on passing, love, and regret.

Great Grandma Smit passed away a few months ago.

It was hard not to feel pangs of guilt, the aftermath after she took her last breath.  Grandma was always quiet.  She said very little and usually just sat watching you play and chatter away with your cousins.

As I heard the stories and the memories about Grandma, I felt not just, "I miss Grandma," but "I missed Grandma."  I missed her while she was here, I missed out on getting to know her.

Even though I didn't see Grandma that much growing up, over the course of my life there were many parties that I could have sat next to her, asked her about her childhood, what it was like having eight children, what she missed most about Grandpa, why she loved Jesus, and so on.

But I didn't.  I was young enough to care more about presents, care more about me.  And the older I got, I didn't always know where to start.  So being with Grandma meant giving her a hug and telling her it was good to see her, but that was all.

Despite the regret, there are memories.  Touches of Grandma that thread through my childhood and my sibling's childhood too.  The receiving blankets that she crocheted borders to, wrapped around all of my brothers and sisters as infants.  The washcloths she made that wiped off sticky hands and counter tops   The handmade caramels that were the most important part of the Smit Family Christmas to my brother Isaac and I.  We would stuff our dress clothes pockets with them and savor them for days.

And one day, when I was small, she knelt down on the floor with me and helped me make a puzzle that was too difficult for me to do on my own.  Grandma was a master when it came to puzzles.  I never would have finished that Little Mermaid puzzle without her help.

As I reflected over the passing of Grandma, I wondered if regret was unavoidable.  Whether we don't spend enough time with our loved ones, don't listen enough, don't say I love you enough, or the last thing we said isn't what we wanted it to be... our lives are tinged with regret.  We just aren't as perfect as we want to be, and that unavoidably affects our relationships, especially with those who are closest to us.

A fallen world means fallen relationships, and we feel the sting most bitterly at the passing of loved ones.  What hope is there, when hurt is unavoidable?

As we sat in Grandma's funeral service, I was struck with the depth of her spirit and her love as I heard stories from the pastor and family members.  When Grandma died she left a legacy of love for Jesus and her family, and that legacy lives on today.  I experience it in my family and my extended family... and it is getting passed onto to the next generation already, to our cousins' children and my brother's newborn son Ezra.

This legacy is bigger than the regret in my own heart.  Through the very act of fellowship with family, through loving them and being present with them, we pass on their legacy of love to the ones they loved so dearly.  And one day, we too shall pass away and be reunited with Christ, our loved ones, and there will be no more tears.  The regret is soothed by being with family and making right what was wrong in the past through neglect or selfishness.

Not all families though have a legacy of Christ, or some parts of your family may be more broken than others.  The amazing thing is that the love, the legacy can start with you.  Anyone of us can choose to be the ones to break cycles of dysfunction and familial pain and be that Grandma or Grandpa.... the one that generations from now your children's children will remember and say, we are where we are because Great Grandma loved Jesus.

Abraham was a man like that.  He responded to the call of God and left a history of paganism to become a spiritual father to thousands of generations who love God.

Let the love of Christ take root in your own heart and share it with those you love.  You can change your family's story by letting the legacy begin with you. 

I am learning through all of this, to work on being present with those I love.  To focus, cut down distractions and cherish the moments because young or old, none of us are guaranteed to live tomorrow, next week, or next year.  I want to share the love of Christ everyday through word and deed.

 I  am thankful for Grandma.  I will remember her love for Jesus and her family.  And I look forward to giving her a hug again one day in heaven.

longing, heartache, and the north wind

Several years ago, fifteen to be exact, I was a young girl and my family had just moved from Illinois to Southern California.  Many tears were shed in the days leading up to, during, and after that move.  We left our extended family and close friends behind...and at 10 years old I didn't think that I could recover until we moved back.

I clung hard to the memories.  I kept a box of things that reminded me of my best friends from Illinois.  There were letters mailed and phone calls.  There were visits from Grandparents that were always wonderful and always too short.  There were tears shed before bed and dreams that I fought to stay in as I awoke, dreams that had magically transported me back to our old home... which were strange and unlike the real thing, but a part of it nonetheless.

I couldn't understand why God had moved us away, and struggled with that for a long time.

My family moved again, this time to Fresno, California.  Gradually, as we made friends and grew to love the beautiful state we lived in, I became more accustomed to the idea of being there... even as my heart longed to be back with family once again.

By the end of my junior year of high school, our family faced another change.  We were finally moving back to Illinois.  Our stay in California was over.  A wide ranging storm of emotions came over me at that time and felt I would drown in them.  By the time I had really grown to love where we were, it was time to go.  Those years in California, though challenging at times, were full of wonderful memories, a very sweet time in my family's history.  Many lessons learned, many experiences shared.

As I look back at that time, do I wish that none of the changes had happened?  Would it have been easier to have never moved, never have felt the heartache in the first place?  Or to never have moved back from California and stayed there the rest of our lives?

In the past I would have said yes to any of those questions.  "Spare me the pain, please" would have been my response.  But removal of pain isn't always this answer.  Think of the famous quote... "Tis better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all."

I was thinking about a variation of this to fit my experience, "It is better to have lived and missed than to never have lived at all."  Less poetic, but you get the idea.

I think we need to allow ourselves the freedom to miss things and then challenge ourselves to be content if things never return to their former glory.  It doesn't mean that the glory and joy of life have passed away, it has simply changed.  And you will miss the now when it is gone too.

Looking back now I can see God orchestrating all things for good, and I'm so thankful that He is in control.  So many good things would never have happened if I had had my own way and been able to spare myself from pain.

Living to protect ourselves from hurting is a good way to hurt ourselves.  We are going to have heartache and sadness, we are going to miss things and wish for different circumstances no matter where we are.  Why not find a way to love the here and now?

Find a way to live fully.  As Jim Elliot once said, "Wherever you are, be all there."  A simple little quote, but a challenging one indeed.

But what about when the pain is too great?  When the people that we have lost were so dear we look to heaven and like Job wish that we had never seen the light outside our mother's womb?  The deep and abiding missing of things leads me to thoughts of heaven.  To the day that God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.  There will be no more longing, no more aching of separation but peace within the arms of God.

I look forward to heaven knowing that the God who made every good thing here, and there are many good things here despite the fallen nature of our world, has created an eternity that is beautiful and perfect and good.

The God who made the roaring ocean, sunsets streaked with purple clouds, soft velvety puppy ears, chubby baby fingers, blinding lightning, fiery red autumn leaves, musical notes that make us cry, joyful laughter, breathtaking spring wind, and dew covered grass knows how to create a pleasing, magnificent existence.  How much greater will forever be than now?

I just finished reading At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald last night.  Early on in the book a little boy named Diamond is befriended by the North Wind.  She takes him on adventures and one day she allows him to visit her back.  At the back of the North Wind there is no suffering or pain, but beauty and glorious music.  Diamond comes back from the North Wind and is always trying to remember the song that he heard sung by the brook.  He hears things on earth that remind him of it, but nothing is quite as beautiful.  You learn that Diamond was very sick while he was at the back of the North Wind, that it was a near death/heaven experience.  He longs to go back, and has no fear of any earthly thing... to the point that people on earth find him silly and think he has a screw loose.

I love that picture and the idea that once you have had a taste of something so beautiful, you won't be afraid anymore.

C.S. Lewis said, "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

Missing things can steal joy from the now we have been given, and distract us from the longing we have for our resurrection.   

I want to find ways to live in the balance, to not live in fear of heartache but to remember, to live fully, and live in expectation of the coming One. 

""Surely I am coming quickly."  Amen.  Even so, come, Lord Jesus!"  Revelation 22:20