Presence and Absence

There is no comparison between presence and absence.

When he is gone...as he is now on a business trip to California....I come home from work, and the house is empty. He isn't usually here when I get home from work, but there is a difference between knowing that he will be home soon and knowing he will not. I mean the house is EMPTY.

The thermostat has been set low during the day, and so the temperature isn't quite up to a comfort zone. The house is cold, and the house is COLD.

The house is silent, and I know it will remain so. I cannot look forward to the snow crunching under the tires of his car as he pulls in the drive, the rhythm of his footsteps coming toward the back door, the opening and closing of the door and the pleasant greeting.

Suppertime will come. I will try to think of something to eat. It isn't any fun to fix a meal for one. What is left over that I can zap in the microwave? No remains needing to be eaten up? Well, maybe I'll have some soup or an egg. If he were here, I would set the table, maybe light a candle, peel real potatoes to go with the meat and vegetable. We would sit and talk as we ate, sharing events of the day and thoughts on life in general. Tonight I will sit in front of the TV while I eat.

Eventually I will go upstairs and get ready for bed. I will put on socks tonight, as there will be no one to warm my cold feet on. I will read for awhile with the TV on too, just for some noise. I will wait for him to call...he always calls when he is out of town. Last night he had terrible laryngitis.

I said, "You sound awful. We shouldn't talk too long."

He said, "I don't mind listening."

I will turn out the light and stare up into the darkness. I will slide my hand across the bed and feel the emptiness, and I will think, "There is no comparison between presence and absence."

He should be home by tomorrow night, and everything will be different.

Choosing Life

I caught a bit of the Larry King show a couple nights ago. Representatives from Focus on the Family and NOW were going at each other over the controversial ad scheduled to play during the Superbowl this Sunday.

Apparently Focus on the Family developed this ad based on the story of a very talented college quarterback whose mother was encouraged to abort him. They see the ad as a celebration of choosing life. NOW sees it as anti-abortion and disrespectful of a woman's right to chose.

I may have to actually watch the Superbowl this year...or not. The ad will probably appear on the internet as soon as it has played during the game.

In any event, it made me think about my own experience. I became pregnant just about 24 years ago, two months before my 41st birthday. Our youngest child at the time was 13, and the "empty nest" was in sight. We had not planned the pregnancy. We had been using birth control, but.... even the mathematically gifted occasionally make miscalculations.

Neither my husband nor I were upset by the news. Although we thought we had our hands full with the children we already had, I had told God many times over the years that if He, in His wisdom, knew we should have another child, that was just fine with me. So, both my husband and I reacted with an "oh-what-a-good-idea-why-didn't-we-think-of-that" attitude.

My OB-GYN group did not share this line of thought. They stamped "High Risk--Advanced Maternal Age" in red letters on the outside of my chart. They told me that I had to go to genetic counseling for their legal protection, so that they could document that I understood the risks of continuing the pregnancy. Three times they urged me to have an amniocentesis. Three times I turned it down.

I found all this quite annoying, because:

1. I am a nurse. I knew perfectly well what the risks were.

2. I was quite aware of the increased incidence of Down's Syndrome in older parents.

3. We had already adopted a daughter who had a physical disability. How could I consider NOT continuing the pregnancy? What message would that have sent to her?

4. Anything treatable prenatally would have been found on the ultrasound, not through amniocentesis. The only reason for that procedure would have been if I would consider an abortion.

I knew that the genetic counselor would sketch out a family tree and put every possible negative thing in the squares and circles, so I made my own family tree and put every positive thing in the squares and circles....artistic ability, musical talent, obvious high intelligence, creativity, organizational skills, etc. Although my personal decision wasn't based on logic and probability, by the time I finished my chart, I was convinced the odds were in our favor.

Of course, I never believed this was a roll of the dice. I just thought that might make more sense to people who don't put God in the equation, and make them stop nagging me.

So...what did God send us? Where do I begin?

Our only son.

A sweet toddler who verbalized his love for me in the era when his teenage sisters were sassing me.

A genuinely cute kid with a great sense of humor.

A child who never rocked the boat....from the get-go he behaved as though listening to one's parents was the only reasonable approach to life. Displeasing his parents was, in his mind, counterproductive.

Not once, did he give me grief over taking out the garbage.

His room was NOT a pig sty.

When he visits us now, he goes out of his way to be helpful.

He did, however, make a liar out of my husband. When I told my husband that I was pregnant. The first words out of his mouth were, "Oh....I will be 65 before the kid finishes college!"

Our son took his first college course at the age of 13, finished his Bachelors at the age of 19 and his Masters at the age of 20. Then he went out and found himself a real adult job. My husband was only 63 at that point and didn't mind in the least that he had been proven wrong.

I know that this story could have been different. I know I could now be struggling with what to do about a disabled child as I age. I'd like to think that God would have provided me with the strength to deal with those challenges. Our son...and our other children....have and continue to bring challenges into our lives. So far, God has been faithful in helping us to cope. I have no reason to think He will not continue to do so.

Becoming a parent is always a risk. I don't know any other way to approach this rather frightening proposition than with faith, and today, I am celebrating my choice.

A Vow of Faithfulness

So now we learn that a certain governor who was thought to be hiking, when he was, in fact, in South America with his mistress, did not want "being faithful" included in his wedding vows.

What?! What?!

It was easy for me to first react with, "You've got to be kidding. Why didn't she call off the wedding? What possible reason could he have had other than that he had every intention of being unfaithful?"

But, then I wondered, "At what point did she know this?"

If it was two months before and the invitations had not been sent out, that would be one thing. However, if she found out the night before at the rehearsal, that would be quite another thing. The pressure to forge ahead would be enormous. It is simple for me to think I would have walked away, but in honesty, I don't know what I would have done, if I had found out at the last minute that faithfulness wasn't part of the bargain.

My husband had dated a lot prior to our relationship. At a point where things seemed to be getting serious, but marriage had not yet been discussed, I brought up the topic of faithfulness in marriage. I told him that I had observed that he was fond of women and had a history of enjoying the company of multiple women. I asked him if he thought he would ever be able to settle down with one woman.

He replied in a way I found most interesting. "If I were to marry you, that would be my promise to you that there would never be anyone else. Not because I might not find someone else attractive, but because I would be making a promise, and I wouldn't let anything happen to cause me to break it."

Wow...he didn't say something syrupy like, "You are so wonderful, I would never look at anyone else." That would have been a lie.

He told the truth. "I might find someone else attractive, but I would not break my promise."

I decided there was real security in that response.

I should add that although my husband had dated extensively, neither he nor I believed in or engaged in sex prior to marriage. We both believed that being faithful to our values prior to marriage was an important component of being faithful within marriage.

Women need to ask themselves, "If he would 'cheat' with me before marriage, will he 'cheat' with someone else after marriage?" I recognize that in our culture today, such a notion probably seems totally unrealistic and even hysterically funny to some.

On the other hand, I find it amusing when a second or third wife who had an affair with a man during his marriage to a prior spouse is shocked and upset when he has an affair during their marriage. Why would she be surprised?

Faithfulness was in our vows.

Faithfulness was in our hearts.

Forty two years of experience says it's worth it.

Empty Oppulence

Yesterday we took a boat tour of Sarasota Bay. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon, although a bit on the cool side. We needed sweatshirts. But, we spent the time with wonderful friends that we don't see often enough.
We were fortunate to see dolphins...5 of them. At one point, three were breaking the surface in a unison dance that looked like they had been trained to do it.
The bay is surrounded by exquisite homes. The $3 to 4 million dollar homes are viewed as "tear-downs." Buy one, tear it down and build your upwards of $10 million dollar home on the site. Most of these homes are multiple stories with porches and balconies and pools. Some of the pools have cascading waterfalls. Each time you think you have seen the ultimate in luxury, you come upon another home yet more ostentatiously designed.
We passed hundreds of homes. I saw maintenance people at several sites. In all those homes, I did not see any lights on, any movement within the house, anyone sitting on any of the porches or balconies. I saw one person, and only one, sunning herself and reading next to a pool.
Empty...empty..empty. Furniture is in place, obvious through the large windows, but no one sitting in it.
What a waste! Clearly the owners have other homes...maybe several of them.
Empty, empty, empty...the pursuit of wealth and possessions.
People in this world have no roof over their heads.
People in this world have multiple roofs, so that they can choose which one will be their shelter tonight.
Empty, empty, empty.
I have not one shred of envy.

Suffering

A dear friend, who will likely read this posting, sent me a message asking me to pray for her grandchild who is a teenager and suffering so physically, that there can't help but be accompanying emotional and spiritual suffering.
I want to say something about this, and my fingers hover over the keyboard waiting for an entire cogent thought to precipitate out of the swirl of thought fragments.
God is faithful...but the child is in pain and too young to have had a lifetime of seeing God's faithfulness.
God can heal...but He has not yet chosen to do so.
God can insert Himself into our minds and hearts...but pain can cause us not even to be able to use our minds properly.
God must have a special plan for this dear one...but the enemy of our souls knows that and would like to thwart it.
We want an answer now...but God does not operate on our timetable.

Ah....sovereign Lord!
Thank you for the Holy Spirit who intercedes when we do not have the words.
When all that comes from our hearts is a groan of shared pain, He speaks for us.
We do not know what should happen, how it should happen or when.
Most gracious and merciful God, we cast our cares and concerns on you.
The shed blood of Jesus is sufficient for all the sins of mankind and for all the suffering that comes because we live in a fallen world.
Creator, Sustainer...have mercy on this young one who is your child.

The Bottom of the Basket

Today I found the bottom of my ironing basket. This is an exceedingly unusual event, occuring only once every 3 to 4 years.
It is not that I use my iron this rarely. In fact, when I am sewing a garment made of a woven fabric, I iron at every step. I have learned that the finished product looks better if pieces are pressed regularly in the process. I also iron clothing that needs a quick touch-up before wearing, and certain items come off the top of the basket more often than annually.
But...the tablecloths just keep getting pushed to the bottom. I am a real slouch and procrastinator when it comes to ironing tablecloths. In most other areas of my life I am a get-it-done type. What am I doing with these tablecloths that need ironing! I have a couple that don't require it, and I use those over and over, while the wrinkly ones settle deeper and deeper under the pile.
Today I ironed one small table cloth and five large ones. A couple of them are so big that even the width folded in half won't fit on the length of the ironing board. This is a colossal pain as I have to keep adjusting the position of the cloth. I also ironed a couple of my husband shirts that have been missing from the poor man's closet for about a year. Sigh.
When my daughters were little, one of them lost an expensive name-brand dress shoe. We turned the house upside down looking for it. Who would have thought to look in the ironing basket? About a year later, after the shoe was outgrown, I discovered it in the bottom of the basket. When I told my mother, she was horrified, and said I should not admit that to anyone. She grew up in a different era. Her mother even ironed my grandfather's handkerchiefs.
Among the tablecloths today, was a lovely Christmas cloth. It wasn't available for use this past Christmas and maybe not the Christmas before that. My new daughter-in-law has probably never seen it.
But...it is now ready for next Christmas, and the ironing basket is briefly and blissfully empty.

Unanswered Questions

Nearly thirty years have passed since that memorable morning when my young daughter sat in the kitchen finishing her breakfast. It was almost time to head for school, but she sat there twirling her fork in a puddle of pancake syrup. My back was turned as I did something at the sink, but I could sense the quiet motion of mental wheels turning as the fork turned in the goo on the plate.
A sigh escaped.
Then the question..."Mom, in this world are there more questions than answers?"
"Yes, dear, I'm afraid there are."
There was no deep theological or philosophical follow-up discussion . What more could be said? She went off to school.
The daughter just celebrated her thirty-sixth birthday, and there are still more questions than answers. But, it was probably that moment more than any other that assured me that she would grow into a person who could cope with what life had to offer her.
We are all faced with unanswered and unanswerable questions. Sometimes we just need to get on with the business of living.