I'm Patty, and my husband and I are living with our adult son who has autism and epilepsy. I love sharing lessons learned from life around me, especially life with Aaron.
The other morning as I had my quiet time, I read this verse:
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This picture on which I put this verse is one of hundreds that I have taken from the window in the room where I sit at my desk on most mornings and spend time with God. That is where I was sitting when I read those words.
The window in that room looks out on our back yard. There, front and center, is this very large oak tree. So many of the sky pictures or weather pictures that I have taken over the years just naturally include that big oak tree.
When we first moved here 25 years ago, that tree was small. But now look at it!
As I read those words that Paul had written to the Corinthian believers centuries ago, and I looked out my window, I thought of how our oak tree is a beautiful example of standing firm in our faith no matter what is going on around us.
The cold days of winter:
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The growth, but also the storms, of spring:
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The beauty of a summer sunset:
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The golden days of autumn:
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The fog that may hide our view of what’s around us:
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The scary storms that come:
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Each of us can relate to one of these scenarios. Life is so full of beauty but also can wallop us with fear and heartache.
My prayer is that I…that all of us who follow Christ…will stand firm in our faith even when the scenes that surround us are changing.
The only way to do that is to stay in God’s Word, ask for His wisdom and direction, and follow Him faithfully.
Don’t let the winds that are blowing all around us, especially in these days, weaken and uproot us. Stay rooted and grounded in God’s truth!
So may it be said of each of us who are Christ followers, “FOR IN YOUR FAITH YOU ARE STANDING FIRM!”
My husband, Gary, was a helicopter and fixed-wing pilot in the Army for the first nearly 20 years of our marriage. We were stationed in Colorado when he got orders to serve in Germany. It’s all a bit of a blur, those months of separation as he attended a school before we went to Germany.
Finally, it was time for the movers to come. They loaded up our belongings for transport to Germany. Well, not all our belongings. Most of our furniture and all our appliances were put into storage, waiting on our return to the states later…six years later, though we didn’t know at the time it would be that long.
Several more months went by before Gary was assigned temporary quarters. Off I went with two babies to join him in Germany. Our temp quarters were on the fourth floor of an old WW2 building. The laundry room was down in the basement. Our apartment was full of military furniture that had been used by who knows how many families before us.
Eventually we moved into our permanent quarters. We had a nice apartment on the top floor of our building, complete with a balcony. We called this “stairwell living.” We had some of our furniture but most of what we had was sturdy, used military grade furnishings. Nothing fancy, for sure, but usable.
All of us wives were in the same boat. When we would get together, we often found ourselves talking about the furniture we had back in the states. One missed her living room set, another her big hutch and her nice dishes, or the beautiful bedroom suit one had bought shortly before getting their orders for Germany.
We would laugh and carry on, but all of us did miss what we used to have.
There are times we all miss what used to be.
The parents who are no longer here on earth. Or who are here but not here, and we care for them as though they were our children.
The spouse gone way too soon.
The child that we never dreamed we would lose.
The empty house when all the children are gone.
The healthy body we or our loved one had but is now ravaged by illness or slowed by age.
The friendships damaged beyond repair.
The ministries that once were but are now gone.
We all have our lists, don’t we? The memories flood in sometimes, and we can say with David in Psalm 42:3-4:
“My tears have been my food day and night…these things I remember and I pour out my soul within me.”
Memories of what was but is no more.
“Sometimes we can remember a ‘before,’ which is no longer present in the ‘now,’ doesn’t seem recoverable, and it saddens and distresses us.” (Dale Davis)
But David doesn’t end it there.
“O my God, my soul is in despair within me; THEREFORE I remember You from the land of the Jordan and the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.” (v. 6)
No matter his location or how far he was from the familiar paths of his life, David remembered WHO he needed to remember in the middle of his despair.
He remembered God.
God my rock, David said.
God my hope.
God my help.
God is present with me today, in my now, just as He was in my past.
All of you who follow Christ can say the same thing. Yes, memories can be a blessing, but they can also bring pain and depression.
O God, help us to not only remember what was, but to remember Who IS!
Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father There is no shadow of turning with Thee. Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not. As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be.
Great is Thy faithfulness, Great is Thy faithfulness. Morning by morning new mercies I see. All I have needed Thy hand hath provided. Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.
Summer and winter and springtime and harvest Sun, moon and stars in their courses above. Join with all nature in manifold witness To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.
Great is Thy faithfulness. Great is Thy faithfulness. Morning by morning new mercies I see. All I have needed Thy hand hath provided. Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.
Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide. Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow. Blessings all mine with 10,000 beside.
Tis the season for the Christmas story to be at the forefront of people’s lives. And in the forefront of that story is the little town of Nazareth. Gabriel was sent there to tell Mary that she was the one whom God had called to bear and give birth to His Son, Jesus.
Nazareth…a very small dusty town. Pretty much a place one would pass by rather than linger there for any reason other than to perhaps get a drink of water. Larger, more exciting towns were nearby.
Years later, when Jesus was calling His disciples, Philip went to find Nathanael. He told Nathanael that they had found the One foretold by Moses…Jesus, of Nazareth.
Nathanael’s response?
“Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?”
That seems to be the reputation of Nazareth in a nutshell.
But Mary lived there, and her betrothed, Joseph. Two unknown people in an unknown town…a town nowhere mentioned in the Old Testament or early Jewish literature.
But the angel said that Mary had found favor with God.
How? How do you make a name for yourself in Nazareth, of all places?
But that’s just it. Mary didn’t set about to be noticed by God. She wasn’t trying to do great things. She simply lived her life for the glory of God in every mundane daily task that was a natural part of living in Nazareth.
Less than an hour ago I stood by Aaron as he had his third seizure in four hours. This one was very hard. My heart hurts.
Afterward, I sat by our Christmas tree and pondered this life that God has given me. In many ways, I can say that this is my Nazareth.
I have had a taste of the “other” side of life. Awards, travel, lots of ministry, etc., etc.
But as time has gone by, my world has narrowed a lot. The life of a long-term caregiving parent is not exciting. It is not a life that others point to as they wish they had MY life.
And all of my fellow caregiving friends know “the look.” It’s the look that crosses a person’s face when they ask what you do or if you can join in this or that, and you tell them your situation. So often there is no real understanding. Sympathy, perhaps. Compassion, sometimes.
But it’s like they don’t know what to do with you.
Kind of like being from Nazareth.
But God has a purpose for each of His children in His kingdom. Even us Nazareth folk.
For God says that He works all things for good in the lives of His followers.
I have good purpose, right here in my Nazareth.
For every piece of wet bedding washed, every meal cooked, every bathroom cleaned, every doctor appointment, favorite show watched and game played, every story listened to for the 500th time – is just what God has for me to do where He has put me.
He put Aaron with us. I can look at my life with him as my ministry or as a misery.
Human nature makes us feel that we’re not really being of value unless our calendars are full of events and we are free to come and go as we choose our opportunities. And this is wonderful for many people.
But for my other Nazareth people…whatever your Nazareth is…know that there ARE good things that come out of Nazareth.
Claim your purpose where God has placed you!
Be faithful there in the messy and the mundane.
In so doing, you are bringing delight to God…and there is no higher calling.
When we moved to this home nearly 23 years ago, we lived in a semi-country setting. Across the highway from us were farmer’s fields. In fact, there were fields both to the west and east of us. Things sure have changed over time. There are several big new schools just over a mile from us, and across the highway the farmer’s field is gone. Instead of tractors and combines there, now we see…and hear…all sorts of construction equipment as a huge housing development is being built.
All the growth has brought lots of extra traffic. Our property backs up to the highway. We have a tree line that gives some privacy. But there isn’t much that can hide the sights and the sounds of growth…progress, some would call it. We miss the quietness, though, that we loved.
It’s now the time of year for open windows and chirping birds. I was at my desk early this morning. The birds were waking up, going about their early morning activities, and their various sounds were so pleasing to me.
Yet the birds weren’t the only ones busily starting their day. So were people. Pretty soon I was having a hard time hearing the birds over the sound of all the cars and trucks and school buses and motorcycles.
The birds hadn’t stopped singing, though. I could still hear them even when a group of vehicles drove past. I just had to concentrate on listening to them and ignoring the other sounds coming from the road.
I’m amazed at the very loud sounds blasting us from this culture today. Woke Disney. Gender confusion. Sexual dysfunction. Open borders. Drugs. Violent crime. Men in women’s sports…and the refusal of our top leaders to even define what a woman is!
And one of the saddest of all is the horror of abortion and the fight from the left to keep the murder of babies available and legal. Yesterday the governor of Colorado signed a bill that ensured women could kill their babies at any stage of pregnancy, for any reason. My friend who lives there, a pediatrician, said that this action is celebratory now…and she is right.
All of this, and so much more, is just heavy and sickening to those of us who follow Christ. And the voices who promote these lifestyles in our world today are often the loudest. They blast at us from the news, social media, corporations, movies, music, television, classrooms…daring us to disagree and trying to silence us when we do.
A couple verses I have just studied describe this so well:
“But evil men and imposters will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of…” (II Timothy 3: 13-14)
Paul told Timothy to expect evil to get worse. Alfred Plummer says it well when he described their personal deterioration as the seducers being duped by their own deceit.
And so the evil ones GO, but Timothy is told to CONTINUE.
Evil loudly goes from bad to worse. Isn’t it interesting that the word ‘go’ means to progress?
Progressives today are nothing new. But their direction…their progress…is totally in the wrong direction.
Unlike the progress of the wicked, we who know Christ are to continue in the things we have learned from Christ.
We learn by listening to God, for He has not been silenced. He is still speaking, just like the birds outside were still singing.
We also need to continue in all that we know…that we have learned…in our life walks with God.
The word “continue” means to cultivate stability.
The brash noises of sin all around us being condoned and celebrated must not move us from hearing God’s voice above it all.
Now more than ever we need to be still and be stable in God’s truth and listen carefully to Him above all the noise of our ungodly culture.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand; All other ground is sinking sand.
One of Aaron’s favorite things to do in all the world is to eat out at a restaurant. The promise of eating out makes every doctor visit or dental procedure totally worth his time.
Aaron might vary a little in what he will eat at the different restaurants that we visit, but always…if possible…he will order a side salad with “no croutons and two ranches.”
And often he will order another of his favorites…French fries!
Not long ago, while he munched on his fries at lunch, he had an idea.
“Mom?” he asked, “can we make French fries?”
“I kind of made them last night in the air fryer,” I answered as I reminded him of the potato wedges that we had eaten.
“I didn’t see them that way,” he responded.
I smiled at Aaron’s response.
He has, yet again, given me something to ponder.
A couple blogging friends mentioned Psalm 37 last week. I decided to read slowly through that wonderful Psalm in the mornings after my regular Bible study.
Verse 3 jumped out at me.
“Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.”
Guess what the word ‘cultivate’ means? It means to ‘feed on.’
Dwell in the land and feed on faithfulness.
‘Dwell’ can also mean ‘rest.’
The land is wherever God has put me.
So, I am to rest where God has put me and feed on faithfulness.
That sounds pleasant at first glance. But what if the place God has put me is less than ideal?
What if it’s just downright hard?
Fact is, God didn’t say that I am to be faithful when my pasture is lush and green…when my place in life is fun and easy and fulfilling.
He just said to dwell there in the pasture where He has placed me…stay…rest.
And while there, feed on faithfulness.
Here I am, approaching the age that I used to think was REALLY old, and I am still in a large sense raising a child. This time of my life was what I used to hear being referred to as having the time of my life.
Empty nest and all that.
Hasn’t quite worked out that way for us.
But I can’t deny the fact that God didn’t qualify the type of land He would ordain for me. He just told me to rest there.
And to feed on faithfulness.
You see, we can all be faithful where we are. The form it takes is what sometimes trips us up.
Caring for Aaron, in all the shapes that caring takes, is me feeding on faithfulness.
But many times, I’m like Aaron as he compared the air fryer potato wedges to French fries.
I don’t see it that way.
I don’t see managing Aaron’s medicines, doctor visits, tons of paperwork, or driving him everywhere as having a lot to do with my faithfulness to God.
I most definitely get tangled up in tiredness and complaining as I work to keep him fed, active, happy, encouraged, and clean.
Sadness at seizures and frustration during behaviors jerk my emotions in all directions.
And as the days turn into weeks and the weeks into months and the months into years, it sure is easy to lose the sense of living in faithfulness to God.
Seems like I often compare my grass to others, and usually theirs is so much greener than mine.
Their feeding on faithfulness seems exciting and fun.
Mine? Pretty dull and daily.
And often dirty.
But something I’m learning…ever so slowly…is to look up to God when I feel like looking over to someone else’s land. Keep my focus on my Shepherd and on the land He has given to me.
To see every tiring moment as an opportunity to trust Him, to do good, to rest in this place, and to feed on faithfulness.
To remind myself, at the end of another tiring day, that God smiles on my faithfulness.
Today is our anniversary! Gary and I have been married 42 years. I don’t even know how that’s possible, but somehow it is.
There we stood in my beautiful home church in West Virginia, young and in love, pledging our vows to each other.
Now we’re old, although I really don’t feel like it most days…and we’re still in love. Our love is deeper and more settled than those early years, rooted in all the ups and downs of life that we have weathered together.
On my mind today are those familiar vows that are so often spoken at weddings. We promised to stay true to each other “in sickness and in health.”
Never ever even once did I think of the sickness and health part as being anyone other than Gary or me. Having a child with lifelong health issues was not anywhere on our radar when we spoke those words to each other and before God.
Today our plans were simple. We would eat lunch out together while Aaron was at his day group. Time alone while Aaron was happily occupied was a perfect plan.
Just before 8:00 this morning I heard Aaron having a seizure. This is not unexpected. I knew at that moment that our anniversary day plans would be changed.
Later, when Aaron was awake and hungry, here was our view for a late breakfast on our patio.
And it’s OK, truly. Gary and I are very used to these sorts of changed plans in our life. And I am not trying in any way to garner sympathy.
What has been on my mind this morning is that when Gary and I spoke those vows about sickness, we in reality were referring to our life with Aaron as much as anything – though we had no idea of our future.
Aaron’s life of special needs has been very trying at times. Yet through it all, Gary has stood right by my side. He has never wavered due to the stress of it all. The demands of our many years in the military, his own career decisions, our moves, so many doctors, hospital stays…well, I could go on for a long time about how Aaron’s life has impacted Gary’s in particular.
But Gary never bailed on me or Aaron. He has led and sacrificed and given of himself to both me and Aaron over and over and over.
So our vows, as I ponder them this morning, have taken on an even sweeter meaning to me.
Staying true in our son’s sickness and health is indeed the greatest gift of love that I have been given by my husband…my husband of 42 years!!
Our mother passed away six years ago, just before Mother’s Day. I wrote this blog a few years before her death and so today wanted to post it again in honor and remembrance of this amazing woman that we were blessed to call Mom.
Some of my earliest memories of my mother revolve around her amazing skills as a seamstress. I remember being very young and seeing Mom sitting at her sewing machine, turning out something beautiful and seemingly perfect from all sorts of fabrics. She kept us girls busy in those early years while she sewed by giving us pieces of felt in various colors. From this soft felt we fashioned clothes for our little troll dolls, cutting and fitting each ugly troll as if it was a priceless and beautiful doll. Mom provided glitter and sequins and odd buttons for us to glue onto our awkward handiwork. We stayed busy for hours laboring over our important creations. I don’t remember all the mess we must have made, but I do remember laboring over our little troll dolls while Mom labored over her more important sewing jobs. Mom made small, meticulous Barbie doll ensembles which she sold in a local craft store, and also made some for us to keep. Yet her most loving works of art were the countless pieces of clothing she made for her girls to wear.
Every Easter we had new Easter dresses. I especially remember the Easter that she made all of us girls pink gingham dresses – and then made one for herself, as well. I thought it was wonderful to not only match my sisters, but to also be dressed like my mother! I remember the trips to Penny’s in Bluefield, the bigger town that was near our hometown of Princeton. I loved the escalator ride down to the bottom floor, where we would choose patterns and fabrics and buttons for our new clothes. Never did we go to the ready-made clothes upstairs or enter a dressing room. Our clothing was there amongst the bolts of fabric, waiting to be matched to patterns and later sewn into pretty dresses and jackets and blouses. I do believe that I took the longest to select the fabric to match the patterns as I had such a difficult time seeing the finished product in my head. I would stand there, rubbing the fabric between my fingers, trying to visualize a finished product that somehow wasn’t materializing in my mind. I can imagine Mom’s frustration as I lingered there trying to make this important decision………..as well as the rolling eyes of my sisters who had finished this process long before I did.
Mom worked full-time after we were all in school, yet still managed to sew all of our clothes. She was a natural at this art, yes, but it still took lots of time. She would sew late into the night, her dedication undeterred by her tiredness. I never gave enough thought to how tiring this effort must have been to her until I had children of my own. How did she do it all? I have no idea, really, but she did. Her work was not only beautiful with matching plaids and perfect zippers and flawless fit, but each stitch was filled with a love that wasn’t recognized by us until years later.
One of my most special memories was of the year when we were teenagers, and Mom made us skirts for Christmas. I don’t know how many skirts she made, but there were quite a few. Then she not only began looking for matching sweaters to wear with each skirt, but matching knee socks as well. She did not give up this quest for the correct colors of sweaters and socks until each skirt had what it needed to make it a perfect ensemble. We learned about this later, from Dad, who accompanied her on many of these trips.
Dad, who was color blind and absolutely no help when it came to matching colors of anything, would patiently take Mom on many of these shopping trips. I can still see him standing silently on the sidelines in the fabric stores, hands behind his back and a sweet smile on his face. He never rushed Mom or any of us, but stood there until we had come to the point of methodically selecting every button and every spool of thread. I can still hear him say, “Did you know that there are 53 light bulbs in this ceiling?” Or, “Did you know that there are 271 zippers in that display?” Dear, sweet Dad!
John and Jeanie’s Quilt
When Mom and Dad both retired, Mom only continued her sewing. She had sewn for her children, for grandchildren, for friends, for the Crisis Pregnancy Center, and who knows what else. Upon retirement, she decided to take up quilting. Of course, she was a natural at this skill. She practiced by making her and Dad a lovely quilt, and then took up the goal of making each of us five children and spouses a quilt. These gorgeous works of art were each sewn entirely by hand with no sewing machine used. She had us each pick our pattern and our colors – there I went again, having to make this difficult visual choice! Mom never wasted a minute in any day, and before long she was completing our individual, personal, gorgeous quilts. Dad took her to countless stores and quilt shops, patiently waiting over and over again as she selected just the right fabrics. Each stitch was a labor of love……….each completed quilt a perfect picture of her devotion to her children. I keep my quilt hanging in our kitchen area so that we can see it every day and enjoy its beauty, and bask in the warm memories that it evokes.
Mom made many, many quilts during the next few years. She made quilts for missionaries; she made a special quilt for a dear friend who had no mother of her own to make her one; she made a quilt for the Prophet’s Chamber at church where missionaries stayed when visiting; and she made a memory quilt that has special fabrics and mementos from each of us children and our children.
Bob and Jan’s Quilt
Jimmy and Kathryn’s Quilt
Mom has Alzheimer’s now and lives in an assisted living center. Tomorrow she will celebrate her 86th birthday. Dad knew that Mom was showing distressing signs of forgetfulness before he passed away nearly four years ago, and he worried so about her. He would be happy with her living arrangement now and with how well cared for she is. She doesn’t sew at all now. She’s even forgotten how to put her jigsaw puzzles together that she loved so much. Sometimes she doesn’t remember all of our names, and definitely not the names of all the grandchildren and great-grands. But she is sweet and she is happy and she still seeks to serve others.
Bob and Mary Beth’s Quilt
Gary and Patty’s Quilt
And just as our keepsake quilts will always be an heirloom to pass down to our children, even more so are the pieces of our lives that she shaped and fashioned together with her tireless love and effort. She took care of us, providing the atmosphere of a happy and warm home to treasure as she sewed and cooked and played and laughed. She made sure that we had family devotions every morning before school because Dad was at work and so it was up to her. She took us to church when Dad was working late, and didn’t just drop us off – she was there, too, worshipping and serving. She showed us how to love and how to work and how to pray and how to laugh and how to persevere through hard times. She exemplified great care in how she took care of her mother for 14 years, as well as her mother-in-law for part of that time. And she loved Dad, totally. She never left his side, especially for the eight years that he fought cancer. Even when they no longer could share their bed they had slept in together for 59 years, she slept right beside his hospital bed, her arm and hand resting on him between the bed rails.
These traits of our mother are the stitches that are sewn into our very being. The pieces of our lives were begun by her, thought-out and cut, measured and pieced, day by day. As the years marched on, the shapes of our lives began to unfold. The beauty of the various patterns began to be seen. These are the treasures that are eternal. These are the heirlooms that have more value than any quilt will ever possess. And while our mother may not remember much anymore about the details of the past or the present, we have the evidence in our lives of her love and her faith…………a beautiful quilt of a life well lived.
A good word for this year, and especially for the upcoming days of uncertainty for believers politically. This is from the book I am reading as I study the book of Numbers. God appeared to Israel as He hovered over the tent of meeting as a cloud by day and fire by night. When the cloud or fire moved, they moved. It required a great deal of trust, especially when God didn’t move for long periods. Like Israel, we want to see God move and when it appears He isn’t, then it’s easy to become discouraged and to lose hope.
“There were days when they could see that they were making progress, but at other times they may have been puzzled because nothing was happening. Why the tiresome delay? For most of us, at some time or another, life has its bewildering waiting times. The evidence of God’s continuing care appears limited, even absent. The Puritans spoke about ‘the soul’s winter times’, when everything appears cold, bleak, and barren. We wish God would speak to us more clearly about why we are going through such dark days, when it is hard to hold on. BUT WAITING TIMES ARE NOT WASTED TIMES. When the guidance we look for is just not there, we must calmly renew our confidence in God; ‘such a resolution can never go to hell with thee’, said Thomas Goodwin. There is some wise purpose in life’s bleak experiences. GOD IS STILL PRESENT. ‘Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.’ In the desolate years of late-seventeenth-century persecution, John Flavel urged his contemporaries to ‘exercise the faith of adherence when you have lost the faith of evidence.’ (Raymond Brown)
God knows what He is doing…and if our road ahead is hard, God still knows what He is doing.
In our personal lives…in our lives in God’s kingdom…in our family lives – we must trust God and obey Him and leave all the rest up to Him. I believe hard days are ahead for Christians. But I would by far rather be following God today than to follow any other person or cause.
Thank you, God, for reminding us at this time of year that You are Immanuel…GOD WITH US. We really have nothing to fear.
Aaron and I were in the middle of watching an episode of The Waltons last night when he pushed the pause button and got up from his chair. He went to the kitchen and soon returned carrying a huge bag of popcorn. We’re talking huge in the sense of Sam’s huge. All I envisioned was Aaron putting his hand into our community bag of popcorn, grabbing a few pieces, and then putting his hand up to and partially into his mouth.
Germs!! My mind could see all those little, microscopic germs being transferred into our huge bag of popcorn. YUCK!
I stopped Aaron in his tracks, told him to pour some popcorn into a bowl, and over his grumbling he went back to the kitchen to do what I had said. It wasn’t long, though, before I heard this:
“Mom, can you come here? I need some help.”
Did he ever! When I walked into the kitchen, there on the floor was a big mess. Aaron had spilled lots of popcorn on the floor. Mom to the rescue! Aaron got the broom, and we were soon able to clean up the mess.
All around me today I see messes. So much upheaval is in our country and the world today. People are suffering and worried and angry. I wish the messes we see were as easy to clean up as Aaron’s popcorn on the floor, but we all know that’s not the case.
I read and studied Psalm 22 this morning. I agree with Dale Davis, who says that David is speaking of his own suffering in this Psalm and yet goes “beyond his suffering and into the suffering of Another.” David’s suffering also spoke of the suffering of Jesus still to come.
Certainly, the suffering of Christ for us is the greatest gift ever given. Yet it’s also in David’s earthly anguish that you and I as followers of Christ can find great comfort as we navigate this dangerous world in which we now live.
I, like David, can look behind me in my years of following the Lord and I can see His faithfulness to me. I have no reason to doubt that He will remain faithful in the days yet ahead.
I look around me and I feel the chilling wind of change…change that is not good for believers. I see how the world’s perception of Christians today has become warped…how we appear by liberal definition to be bigots and racists and haters. How if we don’t jump on board with radical agendas and unbiblical lifestyles then we are not welcome to live in their world.
The description that David gives of his persecutors sounds eerily similar to some of our accusers that I see on the news today. He pictures his haters as bulls who encircle him and open their mouths wide at him; as lions who are tearing and roaring; mad wild dogs who have closed in on him; evildoers who surround him.
Remember the looks on the faces of the rioters when they hurled insults at those who attended White House events this past summer? We’ve seen and heard that same spewed hatred over and over, aimed at pro-lifers and conservatives and Christians in various settings.
I never thought I’d see the day when moral values are demeaned and blatant ungodliness is held up as the national standard.
But it is here, and it is now.
What jumped off the page to me this morning as I read Psalm 22 is this:
“But You, O Lord, be not far off; O You, my help, hasten to my assistance. Deliver my soul from the sword, my only life from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion’s mouth; FROM THE HORNS OF THE WILD OXEN YOU ANSWER ME.” (Psalm 22:19-21)
David was already in the middle of great trouble. The picture is of him being actively mauled. But in the midst of being attacked, David asserted that God answered Him.
God doesn’t always remove my attackers, in whatever form they come, but He DOES hear me and answer me.
David learned that he may have felt forsaken but in reality, he was not. God was there in every scary moment.
And so He is with us and He WILL continue to be with us. He will surround us while we figure out how to function as the minority in our culture today. He will answer us from the horns of the wild oxen!
David knew that though he felt forsaken at times, God was there with him. And God is with us as well.
“For He has not despised and He has not detested the affliction of the afflicted, nor has He hidden His face from him, but when he cried to Him, He heard.” (Psalm 22:24)
God knows. God hears.
I will praise Him and I will share Him with others.
I will stand strong for truth.
And some day, in His timing, He will clean up all this mess.
Life has been pretty tempestuous and I’m not just talking about a whirling mess out in the Gulf by the name of Laura. We’ve had our own commotion under our roof. Hurricane Aaron has been building for several days and the other night we were inundated with his storm surge. Honestly, though, my outburst was stronger than his by a long shot!
Ah, the wonders and joys of autism. Aaron wants…needs…routine and predictability and all his things in all their proper places. Upheaval of any kind creates stress for him, and stress for Aaron inevitably creates stress for Gary and me as his parents and caregivers.
The stresses around us that cause us angst do affect him because his level world is easily tipped by what Gary and I are going through. Aaron expects us to stay as level as he needs us to be, but we all know that life just isn’t that way.
When Aaron sees Gary and me off kilter, he will then seek to identify what is bothering us. Then that person or that event becomes the enemy because they have affected him. Aaron doesn’t mean to be narcissistic. That delightful character trait is part and parcel with autism. We know that fact in our heads but sometimes the understanding doesn’t transfer to our hearts during the turmoil.
Several events have impacted us over this past week. A hoped-for trip to Indiana to see our son didn’t happen. Disappointment over changed plans crept in.
Then last week we grieved with our daughter and son-in-law, Kyle and Andrea, over the sudden serious health issues of one of their beloved dogs. Aries started having seizures. The next week was heart-rending as he declined drastically. So, this past Friday they made that awful end-of-life decision. Gary and I were so sad, but I also think that seeing our children’s grief increased our own. We loved Aries, and we love Kyle and Andrea, so our sorrow was two-fold.
This is the prayer Kyle prayed the night they said goodbye to Aries:
Aaron really can’t handle seeing us cry but try as we might he did see our tears over the loss of Aries. We now had the double whammy of changed trip plans and heartbreak over Aries.
However, we were only halfway done with disruptions. Out in the ocean, Tropical Storm Laura was brewing. Kyle and Andrea live to the east of Houston, near the water. Kyle works on a fast responder ship, and those huge vessels don’t stay in the harbor during a hurricane. Fast forward to today: Kyle is now on the ship up in one of the channels and will stay there indefinitely. Andrea is home alone with their other 3 doggies. She knows she is welcome to go to Kyle’s parent’s home a little further inland but it’s not best to leave your home if you can possibly stay. So, Gary flew to Houston yesterday and is there with her, which is such a comfort. His retirement a month ago is a blessing!
Aaron senses our concern about all this hurricane business. He usually likes to watch the progress of hurricanes, but not this time. Why? Because Gary and I are spending too much time, in Aaron’s opinion, monitoring Hurricane Laura…wondering about Kyle and Andrea…planning Gary’s sudden trip…and talking on the phone. No matter how calm we are, all this time and talk is unusual to Aaron. Sometimes it takes time away from Aaron.
On Monday evening, as I finished looking once again at the Weather Channel, Aaron became rude and I became undone. I lost my temper and lost my cool, and Aaron reacted, and we had our own tempest in the family room. These things do happen, especially when we are stressed, but then the tension and guilt are increased. It takes some doing to un-do it all.
Aaron paced in and out of the family room where I still sat. We tried to watch a Little House episode but he just could not settle down so he chose to end it and go to bed. But he kept coming back to me with one more word of anger. Then he finally stood in front of me.
“I know what I’ll do!!” he belligerently said.
And with that, he stuck his tongue out at me.
I tell you, I just had to laugh. He didn’t mean for it to be hilarious, but it was. I kept my laugh to a minimum and somehow he didn’t get more angry, but it was just really funny.
I knew when Aaron was finally OK by what happened soon after. He came bounding once again into the family room, stared at me, and then said:
“Mom? Do you know what a sea mine is?”
A sea mine?! But I was actually quite relieved to be talking about sea mines. Aaron is playing Battleship on his computer, so talk of sea mines was perfectly normal for him. It showed that he had at last moved beyond our anger and beyond the unsettled surroundings of his world, and he was back to his normal. I didn’t care one bit about sea mines but trust me, at this point sea mines were a very welcome reprieve!
Aaron’s normal rarely involves human emotion or important life events that impact us. These issues cause him distress, so he quickly reverts to talk of battleships and sea mines and gun turrets and whatever else comprises his focus at that time. Gary and I so often shake our heads, but we know we must jump on board with Aaron in order to preserve our peace. It’s both very frustrating and very fascinating to see how his mind works.
There is one more thing going on. Aaron’s bedroom remodel begins tomorrow. Gary and I had to empty it before Gary left for Houston. That caused some anxiety, to say the least. But beyond that is the fact that now Aaron is in another bedroom where all his things are NOT in their normal place.
“Mom!! This bed isn’t like my bed!!”
“Mom!! I like my lamp better!!”
“Mom!! I don’t like this hard floor!!”
“Mom!! I hope I’m not getting a hard floor!!”
“Mom!! I want to keep my carpet!!”
“Mom!! My chair doesn’t work right on this hard floor!!”
Shall I continue?
No. But Aaron will, trust me.
I took Aaron to Outback yesterday after we dropped Gary off at the airport. Aaron was in his happy place…a restaurant with his choice of food! As we munched on the warm bread and butter, Aaron looked down at the two pieces left on the cutting board.
“Mom,” he said, “you can have this one and I’ll have the other one.”
I laughed because the one he generously gave to me was the much smaller piece while he got the bigger one. And it just reminded me of how life is with Aaron. He doesn’t mean to be this way, but he does require the bigger part of our time and of our understanding and of our attention.
Therefore, Gary and I require a bigger part of God’s grace and God’s understanding and God’s strength on days such as we have had this past week.
And God’s forgiveness when we blow it.
I’m so thankful that He understands.
And I was so thankful to see Aaron smile yesterday as I was able to restore some of his normal. It’s my responsibility, yes, but also my joy as his mother and his caregiver.
By the way, in the eye of the storm there is peace. God’s peace, which never fails, is there for me.
He Said What?! 