The Wheels on the Bus...

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Chance placed us there at that very moment. Or maybe something more.

My wife and I stood with our children on the sidewalk outside the school as the buses pulled up through the drive for the afternoon commute.  The last bus stood directly in our path. 

We all saw her. 

She was a foster child who lived with us for a few months.  I hadn't seen her since June of 2009, but she didn't look much different than I remembered.  Medium length brown hair covered her head and small, oval spectacles sat atop her nose.  She wore a pink rain jacket underneath the large bookbag pressing her forward in the seat. 

A wave of nostalgia crashed into me. 

Into us all.

Most of our time with her had challenged every vestige of our patience and faith.  She had been abused in every way a child could be and we were mostly overwhelmed in our attempts to make her one of us. 

But, as we stood there my thoughts wandered to one of the few, good days during our time together.  We all had traveled to Nashville to visit my brother's family, and on the way back stayed together in a hotel near Knoxville, TN with an indoor pool.  She had never stayed in a hotel before and marveled at the entire, fascinating concept-especially a swimming pool inside the walls. 

After checking in, the kids all begged to go swimming so I dragged myself and all our stuff down to the pool area.  She was always wary and distant towards me, but as we entered the shallow waters she clung close to my side fearful of this new uncertainty.  We all splashed around for a while and for some reason she asked if she could go deeper like the others. 

I told her to lay on her back and she did so cautiously.  I placed my hands under her and slowly pulled her around the outside edges of the other end.  She squealed with delight and for the first time she called me, "Daddy."  Perhaps she had said the word before, but I couldn't recall when.  I certainly didn't ever remember the warm, vulnerable tone and childish laughter, gently inviting me into a place she had worked so hard to obscure until that very moment in time.

It felt good. 

To me and her.

Other victories mostly escaped our grasp during her time with us.

But now, there she sat.  Her tiny image perched in the first seat by the window of that big, yellow bus.  As she looked up and saw us there she seemed startled for a moment.  Then she waved vigourously, as if doing so might rekindle the fire from a not so distant past, and fill the space between her and us.

Then, the friend beside her in the seat looked at her and quickly said something.  We all saw her response with amazing acuity:

"MY FAMILY," her lips said, revealing the question just asked by the little friend.

At once the bus roared away in the distance as guilt overwhelmed me-my blessings and bounty beyond the wildest imagination of most in this world. 

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Suddenly I felt like an indulgent King, warm and well fed, lounging by the crackling fire inside a royal palace.  While outside a cold and hungry vagrant peered longingly through the foggy window desperately soaking up the remnants of a life she could never have. 

And for my part, all I could do was look away to the dancing flames

and wish her well

on the rugged

and lonely road

that lay

ahead...

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For interesting posts about the "road" click here

What Can Never Be

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He desperately bit his tongue as the pain continued its tormenting grip.

Blood fell from his mouth. He lifted the bed sheet and wiped it from his face still writhing in pain from the relentless assault of demons present and past.  He pushed the red button hoping someone would come quickly.  The nurse entered, took her syringe and pushed it in. 

He wouldn't make it through the night. 

The end approached quickly so they called her.  She was the ex-wife and mother of the three children he abandoned years earlier. 

He begged her to bring his kids.

The oldest, a boy, had lived for just eleven years when his father left their home-old enough to hate his daddy...young enough to love him too.  His two young sisters knew much less of this man and adjusted well while growing up. 

Jimmy?  Not so much. 

He saw his father just briefly when he showed up for a couple of his little league football games making quite a scene amidst the bleachers.  The bottle controlled his life.  He clearly remembered his dad watching from the stands as emergency workers loaded him into an ambulance after breaking his leg in a junior league game.  Jimmy cried out in the hospital begging for his father to come. 

He never did. 

That game was the last time he ever remembered seeing his dad.

Jimmy made some bad friends in high school.  He finally dropped out, going from odd job to odd job trying to support his marijuana habit.  He had a few brushes with the law, but nothing too serious.  Somehow, by the grace of God, he met a nice girl and found a full time job. 

He was even going to church occasionally. 

Now, this twenty six year old man along with his mother and two sisters,  stood at the bedside of his dying father.  His dad knew what was coming and so wanted to see them one last time.  They came to the man who ignored them for so many years. 

The cancer ravaged his nearly unrecognizable body. 

Through the painful spasms this withered man tried to make things right...to quickly seek forgiveness for years of hurt.

The two daughters held his hands and each kissed his cheek gently. 

Jimmy recoiled, standing stoically in the doorway.  He said nothing.  Instead, he began to quietly sob.  He turned and left the room as his mother followed.  She finally caught him outside the hospital in the parking lot by his car.

He collapsed into her, saying nothing as the vicious onslaught of tears fell.

He cried for this man he barely knew.  He cried for what should have been.

Mostly, he cried for the life he had never known,

 and what for now...

would never be...


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Note:  This is a true story as told to me by one of our customers from work.  Always makes me think about the brokenness of children all around us.  We just never know the pain and hurt that others may be carrying with them.  If nothing else, having foster children has taught me that.  Thankfully, there is One who offers healing.  There is a Heavenly Father who cares.   He offers grace, forgiveness and hope.  He is... God!





Forgive me please...

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It's been a while since I posted here, I know.

And, perhaps after such delay the words I choose to write should be of a more...shall we say, "erudite" nature, especially considering all the really important things going on in the world right now.   But, I've got to get something off my chest, offering my sincere apologies in advance for any I might offend. 


I don't like it when guys wear a lot (any) of jewelry.
 

Lest any that know me claim hypocrisy in my above statement let me start with the disclaimer that my (or anyone's) leather banded Timex watch does not qualify as "jewelry," nor does the gold wedding band on my left ring finger count either. That's not what we're talking about.  Now, a diamond studded, 14 karat Rolex timepiece that costs more than a car and is nearly as big?  Well, that's another story.


Maybe it's a sin.  Maybe it's narrow-minded.  Maybe it's un-Christian like to feel and say so, but it's the truth. 

At the gym today I couldn't help but notice a man blinged up like like an LA rapper going to the Oscars or Emmys or whatever those music awards are where the ladies wear dresses so tight they have to hold their breath for two hours so they don't bust anything. 

I know Jesus was all about the heart and discounting appearances.  And, I want to believe Him.  But, He didn't see Biff today in his lily white sneakers, white Polo anklets, white cotton shorts, white Addidas t-shirt and white Armani warm up jacket with a gold rope chain dangling from his neck and a sparkling tennis bracelet wrapped about his wrist.  Apparently he needs an endocrine adjustment as well because it was way too hot to be wearing a jacket.

Did I mention he was every bit of seventy years old, maybe older?

You should have seen his tan too.  He looked like he had been shaked and baked by Julia Childs herself.  If only our thanksgiving turkeys emitted the golden, healthy hue of his old epidermis.  Nobody gets a suntan like that this early in Virginia, even if he skis naked for a week.  And, I know he didn't winter in some exotic, equatorial paradise because I see him regularly all winter long.  So it could only be one thing:  the tanning bed. 

And, something about that just seems so wrong.

It wasn't just the jewelry, tan skin, and matching (I mean so much matching that it doesn't really match) outfit that made him look like a walking billboard for the Neiman Marcus senior section.  Evidently he had recently bathed in a tub of Hai Karate after shave and combed his hair with the matching tonic so as to correctly layer the scents.  One wiff of his aura could have rendered a baby rhino unconscious.

I mean, no need to smell or dress like a beast of burden in our "advanced" society. I get that. Heck, I have a spray bottle of Double Black Polo cologne and even wore pleated jeans in high school, proudly claiming the "best dressed" senior superlative- a small idiosyncracy my wife still finds amusing/disturbing/weird/mildly (with an emphasis on mildly) attractive. In fact, I completely shocked my wife during our first year of marriage when she realized I showered twice a day and sometimes more if necessary.  But, come on.  Give me (us all) an olfactory break.  I think some of those Hai Karate molecules are still stuck about my nose innards even now.  Besides, at his age he should know that subtlety is the real aroma of romance. 


Never have seen his car either, but I'll bet you three pairs of Gucci loafers and a speedo  it's some kind of spit shined, two seater manufactured in a European borough that he has to roll out of.  Betcha another pair of loafers it's red with some catchy phrase on the license plate.

While we're on the subject of men's attire and what not, I should take time to mention that someone misnamed sunglasses because tons of guys wear them when there's no sun.  How about, desperately trying to look cool glasses?"

But, I digress.


So please, if any of you ever see me displaying any of the symptoms above, you'll know my faculties have vacated the premises.  And, you have my full permission....no, my exhortation to remind me of my own (these) words from long ago.

And please, if you ever catch me in a speedo, throw me a towel and call the ambulance immediately because the end will surely be near...

P.S.-another gym pet peeve:  prostate is a male gland that tends to enlarge over time.  Prostrate, however, is laying oneself down which I think sounds like a good idea right about now...

The Dance

Maybe two weeks.  Maybe less.  That's what the doctors say anyway.


I suppose God could change it all if He wanted- in some divine act of mysterious providence offering her a brief reprieve from the certain destiny we all share.  Even so, that seems very unlikely now.

My grandmother is dying. But, then again, I guess we all are.


She lies in an Alabama hospital with those she has loved for years gathered around her bed. They stroke her head and hands and whisper quiet prayers for a graceful retreat into that good night.  Her nearly lifeless body is pale and gaunt, withered to something so different from more youthful days.  Old and worn from hard years of living, she has almost finished the race.  Soon she will breathe her last and fade to other dimensions unknown. 


For now, they try to recall better times...times of fried chicken sitting on the stove, the taste of  sweet banana pudding melting in their mouth, the feel of crisp, starched bed sheets against sleepy skin, the pantry full of produce put up from the summer garden, and a freezer full of catfish from the pond out back. 


They will try to remember when they were a different family...when some things seemed so much more certain.


But, no matter how hard they try, other more troubling thoughts will creep in from their usually quiet places. 


I suppose it's an epitome of life.  For countless days our own mortality seems vaguely familiar-a stranger mostly.  But, occasionally along the way, certain events beckon that stranger across the threshold and into the light for a more intimate glimpse. 


That stranger is there among them...here with me too. His lesson is clear:  for everything there is a season and sooner or later all will acquaint themselves with her more imminent fate.


The real truth, however, is nothing in this life stays the same save one thing and one alone.  A Greater Gardner planted this magnificent field.  And, He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  The faithful are promised nothing more than a place with Him at a great banqueting table.


She knows Him well and He knows her even better.  He loved her before she was even born. And a day is soon coming when this new bride in her new body will meet this Christ face to face.  She will sit at that wondrous wedding feast united with the one who knit her together and breathed life into her lungs so many years ago.  They will walk and talk, her hand in His somewhere in that great beyond. He will lean close and wipe the tears forever from her eyes as He gently kisses her waiting cheek.


And then, in robes of flawless white amidst streets of brilliant gold, they will warmly embrace, as together


at last-


they dance...

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