Advent 2013, Week 1: Hope for the Wounded

My friend and almost-sister Sonnie noticed the mole and went in for yet another battery of tests.

My friend Jane noticed the bloating, couldn't endure the pain and went to the emergency room.

The news was not good for either of them.

O God, we want to cry, Why now? Why at this season? Why ever?

And this is the day we are supposed to focus on the first Sunday in Advent, ushering in the Season of Hope.

It was with a heavy heart that my car, Josephine, and I groped our way through the heavy fog to Big Valley Church. The road stretched long and lonely, winding down and down to the one-lane bridge:

The weather and scheduled vacations combined to reduce the number of worshipers.

The music stubbornly refused to give way to the hearts of the musicians trying to lead the singing.

When finally it was time for Pastor Allan Clark to speak, I was exhausted, without heart; without hope.

And the first thing he said, as he lit the Advent candle, was "Today we are going to learn about the Season of Hope."

Hope is so much more than wishing your football team wins the Grey Cup, or longing for a great home-cooked meal, he said.

A dictionary definition of hope is "a wish or desire accompanied by the expectation of its fulfilment." Hope itself is authored by God himself, Pastor Alan went on. After humankind's first act of disobedience, God made a promise: 

I will put enmity between you [the serpent] and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”

—Genesis 3:15, ESV

And then he went on to touch on a few of the great figures of the Bible who - in the worst of circumstances - continued to have hope. Job, who suffered losses beyond belief in every way, physical, material, spiritual, emotional, still could say, in Job 19:23-27, that the hope of being in God's presence is what carried him through all his trials and tribulations.

Mighty King David, who managed to get himself embroiled in scandals or enmeshed in sorrow on a number of occasions, recognized in Psalm 71:5 that God was his hope, and not status, victory and wealth. That's why, time and again, he was able to come back and recommit his way to God with a repentant heart, seeking to get back into a right relationship with the one person who could give him lasting hope.

It was revealed to Paul, that great apostle, at the time of his conversion to Christianity how much he was going to have to suffer for God: Acts 9:15-16. And yet Paul had hope - later I pondered 2 Corinthians 1:8-10, which gives us this tremendous declaration:

8 For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.9 Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. 10 He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. (ESV)

Paul discovered the secret of hope; he experienced it for himself. He knew that our hope originates in God, that the only way we can have a hope-filled life is to abide in God. 

People will fail us. 

We will fail ourselves.

Only God will not fail.

The Lord Jesus Christ himself had hope, Pastor Allan went on. Hebrews 12:2 tells us that Jesus saw past the immediate pain and suffering, past God his Father turning his face away from his Son, past the crucifixion, to see what was going to be accomplished by his Father through Jesus the Son dying on the cross and rising again. What Jesus accomplished on the cross 33 years after the birth we celebrate at this season provides the key on which - if we receive him - we will build our own hope on.

"Our hope is not found in our physical well-being, but founded in a God who loves us, who has good things planned for us," Pastor Allan summarized. "Thus we can glorify God through our circumstances."

And so to my beloved Sonnie and Jane, to my friends Lorne and Becky, to Beth, to Dad's friend Paul, to Sonnie's friend Colleen; to all of us who are wounded in one way or another at this so-called festive season, I leave you with the note my perspicacious 21-year-old nephew Matt wrote to his dear Sonnie:

It's a fight. You're the only one in the ring; a boxer. All the training, all the previous battles, they're done...nearly forgotten...it's you and your opponent, toe to toe. You begin to lose confidence and feel isolated. No one can bail you out, this is all on you. Now you feel lonely, then you hear "Hit 'em with all you've got!" It's a familiar voice, so you're not distracted; nay, you're emboldened, strengthened by it. This is the voice of your trainer, the chief of your corner. Now you remember that you didn't come here alone. The people in your corner, though they may have changed over the years, are your people. And this trainer? He's seen you through every fight, and always been there to give you words of advice and courage meant when you get knocked down. The people in your corner? They've been to some of your other bouts, and they want to see you win. They're cheering you on. They know they can't jump in the ring and actually fight for you, so between rounds they Q-tip your cuts and reduce your swelling. They pour water in your mouth, and while all this is happening, you're focused. Not on your opponent, not on your people, but on your trainer. You know that even though you're in the fight, He's got a plan for it. And win or lose, He'll see you through it. All any trainer wants us for their fighter to listen to their instructions and have faith that they know what's best. 

Sonnie, I just want you to know that my family - our family - the family of God is in your corner. The Lord is in charge, and He has a fight strategy planned out. He knows how it'll go down because He knows us better than we know ourselves, but He doesn't tell us because He wants to see that we can trust in His word and instruction, and that win or lose, He is with us and loves us. It's our faith in Him to lead us that counts, not our performance in the ring. The thing is, He knows that it gets lonely in a 1 on 1 fight, so He brings people to support us and stand in our corner, to cheer us on. People He knows will mourn if we lose and rejoice if we win, who hold out for us no matter if we get knocked down and stagger up or win in the first round. People who through the whole fight want to be there to support us and hope we win. The trainer is the only one who knows, and the corner offers support, because He knows we need it. God's got a plan, and we've got your back. We love you Sonnie. Try as you might to get rid of us, we are in your corner, cheering you on in your fight.

"Win or lose." Active, living HOPE.

Advent wreath at Big Valley Church

Autumn Leaves

We were finishing lunch in the cafeteria on the ground floor of Carswell's head office. Suddenly my manager went outside to the patio and returned with the biggest leaf I'd ever seen.

"Here you are - an autumn leaf from Ontario for you," she announced.

This afternoon I thought of something my Dad had said at one time or another, something about how the autumn leaves don't have to be shaken or pulled off the tree; they will fall in their own good time, making way for the tender green buds to emerge in the spring. We can't force their hand or speed up the cycle of life in a tree by trying to strip off the old, dead leaves. We just have to wait.

Like a butterfly fighting to emerge from its chrysalis: if we were to try to cut open that fragile strongbox, the butterfly will not develop strength enough to enable it to spread its wings and finally flutter upward and away.

Like cracked ribs.

Like bananas. Sure you can pick them up in the grocery store, all golden and no black flecks, the result of careful heat-lamp ripening. But their flavour is negligible compared with the sweet, sun-ripened fruit we enjoy in Kerala. 

And that's sort of like the cycle of our own life too, isn't it? We might want to see something happen with all due despatch - after all, we know that the anticipated event will inevitably take place - but certain things cannot, must not, be rushed.

Like grief. It charts its course and commands us to come along. But grace comes along as well; and the two of them will come to an understanding if we only draw strength from what each has to teach us.

The great King Solomon's "journal," Ecclesiastes, reads in the third chapter and verse 11, "He has made every thing beautiful in his [its] time."

We just have to wait, thankful that there is a time and a season for everything.

And we can revel in the crisp chill of this vivid season as it ushers out the heat of summer and buffers us from the cold to come.

_____________________________________________________

(Here's one of my favourite versions of that old standard, "Autumn Leaves," sung by the incomparable Eva Cassidy. Eva and her music only became known outside her immediate circle five years after her death from cancer in 1996. She was 33.)

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Perhaps Patricia

At the beginning of 1959, just before my Dad was to set sail from Port Arthur, Texas, for Bombay, India, he stopped for a few days with his elder sister, Mary, who lived in Texas at the time.

And he got to meet and know Mary's eldest child, Patricia. Patty.

Dad forged a bond with Patty in that short time that remains to this day. As a matter of fact it's flitted through my mind, like a breeze through sheets hanging on a clothes line on a fragrant summer afternoon, that the warmth of Dad's affection for his little Patty predisposed him - a stranger in a strange land - to look toward a familiar name when he heard it, to look in the direction of another girl named Patricia, a girl with brown eyes and an enormous heart who would become his wife a couple of years later.

My eldest cousin, Patty stayed with Dad for the last few days and was with us yesterday, the sixth anniversary of Mum's death.

Eight yellow flowers growing on one stem ...

Both our Patricias know what it is to suffer. Like Mum, Patty has undergone brutal treatment for cancer - and, also like Mum, her indomitable spirit and her deep strength of character have carried her through.

Like Mum, Patty is warm and loving.

She's quick and funny.

She connects with people.

She came along with Dad to the Manor on Tuesday and to our Wednesday TH Bible study yesterday - the actual anniversary of Mum's death. 

Dad is guiding us through Paul's tiny letter to Philemon on Wednesday evenings - you'd think that it would take one study, right?! But Dad is revealing a wealth of meaning and such a source of challenge and comfort through this little book.

This Wednesday he addressed three topics: Prayer, Human Nature, and The Providence of God, all as seen in the letter to Philemon.

The providence of God has been defined by Henry C. Thiessen in his book Lectures in Systematic Theology:

Etymologically, the word “providence” means foreseeing. From this basic
idea has developed the meaning of providing for the future. But in theology
the word has received a more specialized meaning. In this field, “providence”
means that continuous activity of God whereby he makes all the events of
the physical, mental, and moral realms work out his purpose, and this
purpose is nothing short of the original design of God in creation. To be sure,
evil has entered the universe, but it is not allowed to thwart God’s original,
benevolent, wise, and holy purpose. [Emphasis added is the part Dad quoted.]

(1989: Wm B Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan, p. 122 ff)


Dad asked the question "If God is not the author of sin, how do we explain the horrible acts of sin if God is ruling over all? How is God related to [humankind's] sinful acts?"

Providence, Dad went on to say, is manifest in four ways:

Preventative Providence, where God restrains a person from the sin he or she is intending to commit: Genesis chapter 20 verse 6 is an example of this.

Permissive Providence is where God sometimes permits sin to take its course: the book of Acts chapter 1 and verse 16, and Psalm 81 verse 12 is God telling how He let people go their own way.

Directive Providence is where God allows evil to occur, but He directs the way it goes in order to accomplish His will: John 13:21-27 is the tragic vignette where Jesus tells Judas Iscariot to "do quickly" what he intends to do.

Restrictive Providence reveals God determining the limits to which evil and its effects may go: the book of Job chapter 1 verse 12, and chapter 2 verse 6 shows God saying to Satan, "So far, but no further."

In the letter to Philemon Paul is pleading with his friend for mercy to be extended to the latter's runaway slave, Onesimus. In the 15th verse Paul says, with great gentleness and insight, Perhaps he left you for a while so that he would return to you forever ...

The word perhaps in Philemon opens the door to the doctrine of Providence, Dad commented.

The other notable occasion the sense of this word is used is in the little book telling the story of Queen Esther: Esther chapter 4 and verse 14 gives us Mordecai, Esther's uncle, speaking to her fairly sternly regarding her responsibility to her people. "Who knows whether [Perhaps] you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"

There is more written in the Bible about the providence of God than about creation, Dad observed; and yet the word itself is never used. God cares about every aspect of our lives - if it's big enough for you to be concerned about, it's big enough for God to be concerned about. He has known us and cared about us from before we were born.

As I sat across the room from my beautiful cousin, who had no idea when she planned her itinerary that she would be here on such a significant date to our part of the family, I thought of her and my arms entwined as we shed tears and supported each other in remembering our mothers at Mum's graveside. I thought of the songs we sang, BA, Dad, Patty and I, into the sting of cold air that held no victory that day. 

For each one of us who has watched helplessly while a dream dies and we are left with a yawning hole stretched out before us, perhaps there is more to this story as we trace the providence of God working its mysterious way through our life? I think of my own life, of dreams that shattered or shifted last year and this one. Now, in hindsight, I can see the hand of God smoothing the way for me, guiding me in a new way, restoring my soul in ways I could not have imagined at the time.

And I thought to myself, Perhaps Patty was with us on this particularly hard anniversary, both for us and for her?

"Praise the Lord for the word perhaps ..." Dad ended.

  

Carpe Diem - Advice from Mary Oliver

Don't Hesitate

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don't hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty
of lives and whole towns destroyed or about
to be. We are not wise, and not very often
kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this
is its way of fighting back, that sometimes
something happens better than all the riches
or power in the world. It could be anything,
but very likely you notice it in the instant
when love begins. Anyway, that's often the
case. Anyway, whatever it is, don't be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

From Swan: Poems and Prose Poems (Beacon Press, 2010)

Sunset sky on the drive home
from the funeral of our friend
Arny's wife, Debbie

Happy New Year to all of you!

Advent for the Wounded, Week 2 - Who Do You Say That I Am?

Peter Paul Reubens: The Massacre of the Innocents

This week I wanted to ponder the question Jesus asked of His disciples. The tiny snippet is found in the book of Matthew, chapter 16 and verses 13 - 19. He first asked them, "Who do other people say that I am?" The answers were more along the lines of answering the question, "Who do other people say that I'm like?" John the Baptist ... Elijah ... another of the prophets ... All very vague, really. These answers could be expected from people who were reading only the headlines from the local tabloid of the day.

Then He turned the question on its head. Looking right at them He asked, "Who do you say that I am?"

My friend Mary and I went to the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus's performance of Handel's Messiah last Saturday. (You can read the Calgary Herald's review here.) In the chorus "For Unto Us A Child is Born" some of who Jesus will be is sung through the words of the prophet Isaiah: Wonderful ... Counsellor ... the Mighty God ... the Everlasting Father ... the Prince of Peace.

The week has been a draining, exhausting one. It ended on a tragic note, with the news of the horrific termination of the lives of 20 tiny children and their teachers and supervisors.

In this dark season of the year, the world has become inexplicably darker with the snuffing out of the lights of these students and teachers.

On the same day, our friend Arnie buried his wife, Debbie. After a gallant fight she had succumbed to multiple myeloma, the same cancer that Mum had bravely fought. But Debbie was only 48.

"Who do you say that I am?"

"If God is real, why does he let these kinds of things happen?" was a question posed in response to the massacre.

"If God is love, why did he let children die?"

"Where was God during this?"

"Who can you trust these days?"

I think back to another massacre of children. Jesus was an infant. King Herod, in jealousy and fear, ordered the slaughter of all male children in Bethlehem aged two and under. Based on the population of Bethlehem at the time, estimates have been made that the total number of children killed would be approximately ... 20.

"A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more."
(Jeremiah 31:15)

The darkest kind of darkness. And it is in this time of bleak despair that the question is still asked of us, "Who do you say that I am?"

Our faith, and how we lead our lives, pivots on how we answer this question. As I was thinking about it in the context of senseless murder, in the context of cancer, in the context of war and overwhelming grief and uncertainty, one thing emerged with clarity.

Jesus is the same as He was the day before the shooting at the Connecticut elementary school. He mourns with those parents who will never again tell their little ones a bedtime story, tell them to finish their milk, tell them hurry up it's time for school. He mourns with the loved ones of the adults who were gunned down trying to protect their charges.

He suffered a horrendous death Himself so that death ultimately could be defeated. How He grieves today!

Last Sunday, the second Sunday in this year's advent, we lit the second candle, the candle of peace. At the other side of the week, we ask, where is this peace?

"You are the Christ." The Messiah. The Saviour. The only One who can bring peace and hope to the world.

Simon Peter's words ring out with clarity in an age where, like ours today, the world was infused with oppression, suffering, poverty, senseless killings.

"On this rock I will build my church." The truth that was revealed to Peter (petros) that day would be the rock (petra) upon which the church would be built, the church where Christ Himself is the cornerstone.

That early church suffered horribly, unspeakably. Like us today, they did not have all the answers to the immediate situation. Yet during their worst suffering, their moments of despair, they clung to this basic truth; we too are invited to claim and cling to it today:

"You are the Christ, the son of the living God."




In Memoriam: 

Charlotte Bacon, 6

Daniel Barden, 7

Olivia Engel, 6

Josephine Gay, 7

Ana Marquez-Greene, 6

Dylan Hockley, 6

Madeleine Hsu, 6

Catherine Hubbard, 6

Chase Kowalski, 7

Jesse Lewis, 6

James Mattioli, 6

Grace McDonnell, 7

Emilie Parker, 6

Jack Pinto, 6

Noah Pozner, 6

Caroline Previdi, 6

Jessica Rekos, 6

Avielle Richman, 6

Benjamin Wheeler, 6

Allison Wyatt, 6

Rachel Davino, 29

Dawn Hochsprung, 47

Anne Marie Murphy, 52

Lauren Rousseau, 30

Mary Sherlach, 56

Victoria Soto, 27

Book Review ... Day 16

I received your latest missive through the mail last evening. It started off, "A week now into my retirement ..." and I want to note how happy I am for you, even though your absence is our team's great loss.

You are one of the veterans, a scholar and a gentle man. You are the ideal bookseller because you love books and you actually read what you sold. 

You read so much more, too: history, politics, reference, essay, short story, novel. You have been kind enough to send me amuses bouches, if you will, of what you feasted on, whetting my appetite for more from the wide-ranging buffet of your interests.

When we were at a conference in St Catherine's you showed me the historic Shaw Festival offices, and told me about the productions you and Irma were hoping to see.











For my birthday you sent me a tome that could not help but delight me: The Glamour of Grammar ...

I was thrilled that it was I who got to introduce you to Mary Oliver.

No wonder, then, I was so gratified when you said you were going to pay a visit to the TH during the week late in July that you were on your last voyage across the Prairies for Carswell. In one masterful stroke you combined two of my great delights: whiling away a convivial hour or two with a dear friend and introducing someone to the magic of the TH.

And what a splendid evening it was!

After dinner we strolled down Main Street and in your elegant, understated way you revealed to me the beauty of living in a place like Trois Lumps. I might add that there is no doubt of what kind of salesman you are - you even persuaded me to let you take my picture in the gently fading light.

It was you who, borrowing from Shakespeare's Henry V, christened the academic team "We few, we happy few, we happy band of brothers" "- and sister!" you would add, twinkling. With your departure our band seems somehow disbanded, somewhat inconclusive, We look forward to raising a china cup filled with fragrant tea with you at the next April conference when we will be able to send you off in a manner that befits you.

Your great passion, of course, is sailing. I always enjoy hearing stories of your Irenes and I will always look back fondly on the Carswell trip to St Lucia where you kindly took my sister and me out on your borrowed craft and presented us with the gift of the sun, the breeze, the salty drops spattering our faces either from within or without on that year which held not much happiness for us as we adjusted to life without Mum.

This year has not been one of unmixed joy for you; but I see how you work with the winds, some gale force, that would seek to throw your vessel off course. Your courage and consistency have not gone unnoticed and I wish and pray for you smooth sailing in the very near future.

In closing your letter you speculated that I would be reading it in one of the comfy chairs that nestle into corners in the TH; you were right, as you are so many times. I am much comforted over the thought of connecting with you still over a word, a turn of phrase, a passage.

But today Mary gets the last word:

Breakage

BY MARY OLIVER

I go down to the edge of the sea.

How everything shines in the morning light!

The cusp of the whelk,

the broken cupboard of the clam,

the opened, blue mussels,

moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred—

and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,

dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture gone.

It's like a schoolhouse

of little words,

thousands of words.

First you figure out what each one means by itself,

the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop

       full of moonlight.

Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

Chatting to Mum

 Oh Mum, you would love this tea. I brought it into the TH as a reminder of you. I also have one called Irish Eyes, but this Irish Breakfast is a pukka morning tea. 


Last night I couldn't sleep at all. I think I get that from you ... I didn't even bother going to bed. There were so many thoughts in my mind, so many emotions bubbling up. I have five years of talking to catch up on ...

Has it really been five years? Some times the days and weeks seem to have gone by so quickly that I can almost convince myself you're just in another part of town. Other times the moments drag themselves along behind me, dreary and lethargic.

I wake up each morning and see the quilt you crafted for me hanging on my wall. It is so perfect: the colours are ones I would have chosen for myself, and everything is symmetrical and designed for a "counter" such as I.

If I look to the left I can see Jenny II, positioned on the centre of the shelf in my closet for that very reason. Do you remember Jenny? You had my name for the last Christmas gift exchange. You had asked me earlier that summer what I missed from my childhood. The spirit of whimsy took hold of me and I asked you if you remembered my doll Jenny. I had had more dolls than any little girl has a right to, but Jenny was my favourite. She had blue eyes that blinked solemnly at me when I sat her up or lay her down. One day someone punched in her eyes and drew with indelible ink on her face. An adult glued her eyes in, giving her a fixed, vacant perpetual stare. I remember loving her even more, perhaps, now that she wasn't perfect. 

I told you the story of my poor wounded Jenny that summer afternoon. And at Christmas, your last Christmas, you presented me with a new Jenny.


I saw the uncertainty, almost embarrassment, on your face as you hesitantly handed the wrapped box to me. "It's just for a laugh, to show you I was listening to you that day," you tried to explain.

I saw a hint of fear that I was going to scorn your gift, indirectly rejecting you.

 I can tell you unequivocally that Jenny II was one of the best Christmas gifts I have ever received; she remains one of my dearest treasures because every time I look at her, perched on her shelf, I am reminded that you know me and you love me, perhaps even more because I gave you ample evidence time and time again that I'm not perfect.

It's so hard some days, Mum. Often the TH is at sixes and sevens and I cast my mind back to the weeks we opened in 2003. We were utterly naive, horribly ill prepared; and you, Bonnie Cunningham, Don-and-Norma, BA and Dad stepped nobly into the breach. You taught me how to make desserts and roast beef; how to wash the dishes without wasting water; how the kitchen needed to be spotless before I staggered my weary self upstairs.

You were less than a year post-op from your first enormous cancer surgery. You were exhausted and physically fragile, but you never quit. You were the last person in the kitchen with me every night for several months.

I always seem to be tired these days. I wake up tired. I've been wondering lately if this is how you conducted your whole life from the time you started to teach at the College, plus all the music, plus Easter and Christmas cantatas, plus counselling and listening, plus matron duties for the women students, plus the endless entertaining every single day. I remember being irritated with you when you would express how tired you were; to my enduring shame I remember that I would snap at you, "Go to bed earlier then ..."

Now I realize that there are other priorities, that the night watch is my trusted friend as it must have been yours, that sometimes the midnight hour is the only time I have really to think. I wish you and I could sit together now throughout one night and I could ask you all the things I still don't know.

The headstone was installed last week. Dad did such a good job choosing the stone, picking out the font and the colour. He had already spent weeks polishing and perfecting the words and design to be engraved. The finished result is a strong, beautiful, enduring statement of the two of your faith and hope.

I stopped at your home briefly this afternoon to pick something up from Dad, and was greeted by the dulcet tones of Jim Reeves singing, "Have I told you lately that I love you?" He never forgets; and while he is not lonely, I think he yearns more and more to be with you, to share with you the fragile beauty that these past five years have managed to sprout and nurture in the often parched soil of mourning.

(I want to thank you for your choice of a father for your children. Dad soldiers on with grace and immense kindness. He loves each one of us and accepts all of us the way we are. Whenever he speaks at a church his teaching is rooted in love - love for God and love for his fellow-pilgrims. People of all ages and walks are drawn to him. There could be no better example of a godly life for your five grandsons than their grandpa.)

BA, always observant, walked to the rear of the stone when we were admiring it in the cemetery last Wednesday, and she took this picture. The stone itself is polished plain black, the picture on it the reflection of the sunset at that moment.

 This early morning as the first rays of the sun offered the promise of a glorious day, I couldn't help myself: I wanted to be near you. Of course I know you are not there; but there is a certain wistful comfort to be derived from the solace of the cemetery. I gathered some sweet peas from the TH and drove to the cemetery as the sun was rising.

I thought about your long, hard days in the hospital toward the end. For a few moments on the Saturday afternoon, September 15, 2007, no one else was with you except for me. You asked me to read Psalm 70:

Make haste, o God, to deliver me; make haste to help me, O Lord.

² Let them be ashamed and confounded that seek after my soul: let them be turned backward, and put to confusion, that desire my hurt.

³ Let them be turned back for a reward of their shame that say, Aha, aha.

⁴ Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: and let such as love thy salvation say continually, Let God be magnified.

⁵ But I am poor and needy: make haste unto me, O God: thou art my help and my deliverer; O Lord, make no tarrying.

You were ready to go.

Today at lunch at the TH, as Dad was offering thanks for the food he prayed, "We thank You for this wonderful day, when you took Mum to be with You."


This is the day we celebrate your release from pain and suffering. 

But the flip side to the coin is this is the day we remember that your slipping this mortal coil signalled a new normal for those of us who remain. I would never wish you back, but what I wouldn't give for a few hours of your company!

I really wanted to know if heaven is indeed a wonderful place, as the children's chorus goes. I always want to know if you're happy, if people are treating you with kindness.

And then BA captured the most remarkable picture. When I saw it, it struck me that this was your message to us, that you are indeed happy; and so we continue to wait, people with hope who love you and want to be with you, thankful for your life and your ministry and your love.

It is truly a great privilege to be your daughter.

                     

Life Sentence

Naomi

July 13, 2010

Forever young, do you really want to live forever?

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Naomi

August 22, 2011

Glioma cancer, I know you are serious, but through God, I will beat you!

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Naomi

May 31, 2012

To all those friends who have been praying for me through this difficult time, Thank you SOOO much for your faithfulness in prayers and encouragements!! For I am CANCER FREE!!!!! Praise the LORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

__________________________________________________________________________________

What would you do if you had a death sentence commuted?

Meet my friend Naomi. She has one of the most remarkable stories I've heard in a long time and she has given me permission to share some of it because her life asks some of the Big Questions. All of those questions have an answer; but for some of them she doesn't know what it is yet.

Naomi's story starts back in Kenya. She never really knew her biological father - he left before she was old enough to have a chance; her mother married again when she was a tiny girl and three more children were added to the family through this union.

And then her mother left her too, dying when Naomi was seven years old.

Her stepfather said that as Naomi was not his child she had to leave the family home, the only home she had really known. She had to leave her little sister and brothers. 

She had just lost her mother.

She was sent to her grandmother's house to live. It was always understood that this was a temporary arrangement, however; she was going to have to be sent somewhere else for a permanent home.


As it happened, Naomi's uncle - her mother's brother - was attending college in Alberta and had struck up a close friendship with fellow-student Jonathan. He and his wife and tiny kids were in and out of Jonathan's parents' home. When the news came about his sister, he asked Jonathan's mother to adopt his little niece. "Teacher, you have to take this girl!" he begged. He couldn't take her himself, because he was on a student visa. "Sure!" said Shirley. "If we can arrange the paperwork and God allows her in, we'll take her." And Shirley started the paperwork.


For two years little Naomi lived in limbo with her grandmother as the grinding adoption process went through all its machinations.

And finally, just before she turned 10, she was adopted into her new family. Now she had new parents, a new sister and four new brothers who all loved her dearly, even before they knew her. She remembers arriving in the airport in Canada, a terrified little nine-year-old girl who had been put on a plane in Kenya and had flown all the way across the world by herself to her "new mom and dad." She remembers them all meeting her in the airport, these new parents and sister and brothers. They all surrounded her with hugs and kisses and love. "There was a lot of loving going around in the airport, I remember that!"

She also had a new country, a new culture, a new language and new confusions to contend with.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I'm loving the purple soft velvety two piece
with the pink helmet that's a little big! I had quite the childhood!"

Language was the least of it. She came to Canada speaking Kikuyu, her mother tongue. At first her uncle and his family were around Three Hills, and she could speak with them. But she quickly caught on to English; and her uncle's family moved away, ultimately ending up in Edmonton.

That last connection she had felt to her mother was now gone. Shirley and Ken, her Canadian parents, loved her beyond a shadow of a doubt and their hearts ached for her to feel like she belonged. They watched her struggle to understand how this western society worked, why she couldn't see her other brothers and sister, although she was forging a real bond with her Canadian family. When Naomi hit junior high, Shirley even learnt how to braid hair the African way. "It would take Mum 16 hours," Naomi marvelled. "But she just didn't give up until it was done. She just loved me."

When Naomi was 12 she went back to Kenya for her first visit. She was overwhelmed. "It was good to be home but a lot of things had changed. You always think that everything's going to be the same from when you leave, but everything in the village had completely changed."

Kungu, Esther, Samuel

Seeing her siblings was very emotional for her because she had to go back to the step-dad's house for the visit. He lived on a big acreage farm with his father, who had two wives and many children; no one had left, including the step-dad. Seeing her siblings, who were still so little, and being in the house that her mom had lived in - memories came back to her like a tidal wave. It seemed like just yesterday she had seen her mom sitting by the fire in front of that very fire place when she collapsed and fainted, right in front of Naomi. A couple of days later she passed away in the hospital - most likely typhoid, or at least that was the cause of death given by the hospital ... 


Her little brothers and sister were painfully shy around her. She realized that they had lost any source of communication with each other because Naomi had lost her mother tongue Kikuyu and the kids didn't speak English. (Just recently her sister tracked her down on Facebook, "the most wonderful thing that's happened in a while," Naomi rejoiced.)

                                                                                                         

Salt-and-Pepper!

Then in grade 7, Naomi's Dad was offered a call to pastor a church in the little town of Maidstone, Saskatchewan. Junior high was pretty tough - new school; hardly anyone who looked like Naomi in Maidstone! She made a great friend there, though, her best friend to this day: Jillian, a girl originally from Slovenia and with all the pale colouring and blue eyes and light blonde hair that that entails. They were called Salt and Pepper at their school. They were inseparable.  

Naomi and her parents moved back to Three Hills for high school. When she came back she felt like she fit in more, like she was actually coming back home for the first time in a long time. 

But high school proved to be a bit worse than she thought it would be. Naomi still had a hard time understanding that on the surface she looked different to those around her. Her family was white so she self-identified as white and would get very mixed reactions from people who "saw only the outside" of her. She feels that she went into denial about being black around this time, and it was startling to her when people would ask her mother and her if they were together when they went to a restaurant. She was called "Oreo" - black on the outside and white on the inside. All this left her feeling a little lost, a little like she didn't really belong in the town she now gladly called home.

After her high school graduation Naomi went to Red Deer College for a couple of years. "Life-learning lessons, looking back ..." she mused. She learnt a lot about herself, and about other people ... "about who you could trust" ... She had thought she was a Christian, but she discovered that she wasn't displaying any of the characteristics of a Christ-follower. She had given her life to Jesus in an emotional moment when she was 12  but wasn't living like she had salvation, and had no assurance of salvation, until January 2012. 

With her Aunt Betty

Rewind a few months to August 2011. The C word made its presence felt in Naomi's head, in her brain. Glioblastoma. Stage IV brain tumour.

The medical profession's opinion was that there was no point proceeding with treatment, Naomi told me quietly. Her first oncologist "gave all the facts straightforward: 'No one has ever lived from this cancer ... you can try and fight it but it grows so quickly that we won't be able to do anything very soon.' " But her mother and father decided that if there was even the tiniest sliver of hope, they were going to pursue it. The extraordinary Shirley decided that they weren't going to give up; she rallied Naomi and got her on board.  "Even if there was a little bit of hope ... I didn't want to be one of those people who didn't even try ..." Surgery was scheduled for August 4, 2011, and chemo started at the beginning of September.

With her cancer diagnosis Naomi's eyes were opened as to what salvation really was about. There was no real reason or catalyst right then, apart from the cancer - "it just clicked," she said. She became more aware of where she was at personally: "It was God opening my eyes for me." She got baptized in April - her Dad himself was able to baptize her.

April 29, 2012 -
Naomi's Dad baptizing her

Then on May 29, 2012, exactly one month later, the word that you hope and wish and pray for but which you think will not actually happen to you: she got the diagnosis of cancer free. "The oncologist came in and was talking about it all. Talking about the MRI, about what was seen and what was not seen. The fact that there was no cancer there. The results were there. The fact that I had this terminal cancer and it had done nothing for six months. The cancer was supposed to be growing like crazy - between four and twelve months was my anticipated expiry date."

She said those last two words without a trace of irony, like she had long since accepted them as part of the vocabulary of her life story. 

She has to go back every four months for the next couple of years to make sure everything is on track.

What was your first reaction? I asked her. "The thing is," she said, "After the baptism thing, for the first two weeks I was out of it. Spiritual warfare, back and forth, back and forth. I wasn't really feeling much of anything. I had gone numb." 

So when the doctor said that she was cancer free, Naomi didn't even smile. "It was like it was someone else's news. I wondered, Did I hear her right?, as I sat in this place where I had never gotten good news." Most people would be joyous. Shirley was a lot more ecstatic than Naomi was. When the charge nurse, whom Naomi had always had - Molly - heard the news, she was so excited for her - "Oh my goodness Naomi, you should be dancing out of here! Show me some of those zumba moves!" Shirley was dancing and spinning around. "People in the waiting area were wondering what was going on!" 

Naomi was just numb.

As it slowly started to sink in that it was for real, Naomi started to feel profoundly sad about the time she had wasted on wrong priorities. She had wanted to be a high-profile lawyer but she hadn't focused on her studies. She had wanted to be popular and was more concerned about her social life than being kind. She hadn't thought of the cost of going to school - either financial, emotional or intellectual. Now, after the cancer and the diagnosis that she was cancer free, her brain felt like it was smothered in a way and she regretted how she wasted the time when she had been "sharp and bright and heedless."

"It's all so amazing ... fighting through the cancer I was happy, focused, positive. I thought I was going to die so I was living life to the fullest, fast-forwarding friendships and building memories. Zumba classes. Step classes. I went to aqua jog and swimming. So much energy. But I was not really joyful, though, until February when I knew that when I died I was really going to heaven."

Some of her friends in Three Hills admonished her. One said that Naomi "should be shouting [her] good news from the rooftops!" But now that Naomi had been given a second chance at life, she felt dead inside, "like I, me, had gone away."

Oddly enough, after the pronouncement that she was cancer free she lost her joy. She had been running on adrenalin, fighting this foreigner inside her. She had done what she needed to cope. Now she found herself "walking down a road of disgusting depression," which she had been told wouldn't let up until early fall. Although she didn't entirely give up, everything just seemed hopeless; the only hope she had for the future, in those dark days, was in eternity. "But it seems hard to have hope for the day when your mind is against you and you can't seem to control your thoughts at all." She would get up at 9, take her medicine, and then often found herself going back to bed. She felt like she had no strength, and she would ask herself why she didn't have strength now that she wasn't fighting cancer? 

She would lie in bed, trying to battle the waves of anxiety that threatened to overcome her and drown her. She cut herself off Facebook; she turned her phone off for most of the time. Most messages she wouldn't reply to - if she did reply, it would take two or three weeks.  "I cut out all social media and social ties because there seemed to be no point." 

"Is this what cancer-free feels like?" she despaired.

Then slowly, so slowly, things seemed to be getting slightly better. The anxiety, that she felt as a constant physical presence in the centre of her chest, like a weight that she had sitting on her chest, started to shift a tiny bit. Some days were still worse than others. There were more glimmers of light, though. 

She realized that she had seen herself through her friends' eyes when she was going through cancer treatment - "you're so brave, you're so strong, you can do it." But when the cancer was gone, coinciding with the summer starting and everyone's lives accelerating into high gear, she felt like all her friends had gone too, "like I'd had a falling out with everyone. Certain friends seemed to be there for me because I had cancer ... because they felt sort of bad for me ... but now that I was free, they were not there for me any more. They were also physically gone, I know, but oh well."

She started to feel a bit sorry for herself.

She felt the summer saw a lot of problems arising in her relationships because she often took what her friends said, even the most well-meaning, and interpreted it a different way, through the suffocating fog of her depression. She told herself that she needed to grow a thicker skin because she knew that people wanted her best. One friend said to her, "Naomi, I've been praying for you - and asking the Lord to give you wisdom." Just another joyful-advocate, Naomi thought dismissively.

And then something happened to her. In July she went camping in the mountains. Well, she went to help out at a camp, Higher Challenge, that her brother was leading for First Nations kids. Two weeks of work, play, seeing people worse off than herself.

Two weeks of focusing not on herself and her worries but on God and on helping disadvantaged kids.

Katrina, Naomi, Jung - camp counsellors together!

She came back with a new attitude. She came back with a new focus. She came back with no more depression.

She came back herself again.

But it seems to me that it's more than herself she's come back to. She had wanted to be a high-profile lawyer, and she still entertains the thought of becoming a lawyer but what is more important to her now is the people whose lives she will touch. She has enrolled in the local Bible college's one-year Encounter program, an intense immersion into the Bible and into service for others. She commented to me not long ago, "[If I don't become a lawyer],

that would be okay with me too now - I would NEVER have been telling you this a year ago! I've learnt that what you might want is not necessarily what God wants for you."

Kenya or Canada as the ultimate destination? I asked her once. Her response was pure Naomi. She doesn't know how she would react to everyone looking like her, being like her, if she was back in Kenya. She likes the distinction of being one of the few black people in her community! She is still not always comfortable being the only black person in her family; but when she goes to her birth uncle's and aunt's house in Edmonton, she feels uncomfortable because, first, she doesn't understand what they're saying all the time and, second, they are all black! She doesn't know quite where she truly belongs and feels she would be more comfortable at a party at her parents' house. "It goes back to that whole thinking that I'm a white person and not black. The Oreo."

A true third-culture kid.

As far as her family in Kenya is concerned, her grandmother is still alive. Now she's 68, slightly older than her Dad here in Canada. The uncle here bought the grandma some land in the northern part of Kenya and she built a little house. It's not insulated and can get really cold.  Naomi's birth mom's sister has been diagnosed with HIV, contracted from her husband. The last time her Edmonton uncle saw her he said she was doing well.

Her little sister has been accepted into medicine; her brother is studying journalism. Her youngest brother is now in grade 10. They are all super smart. Her Edmonton uncle is supporting the kids, his sister and his mother, Naomi's grandmother. "They're my family. I want to be able to help them too. But could I do more from Canada or from Kenya? I just don't know ..."

She has four elder brothers and a sister here in Canada "who are my fam now. Since I came to Canada. I couldn't have gotten through the cancer without them." She has nephews and nieces to whom she is devoted. She's told me she doesn't know where she'd be without the love and determination of her Mum and the love and support of her Dad.

She is aware that there's always the chance that the cancer could come back. She's sailing in uncharted waters, as no one who has contracted this type of cancer has not died very quickly.

"It's been quite the journey, Kenya to here. I can't wait to see where it ends ..." She paused, and then quickly corrected herself, "where life takes me ..."

And so today - August 29, this shining day! - I say Happy Birthday, beautiful girl! You are one of a kind, especially crafted by your Creator to glorify Him. All the different strands of your life are being woven together to make you the person you are, the person you are becoming. You truly are His workmanship ...

Naomi

August 25 near Banff, Alberta via mobile

Sun is shining... Woke up to a nice view of the mountains... God is good. 

Happy Birthday, Naomi!

(Pictures from Naomi's FB page, used with permission, and from times we have hung out together.)