Goin' Down to Mama's

Sunday Morning Serenity

My keyboard’s getting rusty:) Just when I thought I could get back to Serenity, well . . . we got a little busy again with health issues.

But I’m thinking this morning about a song we learned in choir a hundred years ago. The words were something like this (old lady trying to remember):

In everything give Him thanks.
In everything give Him thanks.
In the good times, praise His name;
In the bad times, do the same.
In everything, give the King of Kings all the thanks.

I won’t sit here and tell you I’m always thankful. Sometimes I’m scared and angry and disappointed and doubtful and “why, why, why.” That’s the truth. But if you can be patient and still and just wait for God’s time to show itself, you’ll find your gratitude. You’ll find your reason for gratitude. I’ve seen that this weekend.

Over the past few days, Dave and I both got a big dose of love and encouragement that we didn’t even know we needed. With a lot of help from his primary doctor, he finally got a much-hoped-for appointment with a specialist at UAB in February and a better situation with his current clinic. Aischa the Wonder Nurse from St. Vincent’s Home Health paid us a visit, leaving us with a good report and a good plan of action (plus a Santa sleigh load of supplies to help keep Dave healthy). My kitchen and my deck are finally functional after making it over the final hurdles of a remodel.

How about that. Thursday morning looked dark and discouraging. By Saturday afternoon, the sun was out again. “In everything give Him thanks.”

My mother keeps telling me, “You have some GREAT friends.” She’s right. We’re blessed there. And we’re blessed with family and church family and each other. We’re blessed with calls and prayers and deliveries of food and cards and flowers—even pumpkins. (Cheeto is far too proud to admit that he too needs friends to lean on, so he sends thanks to his “auxiliary staff” for coming through with the Fancy Feast when we’ve been in the hospital.) Thanks to the Three Kiddos next door for occasionally raiding the Shack and reminding me that, as long as we’ve got chocolate and Capri Suns, everything will be alright.

“In everything, give Him thanks.”

Sunday Morning Serenity

Long time, no Serenity:) How are you? I’ve been a little busy. Too busy to write on Sunday mornings. Busy with the business of healing.

I always thought of healing as a passive process, but it’s not. It’s a daily, active, arm-yourself-with-knowledge-and-prayer-then-hit-the-battlefield-and-fight-till-you’re-exhausted proposition.

At the end of June, just as we were beginning long overdue home repairs and a kitchen remodel, a cluster of health issues that had been slowly building in Dave suddenly converged like one of those storm systems that puts James Spann and the Doppler on high alert. We found ourselves very much inside the polygon. Dave had serious pressure wounds—a sadly common issue for paraplegics—along with major infection and—big surprise—a heart condition that was responsible for so many symptoms he had been struggling with, symptoms that had been attributed to other causes.  

We summered at St. Vincent’s. He spent July there battling infection and a host of other issues so that he would be well enough for an amazing heart procedure that required only 2 nights in the hospital. Some people go home after one. Can you imagine? They consider it outpatient surgery, and you leave with a new heart valve.

So now we’re on the last and likely longest leg of the journey—healing wounds and restoring strength.

The cool weather makes me hopeful. It’s a new season of color and light. Dave has one more mountain to climb—not the whole soaring range he faced in June. And when I look back on the past few months, yes, I see a lot of hardship, but I also see so many blessings.

We couldn’t get into the hospital I originally chose, so we ended up at the right one instead, with a lead doctor who put together a team of six or seven specialists to pool their knowledge and get Dave well.

Our family and friends have supported us with everything from food to flowers to offers of financial safety nets, should we need them.

Our church family has been praying for us and sending messages of encouragement, love, and support.

My cousins have stepped in to make sure Mama and Daddy have everything they need when I can’t be there. They're constantly sending texts and Facebook messages just to let us know they’re right there if we need them, while Dave's siblings check in to make sure he's okay—and that he's not running low on quality cookies and ice cream:)

The kiddos next door pop in to raid our fridge and candy stash and give “Miss Val” much-needed hugs. 

God has been faithful—“All I have needed, Thy hand hath provided.”

I know Thanksgiving is a month away, but I'm definitely giving thanks this morning. Love to you and your family.

Sunday Morning Serenity

Life is strange. You can write that down. I didn't copyright it or anything.

I don't have a lot of time this morning, but I wanted to write that much at least. It's strange—because you can feel the least alone when you're isolated. You can also feel lonely in a crowd. I haven't been in any crowds lately so that one's not speaking to me, but I do know a think or two about isolation. 

Of course, Dave and I have been isolated together—which makes a powerful difference, I realize. But we've also had so many expressions of love and friendship, concern and support, that we don't feel alone at all. Flowers planted by caring friends remind us every day that those bonds are very much there. Fresh peaches from our sweet neighbors brought us a little taste of summer we couldn't get our usual way—driving to or from the beach. Everything from text messages, cards, and calls to cornbread, fresh eggs, and covered dishes have reminded us daily that prayers are going up and we are not alone. 

We're so thankful for that—and for "God's unchanging hand." He has watched over us through everything. Feeling love and gratitude this Sunday morning.

 

Sunday Morning Serenity

We need to laugh—even when we’re at our worst. We really do. But when you feel like you don’t have much to laugh about, you can forget how good it feels—what a release it can be.

I have my friend Lil to thank for that little revelation. Last week, Lil and I talked on the phone for the first time in a long time. Her simple “so tell me what’s going on” was followed by something like this: Well, we’re changing bandages twice a day and doing intravenous meds once a day. Home health is coming several times a week. We’re getting our roof fixed and some other repairs done on the house, so one day last week, we had nurses in the driveway and men on the roof. I really need to get out to see Mama and Daddy and rent a van for Dave's doctor's appointments . . .

Somewhere in the middle of all that, Lil and I started laughing. Hard. Because things can only get so bad before they get ridiculous—and funny. It’s like that commercial where this little kid is feeling put-upon and finally exclaims, “What am I, Job???!!!”

Or the old Hee-Haw song, “Gloom, despair, and agony on me.”

Or my personal favorite from Steel Magnolias: “My personal tragedy will not interfere with my ability to do good hair.”

I can remember so many times when Daddy’s family would be in a hospital waiting room, worried to death about whoever was sick at the time, and my Uncle Jimmy would have everybody in there—not just our family but everybody, including preachers in attendance and total strangers who happened to be within earshot—all of us laughing. It helped. It got us through.

Dave and I manage to find reasons to laugh—a much more extraordinary feat for him than for me right now. Laughing together immediately brings back “normal.” And when your life has been upended, even for a little while, you cling to every tiny shred of “normal.” It anchors you. It lets you know that you’re still you, and that whatever you’re going through is temporary. It reminds you to be thankful for life and health and for the strength and courage God will give you when you need it most.

[Image by Chance Agrella @ Freerangestock.com]

Sunday Morning Serenity

For the past month, I haven’t been writing very often because I’ve been on a healthcare journey with Dave. He’s not much for Facebook sharing:) So I’ll just say he had a cluster of issues that silently progressed over time until they converged like a bad weather system and kicked up quite a storm. He was in St. Vincent’s—a wonderful, wonderful hospital—for three weeks. We’re home now, with home health, as he continues healing and getting stronger.

Prayers have been answered daily. My initial choice for the emergency room was a really good hospital close to our house, but they were overloaded and “diverting.” So we went to St. Vincent’s—farther away but, as it turns out, the best possible place for us. We landed with an internal medicine doctor (Andrew Collins), who sorted out Dave’s health issues and enlisted an army of specialists to take them on, one at a time. Excellent, compassionate care was ours at every turn.

And as an only child, let me just say a word about cousins. Mine are the best. They’ve been there for my parents and me every step of the way so that I could focus on Dave, whose family has also offered support, even though they’re several states away. Our church family has been in touch and in prayer constantly. Southern Living has been understanding and supportive. Our next door neighbors have offered help, and a sweet couple down the street—whom we had just met before the ambulance came—still checks on us. Dear friends have called, encouraged, and listened. Two of them actually came out and turned my scattering of hurriedly planted flowers into a real garden. And when your house is upside down, having a beautiful garden to look at and escape to is such a gift.

All that to say, we just don’t realize how much we need each other until we really, really need each other. God has blessed us with amazing friends and family, whom I’ve taken for granted far too often. I hope I never do that again.

Sunday Morning Serenity

We just had our first family reunion in . . . We can’t quite remember if it has been 20 or 30 years since we all gathered.  Probably closer to 30. My cousin’s wife told me she had prepared their young children: “You’ll probably see a lot of people who look like Daddy.”

And it’s true. There’s a strong resemblance in the McCranie family—Mama and her siblings and the cousins. The first cousins grew up together, and even the few who lived away from Shelby County, Alabama, visited several times a year because our grandmother said they had to. Period. But as we got older, with spouses, kids, and grandkids coming into the picture, it got harder and harder to bring everybody together. Until COVID pushed Mama over the edge. The whole time she was quarantined, all she could talk about was how she missed her family and how, the minute we had a vaccine, she wanted to see EVERYBODY. We managed a good 50+ I’d say. And it was pretty amazing.

A college friend who had heard me talk about my family once told me, “It’s like you’re going through life with this giant safety net under you.” She was right—I have indeed enjoyed a safety net, held up by close relatives on both sides of my family. I took that for granted when I was young but not now. 

I’ve been thinking about our family this morning—what makes us us. And I think so much of our identity is spiritual—it’s a shared faith passed down from one generation to the next. But it’s also mutual respect. The cousins were taught to respect our elders, while our elders took an active interest in all of us. It went both ways. Now I’m an elder! There are so many young cousins coming along. And that family resemblance is right there on those sweet faces.

There's one more tie that binds us. We've always had an awareness that we’re part of a story, one that goes back many, many years and connects all of us, past, present, and future. That story has been shared and passed down from Grandme to her children to their children to their children . . . and on it goes, this story we carry with us, reminding us of who we are and where we came from and how we're forever bound together as a family.

When Aunt Joyce passed away, her service included a reading of Scripture that speaks to that same familial connection between Christians and God:

For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature,
shall be able to separate us from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8: 38-39

 

Sunday Morning Serenity

 

My friend Gary introduced me to a Sandi Patty song called “In the In Between,” and it's speaking to me this morning. It’s all about how it’s easy to celebrate God when you’re on the mountaintop, and it’s natural to call on Him when you’re in the valley. But sometimes we lose sight of His love “in the in between”—not the highs nor the lows but the everyday.

For a singer with such a powerhouse voice, this one is a departure because it’s quiet. No soaring high notes. No orchestra. Just a piano and a sincere expression of how we often forget God’s faithfulness—or at least I do.

My sister-friend Ginger reminded me of that recently. We were talking on the phone and she spoke so easily about an answered prayer and being led by the Holy Spirit. She made me remember how accessible God is—to those who ask and listen, which I forget to do sometimes. Or maybe I'm just being stubborn and rebellious. I’m so busy trying to “fix things” myself that I can't admit—can't even see—that I need help.

Ask, listen, trust. Thank you, sweet Ging. Thank you, Sandi.

 

Sunday Morning Serenity

Did you ever go through a period in your life when you felt like somebody stole your compass and you lost all sense of direction? That was me of late. And while I know better, from past experience, I chose not to admit defeat but to wallow in it, wrestle with it, and get really depressed about it. (It’s a personal choice, not for everybody.)

Finally, when I truly couldn’t handle it anymore, I gave up and prayed a simple prayer: “Lord, I am just lost.” Between the books and my job and all the upheaval caused by the pandemic, I’m exhausted most of the time, but what for?

(Note to self: You’ve been blessed to work from home and keep a rewarding job, which meant keeping your house and insurance during the pandemic, a time when many people lost theirs. Writing books is your dream come true. Most of all, your family made it through the past year and half. Many people didn't. Enough with the pity party.)

The afternoon following my "I am just lost," I received, out of the blue, an unexpected and a much-needed boost to my confidence—and, I believe, an answer to that prayer. The message I think I heard was this: You’re not lost. You just can’t see your destination from where you stand. So you need to have faith.

In other words, nobody stole my compass. I just neglected to read it.

For this reason I kneel before the Father, 
from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 
I pray that out of his glorious riches 
he may strengthen you with power 
through his Spirit in your inner being, 
so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 
may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, 
to grasp how wide and long and high and deep
is the love of Christ, 
and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—
that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3:14-19

 

 

Sunday Morning Serenity

We have a tendency to talk about war in the big picture—battles won or lost, territory taken or surrendered, objectives achieved, zones stabilized.

But what could be more personal than sending our mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, friends and neighbors away from home and into a place where they will be asked to risk their lives?

My sister-friend Nancy recently took me to Veterans Memorial Park in Mountain Brook, where we saw a monument inscribed with names of all the Alabama veterans who lost their lives in wartime. Among the names of the fallen in Viet Nam, I found my cousin, Melvin W. Gunter, a career soldier. The family called him by his middle name, Wister. I was just a child when he was killed, but I have hazy memories of going with my mother to visit his family and offer condolences.

Back then, we all watched the war in Viet Nam on our black-and-white TV’s every night. All the networks had reporters imbedded with the troops, and we saw casualties being carried off the battlefield as correspondents explained what was happening.

Wister’s mother was watching one of those reports when she saw a fallen soldier on a stretcher and recognized her son. She didn’t need anyone to tell her that he was gone.

Several years ago, another dear friend, Holly, told me an amazing story about her dad and wondered if I’d like to write a book about it. I did, and as a way of helping me understand and develop my characters, Holly sent me a batch of letters that her dad wrote to his bride while he was serving as a fighter pilot in Korea. They’re filled with his longing for home and for the kind of simple things we all take for granted, like listening to records with his wife on a rainy afternoon.

Fortunately, Holly’s dad made it back, after flying 101 missions. But he knew others who didn’t. All those who come home from war know those who didn’t. And there’s nothing “big picture” about their sacrifice. It’s entirely personal.

Prayers, this Sunday morning, for all of our military families.

Sunday Morning Serenity

For the sake of my physical and emotional well-being, I’ve decided to strive for something I call Modified Cat.

Why Cat? Because they have no problem saying, “This is what I need right now.” Cheeto says it all the time. He’ll park himself on the floor beside the spot on the couch where I’m comfortably reclining, stare at me with unblinking eyes, then give a little bob of his head. Translation: I need you to get up and follow me to an undetermined destination—likely my bowl or the kitchen door, which I like for you to open for me even though I have a perfectly serviceable cat door right beside it. Or he’ll pace back and forth across my computer keyboard. I know you think you need to write, but what you really need to do is brush me. Or he’ll fall asleep on my person as if I were his own personal body pillow. You might think you want to get up, but I need a nap and you’re way more comfortable than, well, anything  . . .

Why Modified? Because I don’t want to be oblivious to the needs of everybody else. (And to Cheeto’s credit, he does seem to know when I’m feeling under the weather and can be quite the feline nurse when he wants to.)

I had little pop-up rebellions all day yesterday. My responsible self told me I needed to take a long walk. But my joints hurt and I’d rather take a short one, so there. My anxious self told me I needed to make some headway on my next book. But I haven’t figured out something I need to figure out before I start putting words on paper, and I really and truly just flat-out don’t want to write today.  I could make up for the lost time if I told my parents I wouldn't be staying for Sunday lunch and came right back home after church. But I want to spend some time with them and enjoy a visit.

Modified Cat. Not so much selfish as a little more self-forgiving when there’s just too much coming at me. And I’ll remind myself that we all need rest—not just for a tired body but for a troubled mind or a weary spirit.

Come to Me,
all you who labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest. 
Take My yoke upon you 
and learn from Me,
for I am gentle and lowly in heart, 
and you will find rest for your souls.
Matthew 11:28-29