TRYING TO CATCH UP

It’s a dreary springish day and at the encouragement of a friend, I’m trying to put something more upbeat on my site.  If even half of the blogs I’ve written in my head over the last few months were here, you would have had lots to read but I am not very agile getting these up and published.  I’ve also taken some photos of the early signs of spring here (last weekend) but the difficulty I have with actually getting them on the blog will delay your seeing them I’m sure.

This week has been encouraging and discouraging;  exhausting and invigorating.  I guess that is the story of life as well:)  The discouraging news was that I did not get the job I had been wanting and waiting to hear about since just before the first of the year.  However, many things about that job process were encouraging:  made new friends, developed new networks that gave positive references and told me what a good job I’m doing (after months of feeling that I was on the verge of losing my job due to ineptitude).  Also made a friend that could give me information re the fact that a job had been filled (something I haven’t had up to this point).  The day I learned the job was filled, I heard about another job that I applied for online quickly before heading to work.  At 6 PM I got a phone call to set up an interview on Monday at 10:30 AM.  It is a great time for me.  I’m rested up from the weekend and have a chance to think about my questions ahead of time.

The exhausting part of the week has been that our patients have been extremely sick and confused.  Add to that the increased demands of learning new computer charting and the stress has been VERY high for all of us.  Many of the people who are usually off on time are staying late.  The next 2 weeks include a time study which will add even more stress.  It is supposed to give information to congress that will help medicare be more sensible in funding when it comes to demands from nursing because the funding is based on information from over 20 years ago when patients weren’t as sick…or rather the patient load wasn’t as intense.  Patients stayed in the hospital longer and the overall patient population had more of a blend of sicker and less sick patients.  Now they are all quite ill when in the hospital, then they either go home or to some interim setting to get better.  It makes for a very heavy patient load and an unreasonable one for the individual nurse/caretaker.  But enough about the boring details of health care…even if it does/will someday affect your life.  The invigorating part of the week came through mulling over Isaiah 43.  It has been a delightfully encouraging passage.  See if you don’t agree.  It has also been invigorating to be able to have some conversations with patients/families and encourage them with parts of this very passage.  I guess that is what Paul meant when he talked about encouraging with the encouragement you have received from Christ.

I know this isn’t a stunningly clever blog today but it is here and I’m back for the one or two readers I have.   I’ve been lurking on many of my other blogs after work at nite.  Just haven’t been lucid enough to write much then.

WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE A “HAS BEEN”

This is what I’ve come to believe  is at the heart of so many of the struggles that I have been going through recently.  In many ways I feel like a “has been”.  I’m beginning to understand the anger I have seen over the years among older people (of course it is not limited to them)…and couldn’t really understand.  No one put it into words really and I can see why.  It is such a mix of sadness, grief, regret and of course, anger.  I don’t think people put it into words because it is one of those elephants in the room.  If you talk about it and wake it up, it seems like it will get so much bigger.  In truth, probably the opposite will happen. 

So here I am, back in the town where I lived nearly twenty years, in the “same” church (of course it is never the same) and I keep bumping into ways in which I feel like a “has-been”.  “Oh, you’re the former pastor’s wife.”   That is such a “plastic” term (although I realize it isn’t meant to be) and does not describe who or what I am now.  I think part of the problem is that “pastor’s wife” means something different to everyone as far as personality/role/relationships.  But I would like a niche for NOW.

At work, I’m struggling to keep afloat.  The best description of how it has felt is that of a near drowning victim who is barely struggling to keep their head above the water to gasp for air only to sink then struggle up for air again!  It is embarrassing to see how hard it has been to get back in the groove… embarrassing and humiliating to the core.  I don’t want to function at the level of mediocre.  Because of the hours and physical demands, I really need to find another job… hard to find when one is feeling like a “has been”.  On an intellectual level, I know I have plenty to offer in the right job and the right setting but finding it seems to be extremely hard.   Between the gaps in my resume and my age, it is very easy for potential employers to turn me down apart from God’s providence. 

In all honesty, when I look at my life, I realize that the best years are behind me/us.  It is difficult to come up with new challenges for the future…even though I still want and need some to feel alive and vibrant.  I have come to know that feeling of walking into a group of people and feeling like I am invisible because of my age.  Or walking into church and getting the same feeling and thinking it isn’t a friendly church until I see a young family walk in and people are falling all over themselves to welcome them.  (This actually happened to us one Sunday when we were visiting a new church!)  Usually it takes more subtle forms.

I can no longer get around the fact that I am old by every standard.  Despite the clichés, 60 is NOT the new 40.  My body never felt some of the things it is now feeling in my 60’s!  I have officially passed my prime and I am very sad about it.  I miss the sharpness and alertness of my mind.  I miss the kind of memory I had when I could remember whole conversations almost verbatim.  I miss the visual memory I had that could remember things I read almost photographically.  That doesn’t happen now.  It is all a struggle and I am constantly running into memory walls that prevent my being able to come up with the words/concepts that I want at a given time.

We received a long distance call the other day for advice and it felt like a drink of cold water.  I know that we have good advice to give and that our judgment is good in the middle of a lot of people who make unwise decisions.  But we also find that unsolicited advice is useless and falls on deaf ears.  Somehow, we have to prove ourselves…again!  I guess I just hate this process.  It would seem that 16 years would be enough to prove ourselves, but we’re among a lot of different people now.  I guess that is the nature of endurance, perseverance and ministry.  We have to be willing to endure during the hard times, be humbled by the various “sufferings” we must endure (and I realize that overall I really haven’t had to suffer much) and when called upon, to share our lives with others.

In the middle of all this mental turmoil, came a discussion we had a few Sunday nights ago re transcendence!  It has been on my mind ever since!  How does transcendence or God’s glory…a more nebulous/overused term to me… help us even in the times we feel like “has beens”.  (We were discussing some concepts that came up in the first two chapters of THE QUEST FOR MORE by Paul D. Tripp.)

When I get a hold of this concept…that there aren’t any “has beens” in God’s Kingdom…just as there aren’t any  unimportant people of any kind.  God, in His providence has put me where I am and He has a special job for me to do while I’m here.  When I’m done, He’ll take me to heaven.  That’s it.  I may not be crazy about some of the jobs he has for me to do before it is time for me to go…like suffer with a disease or care for a loved one who is…or even less dramatically, have to live in the world of the mediocre for a few years because my brain/body can’t live up to what I was once able to do…or simply because that is where He has placed me.  (Now there’s an exciting calling if I ever heard one!)   How would you like to live in the world of the mediocre for the glory of God?:)  For some of us, that is not really an exciting calling.  It also sounds horribly un-American/un-christian.  (I’m not talking about being lazy.  I’m talking about no longer being able to live up to the standards you were once able to live up to which feels mediocre at best.) 

In fact, the value system in God’s kingdom is completely upside-down to most of us.  His emphasis was on the “least of these” and He told His disciples that if they wanted to be great in His kingdom, they needed to become least and serve.  His whole kingdom and value system is upside-down isn’t it?  I guess that is what He is trying to bring home to us through the various things He brings into our lives through His providence.  Some days I wonder if I’ll ever get it!

The amazing thing is that whatever I’m doing for the glory of God will be a part of something so much larger than me and mine that it will have a transcendence to it that will take away the mediocre and drab because it is one little part of what God is doing in the Kingdom.  That changes what seemed mediocre and mundane into something transcendent!  That makes my job…which can be extremely mediocre…and even my response to those I perceive are treating me like a “has-been”, much different because I’m part of something much bigger than myself and how I perceive others are treating me.

So there is my ramble for today.  I am still mentally processing this one because it is not something that can easily be discussed in a group!  Tripp’s concept of our relationship with God being the oxygen that feeds us is also helpful.  our twice a month small group is processing this in light of Tripp’s book and Scripture.  I’m sure I’ll be referring more to this later.  As you can tell, my ideas are not neatly tied up yet.  I don’t know if they ever will be.  Please add your comments.

 

I’M BACK!

It has been a LONG time since we have talked. I’m guessing that the few of you who read this are no longer checking but just in case…

I left Hanna City the end of February…trying to keep ahead of what turned out to be an ice storm that I know hit St. Louis and points south. Instead of a leisurely 10 hour drive that day, I drove 12 hours to be sure I wouldn’t wake up to icy roads in Arkansas. (Unlike my husband, I did NOT grow up in the Wisconsin and am only now able to not panic when driving in snow. Ice still freaks me out.) I arrived in Little Rock late that night and woke up to 34 degree weather the next morning…and rain. The good news was that I only had about 5 more hours to go before arriving in Tyler…and I had just missed the ice.

I spent the first couple of weeks at the home of a friend who offered me an island of peace and true christian hospitality as I discovered the condition of our house, started working on it, looked for a job and at times became overwhelmed by the enormity of what had to be done. I thought life would be easier once I got into the house and the painting was under control but that turned out to be wrong because with each new person who came to do something on the house, I discovered new problems. We decided to do a renovation on the main bathroom that took three weeks instead of the original one that was estimated because I wasn’t able to get everyone coordinated well enough (installers, plumber, electrician, mudders and demolition man!) Damage in the kitchen slowed down our ability to install the new stove until the countertops were replaced. The different stove meant some changes in the cabinets, etc. causing major delays in getting the kitchen settled in and organized. The bedroom carpets all had to be replaced…one of the less complex jobs…as well as replacing the living room carpet with flooring. Each day was full with me wishing I could turn into two people–one to be at the house to “supervise” whoever was working here and the other to be out on the road getting needed supplies for either the workmen or me to. Mornings were early and nights were late…day after day with short breaks for things like wedding showers (2) for Dawn or a long weekend flight to Hanna City to say good-bye and bring Ron and the last of our junk back to TX.

We arrived home April 1. At least I now had another person to help…or so I thought. Some days it worked out well. Others, my pokey, thorough husband was defintely NOT on the same page as I was and I wondered if he had forgotten that a wedding was going to be happening. In some ways, I don’t think it was affecting him in the ways it was affecting me. He was physically and mentally tired too and he was not going to wear himself out more just to have a pretty looking house…in his words “a showplace”. (Believe me, we were not even close to that!)

The final week before the wedding, I realized that we were a LONG way from being ready. (By that I mean having order, cleanliness and a decent look to the place.) I honestly didn’t know how we would be ready but I just kept working to finish what had been started. My original plan was to be ready a week before the company was to come so we could just putter a bit before the wedding and rest up. Now that was a pipe dream plain and simple!

The bathroom was installed on Friday a week before all the festivities. Monday the plumbing was hooked up and Tuesday the electrical part was finished. During those days I was finishing the guest bedrooms (that had been piled up with stuff until then) and getting them in order as well as finishing the wallpapering of one of them. By Wednesday, the guestrooms were ready for company with beds made. On Wednesday morning, the living and family rooms were still piled high with stuff and I had NO idea where I would put all of it. A wall still needed to be painted and the front door and porch door were going to be installed. (The wall could be painted AFTER that!) Early in the afternoon, when the doors were in and I thought I might be able to start the painting, the phone rang and my brother told me they had been able to get the flight to Tyler so were in Tyler and would soon be dropping over. “Great” I said, “Come on over.” When they got here, they realized we needed some help so he hung a closet door to cover my laundry area in the kitchen and his wife started painting the wall…needed two coats of paint to cover! By Thursday morning, my youngest daughter and husband had arrived after driving all night. They saw the quandry I was in as well so they “staged” my living and dining areas for the events happening in my house that night and Brandon moved some things out to the garage and other things in. He and Holly got pictures on the wall and the house looked nice and cozy and arranged in ways I would never have thought of. Walker was very cooperative and just puttered around happily or took naps. As the people in the house were calmly accomplishing jobs that needed to be done, I calmed down and was able to be more effective in accomplishing what I needed to do to get ready for serving food to people that night and hosting a shower afterward. The rest of the evening is a blur but it all seemed to go well thanks to the other people who helped out.

We had a wonderful weekend visiting with family, many friends from the past…that we knew in Miami!…as well as many of Dawn’s friends from Ukraine. We also enjoyed getting to know Steve’s family a little better…or in some cases, meeting them for the first time. It was a very nice weekend. The last of our company left on Monday evening for a Dallas flight on Tuesday.

We took the week after the wedding OFF! We rested a LOT and did a lot of lazy things taking time to do a few settling in chores. This week I have been trying to tie up a few more loose ends around the house so that when I start my new job on Monday, I’ll know where to find things and there will be more order here. Meanwhile, here is a link to a few photos from the wedding taken by a friend who used to work with Dawn there. This is all I have to show for now. I’ll have more later.

NOW IT’S TIME TO SAY GOOD-BYE

How is that for a great opening to a blog? Of course, the few of you who read this will know, by the time this is read, that we are saying, “Good-bye! to yet another chapter in our lives.” As I’m writing this however, most of the people in our church are unaware that Ron will be retiring…for real. He plans to make that announcement tomorrow after the morning worship service.

This has definitely been an interesting chapter! We thought we were coming here for a year and stayed four. During the four years here, our family has grown by two additional grandchildren–Quinn and Walker–born within a month of each other (2006). So that gave Caroline (4)a new cousin on this branch of the family tree as well as a sister. We are also close to adding a final adult member in the person of Steve Sparks, our future son-in-law (April 2008). So to paraphrase Jacob, the Lord has prospered us:)

We have also had some hard times, mostly related to my mother. My first Christmas here(2004), she had to go into a nursing home in the retirement community where she lived because of a degenerative brain problem that affected her ability to get around and also caused degenerative dementia. She passed away this past March 2007. As dementias go, hers probably was not as lingering as many…mercifully. Even this period was bittersweet. It was a time of bonding for my brother and sisters. The October before she passed away, we were able to all get to FL at the same time, to be with her and have some good time together as well. It is in those good times that I always realize how fleeting time is. The good times last for about as long as you can snap your fingers and then everyone has to go home in different directions. For us, that means PA, MD, IL and Amsterdam (yes, the original one!).

Our house in Tyler, TX has been rented out all this time–four years–and has been stressed by it. The yard is a wreck. One of the summers there was a drought and the renters didn’t use the sprinkler system! So I’m not sure there is any grass left there at all. Last summer, there was too much rain and everything grew…especially the weeds. Hopefully, they will die off and we will get the fertilizer on the grass quick enough to get the grass going again.

Finally, the church where we served has had their “new” pastor since May 2004 (I think). So he is well settled in. The people that decided they weren’t going to be able to adjust to him have left the church. The others have made the adjustment and of course (as usually happens with a new pastor) there are lots of new people as well. It will be different for us…I have no illusions. I don’t know yet HOW it will be different. I only know that IT WILL BE DIFFERENT! I think the bigger adjustment will be for Ron. After forty+ years of pastoring, he is not sure he will be able to find a useful niche. I think that if God has brought him this far, He will certainly find a niche for him now. I do appreciate the scariness of it for Ron however. It must feel like he is stepping off a cliff in the dark and he doesn’t know how high the drop-off is.

In many ways, I feel like I’m going home. Yes, I’m returning to the house that we lived in for 16 years. But it is not the same…nor am I. The house is empty…or will be by the time we move back in. When we moved out that rainy day in January 2004, I feared I’d never live be back in it again. That could be, but it is looking like I actually might get to live in it again. I’ve thrown out a lot of what filled the closets…but probably not enough. I’ve gotten rid of many of the books that sat on shelves and were never read or used as well as many of the extra clothes, fabrics and crafts. But there is more that still needs to be tossed and a freedom that comes with tossing so that will take the next month rapidly as I get ready to return to Tyler, find a job, order some appliances, prioitize what work needs to be done before the wedding and what needs to be done after. It is work I love…making a house look like a home. It will be fun, exhausting, creative work.

And that is always what keeps me going. I have old and new friends from Hanna City that I will miss. They have been a part of my life for the last few years. Most have been very patient with me in my impulsiveness. I can’t go through all their names for fear of leaving out one. There have been those that I know to go to when I need prayer…badly! I know they won’t be preachy or condemn. They will love me and smile. They will ask me about my children and grandchildren. They understand that I feel like an outsider…because they often do too…after many, many years! Others like to talk about books…and know way more about them than I do. It stimulates my brain…and I love it. Yes, I will miss my Hanna City friends.

I look forward to seeing my old friends. These are the ones who know my kids. They saw my kids growing up in high school…at least. We’ve been through a lot over the years. I look forward to seeing them (and their ages are quite varied). I also look forward to meeting new friends and adjusting to new challenges…in a warmer climate! (I’m writing you now as the weather outside is 5 degrees.)  That is the one thing I won’t miss.  After all the years I have lived in warm weather, I have had difficulty adjusting to this weather.  BRRR!