Heavenly Pearls

God moves on our lives and it isn’t always comfortable; it isn’t always the way we imagined it to be. Any thoughts about scolding Him for the rocky road, or whining about a dramatic turn of events, might as well be saved, because He won’t have anything to do with it. He is “The Creator” after all, so He will create. That means movement, change, and discipline!

He is our Heavenly Father and not a travel agent, genie in a bottle, or magician to conjure all good things at our beck-and-call, with a happy ending tacked-on for good measure. He will mold, shape, renew, and craft, but a personal valet He is not.

God doesn’t guarantee a pleasant journey. In fact, for many of His children, the road is long and cluttered with potholes.

He intends to test us.

I was listening to Christian radio and caught the tail end of a guy talking about this very subject. His son, who was in his late teens at the time the story took place, was frustrated with God after going through a rough spot in his young life. Angrily he questioned “why, if God is so loving, does He let people go through so much pain and suffering?” He saw no truth to scriptures that claim everything works for the good of God.

Everything?

Dad went into a dresser drawer and pulled out an oyster shell that he had been keeping as a souvenir. When he had found the oyster, it contained a pearl. In the story, the shell, preserved with a clear lacquer finish, revealed a great deal about the process of making the pearl.

Dad explained that pearls don’t just happen. There’s no magic involved with making a pearl. In fact, the opposite is true. A pearl begins as a grain of sand that gets lodged inside of an oyster. The oyster’s defenses do everything nature allows in order to reject the foreign matter, which includes secreting some sort of mucus that actually coats and transforms that grain of sand, over time, into a beautiful pearl.

The process of making a pearl is uncomfortable for an oyster – very uncomfortable. And it certainly takes much time and effort.

Isn’t life like that for us?

I, for one, find life very uncomfortable and complicated, unless I am in the presence of God. In fact, often times I can feel God’s presence because of the difficulties.

I heard the pearl story two more times within just a few days of that radio show, once during a sermon delivered by one of the Pastors at my church. Another on a TV show – and I almost never watch TV.

Do you think God was trying to tell me something?

My dog Spike developed fast-moving pancreas cancer and went into liver failure a week ago. My surprise was only eclipsed by the sorrow of the terrible news. I took a pet that I thought had a simple virus to a doctor who told me a half-hour later that my dear friend Spike was going to die.

Through the tears I felt something come over me like a flow of warm water to calm, comfort, and wash-away the pain. It was Jesus who wrapped His arms around me; He came to me in a time of great sorrow and I felt His presence. He took me to green pastures and led me by still waters right through the valley of the shadow of death. He gave me peace.

As I gently whispered my last goodbye into Spike’s ear, I felt his life end in my arms and I was broken, beaten, devastated, that I had lost such a good friend so suddenly, so unexpectedly…

But I know that this terrible experience is part of life. Losing a pet is a very sad thing, but losing a loved one, a family member, a friend, is harder still. I have witnessed death a lot in my life. We all have! It never gets any easier. In saying goodbye to Spike, I remembered that this month marks the 30th anniversary of the death of my best childhood friend, John Simon. John took his own life at the age of 19, on my 21st Birthday. And in February I will mourn the second anniversary of the passing of another dear friend of mine, John Rae, who died due to complications from pneumonia in 2010. The list goes on-and-on.

Pearls.

As we move through life, if we listen to God, we can be transformed from grains of sand into beautiful Heavenly Pearls. It’s God’s plan. It’s not always pleasant. And we’ll struggle against it with all our might sometimes, until we realize (hopefully) that The Creator is at work in our lives again. And it will be beautiful; it will be forever.

Goodbye My Friend!

That’s what I think anyway.

Spike is gone and I still cry every time something reminds me of his sweet, sweet smile on my life. He was my angel, after all. And I know you’d laugh if you knew that I burst into tears tonight, fifteen minutes ago, a full week after Spike’s death, when I saw a tumbleweed of his fur roll-out from under my bed.

And I thank God he touched my life.

I remember when
I stumbled in the wind
You heard my cry to You
And You raised me up again
My strength is almost gone
How can I carry on
If I can’t find You

But as the thunder rolls
I barely hear You whisper through the rain
“I’m with you”
And as Your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise the God who gives
And takes away

I lift my eyes unto the hills
Where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord
The Maker of Heaven and Earth

And I’ll praise You in this storm
And I will lift my hands
For You are who You are
No matter where I am
And every tear I’ve cried
You hold in Your hand
You never left my side
And though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm

– Casting Crowns

A Glimpse of Home

“Life is a luminous pause between two great mysteries, which themselves are one.” – from Homer’s Odessey

In adult Bible study today we discussed “home” and “homesickness” as these terms relate to our perception of, and perhaps position within, our own life and relationship with God. We each were asked to present an example of “home” as we remember it from our childhood. This would turn out to be an exercise that would evidently point each one of us in two opposing directions at the same time.

The first direction would be a look backwards at the beginning of life and a search for union, love, belonging, and home. Perhaps, as the required text put it, “the foundational seed of a possible and ideal paradise.”

The second direction, of course, would be looking forward. Our one memory of “home” would serve each of us as an inner compass or “homing device” always pointing forward.

With this “device” planted within us, “the end is in the beginning, and the beginning points toward the end.” We all yearn for home, as even a child with an abusive or sad childhood longs for some idealized form of “home” or “mother” and wants to somehow return to it.

My mind instantly took me to the dining table on Christmas Eve – December 24th, 1960 something? I don’t know how old I was in the flash of a memory? Probably around eight years of age (that would make it 1968), as my parents had just moved into their “dream house” in Darien, Illinois on Halloween less than two months before. I could see into the living room from my dinner chair, all the presents carefully placed under the large fake green tree with anticipation and love. That’s what I saw anyway.

I knew this wasn’t our old house, mostly because we had a fake white tree over there – with one of those funky spinning color wheels that would turn the tree blue, green, and red about every thirty seconds. I liked the way it turned the walls, ceiling, drapes, carpet, people, dog, furniture, and snow outside the window different colors too.

What did I know? I was just a baby.

OMG! That's the one.

I think we even had one of those aluminum Christmas trees at some point in our old house, but don’t quote me on it. I was either too young back then to recall for sure, or I am drawing a blank now because of the embarrassment over the possibility that we would fall victim to such a pitiful mistake of fashion. “Tree by Reynolds Wrap.” Bleeeech! No wonder we had to move.

The Christmas trees, however, were not why this particular memory came to me so quickly, while I was being pressed to come up with a childhood image of “home” in my Bible study class this morning. No, not even toy race cars, choo choo trains, trikes, bikes, soldiers, cowboy pistols (save the NRA comments please), or favorite games pierced the cobwebs of my aging mind like the vision of that dining table did so effortlessly and with clarity.

Do you remember by your sense of smell? Yeah. Me too!

Every once in a while I get a whiff of that Christmas Eve meal; it takes me right back to the kitchen where my grandmother (mom’s mother) prepared every holiday meal throughout my whole life, until I was in my twenties and she passed away. I never thought I’d miss the commotion and fit my father would throw every time he had to carve the hot turkey. (He still pitches that same fit, but I intervene when I can and carve it myself – no angst, it’s just a hot bird. You dig?)

But I do miss it! I missed it when the table popped into my head again this morning. I miss the smell of it.

Mom was at one end of a seemingly endless red tablecloth; red linen napkins, our best silver and china, and crystal wine goblets provided a forest of shiny things reflecting the lit candles in the center of the table, semi-blocking a view of my dad way down at the other end. The food my grandmother, Helmi, had been preparing for days was strategically set all around steaming in pretty serving dishes and I know for a fact that I just wanted to get past grace and the obligatory Christmas Eve toast fast, so that I could dig in – to the gifts.

Grandpa (my dad’s dad) always had the honor of giving that toast. I don’t know why? Maybe it was some ancient patriarchal custom, or maybe that he wanted to get it over with too, so that we could get to the vittles? Whatever the reason, he was selected year-in-and-year-out to say a few words of wisdom.

I’m fuzzy over his exact words, as “some” years have since gone under the memory bridge, but with lifted wine glass he would make a similar – no exactly the same – offering every year:

“Another year has come and gone, let’s be thankful we are all sitting around this table once again.”

I wanted so badly to wolf-down my food and then rip-open the gifts. Grrrrr! It was the longest meal of the year for me.

My grandmother, the chef, died in 1989. My grandfather shortly thereafter. The details are not important. She broke a hip in 1988, spent a whole year recovering. A few days after she finally made it home from the nursing center, she broke the other hip and did not recover from the pneumonia that developed. Near the end, grandpa George had Alzheimer’s and a pretty bad case of Emphysema (from smoking two packs of filterless Camels since he was a young boy).

They left this world pretty close together. Apparently he missed her cooking? I know the feeling.

You know, up until the last time they were together, they would address one another as “Mrs. Kaal” and “Mr. Chochola.” I don’t believe we have anywhere close to that degree of respect and decorum left in this world right now. Seems some of that died with them too?

The Christmas Eve dinner table guests left one-by-one until it didn’t really look like Christmas Eve to me any more. For a long time I pretended to not care that holidays felt so different, so empty, or that I had to work. That was actually a relief. I stood tough as cousins moved away and started families of their own. My dad’s family was never very close and when grandpa was gone, so too was the force that brought that side of the family together.

On mom’s side there wasn’t anyone but mom and my grandmother to begin with. They barely escaped Estonia through Nazi Germany during World War II and came to America just the two of them. My grandfather on my mom’s side had died when she was a small child and everyone else, except for a few friends, didn’t make it out.

That old memory I’ve been keeping tucked-away and out of sight really blew my mind this morning. From out of nowhere, there I was, eight years old again. It really bore a striking resemblance to Leonardo da Vinci‘s The Last Supper (Italian: Il Cenacolo or L’Ultima Cena). It also reminded me of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper that I celebrate with my church family. And that really made me smile.

For many years I have had this horrible empty feeling like the past is gone and I cannot get it back. I’d miss those days when I could see, touch, and smell the sensations of family – of the union, love, belonging, and home.

That’s what the Holy Spirit has given back to me through my church family. Folks probably wonder why I always sit up front. But I like to watch every part of every service (especially the Lord’s Supper) from a front row seat, simply because I don’t want to miss anything. I take it all in with delight like I’m eight years old again and really cannot get over how moved I am to watch the faces coming forward. God feeding His people and I want to be right there to see it all unfold. Is that a bad thing?

Suddenly I am at the table once again – a foretaste of things to come. In many ways that’s what the Christmas Eve dinner table was so many years ago. I know it now. It was a foretaste of the Lord’s Table with grandpa George and grandma Helmi, with my church family, and with all of God’s children.

It’s a beautiful thought isn’t it? It’ll be a beautiful reality when our “two great mysteries, which themselves are one” come together with God at His table. I know “Mrs. Kaal”  wiil be there – probably cooking if she has any say in the matter. And “Mr. Chochola” will most certainly greet us with a toast.

Until that day, may we all maintain the seed that points to an eternal paradise in our hearts and in our memories.

Amen!