Dave and I are heading home today after a much-needed vacation, and I’m enjoying my last beach sunrise for a while. I’m also wishing all the drivers with loud cars would have slept in, but that’s okay. Now that the show has started in the sky, I’ll forget all about them. That's what I love most about the beach—there’s something so beautiful and peaceful about sand, sky, and water that it makes me forget all the distractions that, well, distract me under normal circumstances. And I can just enjoy the place I’m in. I can just be amazed by the majesty and glory. (Song cue:)
It’s a question we’ve probably all asked at one time or another: Why do bad things happen to good people?
But did you ever stop to think about all the bad things that could have happened and didn’t? It’s not healthy to dwell on the what if’s in your life, but now and again one of them can take hold of you in a way that’s hard to shake. And you realize how blessed you are for what didn’t happen.
Yesterday morning, I saw the makings of a tragedy unfolding in front of me, but in the nick of time, the driver who was involved saw what he needed to see and stopped it from happening. All in a matter of seconds. Not hours, not minutes. Seconds. Something awful didn’t happen.
My mother’s favorite Scripture is Psalm 121, which includes the words, “He that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.”
God is watchful even when we aren’t. And I’m very thankful for that.
Normally, it’s short-term memory I struggle with: Did I wear this outfit to work yesterday? Where did I leave my coffee? Why did I come into this room?
But where blessings are concerned, my long-term tends to fail me. As in I’m stressing because I have a book deadline. Seriously? I should be thrilled to have a book deadline because that means I have . . . a book. So how about some gratitude, Mrs. Whiner? Five years ago, I would’ve traded my house for a book deadline.
Speaking of the house, I notice myself complaining about it a lot lately. The kitchen has always needed a redo, ditto the tiny bath. The guest room carpet is so worn and dirty, you could grow cotton on it. A screened-in porch sure would be nice. Wah, wah, wah. Back in 1996, I couldn’t believe I got to live here: My very own house!!! My very own yard!! My very own weeds! I’msohappyIcan’tstandit!!!!!
We change and our things change over the years, but it’s important to remember how much they meant to us in the beginning and how grateful we should be for them now. The things I take for granted today weren’t even mine to claim yesterday.
Do you ever want to take a broom to the whole wide world, or at least your corner of it? Sort of like that evil politician in O Brother, Where Art Thou?—he was going to sweep out corruption from the state of Mississippi (but ended up getting ridden out of town on a rail—hoping that doesn’t happen to me when I sweep).
Sometimes life really does throw a lot at us. It really is overwhelming. But if I step back and look at what’s going on, I often find that I’ve created my own situation, or at least contributed to it, by letting myself get all cluttered up—physically, mentally, spiritually—pick your “-ly” and I’ve probably been there. That’s when I need to do some sweeping and some clearing so the light can break through.
For example, I recently woke up one morning, looked around, and went: “I hate this house! It’s unlivable!” Actually, I love our little rancher, but I had made it unlivable by sheer accumulation of stuff. So . . . I sold the dining room furniture we never use any more because, for now, we’re just too busy to have company the way we’d like to, and it’s time I accepted that. Cluttered dining room became open and airy sunroom. (Total Gym, green lounger nobody ever sits in, take notice—you’re on your way to FB Marketplace, too.)
I can’t stand to set foot in our guest-room-turned-storage-unit because it’s uninhabitable. But if I take a few deep breaths and calm down, I can see that, as soon as I get rid of just about everything in there, rip up the heinous 20-year-old carpet and replace it with hardwood, it’ll be one of my favorite rooms in the house. Done.
So much for the house—now how about me? Hanging onto old hurts, old insecurities, old disappointments and failures—that just clutters us from the inside out. Time to break out that broom, clear the dust, and let some light in.
And what about faith? Well, that can get cluttered up too. But it's really simple. It's about a direct connection to and relationship with God; it's about accepting his grace and forgiveness made available to us through the sacrifice and resurrection of his son, Jesus Christ. I love this quote from Tim Keller (thank you, Shari, for introducing me to it): "The gospel says that you are more sinful and flawed than you ever dared believe, but more accepted and loved than you ever dared hope."
This morning I stumbled onto an old gospel song I had never heard before, performed by some young artists I had never heard before. It's called, "Take Your Shoes Off, Moses." And I can only imagine Moses in the presence of God for the first time, wondering what on earth to do. Well, Moses, it pretty simple . . . for starters . . .
I should probably call this post “I Can See Clearly Now.” Or has that been done?
After much debating as to what we should do with a dining table and chairs we no longer use, Dave and I took the advice of my much younger (and tech savvier) friend Kaitlyn and posted it on Facebook Marketplace. It sold in one weekend, to a lovely couple who will be using it and enjoying it (as opposed to working around it while they wonder if they’ll ever have time to entertain again, which is what we were doing).
With the heavy table gone—replaced by some beautiful white wicker my friend Lil gave us—we now have an open sunroom instead of a cluttered dining room. And I can see, for the first time in many years, one of the reasons I loved this little 50s rancher from the start—the picture-window view from our hilltop lot. I had all but forgotten that view because it was covered with furniture. And now I have my eye on three more big pieces of stuff that I should probably Marketplace, as well.
My Oprah-worthy “aha moment”: I’ve been complaining about our lack of space and how we need more room, but the truth is that I need to face up to life changes that have already happened and get rid of all the accumulated stuff that doesn’t fit how we live now.
Facebook life lesson: Sometimes we can’t see what we have because of things we’ve put in the way. It can be very hard to accept that they need to go. But once we’re rid of them, and they’re no longer obstructing our view—well—we can see clearly. Maybe for the first time in a long time.
Sometimes I'm a cat up a tree, trying to climb down the wrong limb. But something in me just has to see what the world looks like from up there, no matter how many times I land upside down.
Yes, Cheeto has inspired me this morning. That's the Orange One in the picture, up a tree in his youth. He's all grown up now but still had to scramble down yet another tree this morning. For those of you who don't belong to a cat, you should know that they have vivid imaginations. They chase things that aren't there, catch pretend prey, run, jump, and hide when absolutely nothing is chasing them, sometimes all the way up a tree. In other words, if there's no drama to be had, they'll create some. And then they take a nap to recover from exhausting themselves.
I do everything except the napping part. I can dream up trouble where there is none, anticipate disaster when everything's going to turn out fine—maybe not like I had planned but just fine. And every now and then, I manage to get myself up a tree and can't get down without help—without a much-prayed-for limb that materializes when I need it.
Trust is a hard one for us Type-A worriers who want to anticipate every possible bump in the road and build a bridge three sizes too big over it. But trust is the doorway to peace—trusting God to lead us and knowing the peace that comes from that.
Praying this morning for a more trusting and peaceful spirit.
I don’t have any kids, but I’ve been one, so I feel that makes me an expert on child rearing. (Please, parent friends, stop holding back. Feel free to come to me for advice because I have ALL the answers. You’re welcome.)
What amazes me about my own parents, now that they sometimes need a little help from Dave and me, is that they seem to have no memory of everything they’ve done for me—for both of us, really, but they’ve had Dave for only 14ish years, and they’ve had me for just shy of 57.
And so I hear things like, “Thank you SO much for taking off work and fooling with us today.”
Thank YOU, so much, Daddy, for swapping out your shift at the plant or working a double so you could make it to a piano recital and hear me play “Fifi the Ballerina.” I hope my performance made it all worthwhile.
Thank YOU, Mama, for all those field trips and cakes baked as a room mother for every class I was ever a part of. (Aside: Do they still have room mothers in school?)
My parents will tell me over and over how much they appreciate my chauffeur service to the occasional doctor’s appointment.
It’s not like you didn’t drive me to at least 18 years’ worth of doctor’s appointments and dental appointments, not to mention childhood piano lessons, play dates, G.A.’s . . .
The weird thing is (and I’m still working this out, parent friends, so as soon as I have all the answers, I’ll email them to you), my parents didn’t instill in me a sense of obligation. Just the opposite. They’ve worked very hard to make me feel NO obligation. Well . . . Mama has. Whenever I’m not doing exactly what Daddy wants, he’ll hit me with, “Children, obey your parents.” Unfortunately for him, my Biblical education has armed with, “Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.”
There’s a big difference between obligation and love, between being indebted and being grateful. All my life, my parents have been the ultimate examples of “pay it forward.” They do whatever they can to help anybody and everybody—including Dave and me. And they do it without expecting anything back.
Shalom. That’s what I’m thinking about this morning.
Maybe it’s because I have friends and family who have experienced painful separation recently. Some have a child going off to college or joining the service. Others are mourning the death of someone they loved dearly. All are longing for shalom. So are the rest of us.
Here’s how Reverend Tim Keller describes it:
“God created all things to be in a beautiful, harmonious, interdependent, knitted, webbed relationship to one another. Just as rightly related physical elements form a cosmos or a tapestry, so rightly related human beings form a community. This interwovenness is what the Bible calls shalom, or harmonious peace. . . .
"Threads become a fabric when each one has been woven over, under, around, and through every other one. The more interdependent they are, the more beautiful they are. The more interwoven they are, the stronger and warmer they are.”
Whether we like to admit it or not, we’re all interdependent on each other. We’re meant to be. And while, in the business world, “everybody’s expendable,” that’s not true at all in our personal circles. Nobody’s expendable. The people we love all touch us in a special way. None of them can be replaced because each one colors our lives in a one-of-a-kind shade.
The thing to remember is that we daily share ourselves with each other, through the love and friendship we give and receive. That part never goes away. We carry it—and the people who gave it—with us always. It keeps our tapestry whole even if we can’t touch some of the threads right now.
Illustration by Stuart Miles at Freerangestock.com
This is a story about introverts and birds-of-a-feather and books and the human community and all sorts of stuff.
I’m a little overwhelmed (and, you might justifiably suggest, incoherent) this morning. I just got back from the Fiction Readers Summit in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which I haven’t said a peep about because I didn’t want Mama and Daddy to worry. (Of course, I made the mistake of calling Mama from a plane, just as the captain decided to outline our flight plan over the loud speaker, and eagle ears immediately asked, “What was that?” I told her my phone was malfunctioning. I doubt she believed me.)
It was inspiring to meet authors who have been at this far longer than I have, to learn from and be encouraged by them. And it was amazing to meet readers from all over the country. I still can’t believe anybody reads my stories. That might sound odd coming from somebody who has been writing for a living since the Reagan administration. But it’s different with the magazine. Southern Living is such a powerful platform that I’ve always seen it as sort of a rocket booster for what I write there—readers will give it a chance just because it’s in their favorite magazine. But for a book club in Indiana to choose one of my stories—I still have trouble wrapping my brain around that.
As honored as I was to be invited to the summit, my closest friends (among them my husband) were stunned that I mustered the courage to go because I am, by nature, an extreme introvert. I’m not a joiner, an attender, or a group activity participator. I have trouble flocking together, even with birds of my feather. But even people like me, whose high school yearbook caption could've read "Awkward In Groups, Among Strangers, And Just In General," need community. Sometimes I forget that.
We all need a sense of connection. We all need to feed and be fed—physically, spiritually, emotionally. A random conversation with one of the authors at the summit gave me exactly what I needed to respond to one of the bleakest young people I’ve ever met—the shuttle driver who took me back to the airport for my trip home. He was so used to talking over and arguing with passengers as he went on and on about how terrible the world is that he wasn’t prepared for, “But you don’t have to live in that world—you can live above it.” Then I took a cue from my late and very dear friend Jane and told him, “You don’t have to read the whole Bible to understand—just read the Gospel of John.” (I added Hebrews, one of my favorites, for good measure.) I truly believe God will use our conversation, as awkward as I was.
Here’s the art-meets-life moment: I have no idea what’s going to happen when I sit down to start a new book. I don’t know if it will sell or if it will mean anything to the readers who buy it. I see now that I’ve been letting those questions affect me a lot more than they should because I have no control over the answers. I can only control what I create—the story that I tell—and even that needs prayer. Even that is sometimes out of my wheelhouse.
That’s true of everybody, not just writers. We have some degree of control over what we create—our individual life stories—but those need daily prayer because they often include plot twists that are completely out of our wheelhouse. Those unexpected turns—good or bad—are the moments when we need community most of all. We need love and understanding and encouragement. Even those of us who flock together awkwardly.
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." John 13:34
That's my baby cousin Adam, playing in a backyard swimming pool at a long-ago family Fourth of July celebration. He's past 20 now but still "Aunt Val's" baby cousin. I’m thinking of him this morning because our church is having a special lunch in his honor today. Since he was a little kid, Adam has been fascinated with military history and dreamed of enlisting. Now he is about to leave for the Army and basic training in Oklahoma.
We've always had a special connection. We're both only children. We both like music. We both like history. Before he was old enough to drive, I was giving him a ride home from church and was thrilled to find that he liked the music I was playing on the radio. ("I'm the cool cousin-aunt!") And then he said: "Sure, I like it, Aunt Val. I'm into classic rock." ("Correction—I'm the seriously old cousin-aunt!")
Adam's imminent departure has me thinking, oddly enough, about graduate school. I did my thesis on Eudora Welty, in part because I was drawn to her recurring theme of “love and separateness”—how you can belong to the people you love and yet maintain some independence from them. And if you want to see that notion distilled down into one of its purist forms, visit with an only. It’s something Dave had to come to terms with (and bless him for doing it with such a generous spirit) when we first married. He’s the middle of five kids, with lots of grandkids, so the notion of “we’re it” with Mama and Daddy was foreign to him. Not that they didn’t both have siblings and cousins and nieces and nephews that they dearly loved—both of them did—but when it came to children . . . just the one and her husband.
Now Adam, another only, is taking a big step, and his parents are understandably anxious but also proud and supportive of him. If I could presume to guess what has gone through his mind as he made this decision, it was likely, “I love you, but I have to do this"—the official creed of the curious and determined only child.
Making a break from the people you love isn’t easy for anybody. And the thing that makes it so hard is something you can’t see in the moment—that’s it’s not really a break at all. It’s more like a lengthening of the ties that keep us tethered to those who love us, unconditionally; those who want what’s best for us even when it’s hard for them; those whose doors will always be open.
“Love and separateness.” It’s a tough row to hoe, y’all. But those homecomings are something else.