An Empty Chair

A few years ago, when I was still working at the church, my pastor friend and I were preparing to go on the monthly visit to the local nursing homes.  We would go and sing a few songs with the residents, she would give a short message and we would serve communion. I have never been very comfortable in nursing homes,  it is just way out of my comfort zone! One of the first times I went along with her as the residents either walked, shuffled or were wheeled into the day room I joined in and started greeting them, or easier for me was the passing out of songbooks with a nice smile and 'good morning'.  After we sang, as the message was presented, I sat and looked at those men and women who had gathered.  For some this was the highlight of their month - to sing a little (often without even looking at the words, the songs were old, familiar and comforting) hear the Gospel and then receive Communion. It was a special time. For others I often wondered if they even knew we were there. Still others were unable to receive the bread and wine, since they could no longer swallow - yet a  touch and blessing was given to each. Then there were still others - unable to even be brought to the day room, and we would walk through the halls to their rooms, again to pray and serve that special 'meal' and leave a blessing. I was the one who walked away blessed. Those monthly nursing home communion visits soon became one of my favorite parts of church ministry.

One particular day, as I sat off to the side watching the residents while my pastor friend delivered a word for them, in that short 8-10 minutes I noticed something, especially in the women.  As some of them sat there for this church service, wearing their best sweater and often a touch of rouge and pearls I saw my mother.  Each of these women that came to that day room had a story - at first glance they were stooped, wrinkled, hurt, alone and ill.  Yet they were also mothers, daughters, wives and sisters- they each had a vibrant life at one point that was not evident by looking at those old worn out bodies sitting around a nursing home day room.  At the time my mother was also sitting in another town, across the state in an assisted living facility with Parkinson's related dementia. Living across the state and lots of driving hours away I didn't visit her often, but when I did I saw a woman, still dressed beautifully, and often with her jewelry on, but only a shell of the strong and hard working lady that I knew as my mom.   She lost her ability to speak, she had compression fractures in her spine so also had to be assisted in and out of bed, and for her other needs.  Right outside her room was a wonderful display that my sister and I had put together. Pictures of Mom and Dad both in their military uniforms during WWII, pictures of them smiling and laughing as newlyweds and other pictures of Mom with us and her grandchildren. There were snapshots with friends in her many service organizations and many of  her awards for career and community accomplishments.  To the visitor, like me in these local nursing homes, she was simply another old and 'broken' woman, but I knew her story.

My mother loved to dance! Early in our marriage Waylon and I hosted New Year's Eve parties in our home and this was the first time Mom attended one, before she moved to Texas.  This was NYE of 1984 (I can see the 1983 and 1984 picture collages hanging in the background) and even in our smallish living room we managed to dance!  

                                         Waylon and Billie  - "cuttin' the rug"

There was an 'empty chair' already - my Dad.  He died at age 58 so he missed these fun adult times with us.  Mom would dance with any willing partner at any party!

Yesterday as I drove into town for errands on the outskirts of town is one of the local nursing homes.  On the porch sits a row of chairs.  Often there are residents sitting in those chairs, this time there was only one man outside.  He was sitting alone, looking out toward the street.  I wondered - was he remembering his youth? Was he thinking about the home or job he used to have, or perhaps the family he was waiting for to walk up that sidewalk to come for a visit? I don't know his story.  I do know, however, that he has one.   My mother was 61 years old in this picture - I will be 60 on my next birthday.  It has been 6 years this month since she left us at the age of 87.  I am remembering her story.  How she and my Dad taught me to research issues and exercise my right to vote.  She taught me how to be responsible in my work, and follow through on things I promise.  She was hard on me - she set high expectations.  Did we always get along or see eye to eye?  No - we had a rocky time of it.  I realize now that it was because I am very much like her.  I regret not listening to more of her stories, though I do know a lot of them.  I am saddened that I let our strong personalities get in the way of listening to each other more. I also remember, vividly, how I looked up to her and followed her example in more ways than I can count.  I am a strong and independent woman largely because I grew up watching her.  

Don't wait for an empty chair and missed opportunities - listen to those around you and learn their stories because if you don't who will?

Proverbs 22:6 Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.  NLT

Thank you Willa Mae Davis Koplin, (Billie, Mom) for teaching me to be an honest and trustworthy person.  Perhaps by telling a smidgen of our story it will prompt others to not neglect hearing more of their loved ones' stories.  You are missed.

Focus on JOY!

Joy: The passion or emotion excited by the acquisition or expectation of good; that excitement of pleasurable feelings which is caused by success, good fortune, the gratification of desire or some good possessed, or by a rational prospect of possessing what we love or desire; gladness; exultation; exhilaration of spirits.

A few years ago I was in a place of deep depression.  I didn't want to do anything ~ and most people around me didn't even know how deep and dark that depression was.  I was able to put on a good face, present myself to others in a somewhat 'normal' demeanor, and go about my day.  Inside I was dying. I found that even my journal entries had become dark and a place of pouring out frustrations and sadness, until I eventually quit writing in them at all. I heard a sermon one Sunday about joy.  Not happiness - but joy.  A deeper feeling of good and the expectation of good.  I went home and started a new journal that I vowed to myself would contain only joy and gratitude.  I promised myself that I would write only those things in that specific journal.  I love a new journal!  The crisp empty pages ready to be filled with written words, snippets of quotes and comments that I gather......but this 'joy journal' was a challenge at a time when I felt anything but joyful.

Those first days I wrote one liners - things like "I'm thankful for air conditioning in our home on a 95 degree day"  or "I'm grateful for food in our cabinets and freezer".  I made myself write something different every day, whether I wanted to or not.  After a few days I had to search for things that I hadn't already mentioned, but I kept on.  What this caused me to do was start to look beyond myself.  I began to take notice of people around me and just from what I could see I began to realize that I had so much more to be thankful for.  I started to read my Bible again and remind myself that God never promised an easy road. Most of the accounts in Scripture are about hardship and how God's people persevere through those hardships.  My journal entries, slowly, became longer and filled with joy and thankfulness.

Lately I've been thinking about hardship again.  As I'm climbing slowly back to health after my self imposed setback I am more aware of how very much I have to be thankful for.  I made decisions in my personal life (that one tiny pill that I decided to not take a few months ago) and how it has turned a very healthy person into one that is now monitoring things like blood pressure and other health conditions that in the past I didn't have to think about.  I used to walk several miles for exercise, now I can barely manage 10 minutes without feeling the negative effects on my body. Thankfully I'm slowly getting better.  It is not an instant fix, just like the negative effects of not taking thyroid weren't an instant negative impact, it took time for the 'scary storm' of  a bad choice to reveal itself. 

Some habits creep into our lives in subtle ways, taking hold bit by bit before they take deep root and then are harder to remove.  Things can start out as something very positive but slowly morph into a destructive habit. "Oh, I'll just read this one book, it has explicit language and situations but the story line is SO good".   Some of the most popular TV shows are graphic crime dramas (yes, I fall in this habit!) - the stories reflect our society, and I think that is why we are so drawn to them, at the same time we have become so desensitized that we think nothing of the blood and violence that crosses our screen.  Our children and grandchildren see things that I really never knew existed when I was their age - I simply played outside or watched Lassie and Mr Ed, or reruns of I Love Lucy!  But I also didn't have night terrors or fear as I went to bed each night.  I didn't learn those things until I was a bit older and slowly learned about the dangers of the world and how to watch for them. It's a catch 22 for our children - we have created a world so dangerous and threatening that we have to teach them about what could happen, but we can still shelter them from the graphic portrayals through TV, videos and music.  Yet we don't.  Even when I have my granddaughters in my care and we play outside I hear in their play the words and scenarios that they are surrounded with from school, TV and music.  It makes me sad.

Today I'm shifting focus, again, to good habits.  It takes time to develop habits (good and bad). So  today I challenge myself, and you, to think before you drink, eat, watch, read, listen to or participate in an activity.  What habit are you falling into, or what behavior has become so ingrained in you that it is now acceptable even though destructive?  Even seemingly good habits can turn into controlling and harmful ones. 

I read this devotional thought this morning and it got me started on this thought process:

Your god may be your little Christian habit - the habit of prayer or Bible reading at certain times of your day.  Watch how your Father will upset your schedule if you begin to worship your habit instead of what the habit symbolizes. We say "I can't do that right now; this is my time alone with God". No, this is your time alone with your habit. There is a quality that is still lacking in you.  Identify your shortcoming and then look for opportunities to work into your life that missing quality.  Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest.

What habit will you tackle today?  The first step is acknowledging that it IS a habit!!

Public Service Announcement: Don't do as I did!

Scenario:  Very healthy 59 year old woman. RARELY needing to see doctor.  No chronic health problems and regular exerciser.

One tiny pill, each day for the last (almost) 40 years - thyroid.

For reasons I won't go into, last January I decided to quit taking that one tiny pill.

Thursday May 5 - home alone, experiencing 'heart related symptoms': dizziness, ringing in ears, shortness of breath, tingling in hands, pain in upper left back and just a feeling of being 'off'.  Drove self to ER.

Admitted to ER with blood pressure of 244/140 (yes, you read that correctly and I was still standing!)  Immediate coronary workup, and excellent care from the ER staff at Hill Country Memorial Hospital.  After blood work the first discovery was a blood reading that showed a level that is normally 20-100 - mine was 2000.  This had to do with kidney function.  Of course, as I sat in the ER room, with a fluid drip and various machines monitoring my BP, oxygen and more I 'googled' the high level and read things like "brain cancer, heart damage, kidney failure" and more.  A few tense hours of wondering which horrible disease it was going to be.  About 6 hrs after arriving at the ER I was admitted and they continued with the fluids and monitoring my BP.  It had come down - but was still in dangerous high levels. Soon after I was settled in a room the attending Dr. arrived to give me the news:  "well, you told us that you had quit taking your thyroid back in January.  Your thyroid levels are scary low - and ALL of your symptoms can be attributed to that.  You are showing no signs of stroke, brain problems or kidney failure, though your kidneys were in danger of permanent damage if we hadn't found this now".  

They started me on IV thyroid - but even with that levels of thyroid don't rise very quickly, just like they don't leave our system quickly.  My symptoms had been building slowly since January and since I have taken it so long (like I said, 40 years!) it just took awhile to all come to this place.  I was pumped with fluids via IV for nearly 20 hours.  Several doses of the IV thyroid and then released to go home.  But here is the deal:  my blood pressure is staying elevated and will until my thyroid levels get back to a normal range.  So now I also take another 'little pill' for BP.  Hopefully this will be short term and when my thyroid levels get back to normal my BP will also go back to the normal low that I have always had.  The renal readings will also take awhile to get back to normal. 

Scenario: 'healthy" 59 year old woman, now needing to monitor BP daily, taking meds, tried to go for my walk today and could manage about 10 minutes, not feeling quite so healthy at the moment.  Now facing regular doctor appts until my system is back to normal.

One tiny pill.........

Nuggets of gold

Many of us that live in Texas often comment that if you just "wait 5 minutes the weather will change". I have been watching posts from friends all over the country and this seems to be true in a lot of places, not just Texas.  It is a fact for us though!  In just the last few days, across our small  patch of central Texas heaven, we have had severe hail storms, gentle rain, wind, LOUD thunder with scary lightning, 80+ degree temps and now this morning, on May 3, 49 degrees and sun.  By this afternoon it will be 74 degrees!  From sweaters and socks to flip flops in one day.

I have been sharing our tackling of the overgrown beds in our back yard over the last few weeks.  My husband had done back breaking hard work a few years ago to put in these square foot gardening beds, digging down very deep to try and avoid the 'devil plant' -(Bermuda grass) from taking over.  Around each bed he placed a sheet metal barrier and then the wood bed edges,  filling that space in between the two with crushed granite  We then built the garden beds in various sizes and shapes to be planted with flowers, veggies and herbs.  All of this in the back yard to be protected from the deer that frequently pass through our property and stop to graze in the front yard. The plan was successful, and the beds have stayed relatively free from the Bermuda, but the granite border is another story. We don't water the remainder of our yard, living in the country on well water we simply let whatever grows to exist in that space.  While there is way too much of the much hated Bermuda grass (why anyone would ever plant this runner grass is beyond my understanding!) there is also a mixture of dandelions, lots of weeds and other plants that wash through in the rains that run down the hill from property above ours.  Most of the year the area is nice and green, and when mowed it looks kind of like a lawn. However, since there are many weeds in that 'lawn' when we do mow those seeds are scattered about the yard.  It takes only 1 pass of a lawn mower spraying seed heads over those beautiful granite borders to quickly fill the surface with plants that hide the beauty of the granite.  They are easy to pull, since they are just sitting on the rocks, but it is tedious and needs to be done regularly.  Since we had let them go for so long, the granite was hidden in most cases and we just ignored them - allowing the beds to stand empty and messy.  Yet those center sections, where the fertile soil is, were begging to be planted with plants.  

One of the beds is a fun triangular shape that I plant various things in each year.  Last year it was home to Thai and jalapeno peppers.  This year it is home to squash!  Even in the wild Texas weather it has been fun to see this bed come to life again.  Today we will enjoy our first harvest of yellow squash from this very bed. A week ago the granite border was still covered in weeds, though the center beds were rich with compost and plants that seem to grow a foot overnight.  After a few days work, we not only have some food to eat, but the area surrounding those plants looks pretty again. We can step up to the bed and work in the garden section without the scratching weeds and the sometimes harmful bugs hiding in the mess.  The pretty, productive part is easier to maintain without that ugly and invasive border taking over.

Slowly each of the 11 similar beds in our back yard are getting the same spruce up treatment.  As each one is being cleaned up, the yard looks better and better.  But more importantly, the healthy and pretty plants inside of each bed are not being threatened hostile take-overs from the aggressive weeds that surround them. Even though each bed has 2 borders to protect them those weeds don't give up - the Bermuda was pretty much stopped from invading under all that granite, but runners would creep across the top and seeds from mown weeds would take root in the top of the granite and grow ever closer to that fertile soil in the middle of each bed.  So it goes with our hearts.  We can put all kinds of barriers around us, whether it be isolation and a hard surface so deep that nothing can get through, or a rock barrier that is loose and open to random surface things taking over and crowding out the beauty that is beneath.  When we regularly take time to remove those things the beauty can be evident to all.  Just like our well planned out garden beds, the fertile soil is there, in the middle.  Beautiful things can grow in our hearts - but when we allow the things of this world to overtake the outside, without taking care of the 'border' eventually the ugly stuff will invade the soft inside spaces. The "Bermda" will eventually take root in the center. When that happens it isn't so easy to remove, sometimes even running too deep and causing us to say "I'll just let it go for good- it isn't worth it!"

For me - protecting that rich nourished space of my heart is well worth tending when out of it comes kindness, compassion, joy and sharing of the harvest with others - just like this beautiful nugget of gold that will be on our plates later, so are the nuggets of gold that can come from our hearts ~ the love of God, ready to be shared and enjoyed with those around us.  What are you harvesting today?

Mark 4:14-20 The farmer plants seeds by taking God's word to others. The seed that fell on the footpath represents those who hear the message only to have Satan come at once and take it away. The seed on the rocky soil represents those who hear the message and immediately receive it with joy. But since they don't have deep roots, they don't last long. They fall away as soon as they have problems or are persecuted for believing God's word. The seed that fell among the thorns represents others who hear God's word, but too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of this life, the lure of wealth, and the desire for other things, so no fruit is produced. And the seed that fell on good soil represents those who hear and accept God's word and produce a harvest of thirty, sixty or even a hundred times as much as had been planted!