipulating Kermit.  One of my coworkers let the grand puppeteer know I was a Kermit groupie.

 

Then, a gentle green tap on my shoulder and and that voice that can’t be duplicated…”Heigh Ho, Kermit the Frog here…”  The great Kermit addressed me like an old friend.  What’s more, the great Jim Henson took a moment to make an ordinary girl’s day.

 

Here’s the deeper meaning for me.  Jim Henson never got uppity or high falootin’ or above himself like so many folks who taste success.  And my theory about the why is that Jim was always connected to his roots because he remained on the floor with Kermit.  He was a prosperous, celebrated man who was ever reminded of where he came from. 

 

Of course Jesus Christ is the ultimate example of “getting on the floor.” “Potentate of time, Creator of the rolling spheres, ineffably sublime” as the great old hymn says, He yet lowered Himself to the rough and tumble of a sinful, corrupt planet.

 

He bowed down low, though He reigns on high.  The beauty of His character will be the praise of Heaven forevermore.

 

I cried when Jim Henson died.  But I was grateful to have met him.  He was an example of humility, a virtue so beautiful that every other virtue flows from it.  I want to grow in that virtue every day…always knowing there’s so much I don’t know. And willing to serve in any way I can.  I know I fall short of the mark.  But Jim Henson proves it’s possible.  May he rest in peace.

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

Not Why, But How

Joni Eareckson’s recent book, A Place of Healing: Wrestling with the Mysteries of Suffering, Pain and God’s Sovereignty, makes this simple, elegant point: (My paraphrasing)

Perhaps why is a question best left alone, with its abundant hair pin turns to nowhere.  The better question is how.

Not “Why did God’s cosmic plan include Joni Eareckson breaking her neck and landing in a wheelchair for the past 40 years?”  But how does she live a life of spiritual power, strength and hope in the everyday of helplessness? 

Not “Why was your first child born with Autism, unable to communicate or care for himself for a lifetime?”  But how do you live in a place of continued hope for healing alongside acceptance of what is for now without becoming bitter?

Not “Why doesn't my husband love me?”, but how do I keep loving him, keep getting up in the morning, keep doing the next right thing and in so doing bring glory to God and help to your fellow man?

Not “Why am I afflicted with a stubborn, impenetrable depression?”, but how do I give and receive the love and grace of Christ when I am bone weary and can’t lift my head off the pillow?

These are practical questions.  Why leaves us solving one of those Rubik’s cubes that hurt your head and neck after a while.  How is like getting the flour out of the cupboard to make the cupcakes.  Then getting the sugar.  Then the butter.  How is following the instructions of the original baker to produce something good in the day.  How is the living of life in the unanswerable, mysterious Valley of Why.

Fill in your own why.  It’s OK to ask.  We all ask.  Some folks even get an answer, or part of one.  But not most people.  Most why’s are buried in the hidden sands of God’s sovereign understanding.  These are the hard things to be thankful for.  These are the serious places of testing and trial that require faith.  To quote an old adage, these are what separate the men from the boys.

The Joni Eareckson's of the world give me courage in the why’s of my own life.

Today, I’m asking the Holy Spirit HOW?  That's a question He'll always answer.  Show me how to love my neighbor who’s so terribly depressed after losing her husband, when what I really want to do is put on the TV.  Show me how to be kind to the people I work with, when the pain from a compressed disk makes me feel mean.  Lay out my day and make clear how I should prioritize the thousand tasks that call my name.  Most of all, strengthen me in the how of being grateful, even for the sufferings, the pain, and the ongoing uphill climb of the deepest heartache of my life.

This verse made me happy like sunflowers this morning:

Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain.”  Isaiah 40:4 (KJV)

These mysteries of why will be sorted out for sure. 

We’re pilgrims and strangers here for 5 minutes. 

 Pretty soon, there will be no more whys.

The crooked back of my friend’s daughter with CP will be made straight.  The rough, unjust places of a drunk driver run amok and creating a lifetime of trouble will be made plain.  Every mountain and hill of sorrow and relational pain and broken bodies will be made low.

For now, I’m not asking why. 

I’m asking for insight and grace for you and me to do the how.

Go make some cupcakes.

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

When You Can't Tell If A Storm's Coming Or Going

The lightening flashes far in the distance.  A low roll of thunder grumbles in mid air.  I hear the characters in my latest TV drama obsession, in the scene on the porch, saying  it over and over again in my head:

 "The storm...is it coming or going?"

 This question from a work of fiction perfectly describes my fragile reality right now.  And I'm certain it is echoed in the the souls of millions across this wide world.  "The storm, is it coming or going?"

Sometimes you can't tell.

For three and a half years I have felt the hard rain, the hurricane force winds, the terrifying specter of rubble that looked for a while like it might never be rebuilt.  I'm still not altogether sure.  The storms, they can be devastating.  They wax and wane in their power and effect, and they blow us to higher ground or we die. 

In three short weeks, that beloved one, so battered by the storm, so changed and injured, will move 300 miles away .  She will start a new life, where she is no longer the girl in the accident or the girl impacted by 2 crimes.  I will buy her leather boots and spray them with waterproof for the Western New York weather.  I want her precious feet protected and warm and pretty too against the storms across the Great Lakes.  I'm getting her a warm winter fleece, and sending laundry detergent pods and soft sheets, and an extra blanket.  What I can't pack for her are the thousands of hopes I have, the love that is stronger than the grave, the stubborn, though battered faith I have been equipped with by grace alone.  I cannot pack for her what she can only unpack for herself:

To choose a life of beauty despite the ashes of loss.

The All Compelling One, for Him - when I start crying for no known reason - the reason is known.  It's not just about a child moving away, about the memories of soapy tubs and long braids and too many stuffed animals in the bed.  It's not the standard mom-will-miss-you-I'll-get-over-it heartache.  He knows the route the storms take through all of our particular weaknesses and personal achilles' heels.  He well knows the heavy weather of relational pain and the exposed wound.  Over and over again these twisters are addressed.

"When you pass through the rivers I will be with you.  And when you pass through the waters they will not sweep over you.  When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned, the flames will not set you ablaze."  Isaiah 43:2

This scripture I've been living with since last August, lives in me for real.  Because the grace of God is so true, so unfatigable, it makes it so it doesn't matter whether the storm is coming or going.  We must learn to live with the lightening in the distance, or in the yard, because this is not heaven.  It will always be thus, like the law of gravity on this fallen planet.  But there is the law of aerodynamics, the law of rising above, the law of love, the law of Immanuel, "GOD WITH US", whether the storm approaches or departs.  There is higher ground but no one would willingly go there if they were comfortable on the plain.

I say it through tears:  Thank you Father, for the storms.  The Anchor, He holds.

For all of you hearing the thunder, seeing the lightening, I stand with you.  No, I climb with you...to the place where "no power of hell, no scheme of man, can ever pluck me from His hand..." 

Or pluck her from His hand. 

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

The Thirsty of June

I've been rather earthly minded of late.  Distracted by all the to-do's of June, focused on very temporal cares, going about my business as if my business were about me.  I know, because I'm thirsty.  Not for a little sip of water, but for a good long drink, followed by a steady and lasting re-hydration.  Living water that is.

It's revealing, reading the Old Testament account of Solomon.  He started so strong, so determined to follow hard after God like his father David did before him...But the distractions of life (in his case, way too many beautiful pagan women), gradually degraded his passion for God's glory.  And I notice another thing about Solomon.  He didn't really have any hardships.  Of course there was some major drama in his family, particularly with his siblings, but most likely Bathsheba protected him from much of that.  And he never, ever knew want.  Contrast his life with his father's:  first, a shepherd in the hills, often alone, overlooked by his dad.  Later, he was perpetually on the run from enemies, hungry, thirsty, exhausted.  He lived in caves.  When he finally became king he had his own bout with Goliath-sized foolishness, evil even,  and distanced himself from God.  But you gotta love David.  He never did anything in halves, and he returned to God with all his heart. That era was followed by more pain and suffering via his screwed up children.  He died at age 70, full, so very full of years.

Seems trouble is a key ingredient in making a decent and passionate human being.

The only One who ever got it all right, of course, was Jesus.  Never did he separate himself from His father.  There was no secular vs. sacred with Him. Life was all about relationship: first with God, then with people.  He never lost touch with the why of life. He always made sure the main thing was to keep the main thing the main thing. He was, and is, the perfect man.  He was never distracted by what didn't matter.

Somewhere in the middle of making 25 pounds of potato salad for a graduation party, going on a job interview, spending too much time on facebook and figuring out our summer schedule I lost track of my real life.  This hollow feeling inside is a gift from God.  Time to dig deep into the truly beautiful, the truly worthy of life.  Time to sit quiet and hear the birdies and express my thanks for their song.  Time to laugh long and hard with my hysterical third child.  Time to look back on all the blessings of these growing up years with three beloved children.  Time to drink tea on the front porch. Time to love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength. Lest I miss the lovely in the mundane.  Lest I chase after what will mean nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Don't get the idea that I'm promoting living in a cave as a mystic...(though that sounds surprisingly appealing right now, actually).  Seriously, I get it that there are cars to wash, children to buy bathing suits for, sauces to cook and freeze, litter boxes to clean out.  But there's an attitude of heart that can do those things with God given the right foot to start on.  First things first.  The ancient disciplines that bring freedom:  Prayer, the Word of God, worship, fellowship with the saints, repentence, solitude, quiet.  This is not a whack on the hand, it's a trail to the well.  As Billy Joel said : "I know what I'm needin',  and I don't wanna waste more time..."

Don't ignore that desert feeling.  Typically, it's a warning signal.  One Solomon ignored.  One David embraced.

Off the computer, into the Book.

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

Spiderman Tattoos and the Deeper Meaning

Ha!

I bet you thought this was going to be another one of those blogs where I find the metaphor in some life experience and sift through to the deeper meaning.

Nope.

This morning I woke up cracking up.  I mean this was loud and silly laughter, startling my husband (up hours before) who is usually the one chuckling around these parts.

I was dreaming.  I dreamed we were having a big back yard picnic, Smitty and I, except the back yard was not our real back yard.  But we did indeed live there.  You know how it goes in dreams.  There were tons of familiar faces in this dream.  Tons.  That's a bit more unusual for a dream of mine, which usually leaves me more often alone or with one other person.

So I go into my house (which isn't my real house) and I said to Smitty, "Oh no, when did they do this to me! Where did I get this tattoo on my leg?"  And lo and behold, my entire right leg looks like Spider-man's leg, blue and red and webby, an extraordinarily well done tattoo.  I was beside myself.  The tattoo was signed by 4 ladies in my church, one of whom I remember was the dear Pat Ellis, who is one heck of a woman but definitely not the sort to tattoo you in your sleep.

As I'm fretting over this inked leg, and trying like crazy to sort out how it all happened, our friends from Brooklyn come in the kitchen.  Hugh and Joelle take one look at the leg and the gales of laughter begin all over again.  My daughter's old boyfriend Joe howled in hysterics at my limb.  Soon a crowd has gathered to laugh.  And no sooner has my bewilderment reached critical mass when I realize  it's not a tattoo at all, but a pair of leggy pajamas with Spidey legs on them.

At this I roared with laughter, and woke up with my cat staring at me like I'm some kind of mad woman.  (Cats tend to do that anyway).  Stephen comes in, the man who loves to laugh, and I tell him the story.  I started parsing the dream, looking for some meaning in it, and finally concluded it was solely for my amusement, an extra, a respite in a tough world, simply a laugh.

I was reminded of last week, when my friend Susan, in her inimitable way, quoted the famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes as he expounded on the superfluity of a rose:

"'There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion,'" said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. "'It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. 

"But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.'"

~Sherlock Holmes, "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

It is only goodness that gives extras.

P.G. Wodehouse novels, red paint, chocolate chips, a good laugh...extras.  Scottish tea, poetry, Christmas carols, soft towels...extras.  Baseball, glass windows, Claude Monet's water lilies, the smell of rain...extras.

Life is full of trouble in a post-fall Universe.  It is also rife with beauty.

Perhaps there was a deeper meaning after all.

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

Changed in the Unchanging

"For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed."  Malachi 3:6

Despite the sort of dry, dusty internal landscape of my soul right about now, there's a great spiritual truth that keeps appearing and reappearing to my mind, fading in and out of my consciousness like a mirage in  the desert.  My spiritual temperature may be cold, but this truth remains:  He is the Lord God, who changes not.

Women especially are vexed (and blessed) by a broad range of emotional ground, some of which is covered from west to east in an hour. (Ask my husband for references on that one).  For years in my travels with God, I believed if I felt good, if I was being "good", that the Father was good with me.  Conversely, when my darker, more arid times rolled in, my fouled up understanding of the nature of God lead me to think He was mad at me, or frustrated at least.  As if somehow this puny but beloved child of the Great One could upset the inner workings of the Absolute Supreme Master of the Universe. 

It's a great relief to stop taking oneself so seriously.

A whole lot of life is lived on the plain, and frankly the folks I respect and admire the most are first the ones who accept adversity and keep climbing, and second those who know how to live well in the mundane.  My friend Kate is that person.  For 20 years she has been patiently, kindly, cheerfully taking care of her dearly beloved, severely autistic son Timmy.  Twenty years of cooking him the same foods, (the few he'll eat), bathing him, diapering him, putting on the same Barney video for him, bringing him to Walmart for a change of pace, and ditto the next day.

The undulations of the pilgrim road are many.  Vexations without and within, comforts and pleasures, dealing with people, dealing with money, dealing with time...all things are constantly in flux.  It would be a fool only who would expect to feel the profound reality of God all the while.  He, of course, is never an inch away.  But our perception of Him is often impacted by the changing nature of our natures. Our perceptions can be trifled with by a sinus infection, or a low pressure system that won't budge.  To quote Ebeneezer Scrooge trying to make sense of why he was seeing his dead partner Marley:

“You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”

Our senses are great servants but lousy governors.  If we acted on every whim of our emotions, or didn't act because of their lack, would those firefighters have climbed the stairs at the World Trade Center while everyone else was coming out?  Would any marriage make it past the first temptation?  Would Columbus have sailed the ocean blue?  Would Jesus Christ have gone beyond Gethsemane to Golgotha?  Would our faith grow in the plain, where there are no great revelations or experiences of the presence of God?

God too has emotions, powerful ones, but because He isn't subject to sin He can have feelings (in some cosmic way I can't begin to understand), but He can remain ever steady, reliable and trustworthy in them.  He has set His love upon His own, and that's that.  He loves us when we're good and He loves us when we're not.  And He is still loving us when the sail of our heart is sitting on a windless sea.  All is dull, but all is still well.  The grand emotions of a speck of God's presence are withdrawn, and in that void humility and true faith are forged.

"Faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see."  ~ Hebrews 11:1

The winds always change. Just keep doing the next right thing, whether you feel like it or not. We'll be moving again, sometimes under blue skies with the wind in our face, sometimes in the middle of a great storm.  No matter.  We change like shifting shadows.

"For man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion."
~ Benedick to Claudio in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing

 He is God.  He changes not.

Your friend on the currently windless pilgrim road,

Loriann

Happy Birthday, Hannah Mary Rejoice

Today she turned 18.

My baby girl, who entered the world like a freight train on the downhill, so quick from the dark to the wide world that her collar bone fractured on my pelvis.

We held our breath, as we waited for hers...

Finally, she inhaled, and we exhaled.

At 3 weeks old I wondered when they would begin...the colicky screams her older brother wailed for months on end.

They never came.

She cooed, she rested, she was content.  Even a little melancholy, like her Momma.

A girl.  All I had ever known was boys.  Brothers.  Husband. Son.  Here was someone like me, but not like me.  I was transformed by this child.  This double X chromosome with wavy hair and a poets soul.  I continue to be changed by her.  And I live in the fierce love for her that bears every pain, grasps every victory, and will never relent in hope for her future.

She talked early, and loved words from the beginning.  She wrote poetry even in first grade, delighting in the  cadence of the sounds.

She excelled in school, and though usually on the quieter side, could be goofy and loud with the best of them.

The ocean's rhythms delighted, and still delight this girl who ponders much.  The ice cold waters of Coast Guard Beach could not keep her out.  For hours, blue and salty, she dunked and splashed. She endured for the sake of joy.  Her father stayed with her in the waves, diving straight in to the mighty, frightening waters.  He stays with her still.

She spent the whole day, non stop, reading the last Harry Potter book.  She grew, and waxed beautiful.

At 13 she fell in love with Jesus, and found grace to be great.

And then, the sin of another bore down, and suffered her to suffer, and turned the tender days into difficult times.  When the man, intoxicated, plowed 2 tons of metal into her and her father, the world gave way and my heart sank, nearly drowned.  I held my breath, waiting for hers.  When they pulled the breathing tube from her young lungs, I stood outside, gasping for my own air.

All parents hope and pray for the safety of their children.  That they will live long, and prosperous, happy, fulfilling lives.  That every birthday will be all joy.  But into every life, sorrow and disappointment come.  And this one, who roared into life, was suddenly so still and wounded.

But there is mercy.

The years that followed, they were hard.  So very hard, and Momma spent and spends each day with knees bent for this beloved of my heart.  And she continues.  She perseveres.  She presses on.

She cannot see Him now, this God who adores her.  But He, oh He...sees her. Pain can bring a veil.  But veils are made to be lifted.

Jesus, who raised Jairus' daughter, raised her.  Continues to raise her.

And now, she drives a car.  She works a job.  She returns to the high honor roll.  She will go away to college in August, to study English.

She climbs a mountain only she can climb.  Except that I climb with her, silently beside her, though she doesn't know it. And her father, bearing his own load from a body broken by the day of disaster, he climbs too, and stays close like he did in the cold, crashing waves.

She doesn't know the little girl in french braids holding 15 stuffed animals in her bed is still her.  That when I wrap my arms around her, my daughter, taller than me, a million memories of joy and sorrow rise up like the waves of the sea. That the mountain she must climb is always in the sight of the one I too climb, and I am filled with a powerful love I cannot adequately express.

As her beloved William Shakespeare has said:

"The course of true love never did run smooth."

Hannah Mary Rejoice...Each part of that lovely name tells a piece of the story of her life.  Hannah:grace.  Mary, from the Hebrew for "Mara": bitter.  Rejoice...rejoice.

I wanted peace and light alone for this child.  She has seen days I could not protect her from.  I don't know why.  But He giveth more grace.

Happy Birthday to my darling daughter.  May the next 18 years give her back all, and more.

She will rejoice.

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

Double Indemnity

Being a big fan of movies of the 40’s (Smitty and I consider that time the golden era of film making , there is a genre of motion picture in particular that stands alone during those years of war and recovery: Film Noir.

The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, Key Largo…if you haven’t seen them all, you must.  But there is one that I watch more than any other, one that always sets my heart a beatin’, and one that has a title that today sent an earthquake of revelation through my bones. 

Starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, and the inimitable Edward G. Robinson, Double Indemnity is my most beloved of the film noir.

For a trip through the corruption of a soul, down the alleyways of temptation and guilt, this dark masterpiece is the train you want to ride. 

A brief, non-spoiler synopsis: Walter Neff (MacMurray) is an up and coming insurance salesman.  In an effort to sell an accident insurance policy to a client, he instead is smitten by the man’s calculating wife (Stanwyck),  who wears tight sweaters and doesn't like her husband much.  As often happens with bad decisions, one leads to another, and Neff finds himself in a plot to deceive the husband into signing on for an accident insurance policy with a clause for “double indemnity”.  What that means is the beneficiary on the policy would receive double the payout on the death benefit under certain conditions.  For example, if the policy holder were to die by falling off a train, well, what are the odds of that?  So the insurance company sweetens the pot by offering a benefit that they will rarely, if ever, have to pay out.  From here on out you’re on your own.  Rent the movie, directed by the great Billy Wilder.  Nuf said.

This blog really isn't about the movie.  (I know, you’re shocked!)  But the title of the movie made its way into my consciousness this morning and nearly blew my head off.  I was thanking God, and out of my mouth came the words “thank you that I stand indemnified before you…”

I talk to God a lot, and when I do, I talk like I would to a friend, but with a whole lot more reverence.   Still, I don’t typically use big words with Him.  Especially ones I don’t fully understand.  But this word kept pressing on me, kept seeming so blasted right, and finally I got practical and pulled out the dictionary.

Indemnify: To protect against damage, loss or injury.  To be legally exempted from liability for damages.  To make compensation for damage, loss or injury.

This was exactly the word The Great One wanted me to see.  Wanted me to understand. 

The Fall brought with it every conceivable evil and heartache, and down the ages the damage, loss and injury has been devastating.  But for Grace, we humans would have been long gone, long ago.  Hatred, envy, strife, lust, avarice, gluttony, apathy, greed, sloth…and the mother of all, pride, have hurt every one of us, both as perpetrators and victims.  We've done them, and been done by them.  Here’s what the ancient word says of all this:

“The wages of sin is death…”  Romans 6:23

Kaput.  Done.  God would owe none of us an explanation.  He’s Holy.  He’s just.  Evil wasn’t in His plan, and since we insist on carrying on He could simply call it a day.  But the rest of the verse is as follows:

“…but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Jesus Christ, lover of our souls, provided indemnity for us.  God the Father wanted all of us to know Him, to see His love for us, to find Him.  We are His glorious ruin, the heart of His heart.  He would satisfy perfect justice with perfect love through the perfect Son.  The death of Christ legally exempted us from liability for damages.  He not only provided justification from sin, but glorification too. An increasingly transformed life, destined for the joys of heaven.  Double indemnity.

This may seem like heavy theology, but it’s really not.  Still, don’t let this bollix you up.  If it doesn't help you love Jesus more, and love people more, send it straight to the recycle bin.  I just thought it was too marvelous to keep quiet about.

Christ plays in a thousand places.  Including movie titles.  Blessed be His name.

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

PS:  Grace has left us with so much beautiful, yes?  In the darkness, so many shafts of light.  Thinking of the wonders of kindness in the midst of so much ugliness in Massachusetts, where I was born.  Boston’s pain makes the loveliness of charity so shine.  Love: a compensation for loss, damage and injury.