Showing all posts in April 2020

I don’t know if I have hope or denial.

I’m a bright side, silver lining, glass half-full personality. Optimism almost always tints a rose-colored outlook.

It’s probably annoying.

My natural cheer usually channels hope, but in these uncertain times, when information I don’t want may very well be imminent, I could just as comfortably duck into denial.

But so far, so good. Or at least so good enough.

I work for a non-profit organization that is considered an essential service. Kids to Love meets the needs of foster children. While most of our tasks have been accomplished through the internet, we gather at the office on Thursdays to pass food boxes to local foster families. I’ve enjoyed the on-site camaraderie with my co-workers.

When I leave work on those days, I make a one-stop grocery shop before I return home.

Work. Shopping. Home.

It feels normal, minus the masks.

My husband and kids are my truest tribe, and I find immense contentment sheltered in place with them. Texts, phone calls and six-feet apart sidewalk chats have sustained my (shrinking) extroverted streak.

We socially distanced around a firepit last Friday night to share S’mores with friends. When the girls climbed into the car to leave our house, Lily said “We haven’t been in here in forever!” I guess when you’re 8 years old, 4 weeks feels like forever.

So, for the first time in forever, we opened up the gates, or at least the garage door. The girls may as well have been riding a magic carpet, experiencing a whole new world.  (I told you. Devotion to Disney runs deep.)

As a mom, I’m only as happy as my unhappiest kid. Thankfully, I have pretty happy kids. Friday night, seeing friends in person instead of on a screen, they were ecstatic.

Their enthusiasm poured into the weekend.

Abby Kate cranked Carrie Underwood music and danced through the living room Saturday morning, wearing her Bluetooth headphones and belting out “I am invincible, unbreakable…”  

And, for the most part, she has been. She is blissfully unaware (as she should be) that her world could collapse with one news conference.

She’s counting on Governor Kay Ivey to make things right this Thursday.  I’m tiptoeing around reality, setting expectations that Alabama may not open for business, and even if it does it won’t be in the ways Abby Kate wants.

One summer camp was cancelled last week. The second one is still to be decided. And the idea that school could scrub next year is enough to park a dark cloud even over my sunny self.

I don’t know if I have hope or denial.

The word “hope” came to me in an unexpected way earlier this month. My artist friend Misty mailed me a lovely, handmade postcard. “Hope” is inked on the front. Her note on the back offered it as art for my fridge.

But hope, especially this version, belongs in a frame.

I believe “hope” has become one of the most wasted words in our language.

“I hope it doesn’t rain today.”
“I hope (insert favorite team here) wins the game.”
“I hope the WiFi is working.”

Those expressions don’t convey the kind of depth and endurance the word deserves. The kind of hope I’m clinging to right now.

I have loved this definition of hope ever since I read it 2 years ago. It is from the book “5 Habits of a Woman Who Doesn’t Quit” written by Nicki Koziarz.

            “Hope is not a wish; it’s a holy confidence that faith will give us the strength to push through every hard and trying circumstance.”

Genuine hope, that holy confidence, commands reverence. That’s why it is so closely connected to our faith.

They work together.

The children’s choir at our church, before the Coronavirus struck, was practicing their spring musical: O Chicken of Little Faith.

It has been weeks since they’ve rehearsed. Still, the lyrics have lingered. At dinner last week, Lily began to sing:

           “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for-
            And faith is assurance about what we don’t see.
            You see we trust that what’s before us our God knows.
            And in ev’rything we trust our God is in control.”

Perhaps a performance was not the purpose of their practices. Perhaps the play was preparing them for this season they are living.

I don’t know if I have hope or denial.

I can’t imagine a world without entertainment, relationship and connection in our usual ways.

Denial.

But I’m confident that whatever life looks like on the flip side of the Coronavirus, we will be OK.

And that gives me hope.

“Let us hold unwavering to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful.”

(Hebrews 10:23)

I love to read.

Words come easy for me. Sometimes writing them. Always reading them.

I started young.

My Granny Carlisle held school for me and my cousins before we were old enough for Kindergarten. I can recall, but just barely, sitting around her kitchen table completing workbooks. One day when I was 4 years old my mom arrived to take me home, and Granny told her I was reading.

“She’s not reading,” Mom said. “She has that memorized.”

“She is reading,” Granny insisted.

I was, as Bernard Malamud might say, a “Natural.”

My proficiency for words grew as I did. When I was in the first grade (Mrs. Bellamy’s class), I joined a third-grade room (Mrs. Gaston’s class) for reading.

Saturdays and summer days included trips to the Wylam Public Library. I sat on a stool or in the floor and ran my fingers along the spines of books arranged meticulously and alphabetically by author, carefully choosing which stories I wanted to take home.

I borrowed every Bobbsey Twins book on the shelves. Other favorites included anything by Judy Blume (Freckle Juice!) or Beverly Cleary. I checked out the stories of Ramona and Beezus regularly. I had my own copy of Runaway Ralph.

My personal library also included Sweet Valley Twins and The Babysitters Club series. Those paperbacks still take up a shelf on a bookcase at my childhood home.

I was a ravenous reader in high school, carrying a book for pleasure on top of my textbooks. (The Natural by Bernard Malamud was one. Naturally.) I would bury my head in the pages until the teacher began class.

My guilty pleasure growing up was to tuck a book under my pillow at bedtime. As soon as mom and daddy went to bed (directly across the hallway from my room) I retrieved it and read into the night. If I heard one of them stir, I would slip the book back into its hiding place and pretend to be asleep.

The lamp in my room, a bright red decoration shaped to look like a pencil, stayed on all night even throughout my teenage years. I was never afraid of the dark. I just wanted to read.

I still do.

The bottom drawer of my nightstand is filled with books. I do not have to hide them under my pillow anymore or covertly read by nightlight.

Lately, my reading has felt like a retreat to my childhood. The stories I have read most recently are written for elementary readers, as I share my favorite pastime with my daughters.

Abby Kate and I are working her way through Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Lily devoured the Harry Potter books in 2^nd grade and is now sampling new series. She and I have sailed with Peter and the Starcatchers (we are continuing this adventure into book two) and slipped into Ballet Shoes with Pauline, Petrova and Posy Fossil.

Ballet Shoes is my inspiration for this writing.

In the book, the Fossil girls are discovering their talents, or in Petrova’s case, lack thereof, on the stage. To acquire paid roles so they can help support their household, Pauline and Petrova plot to write a letter asking to be hired for a production of Shakespeare’s Richard the Third.

Time is scarce between their academic and extra-curricular lessons but recognizing a critical need for money, the girls determine to deliver their written request.

Author Noel Streatfeild writes:

“The letter which they finally took to the theater next day was the result of snatched minutes.”

Snatched minutes.

The words stung as I read them.

They are, unfortunately, my story.

Meetings. Laundry. Phone calls. Meals. Appointments. Errands. They add up to a never-ending story. I never liked that movie. Perhaps I should read the book.

Snatched minutes are how the Fossil girls produced a letter. They are how I produce life, or at least a semblance of it. But snatched minutes leave me tired, frustrated, and unfulfilled.

That is not the life God planned for me. Or for you.

Jesus assures us that He came so that we “may have life and have it in abundance.”

Google returned nearly 23,000,000 results related to that Bible verse. So, I went to a different source.

My daddy hinted at the key to an abundant life in a letter he wrote to me, postmarked November 3,1998:

            “Hope that you are using all of your potential in your seeking to achieve your goals. Usually what is left behind or not use does nobody any good. So be happy – enjoy everyday – be satisfied with what progress you have made and prepare yourself for what tomorrow may bring.”

He wrote similar words in a separate, undated letter:

            “You have a talent that can put you in places to Glorify God and give you Peace in your life if you would just apply yourself to the challenges that are before you. When in doubt, PRAY, and then wait on God to lead you.”

I found those two letters two years ago. I set them aside from the others he wrote, believing one day his words would help me step into the potential he was talking about.

I have struggled to manage my snatched minutes. They are inevitable, at least for now, to get things done in between the necessary and frivolous demands of two kids.

But the pursuit of my potential, even into snatched minutes late at night, does not leave me frustrated or unfulfilled. I’m still tired, but I’m satisfied.

I believe God put my daddy’s words in front of me again this week to give me renewed perspective.

An abundant life is not about what I have. It is about who I am becoming, and I am called to become like Christ.

I am not a “Natural” at that. But studying daddy’s letters and Jesus’ words are getting me in the game.

It’s a good thing I love to read.

“… I have come so they may have life and have it in abundance.”

(John 10:10)

Easter is an emotional holiday for me.  It is the holiday that I miss my daddy most, and oddly so because his life is quite closely woven into other celebrations.   

Daddy was born on Christmas Day and passed away on Thanksgiving Day. Factor in Father’s Day just because and it seems odd that Easter would supersede those three.

But it does.

I grew up unwrapping candy-filled, cellophane-covered baskets left by The Bunny on our fireplace hearth. I wore a new dress and white shoes to church, though often mine were Keds tennis shoes because I outgrew fancy and frills fast.

My brothers and I posed for pictures beneath a wooden plaque that advertised “The Echols Family
Dennis, Nancy, Chad, Julie & Jeremy.”

If the weather was nice, we would walk the two blocks to Easter Sunday service.

Other than service on Sunday (Daddy also attended the sunrise one) my family then didn’t observe any Easter season faith rituals. I encountered Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday observances as a young adult.

My family now – Jeff, Abby Kate, Lily and I – embrace those traditions at our church, Trinity Baptist Church in Madison, Alabama. Our ministers are intentional about honoring, and reverently so, Jesus’ last week and His journey to the cross.

The most meaningful worship opportunity for me has become the Good Friday service. It is called “Tenebrae,” which comes from the Latin for “darkness.” I have heard it called the “Service of Shadows.”

This week, my daughter Lily asked if we would “go to the one where they turn out the lights.” It hurt my heart to say “No.”

Another consequence of the Coronavirus.

I almost didn’t take the girls to Tenebrae last year.  Fridays, while Jeff was deployed, were my night off. I pajamaed up once the girls walked off the school bus in the afternoon. Dinner was drive-thru or frozen pizza.  Screen time was excessive.

It would have been easy, even preferable, to stay home that night. But the spirit of the service – arrive quiet and depart in silence – mirrored my mood so we went.

The girls spotted friends as soon as we arrived and asked to sit close. That put us very near the front pew, an uncomfortable place for a Baptist to be.  (I joke. Sort of.)

I settled in.

The order of service listed “An Offering of Prayer.”  Our pastor’s wife, Mary, reads every year the names of people listed on our church prayer sheet.

I had forgotten that part.

As Mary began to read, my heart crept into my throat. I was not emotionally prepared for this.

“Jeff Reyburn.”

Her voice cracked as she choked back tears.

My tears fell fast and heavy. I may as well have been standing beneath the cross.  I guess I sort of was.

Lily patted my shoulder, whispering “It’s OK, Mommy.”

I received the sweetest text from Mary later that night, apologizing for making me sad. She didn’t know that her emotion was exactly what I needed.

I returned her text:

            “Oh, it touched my heart! It has been a bit of a lonely afternoon and your emotion reminded me I am not alone. I prayed this afternoon for a touch of encouragement, and you were it. I am so thankful our girls can see and hear how our church is caring for us.”

I am crying again tonight as I reflect.

The paper program outlining the order of Tenebrae service lay on the corner of my desk for the duration of Jeff’s deployment. I just recently tucked it into my nightstand. I will keep it always, as a reminder that I am not alone. 

My daddy is not with me anymore. But Jesus is with me. Tenebrae, and Mary, are a promise of that.

God sends people we can hear and hug, talk to and text, cry with and connect, to remind us we are never alone.

May it always be so.

“It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three, because the sun’s light failed. The curtain of the sanctuary was split down the middle. And Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into Your hands I entrust my spirit.” Saying this, He breathed His last.”

(Luke 23:44-46)

My first memory of music in our home is a stack of 8-tracks on a shelf in the closet. A player, complete with AM/FM dial, sat on top of the chest of drawers in my parents’ bedroom. The numbers lit up orange when we turned the silver knob to tune in a radio station.

I can’t say that I remember listening to many 8-track cartridges. I do, however, recall the songs from country music cassette tapes in the glove compartment of our car. We would listen to the Oak Ridge Boys (El-Vi-Ra!) and Alabama on summer road trips, usually on our way to Stone Mountain Georgia or an Atlanta Braves baseball game.

The lyrics to Alabama’s “Roll On (Eighteen Wheeler)” were curious to me as a 7-year-old cruising in the backseat. “The man upstairs was listening” was a scene I pictured literally. I don’t know when I realized the truth of that line was God answering the wife’s prayer.  

My memories of “Roll On” surfaced during my husband Jeff’s deployment to Afghanistan. He had returned overseas after two weeks at home in October for rest and recuperation.

In many ways, October was the home stretch. The hardest days were behind us: missed birthdays, “first” days and holidays. Jeff was due home in time for Christmas. 

Two more months.

I was weary.

It was exhausting to be mom, ready on a moment’s notice to comfort and calm two girls who desperately missed their daddy. There were times during Jeff’s duty I would have traded my grown-up life to be a little girl again, listening to country music in the backseat of mom and daddy’s car.

But here I was in the front seat, steering our daughters through car line and life. 

On a whim one morning I played “Roll On” through an app on my phone. As we listened, I realized the parallel we were living with the song, except our worry was a desert in Afghanistan instead of a snowbank in Illinois.

So, “Roll on” became my catch phrase for the last two months of our separation. I sang these words to push myself through the hard moments.

“Roll on highway, roll on along.
 Roll on daddy ‘til you get back home.
Roll on family, roll on crew.
Roll on momma like I asked you to do…”

I believe “the man upstairs was listening” as I and our circle prayed Jeff safely home.  And I believe He’s listening to us now as we wonder and worry “What’s next?”

Jeff & I have tickets to see Alabama in concert this summer.   If the Coronavirus clears and we actually get to go, I’ll be the fan crying when they crank up the song “Roll On (Eighteen Wheeler).”

For more reasons than one.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

(Philippians 4:6)