Transitions

Transitions have always been a challenge for Sharon and me.  So this new season in which we no longer have to consider Anina’s needs or wants will be a bit of a challenge.  As Sharon and I departed for our three-day get away Sharon noted that it was going to be interesting to see if we still have things to talk about now that Anina is gone.  Both explicitly and implicitly, Anina always had to be considered, much as our children did when they were still living at home.  They were not the center of our world, but they were definitely a primary consideration in choices and changes.

We have been here before.  When our three very special children had all launched there was a brief season in which we did not have to take them into consideration as a primary factor in what we would do or where we would go or how we would spend our time or money.  Then in 2006 we made the decision to be near, and eventually move in with, my mother-in-law in Southern California.  An interesting thing I noticed is that living with Anina was similar to living with children, but in reverse. 

When we first moved in with her it was like having nearly-grown children.  She didn’t have to ask permission to go places or do things, she just had to let us know where she was.  And vice-versa.  As the time went on she became more dependent on us, which was more like raising younger children.  At the end it became like having a baby.  We couldn’t really be gone without having someone to sit with her.  We had to factor in the costs of caregiving when deciding what we could and couldn’t do.

On these days away we are only briefly talking about what comes next.  We are mostly just relaxing, reading, reflecting and being restored before life begins to take on the “new normal” with the end of my sabbatical and the renewing of our life commitments like grandchildren and our home group.  What will be different is the level of stress and sense of responsibility for Anina which will be gone.  If the life group wants to stay past 9:30 pm they can.  If the grandkids want to be a bit noiser in the afternoon when Anina used to rest, they can.  And we can journey to the Central Coast more often to visit Jedidiah and his parents.

Next week we will begin our transition in earnest as we begin to clear out closets and the garage and rearrange our living spaces.  It will be difficult but our new lives will also begin to take shape.  If you’re one of those who prays, pray for us as we journey into the next season of our lives.  Choices have consequences. We want to make choices that will benefit each other and those around us.  We want to bear fruit that reflects the character of God.  We typically don't do transitions well.  Maybe that's why God keeps giving us opportunities to practice.

Live Until You Die

It is true that often we do not get much of a choice in what we are able to do as we age.  Physical or mental limitations hinder us from living our lives as we would like.  But for those who are blessed by being able to keep their mental faculties and maintain some mobility I have a question.  Are you going to live until you die?

What prompts this question is the memorial service for my mother-in-law, Anina Walberg.  She went on short term missions trips to Venezuela with Peace Officers for Christ when she was 79 and again at 80.  She maintained a mailing ministry and did bookkeeping for a preschool until this past December at age 96.  She continued to call individuals and sing them a version of the birthday song that called on God to bless the person whose birthday it was up until days before she passed away.

All of us are given gifts and abilities.  And like a fruit tree, these resources are not intended for our own consumption.  Our fruit is produced to be used by someone else.  As a pastor I have seen far too many people launch their children and then begin to focus on themselves for the next four decades or so.  Or people with small children focus on nothing but their own family for the first couple decades.  What the Bible seems clear about is using our gifts throughout our lives.  

It is true that some seasons create some limitations.  Our time in SoCal was committed to Anina and that time commitment increased as her health deteriorated.  Even in this season we were able to use our talents to help others.  In most seasons in our lives there is enough time and energy to involve ourselves in the lives of others (in a healthy way) so that they are blessed and we get to use our gifts.

If you’re interested in hearing how Anina lived until she died, you can watch her memorial on YouTube.  She lived well.  She died well.  And as a result she is honored at her memorial service.

How Was Your Sabbatical?

“How was your sabbatical?”  I was in Minneapolis at the EFCA headquarters this past week for two important meetings.  This was the first question from my friends as they saw me in the hallways.

I had to pause a minute to think about that.  First, I pointed out I technically have two more weeks, so I’m still on sabbatical.  Second, I reiterated it wasn’t much like what I had envisioned but it was everything I and my family needed it to be.  My mother passed away a few days before the sabbatical began and my mother-in-law passed away last week so my sabbatical was basically bookended by the passing of two significant people in my life.  That meant being there for my family and having them there for me.

As I thought more about it I pointed out that my availability for my family in this season, I’d like to think, would have been roughly the same if I had not been on sabbatical.  The big difference is that because our team knew I was on sabbatical they had already adjusted their life and schedule in ways that did not factor me in.  My focus on the family did not impact anyone else on the team as it would have done if I had not been on sabbatical.  For that I give thanks.

As my sabbatical has unfolded I have become more comfortable with the fact that while there are a number of things that did not turn out as I had imagined and planned them, God has given me some great uninterrupted time with family and with Himself that are irreplaceable.  I have been more “there” for the early weeks of my youngest grandson’s life.  I have been more “there” for my father as he adjusts to life in SoCal instead of northern Idaho.  I have been more “there” for my wife as she has navigated caring for her mother and caring for our grandchildren.  I have been more “there” for my mother-in-law during her last days here.  And I was definitely more “there” at the moment she passed from time into eternity.  Much of this I would have missed had I been working, but I would have also missed more if I had kept to my original sabbatical schedule.

How was my sabbatical?  The final tally isn’t in, but the voting is heavily leaning toward “not much of what I originally wanted” but “all of what I really needed.”  The remnant of my original plan for the last two weeks, based on input from several friends who have taken sabbaticals, is to lay pretty low, spending time relaxing and refreshing.  That’s the plan.  We’ll see how that works out.

Great, Now I Have Guilt

Today there are no appointments on my calendar and no tasks that really HAVE to be done.  Because I’m in Minneapolis there are no chores to do around my house.  I have no meetings at EFCA because I’m on sabbatical.  I’m trying to remember the last time I wasn’t on vacation but found myself with an entire unspoken-for day.  Even my weekly Sabbath includes attending church.

I slept in until 8:45.  I sauntered downstairs for the hotel’s forgettable breakfast.  I’ve read and answered some email, read my Bible, journaled and spent some time in prayer.  I showered but not shaved.  I sat to write a blog and this is what came out.

The funny thing is that I feel some pressure to decide what I will do for the rest of the day.  Unfortunately the Spurs game is on NBA TV which the hotel does not have in its lineup (nor do I at home).  And who cares about the Eastern Conference games?  My biggest decisions are whether to go downtown to the Spaghetti Factory or eat at Famous Dave’s at MOA.

Can you feel the tension mounting?  What happens if I reach the end of the day and have done nothing of significance?  What if Sharon, who has so many projects related to her mom’s memorial service on Saturday, finds out I slept part of the day and watched old episodes of Leverage?  As the dinosaur in Toy Story says, "Great, now I have guilt."

I have always claimed I do not find my significance in what I do.  Today I was reminded that that is a lie.  It’s not where I find my greatest significance, but it often runs a close second.  Know what I mean?

Well, I have to go now.  I have nothing to do but I have to hurry up and not do it.  It will make me feel better.

Thanks for Listening

On Monday, April 14 my mother-in-law passed away.  On Thursday, April 17 we received a cold call from a real estate company.  They asked for Anina.  When Sharon said she had passed away just a few days before the sales person didn’t skip a beat when asking, “Are you a Walberg?  We have people interested in buying in your area.”  Sharon was so taken aback she didn’t know quite how to respond.  I think she finally blurted out something to the effect, “I just told you my mother died.  Thank you for your concern. (This last sentence dripped with sarcasm that I am sure was lost on the caller.)

After I recovered from hearing the story I phoned the number back and got a salesman named Mike.  I asked for whoever was supervising the cold calls.  Mike held his hand lightly over the phone and yelled to someone that a caller wanted to talk to the supervisor.  The supervisor was busy telling the crew to close up for the night and told Mike to tell me he would call me back.

Mike came back on the line and said the supervisor was in a meeting (Lie 1) and that he would call me back (Lie 2).  (As of today I have still not received a call back.)  Mike asked what my call was about so I related the story.  His first response was, “Maybe the salesperson wasn’t listening when your wife told him her mom had died.”  I literally held the phone away from my ear and looked at it.  I asked Mike if that is how the salespeople are trained.  To not listen.  He assured me that was not the case.  I assured Mike the salesperson had listened to the words my wife spoke because of his response asking if she was a Walberg.  In other words, he heard enough to want to pursue whether Sharon had the ability to sell the house.

I tell this story so that I can vent my frustration.  It is clear that my emotions are raw at this season and I feel protective of my wife and her emotions.  Thanks for listening.  You are a true friend.

But I also tell it because we pastor-types, we ministry leaders, can often have the same laser focus on what we want to communicate or what we want to get done and although we hear the words people speak we do not hear the backstory.  We fail to listen long enough and close enough to pick up the context of their answer and its implications for their life and ministry with us as a Body.  We have a goal in mind and we don’t want to be confused with a storyline that doesn’t fit our scenario.  We, in pure point of fact, use people instead of shepherding them.  We size them up to fit into our ministry scheme.  We see new people who attend in terms of their potential contribution to the mission.  Gifts, money, time.  These are the commodities we trade in.  It ought not to be so. 

These are the people God has sent to both receive and to give to the local church. But our role is not, primarily, about recruiting.  It is not, primarily, about finding them a place in our strategy.  It is, primarily, about making disciples.  Followers of Jesus.  As Larry Osborne is quick to say, disciple is not a fancy term. It means follower or learner.  It says nothing about the quality of their following or learning.  It says nothing about their willingness to fit into our program.  It says everything about the direction they are going. 

My take-away from the phone call last Thursday is a desire that God deliver me from ever relating to people the way the salesperson related to Sharon.  I don’t want to be the guy that is so fixated on the goal that I miss the person.

I Wanna Be Dead

When we knew that Anina was entering her last days we talked about how we wanted to prepare our two granddaughters (Raya, aged 4 and Abby, aged 3).  They are at the house with us and their great-grandma (whom they refer to as grandma) three days a week and grandma's dying could not be hidden as she became less mobile and more bedridden.  We talked to them about how sick grandma was and how one day grandma would leave us to be with Jesus.  Last Saturday the girls went into Anina's room to say goodbye because they were going home.  They each gave her a kiss and grandma placed her hand on each of their heads in a very "matriarchal blessing" kind of way.  By the time the girls had returned on Tuesday, Anina had stepped into eternity.

Sharon and I decided to keep Anina's room, including the hospital bed, just as it had been for the past five weeks.  On Tuesday we let the girls climb up on Anina's now empty bed.  They got to raise and lower the head and foot of grandma’s hospital bed for each other and Kristi took them for a ride around the block in grandma’s wheel chair.

On Wednesday morning the girls repeated their adventures with grandma's supplies.  That afternoon the medical supply company came and took back the hospital bed, the wheel chair, the oxygen tanks and other medical supplies.  On Wednesday night we moved Anina’s twin bed back into the room.

When the girls arrived yesterday they climbed onto the bed and began looking for the controls that would elevate the bed.  They were disappointed to find that the bed was just an ordinary bed again.

Just a short while later Raya was lying on the floor and Abby came to get me from my home office.  “Coco is sick” she said.  I went out to the living room and picked Coco (Raya) up.  Abby told me I needed to take her to grandma’s bed.  When I lay Raya down, I said to Abby, “Coco is sleeping.”  Raya said, “No, I’m dead.”  At that point Abby piped up, “I wanna be dead.”  (Abby wants to do whatever Raya is doing and she figured it must be her turn.)

We wanted our granddaughters to see death as part of life but I don’t think I was prepared for them to "play dead.”  As a culture we have removed dying from the home and institutionalized it.  In his book, The Christian Art of Dying, Allen Verhey points out that in 1945, 40% of deaths occurred in a hospital.  By 1995, 90% of deaths occurred in a hospital.  In fifty short years our culture removed dying from the daily-ness of life.

I am still astounded when 20 and 30-somethings tell me they have never been to a funeral or a memorial service for anyone.  My oldest daughter, who has been to many memorial services, pointed out that being with her grandma when she died was the first time she had been around a dead body.

At first I was a bit taken aback by Raya and Abby’s game of death but then I remembered what Jesus said during a discussion about John the baptizer.  John was very austere and people didn’t respond.  Jesus was very gracious and people didn’t respond.  To illustrate how the people didn’t like either Jesus’ or John’s ministry, Jesus said, “They are like children playing a game in the public square. They complain to their friends, ‘We played wedding songs, and you didn’t dance, so we played funeral songs, and you didn’t weep.’” (Luke 7:32  NLT)  Evidently my granddaughters’ game has a long and illustrious history.  I have seen them play wedding.  I had never seen them play dead.

I’m not sure we’re ready as a culture to put the body on a door and leave it in the living room for a few days while everyone comes by to express their condolences (although I can see the advantages), but I do think we would be more mindful of our lives if we were more aware of our deaths.  I’m not sure I want my granddaughters playing “I wanna be dead” all the time, but I do want them to grow up knowing that physical death is part of earthly life.  I want death to hold no fear for them because they, like their great-grandma Anina, know that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus changes death from something to be feared to something to be welcomed.  Death, as Billy Graham once said, goes from being a hopeless end to being an endless hope.

As the writer to the Hebrew Christians put it: "Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying. We also know that the Son did not come to help angels; he came to help the descendants of Abraham. Therefore, it was necessary for him to be made in every respect like us, his brothers and sisters, so that he could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God. Then he could offer a sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people.  (Hebrews 2:14-17 NLT)

On this week that looks back at the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus we can say along with Paul, "'O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?' For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Corinthians 15:55-57 NLT)

What Exactly Did You Like About Anina's Death?

As with most twenty-first century technology, Facebook has some great advantages.  I get to see seasons in the life of friends, the growing up of the children and grandchildren of friends and family.  I find out about transitions such as marriage, birth, and death.

But with the advantages come some limitations that have me conflicted.  This has been highlighted over the past couple days with the death of my mother-in-law, Anina Walberg.  While Facebook has allowed us to let so many of her family and friends know without the interminable phone calls or a massive mailing, it has also created some inner tensions as I recognized again the limitations of Facebook when it comes to certain announcements, particularly death announcements. 

Think, for instance, of what we did to our friends by posting that Anina had died.  Our friends had to have that moment of, "Do I 'like' this?"  Think about it.  Which part of the announcement are people “liking,” the fact that Anina is dead or that she was ready to go and, as a Christian, was assured where she would be when she drew her last breath?  There is no real nuance with Facebook.  Wouldn't it be nice if there were a few more options such as “How sad for you” or “I have mixed emotions about this.”  With Facebook you either like it or you ignore it.

The very fact that we posted it on Facebook put Anina's friends and our friends in the awkward position of having to click "like" simply to indicate they now know that Anina has passed away. In essence they are saying "message received," but because of the lack of choices there is something inherent in clicking "like." It creates the unspoken question, "What exactly did you like about Anina's death?"

Maybe we're all trying to make Facebook do more than it was designed to do.  And maybe Facebook could give us a few more options than "like."  Until then we're stuck with a very handy tool that can't do everything we'd like it to do.  

And for all those who have "liked" Anina's death, rest assured that Sharon and I and the rest of the family understand you weren't exactly saying you like the fact that Anina is dead. Thank you to all who took a moment to comment on her passing.  It has been a blessing.

A Legacy of Faithfulness

At 1 pm yesterday my mother-in-law Anina Walberg, like someone taking a deep breath before diving below the surface of the water, breathed deeply and stepped into God’s presence.  If we had one we would have fired a cannon (See my blog entry, Here Comes the Boom.) Since we don’t have a cannon, Facebook and Blogs will serve the purpose of announcing the home-going of someone who walked faithfully with God.

Anina was born in Onalaska, Washington (which she always pronounced Warshington).  Raised on a farm, she had very little pretense.  She played the organ at church and for a radio ministry of Pastor C.T. Walberg.  In the course of time she married him, continuing to play the piano, organ or accordion as the need arose.

She wasn’t a great orator.  She didn’t organize the Women’s Retreat.  She didn’t oversee any of the church ministries, but she faithfully helped those who do such things.  She encouraged her pastor-husband, she raised her four children, and she provided meals for missionaries who were passing through.  She even hosted her husband’s estranged father when he showed up on the doorstep while Dr. Walberg was traveling around the world with Bob Pierce.

She opened her home to the friends of her children and Sharon has said she used to complain that her boyfriends were so interested in talking to her mom they often left late for dates.

She was an expert marksman with a dishtowel and could snap you where she wanted at twenty paces.  She had this way of flicking her wrist and hitting you on the backside with her fingers that came close to leaving a welt.  You found yourself walking around the kitchen with your back to the counters and your eye on Anina.

When Dr. Walberg passed away and I couldn’t do it anymore, Anina stepped in to take over as the voice of the radio ministry.  She was heard on KTYM for years as she brought a word of Scripture, a poem and a word of encouragement.  When the radio costs got to be too much she morphed the radio ministry into a literature ministry which she only gave up, begrudgingly, last December at age 96.

As the responses are pouring in the theme over and over again is that people saw Jesus in Anina’s love for them and her faithfulness to God. No flash.  No Glitz. No Glam.  Just a daily living out of her faith in Jesus in whatever season she found herself.  I have no doubt she heard, “Well done good and faithful servant” when she got to the throne room yesterday.

New Math

Tomorrow Anina Walberg will finish her 97th year of life and, if God permits, begin her 98th.  She, her friends and family have always counted time by years. In early March, when she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, we began counting time by months.  Then we began counting by weeks.  And now we count time by days.

We also count milliliters when measuring her water consumption.  Ounces when we measure the juice in which to put her medications. Liters when we dial in her oxygen.  Hours when we count how much she sleeps each day.  And we count the number of times we get up with Anina each night.

It was only a few years ago Anina would drive for miles.  Then she had to be driven where she wanted to go.  Then she walked around the block.  Then she was pushed around the block in her wheel chair.  She walked from the bedroom to her office or out to the table to eat.  Then she walked a few feet to the bathroom or her recliner.  Now she rolls a few inches to the left or right to get comfortable.

Anina is learning a new math.  And the measurements mark the boundaries of her earthly existence.  But a day is coming soon when she will enter a place more vast and wonderful than anything she has experienced in her 97 years.  She won’t have to count calories, distance or time. The numbers in her life now seem small and constraining, but today’s numbers are not forever.  Her life is.

King David wisely prayed “Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom. (Psalm 90:12 NLT)

James wrote, “Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”  (James 4:13-15 ESV)

The preacher declares in Ecclesiastes, "For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest.  (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 NLT)

These verses describe life here and now in the world as we know it.  John, the apostle, in his revelation of Jesus Christ records what is ahead for Anina and all those who have been reconciled to God through Jesus, “He [God] will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”  (Revelation 21:4 ESV)

That is what Anina is counting on.

Let It Go, Let It Go

The Life Group of which Sharon and I are a part is going through a series entitled The Gospel-Centered Life published by World Harvest Mission.  This has been a challenging and growth-inducing study of how the gospel not only saves us, but is the basis for on-going life change.

Last night was “Getting to the Heart of Forgiveness.”  The assignment was to identify a few people whom we have not forgiven or who we need to more deeply forgive because we have not, in the words of that immortal song from Frozen, “Let it Go.”

It took me a few minutes to identify two people.  What I noticed was that in each of the two cases one of the reasons I was having difficulty releasing them from the hurt to me was that they had never acknowledged how they had hurt me.  They couldn’t see that what they did was hurtful and inappropriate.  As an ENFJ (the same temperament as Jesus) I am wired for reasonableness.  These two people have not been persuaded by my reasonable presentation of their offense that they were ever in the wrong.  If they could see and acknowledge their sins against me it would make it so much easier to forgive them.  But they don’t.  So I have to keep working on my attitude toward them.

The group agreed that these are the hardest people to forgive.  Those who are unwilling or unable to acknowledge that they have wronged us.  Hurt us.  Unless a person is one of those who repeatedly “repents” and then continues to inflict pain, we all agreed that the person who acknowledges their wrong is much easier to forgive than the person who will not admit their sin against us.

By the end of the exercise I was graphically reminded that, as Lewis Smedes writes in his classic work Forgive and Forget, forgiveness is a choice AND a process.  We take the debt on ourselves and pay it for them.  We release them from the wrong they did to us.  (That doesn’t mean, by the way, that we continue to put ourselves in the place of allowing them to keep hurting us.  As Dan Allender writes, “Forgiveness involves a heart that cancels the debt but does not lend new money until repentance occurs.”

The study brings us back to the gospel.  We have been forgiven much more than whatever it is that has been done to us.  If God took the initiative to forgive us our debt against Him, how can we not seek to extend that same grace toward those who have sinned against us.  (Trusting the other person after an egregious offense is a blog for another time.  See the Allender quote above.)  Jesus says in more than one place that we are expected, as God’s forgiven children, to pass that forgiveness along.  Today I choose to let it go.  Again.

A Living Memorial

In January when my mother-in-law Anina said she wanted to see Jesus in 2014, Sharon and I began talking with her about what she wanted for her memorial service.  As it began looking more likely Anina will get her wish to be with Jesus before the year ends, we wanted to celebrate her birthday AND host a “living memorial,” a time when people could give their eulogy directly to Anina.  Anina refused.  She thought it would seem “proud” for her to accept the opportunity for people to speak highly of her to her face.  Sharon, being the wise woman she is, approached Anina a few weeks later about having a birthday/retirement party.  Anina agreed to that.  (A rose by any other name…)

Last Saturday we were able to celebrate Anina’s 97^th birthday (one week early) and have some of her friends and family over to the house to articulate to her what she means to them.

Rather than sitting Anina in the living room and having the more than 60 people overwhelm her, we had 2 or 3 people in her bedroom (which I wanted to label the Sanctum Sanctorum) at a time to chat, pray with and encourage Anina.

The day was exhausting for Anina, but it also blessed her deeply.  We saw more than a few come out of the bedroom wiping tears, so the blessing was mutual.

Not everyone gets a timeline on their death, but for those who do let me recommend that you plan a memorial service of sorts while they are still alive to appreciate it.  After what happened last Saturday, Anina’s public memorial service will be a bit anticlimactic for me.  Those of us in attendance at her “real” memorial service will be comforted in our loss, but the good stuff was said while Anina could still hear and understand it.  I don’t think it even went to her head, making her proud.  Instead she felt loved and appreciated.  It doesn’t get much better than that.

ROI

My mother-in-law has reached the point in her final journey where she requires someone to help her get out of bed.  She no longer even walks with a walker but must be transported from her room to the dining room using her wheelchair (which my 4-year-old granddaughter referred to the other day as "Grandma’s stroller").

So it was with surprise and anger that I went in to check on her the other day and she had gotten herself out of bed on her own.  I was wise enough to not say much, not trusting myself to not give it to her with both barrels.  She had literally risked her life and health in order to do something on her own that should be done only with the help of others.  The reason she is on hospice is because she wants to die at home rather than in a hospital.  I was about to point out how one moment’s decision could shift her current delicate balance so significantly that she would make it impossible to die at home because she would have hurt herself so seriously she would have been admitted to the hospital.

When Anina was 86 (she turns 97 on April 12, Lord willing) we asked her how she would like her life to play out if she had some control and some choice in the matter.  She made clear she wanted to keep attending her church, shopping at her stores, living in her home and finally dying in her bed.  This began the journey for Sharon and I in which we moved back to Southern California in order to honor Anina by doing what we could to make her desire come to fruition.

What saddens me about my inner response to finding Anina out of bed is what was taking place in my heart.  My inner conversation with Anina went something like this:  “We didn’t give up the best church we ever served located in the best place we ever lived and exiled ourselves to Southern California for eight years only to have you break a hip and die in the hospital.” In other words, I was thinking of me. 

I thought I had counted the cost when we decided to move back to Southern California in September 2006 so that we could be closer to Anina and help her with whatever years she had left.  Evidently I have come to think the cost might be too high if the story ends differently than what Anina and I envisioned.

When her impulsive decision threatened to provide a different ending to the story all I could think of was that this would somehow make our sacrifice null and void. It will all have been for naught.  In essence I was angry because it felt like all we have done for her over the years was not worth her being careful enough to stay the course and step into eternity from the comfort of her own bed.  In short, there is evidently in me an assumption that when I choose to serve another then the other must cooperate in the process so that things turn out the way I want.

When I typed that last sentence I realized that that has never been the case in my forty-four years of following Jesus.  It hasn't been the case with my marriage.  It hasn't been the case with my children or grandchildren.  It hasn't been the case with the people in the churches I have served.  God doesn’t lay out how things will turn out and then ask me to serve.  He asks me to serve and leave the results to him.  Sadly it seems I have adopted a Return on Investment attitude toward serving.  If I can’t get reimbursed, at least I want the scenario to play out the way I have it pictured in my head.  Like you, I can be very shallow.  I just hate it when it becomes so obvious.

When you run out of things to do today you can take a minute to pray for me.  Just like Anina I want to finish well.  And while you're praying, ask God to impress on Anina the need to accept the help available. Tomorrow is the celebration of her birthday and her retirement from ministry last December.  I'd like her to be here when the guests arrive instead of being in the hospital.

The Presence of Presents and the Presents of Presence

In church last Sunday my pastor was praying as the service opened.  At one point in his prayer he said something along the lines of “we thank you for your presence.”  At that point, in a very clear voice a child was heard to exclaim, “Presents!?”

Even as I write this I am assuming that my pastor meant presence and that the child meant presents.  Since his prayer and the child’s response were not written I could be mistaken.  Presence and presents are not technically homophones, but close enough.  Maybe Tim said presents.  It would be appropriate in worship to acknowledge God’s presents.  (Although in most evangelical circles we would use the word “gifts” because it doesn’t sound so worldly.)  And maybe the child said “Presence!?” because he got excited that God might actually be there.

But I’m going to go with my first instinct and assume Tim said presence and the child said presents.  While this was an obvious failure to communicate however innocently and unintentionally it happened, I must say it was one of those serendipitous moments in worship in which the Holy Spirit took an ordinary occasion and breathed into it the extra-ordinary.

For the next few moments I lost track of the prayer (sorry, Tim) and thought about how much I appreciate both God’s presence and His presents.  Like the presence of children in worship who remind us of God’s presents.  Like the presents the Holy Spirit gives to each believer to be used to display God's presence.  Like the presence of brothers and sisters in Christ who are presents to the Body of Christ.

Next time you’re in worship see if you can identify both God’s presence and His presents.  You may discover presents and presence you've been missing.