One Thing Counts

Tuesday thoughts from my favorite newspaper editor...

"Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, and riches take wings.

Only one thing endures forever and that is character."

Horace Greeley

and character is what you do when no one is looking.

Hope... A Year Later

A year ago the hubs and I sat in a Princeton, N.J. restaurant waiting for the in laws. They were late which was funny because we had flown across the country the night before to see them for the day. They had an hour drive and they were an hour late. 
Funny maybe, but it was the last thing funny about that day.

We had a nice lunch when they arrived. They have lived in N.J. their whole lives and somehow they are still mystified and surprised by the traffic.

We shopped and found ourselves at a library where we were killing time before heading to see Killing Lincoln.  Then we saw a television with people starting to gather. Murmurs, shrieks, cries... the catching of breath when you see horror. 
Killing. 
Connecticut. 
Children.

We watched the panic and grief, trying to understand what had occurred.
You cannot understand madness.

This morning, a year later I am in my kitchen, preparing for a party for my husband's staff. A Christmas party where we will laugh, enjoy and celebrate this season of joy and hope.

The television is on. I watch an interview with two families who lost children and the daughter who lost her mom, in this nightmare a year ago. This young woman married this year, her mom absent. I imagine the joy and sadness mixed throughout her wedding day. This daughter, so lovely and still needing her mama.

The question was asked how these people were doing, a year later.
If there is a stupider question, I can't think what it might be.

A year. 
It's like a day to these people.
Think of a loss that was life changing to you.
Could it be yesterday?
You remember the detail.
Where you were. 
What you were doing. 
How life changed that day.

The day my brother died. 
I was six.
Do the math... it was a long time ago.

I can tell you details of that afternoon. The telephone ringing in my classroom. Meeting my older brother in the hall. The look on my principal's face.
My mother's words to me. What I said to her.
Being terrified to go to bed that night.
Watching my mom try on a black dress that a friend brought.
My grandfather's tears.

I remember the loss of other young lives in my community. 
Feeling sad for their siblings my age. Knowing the pain and yet not knowing what to say.
To this day I remember. 
We are changed by these moments of time. When time stops.

These moments... like snow globes, but without the snow and magic. We look inside, shake it and watch the pieces fall. Families come apart.
Life will never be the same.
The death of a brother, then a mate... too young to say goodbye, a dad... laughing, tennis playing one day....  weeks later, gone.

These children who have lost brothers and sisters. Parents who have buried babies. I cry with them, keeping my lips silent as there are no words to calm grief this big. 
God must intervene if we are to breathe again.

My husband and I share a perspective of life that perhaps comes with age and experience.
We believe deeply that there is a bigger picture to keep in mind, the goal of our faith.  Not sweating the small stuff. We always hope.
You would be amazed at what we can make really, really small.

For me... I lost early. I lost again, it tried to kill me. God intervened. 
I got it. For good. Never have I forgotten what matters.

For the hubs... he chose a profession where he has seen the results of people hurting one another. His job, to piece them back together. 
He has spoken to parents who lost their daughter on her way home from college. The agony, grief and choices in those moments.
He has shared diagnoses with people that bring tears and cut dreams short.
God intervenes and we find hope.

These parents and children are forever changed. The pain they will wear forever, the choice will be how it adorns them.
They will choose. It may be anger, bitterness, forever grief. This choice is understandable. Who would tell them they should feel different? Not me.

Yet, I believe and hope most of them, will move into something healthier. They will reach out, advocate, give back, encourage and bless others... through their pain. That is what we do when God intervenes and heals His people.

We do not forget.
Perhaps it will always feel like yesterday...
but when God intervenes we find hope.











 

 

What's In Your Bucket List Of Books?

We make bucket lists. Some silly, crazy awesome, others serious things we want to accomplish before we... die. 

Some of us might think of it as, before we truly live. 

The hope of the Christian is eternal life with God. 

Words that hold more meaning than all the bucket lists in the world.... to overflowing and beyond.

Think infinity times infinity.

Recently I saw a bucket list of books.

Books that you should read before you die.

The list was filled with classics and well known authors.

 I made note of some, others did not excite me. 

I get lost sometimes, struggling for the words to come to life in my mind.

As I read through the list I looked for the one book. Not the oldest book in the world, but the one that holds the most Truth.

The book, the scroll that began with Moses penning those first five books, called the Torah. 

The Bible. 

The first book printed thanks to Johannes Gutenberg. The number one best seller of all time. 

But does that equal number one most read book?

My husband tells the story of his days at Rutgers. 

An English Literature class. 

The professor asked the five hundred students in the lecture hall how many had read the Bible, old or new testament. 

Five people raised their hands. 

My husband was not one of them.

The Professor asked how many had read the Bible cover to cover. 

One hand went up. 

The professor admonished his audience, for ignoring the most famous book in our history. 

The book that has molded western civilization.

As our country was formed the source most cited by our founding fathers was the Bible. 

And yet, this class of readers, intellectuals, sponges, had not bothered to discern the mystery this book held.

The professor was not a Christian. He was not evangelizing or proselytizing. 

He was simply pointing out the obvious.

We seek best sellers, love stories, witty humor... pages that cause our fingers to cramp from holding as we hungrily digest the words.

Yet we forget the beautiful love story, thriller, poetry, ever written... inspired by the Creator of the World.

 Did you know you can read pages in the Bible where it is God's voice, Jesus words?

That is mystery... this love story written to us.

Oh man, do not doubt the wisdom of God. 

Do not be the folly described in His word.

Read Corinthians chapter One... It is a wake up call to man's wisdom, which is full of pride, sin and deceit. 

Read Proverbs 1:7, "Fear of the Lord is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline."

It is not fear in the sense of being scared. It is being in awe, wonder, amazement of who He is.

If you have a bucket list of books, I hope it is filled with wisdom.

I hope you have saved room at the top for the one book that will remind you, we really don't need that bucket list.

We have eternity with the God who created us. 

His bucket list is eternal. 

To infinity and beyond.