Good morning…
After reading yesterday’s blog post, My Dad’s Handwritten Note, a church friend from a while back wrote from miles away, sharing a story about her own father. Now up in the middle of the night the nearly full moon beckons me to the couch. “Sit. Stay put. Savor her tender, touching words.”
“Northside will always be my favorite church home experience,” she remembered our important years together in a thriving young mom’s group.
Then she added, “My dad passed away in January 2021 after battling brain cancer. He lived with me on home hospice. It was still Covid times so we made the decision for him to live with us since we would not have been able to see him otherwise (if he was in a facility). As you can imagine, that was a very difficult time especially since I am an only child of divorced parents and my husband is an only child, no family members to pass the baton to for his care. But I learned so much during that time with my dad and cherish all the memories we had together. He lived with us for 7 months before passing. My biggest takeaway from the experience was surrender and that God is ultimately in control and not me. I literally stood in my shower praying saying ‘God, I surrender’ and once I let go, everything just happened as it should.”
“Here is a photo of the bird that showed up (outside our master bedroom window) for months after my dad died,” she shared this sweet image. “It was such a God wink, my dad loved birds and I just have to believe it was his way of saying hi and checking on me. : )”
“I know you have been dealing with so much with your own parents – tough stuff,” she concluded, giving me permission to share her story and photo with our written word community. “I love receiving your daily devotions and miss seeing you and taking your classes! Big hugs Sue!!”
Our enduring friendship reminds me of an excerpt from the book we are currently studying with our young moms on Wednesday nights, The Other Side of Chaos by Margaret Silf.
“When it came time to leave, I didn’t want to go,” writes Margaret on page 121. “I remember telling God how much I wanted this graced time to continue. And then it felt as though these thoughts came across to me in prayer: ‘Walk on with empty hands, because I have so much more to give you in the future, and you can’t receive it if your hands are full. Don’t be afraid that in letting go you are losing anything at all, because everything that matters, from this time of graced encounter, or from any other experience in your life, has been internalized and is firmly lodged in your heart. It is yours. It is part of you. It travels with you and can never be lost.'”
So many good memories and meaningful conversations are firmly lodged in my heart with this special friend, with our precious parents, with all of the incredible women who have graced my life through our ministry at Northside Church since 2008. Everything that matters is ours. It is a part of us. It travels with us wherever we go and can never be lost.
This is the graced experience of living daily with God and our loved ones, as the quiet moon slowly stretches toward fullness.
As long as the earth continues to be here, the time for people to plant seeds will come each year. The time for harvest will come each year. Times of cold and heat will always come. Summer and winter will always come. Day and night will never stop (Genesis 8:22, EASY).
…Sue…
