Miracle for Jen

I am still trying to wrap my head around all that I experienced this past weekend at the Knowing God Ministries conference in Apex, North Carolina.  The weekend was entitled, Making a Difference in my Corner of the World.  

I attended the conference by invitation of a friend who is also an alum of Grove City College (in Pennsylvania.)  Fuller, whose name at GCC was Karen Fuller, was only an acquaintance when we were in school.  We reconnected last year at an alumni event in Cary, NC and have become heart-to-heart friends.  Our faith especially connects us as our life experiences have been very different.  We share a heart for God and currently, the experience of being single gals.

Fuller and me at KGM Conference February 28, 2014

Fuller is on the ministry team at Knowing God Ministries (KGM).  She is gifted in speaking, writing, photography, and I'm sure in a multitude of other ways. I am so glad that I responded to her encouragement to attend this event.  

The main speakers at the conference were Linda and Jen Barrick.  Here is a picture of KGM founder, Tara Furman with Jen and Linda:

Tara Furrman, Jen and Linda Barrick (photo taken by Fuller Harvey)

Where do I begin?  Certainly, the highlight of the conference was hearing Jen's story and witnessing her joy and her relationship with the Lord.  Also, Linda is a gifted speaker and teacher in her own right.  She leads a Bible study in Lynchburg, VA that has grown to include over 600 women weekly.  Her sweet spirit and her openness was refreshing and touching.  I was encouraged by both the simple and the profound reminder that God is near and He wants to be my deepest friend.  

Take a look at this video to get a taste of what we heard this weekend:

What we heard is even more profound if you know the Barricks' story.  They were hit by a drunk driver in 2006, when Jen was 15 (she is now 22) on their way home from church.  Jenn was not expected to live through the night.  She was in a coma for nearly 6 weeks.  When she started to come out of the coma, instead of swearing (as her parents were warned that most people do), Jen prayed, praised God, and spoke the words to praise songs.  

Click Here to watch the short version of her story on You Tube  

Needless to say, I was honored to get to meet these beautiful women and to hear their story.  I was challenged to get back to the basics of my faith...God desires a love relationship with me.  That really is the point of the cross, the reason why Jesus came, the reason he had to die.  My sin does not have to keep me from a Holy God because of His great love for me.  The same is true for you.

In addition to three teaching sessions with Linda and Jen (which were all fantastic), we had the opportunity to participate in three breakout sessions with other dynamic women of faith.  I was blessed and challenged by these sessions as well.

Check out the adorable decorations (I love the "vase" and tulips):

Photo taken by Fuller Harvey for KGM Ministries

Such a fun weekend and impactful on so many levels.  I am so glad that my friend, Fuller, encouraged me to attend.  

If you are interested in reading Jen's story, she has a book called "Miracle for Jen" available at Amazon.  The Barrick family also have a website called Hope Out Loud.  

Finally, I was blessed to watch a two-part series produced by Joni and Friends:

PART 1

PART 2

These videos are free to watch.  If you have some time, they are well worth it.  

Jen signs her books with her favorite Bible Verse:  

However, as it is written, "What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived--the things God has prepared for those who love Him."  I Cor 2:9

Happy Birthday Momma

Here are three beautiful versions of the Doxology

 because I love the number three...

Father, Son , and Holy Spirit

Happy Birthday Momma.  The last time I saw you, it wasn't really you.  You had left your earthly shell, I am sure, and what was left was the body you had inhabited for seventy-six years.  There was so much peace in that hospital room. I sensed that it was a holy moment...that mysterious transition between this life and the next.  How does it happen?  What does it feel like?  You know.  You know now.

All I knew to do was to worship.  I sang the Doxology over your lifeless body.  

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow

Praise Him, all creatures here below

Praise Him above, ye heavenly hosts

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost

AMEN

How many hundreds of times had we stood in our Baptist church and sang that song together, you and I.  You and me and Dad, too.  We sang after every offering.  We knew it by heart.  When I close my eyes, I can still hear us singing together.

How grateful I am that you faithfully took me to church!  I am so grateful for these precious memories.  I am grateful for all that I learned during those years. I am who I am because of it. I am who I am because of you.

I can hear your laughter, too, when I close my eyes.  It always made me smile. You even laughed when I threw a cup of milk in your face.  You were teasing me about putting a note on the bulletin board at church about the long underwear I lost at the winter retreat.  I thought you were serious.  I was so mad I just tossed that milk right in your face.  We were both shocked.  And then, you laughed.

Today is your birthday.  You would have been 86 today, had you stayed here.  I cannot believe that you have been gone ten years!  A whole decade in June. You have missed everything and you have missed nothing.  I wonder sometimes if you are a witness to our lives or if you are blissfully unaware of life here. Either way, you are the wiser.  You are where I long to be.  And heaven seems a lot more real and much closer now...

Happy Mother's Day

I looked at the calendar, Momma, and I counted the years...10 whole years since you left us.  It doesn't seem that long ago.  Time is moving faster and faster.  I heard someone say once that time moves faster as you get older because of perspective...when you are 10, 1 year is 10% of your whole life, so it can seem like time passes slowly, especially waiting for Christmas or a birthday.  One year is a much smaller percentage of life for me.  But, oh, I don't want to forget that the years are precious.  The years are a gift from God.  Sometimes I will them away with my impatience and longing for I-don't-exactly-know-what.  Life is happening now; today.  I want to learn to live more fully in the moment.

She was beautiful and young once, my Mom...

She had dreams...dreams of having a husband and a family.  She told me once that a husband and a family is all she ever really wanted, all that she prayed for.  She made a mistake when she was young and longing to be loved.  She eloped with a man against her mother's wishes.  He was not a safe person.  He abused her verbally and physically and in less than 2 years she escaped back to her mother. That must have been hard for her, to have a made a mistake that she feared was so great that she would never have the family of her dreams.  She had a hard time forgiving herself.  I know, because she only mentioned this once to me, and I was never to discuss it again.  How much shame she felt in her mistake. Secrets like this take on a power of their own. There is ample grace in God's arms for mistakes. He knows full well that we will make them. He provided a Saviour for us because of it. Yet some of us (me included) have a hard time receiving grace and a hard time giving it to ourselves.

Oh, she loved God and she believed Him for her salvation, but I think she had a hard time forgiving herself.  So she prayed...she prayed and hoped that she would meet a kind man to be her husband and to grow the family of which she dreamed.  In the meanwhile, she got a job a the Bell Telephone Company as a telephone operator. On the weekends, she went dancing at the pavilion at Cascade Park.

And lo and behold, God had a man waiting for her.  A man who loved to dance.  A man who loved the color brown and loved farming the land.  He loved farming more than anything until he met my mom. Then he loved her more.  He loved her enough to get a job in a mill with no windows and no air conditioning.  He loved her enough to buy her a house and to provide for her and their family of 4...to love her over 50 years until the day he breathed his last breath. 

Dolores Jean Patterson and Paul Lawrence

So, Mom told me that all she ever wanted was a husband and children and God had answered her prayers.  She had 4 children all together...and of the 4, I was the last in line.  I was born exactly 11 years after my oldest brother, Paul, 10 years after my sister, Diane, and 7 years after my brother, David.

Janice and Mom

In our Sunday Best

These pictures of me and Mom are probably Sunday mornings.  Every Sunday we attended First Baptist Church.  Mom was fiercely loyal to the Baptist Church...She was a lifelong member.  It was and still is a great place to worship.  I loved my time there, too.  I am grateful for a mom and dad who took me to church where I learned much about Jesus and about the Bible.  Even today, the verses I learned as a child have never left me and have proved a solid foundation for my faith journey.

I always loved her and never could imagine life without her.  When I was a child, I loved to sit on her lap and put my head on her chest while she read a book to me aloud.  I loved feeling her breath on my cheek.  I loved her familiar smell; her softness.  When I grew bigger, we would sit in bed together, side by side, while she read one of her historic novels, I would be reading one of my little golden books.  I would stare at the same page indefinitely until she turned the page of her book.  I must have driven her crazy...I would ask over and over..."Mom, did you turn the page yet?"

I remember her working hard at home.  There was laundry for 6, cleaning, cooking, snapping and canning beans, canning cherries, tomatoes and jam, gardening and school issues with 4 kids.  I remember her singing along to the radio while she ironed clothes.  When I was very young, we had one of those old-time washers with a big wringer and an open tub.  She would have to feed the clothes through the wringer with her hands and a stick.  One time, she got her finger stuck in the wringer...who knew laundry could be dangerous business?

I would be by her side wherever she was...I played in the basement with my dolls while she did the wash. When she watched Let's Make a Deal and had lunch, I would pretend to be a contestant and jump up and down and scream whenever a prize was won.  I was her shadow.

I am sure she missed me some when it was time for school but it was probably nice for her to have a break from me being under her feet.  I remember my very first day of school in first grade.  Our parents were supposed to come at the beginning of the day for registration and to meet our teacher.  She wanted me to have the full experience and to be excited about riding the bus, so she dropped me off at the bus stop and met me at the school.  Looking back now, that makes me smile.  She even thought to ask an older kid on the same bus route to allow me to sit with her on that first day so that I would feel more comfortable.

There weren't many African Americans in my little town.  My mother was concerned about how I would react if there were any in my classroom.  So she prepared me by making me practice smiling and saying hello in case there were any kids who looked different than me.  I can still remember the conversation and her drilling me.

I had a long walk from the bus stop down a gravel road.  It would ice over in the winter.  I remember I would often see my mother's face in the kitchen window, watching for me to come down the lane after school.  One day, the road was so icy that I feared falling.  So I crawled home on my hands and knees (in knee socks, no less!), pushing my lunchbox in front of me and then crawling after it.  I can still see my mother's face in the kitchen window cracking up laughing...she watched me crawl all the way to the front door.

At least twice a year, my mother took me clothes shopping.  Once before school started and once before Easter to get an Easter dress and other spring clothes. These trips were very special to me where I had her undivided attention and had opportunity to get pretty new things.  She took pleasure in buying "nice" clothes from JC Penney.  She believed in the best quality that we could afford.  She took pride in not buying us clothes at discount stores that she said would fall apart.

In addition to her love for reading, I also inherited my mother's budgeting skills (though not so much her frugality, I am afraid).  She never worked outside the home after marrying my father and she was able to manage the household well on his modest income.  Every two weeks was payday and grocery shopping.  In addition to staples, she would usually buy a favorite cereal and a bag of chips, some soda, and maybe a carton of ice cream...but we were admonished not to open the chips and the soda or the ice cream too soon because there would be no more until the next payday.  Usually we didn't eat them the first weekend, we would wait a few days at least.  The anticipation was half of the fun.

She did her budget for the month by hand on a piece of white paper where she drew the lines herself.  I have a copy of the last few.  She kept them in the kitchen drawer.  I remember her sitting at the kitchen table going over the numbers and adding out loud.

I was mean to her sometimes.  I would go back and do it differently if I could.  I had an insatiable appetite for clothes and nice things...things we could not afford.  I gave her a hard time about it.  She gave me everything she could give but I always wanted more.  Sometimes I made her cry over it.  We both cried...me, the spoiled child and her, the mom who just wanted me to be happy.  She sacrificed her own material desires many times for me and our family.  She really did love me, probably more than I will ever understand.

In later years, I took great pleasure in taking her shopping when I would go home to visit.  I loved buying her clothes and attempting to spoil her, although I understand that I could never match all that she had given me.

These are just snippets of memories...there is so much I could say about the uniqueness of her.  She had a wonderful laugh that sounded like hiccups to me.  We had fun times as a family bowling, playing miniature golf, visiting the farm shows in the summer and fall...and always picnics.  Mom's potato salad was the best!  We also had fun playing cards and games and just sitting around the television set together.  Just being together was good.

At the Lawrence County Fair (early 1990's)

As much as I appreciate her love for me, I am perhaps most blessed by how she loved my father.  He had her whole heart.  She loved him purely and completely.  I cannot imagine what life is like for those whose parents don't love each other.  I will always believe that my parents' greatest gift to me was loving each other.  Home was the one place where love and commitment were constants.  It was a comfort to know that they weren't going anywhere.  They were in it for the long haul.  In fact, it is hard to talk about Mom without talking about Dad.  They were inseparable.

My Mom was full of love and devotion.  She laughed a lot, too.  I think they are both laughing in this picture.

So, Momma, you left us 10 years ago.  I knew it was inevitable, but still, the timing surprised me.  It was just 8 months after Dad had passed on.  Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised at all. 

I will always love you, Mom.  I will always thank God for you.  I believe in His providence and in His sovereignty...and I believe He gave us to each other.  He picked you to be my mom and he picked me to be your "surprise" girl.  You are missed today and always.

For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother's womb.

...My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place.  When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, you eyes saw my unformed body.  All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.  NIV Psalm 139:13, 15 & 16

Bonus Moms: Then, there was Helen

Dear, sweet Helen is a Bonus Mom whom I shared with my BFF, Laura.  I first met Helen in January of the year 2000.  I had signed up to serve in a para-church ministry in Charlotte called Love, INC (Love In the Name of Christ).  Love INC was created to minister to the poor and elderly in our community.  It was created to come along side social service agencies and help in ways they could not reach. Many different churches in the community enlist volunteers.  A sign-up sheet had been passed around my church.  I checked the box that said "drive someone to the grocery store or run errands."  I thought to myself, how hard can that be?

It was many years before I heard from Love INC again.  I had forgotten about it. Then one day a social worker called me and asked if I would be willing to take a lady named Helen Medlin to the grocery store.  She lived in low income (Salvation Army) Senior housing uptown Charlotte called Booth Gardens.  Booth Gardens is a very nice place for the money.  The units are small.  Helen had a tiny galley kitchen with a very small refridgerator.  She went to the grocery store just once per month. That made it hard to fit everything in the small fridge and freezer.  But somehow, she managed.

To be honest, I wasn't sure about this volunteer opportunity.  I had just returned from visiting my parents in Pennsylvania over Christmas.  I was sad because my father was showing ever increasing signs of dementia.  This trip home was the first time he did not know my name.  I remember having a heavy heart the day I called Helen for the first time.  She wasn't sure she really needed my help.  She had some relatives in the area who sometimes took her grocery shopping.  But they were not consistent.  We arranged for me to pick her up the following Saturday to go to the grocery store.

When I pulled up to the apartment complex, Helen was waiting for me on a bench outside.  She had her walker beside her and she had dark glasses on.  Helen had bad knees and even worse vision.  She wore dark glasses in the sunlight due to macular degeneration (a disease that affects the elderly which causes one to go blind).  She walked VERY slowly hunched over and pushing her walker with wheels.

I learned in the car that Helen was 79 years old and had lived at Booth Gardens approximately 8 years.  She married at 17 (her husband was supposed to have a date with her sister, who was not interested.)  Helen was smitten from the beginning and it lasted until his death 58 years later.  I would see later that she kept a picture of him beside her bed.

Helen and her husband adopted two daughters.  She said that she always wanted a son but never got one.  I wish I could remember the stories...they were unique. Almost like they were dropped onto her doorstep.  They were legal adoptions but she had somehow known the mothers.  It wasn't like she registered with an agency.

One of her daughters had already passed away when I met Helen.  She died at age 50 of Lung Cancer.  The other daughter lived in Charleston, SC.  Too far away to take Helen to the grocery store.  Helen missed her independance fiercely and wished that she could drive.  But her failing eyesight had robbed her of that privilege.

So that was how I found myself at a Bi-Lo on the "wrong side of town" with my new friend, Helen.  She would bring a list each time which was hard to read due to her failing eyesight.  We would walk ever so slowly down each aisle, Helen leaning on her walker as I loudly described the items in passing ..."Now we are at jellies and jams....do you need any jelly or peanut butter?  What kind do you want?"  

I learned a lot on these trips.  I learned that people actually do eat liver mush.  I learned that one could over-dress to go grocery shopping (that would be me, on trip #1).  I learned that the first of the month on a Saturday was the worst time to go to a grocery store "on the wrong side of town."  The store was extremely crowded and waiting in line to pay seemed to take forever.  Some people in front of us in line had as many as 4 different vouchers.  I learned that prices really do matter.  If the price was too high ($2.89 for broccoli), Helen would shake her head and we would walk away.  Once in the meat section, a man excused himself to reach in front of us to get some meat.  Then he put it back down and shook his head with a smile, "I guess I won't be buying meat today at that price..."  I learned that I was spoiled.  I couldn't recall putting something back at the grocery store because it was too expensive.

I picked up some handy tips, too.  Helen taught me to make muffins with craisins in them.  She told me to soak the craisins in water first so that they wouldn't dry out the muffins.  

When we would return to Helen's apartment complex, I would have to find the grocery cart.  It would be hiding in the laundry room or sometimes in the bushes.  I would load all of the groceries that were in my trunk into the grocery cart and wheel it to Helen's tiny apartment.  Then I would unload it onto Helen's counters and take the cart back to the laundry room before I would return to help Helen put away her things.  

From start to finish, these grocery trips took 3 to 4 hours.  I found it exhausting. So did Helen, with her bad knees and failing sight, it was not easy.  She was ever so grateful, though.  She always had a donation for Love, INC which she would give to me to pass on.  

It wasn't very long before she started to say, "I love you."  She would say it on the phone and she would say it more than once before I left her.  She really did love me.  I loved her, too.  She was easy to love.

I didn't always look forward to the grocery shopping.  I loathed it, over time, to be honest.  I loved Helen, though, and I began to learn that loving someone requires a sacrifice of self.  Loving Helen meant grocery shopping on the first Saturday of the month on "the wrong side of town."  But she was worth it.

In June of 2001, I had emergency surgery for Ovarian Cancer followed by 6 months of chemotherapy.  I asked my BFF, Laura, if she would be willing to take my friend, Helen, grocery shopping.  Helen was so easy to love that I knew Laura would love her, too.  I was right. 

Helen, Janice, Laura, and Tyler

Helen, Laura, and Tyler

Laura took her faithfully while I recovered from cancer.  Then, when I was well enough, Laura and I began to share the responsibility.  Helen became a Bonus Mom to both of us.  We took her to dinner on her birthday each year.  We bought her Christmas presents.  After my mother died in 2004, I began to buy Helen the clothes that I would have bought my mother.  My mother loved Alfred Dunner clothes.  They are comfortable and well-made (sold in nicer department stores as opposed to Walmart or Target).  It gave me great pleasure to buy Helen nice clothes.

After several years of taking Helen grocery shopping, she took a turn for the worse with her knees and her general health.  She could no longer maintain the relative independence that she had.  She was moved into an assisted living facility.  She was very fortunate to secure a room at a nice facility in the Ballantyne area of Charlotte.  They were required to accept a certain number of Medicaid patients.  In my mind, it was like Helen won the lottery.  But she was very sad to leave her home of more than 10 years.

I wish I could say that I kept up my monthly visits.  I did not.  Laura and I did visit her, though, sometimes together and sometimes on our own.  As Laura had children, Helen doted over them as if they were her own grandchildren.  She delighted in them.  When Laura's first was born, somehow Helen found a way to have a red rocker delivered to Laura's home.  This impressed us as she had only a few dollars per month that she could spend on "extras."

Sometimes I would eat a meal with Helen and her friends at her new "home." On one occasion, there was a family night at the facility.   I attended as Helen's daughter.  She was so pround to have me there.  It was a privilege for me as well. My mother was gone and Elizabeth was gone, but here again was another Bonus Mom dropped into my life.  How good God is!

Unfortunately, my time with Helen ended in a way that I feared that it would.  I had asked the assisted living center if they would be willing to take my number and call me if something happened to Helen.  Due to HIPAA laws, they would not do so. One day when Laura, her children, and I went to visit Helen, we found out that she had passed away.  She had been gone for 3 weeks.  It had probably been 2 months since I had seen her.

We felt awful, needless to say.  Why did I wait so long?  Life gets in the way.    It is easy to get lazy about visiting our older friends.  She was truly precious to me.  She was a gift that I took forgranted, over time.  If I could go back, I would be more consistent in my time with her.  But there is no going back.

I imagine that she is in Heaven now and she has met my mom, Dolores, and Elizabeth, my first bonus mom. They laugh about me and my silly ways.  They also talk about how much they love me.  They see from afar how God is changing me. How I have learned from them and continue to learn and grow. And they cheer me on.  

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. 
Hebrews 12:1-3 NIV

Bonus Moms: First, there was Elizabeth

Writing about my family reunion makes me think of other "family" in my life, family that is not blood-relations but heart-relations.  As a woman who has been single for a lot of years (all of them, thus far), these family heart-ties have been crucial for my well-being.  I don't know how others get through life without them. Well, I guess there are coping mechanisms...unhealthy ones in many cases.  How good God is, that He designed us for relationships and that He can orchestrate the relationships we need at the times we really need them.  

My very first Bonus Mom was named Elizabeth Courvoisier.  She was an elegant southern belle...beautiful, charming, and full of love.  She was a St. Giles lady.  I had seen her at church and we had always smiled and said kind words to each other. But it was in my brokenness and weeping that she became my first Bonus Mom.  It was on a Sunday morning.  A very sad Sunday morning for me.  My first true love had married someone else the day before.  I was so distraught, I almost crashed the wedding.  Fortunately, for all of us, I had an appointment with my therapist that morning and she talked me out of it.  What a disaster that would have been!

So here I am, at church the morning after he married someone else.  And it is communion Sunday.  Now, communion Sunday at St. Giles was a celebration.  It was my favorite Sunday of the month.  As we would walk up to the altar to receive communion, we would greet each other and hug each other.  We would pray for each other.  And all the while, beautiful praise music would be played by the worship team.  So in-between singing and hugging and experiencing a sense of family, we would receive the symbols of the body and blood of Christ, who gave everything for us.  Each person served the person behind them in line.  It was a wonderful day in the life of our church family.

This particular Sunday, the Sunday after he married someone else...the focus of the morning was on marriage.  When it was time for communion, husbands and wives were invited to the table first.  They were invited based on the number of years that they had been married.  First it was couples married 25 years or more, then 20 years or more...you get the drill.  Before each couple served each other communion, they renewed their wedding vows.  Then there was a wedding song sung by the worship team.  Then they served each other.  

I have never experienced a more painful communion Sunday.  A safe haven for me had been transformed into a reminder of my deep pain and longing...a reminder of what I wanted so much but did not have.  This is not the way the Lord's table is supposed to be.  I know that.  But you know what, I also know the heart of the Pastor.  This Pastor's heart was for his people who were struggling in their marriages.  His heart was in the right place.  I do not agree with his decision, but I have grace for it.  I know him and love him. 

The wedding vows and the wedding songs seemed to go on and on.  By the time the last couple had served each other, it was well-past time for church to be over. The benediction was given due to the late hour.  Anyone who had not yet received communion was invited to come to the table after the benediction.  My heart was broken and I was angry.  I walked out of the church in my anger and headed to my car.  But I stopped as I heard God say to me,  "Where are you going, Janice? You've got nowhere else to go..."

So I forced my legs to walk back into that sanctuary, into that place that had seemingly, unwittingly, poured salt onto my gaping, open wounds that morning.  I walked up the aisle and I stood in line with the small group of widows, divorcees, and singles.  I felt that I was relegated to the crumbs of the Lord's table.  I could only weep.  And as I wept, I felt arms wrap around me.  They were a mother's arms.  They were Elizabeth's arms. 

That was the beginning of a long and precious friendship.  She became my Charlotte mother.  She not only loved me, she delighted in me.  We shared many meals together and lots of phone calls.  I would take her out for Mother's day and for her birthday.  I relished the stories of her life that she shared with me.  She listened to every detail of my life and always loved me without judgement.  She loved hearing about my dates and crushes.  She cheered me on.  But the best gifts she gave me were her prayers for me.  She had a stool beside her bed on which she knelt and prayed for me daily.  I believe it.  I felt it. 

St. Giles women's ministry started a program sometime after we met called "heart-to-heart," where the older women were encouraged to mentor the younger women in a one-on-one relationship.  We were a natural fit, and already had an established friendship when she became my heart-to-heart friend.   

Some years later, I was out of town on a business trip when I learned that Elizabeth had had a stroke.  It was a bad one.  She was never able to live in her townhome again.  She lived out the remainder of her days in nursing homes.  

Her townhome was a safe haven for me.  I had visited her and had meals with her there.  I was devastated to be losing her.  Very shortly after her stroke, there was an auction at her home.  I went.  I cried.  I stood in disbelief while I watched her belongings sold to the highest bidder.  My hoarding-self wanted to buy everything!  I was tormented...should I buy the dishes?  The clothes that I remember her wearing so elegantly?  Paintings that she had lovingly created?  Oh, so many choices.  I ended up buying a box of books and a few paintings.  In the box of books were two that I had loaned to her and one that I had given her as a gift, an Oswald Chambers devotional.  As I flipped through the pages, there was a yellow sticky note inside with the names of my aunt and uncle written on it.  I had asked her to pray for them.  She had written it down and had kept the paper in her devotional book.  I was reminded that she had heard me, she took my prayer requests seriously.  I was loved and valued by her.

And I realized, too, that I did not need to buy all of her things to have a piece of her in my life.  Her life was woven into mine.  Her love and prayers were now a part of me.  I would never be the same because of her.  What more did I need?  God provided Elizabeth for me in a time of brokenness and need.  And that is a reflection of His heart for me.  On the day after my first true love married someone else, I received the gift of a lifetime.  The gift of Elizabeth.  The gift I really needed.  

²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life^[a]?

²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Matthew 6:25-33  NIV