Hope

June 23, 2022 | 1 Comment

My sort-of sabbatical (Part Two)

“Saddle embolisms of pulmonary artery.” That’s what my discharge papers say.

Neither the ER doctor nor the admitting doctor made the customary quip, “You’re lucky to be alive,” but another doctor from the congregation who came over to the house later to interpret all the diagnoses shook his head. “Good job still being alive,” he said. And he gave me a fist bump.

I know that life is precious and precarious, but that’s typically head knowledge. It’s another knowledge altogether when I’m in the ICU being poked and pumped with blood thinners or my husband is ranting around the house about the pharmacy that “tried to kill my wife.” So many people have since told me of their experiences with pulmonary embolisms (past tense), but a fair number have also approached me, rather stricken, to share about loved ones who died of the same. Precious and precarious indeed. [Read more…]

January 19, 2022 | Leave a Comment

Walking through mud: thoughts on another pandemic winter

Some days are like walking through mud: slow, heavy footed, and messy. This winter is like walking through mud.

Quarantine, test, isolation. Isolation, test, freedom (for a while). Someone else tests. Quarantine again. Test again. Cancel plans again. Again and again and again. And again and again and again.

We’re walking through mud.

I’ve had two remarkable–and unpleasant–experiences literally walking through mud. I’m trying hard to remember them and what I learned from them.

Here goes–

In 2011, our family spent a week in Lake City on the banks of Lake San Cristobal, which was formed by Slumgullion Slide, an earthflow (or rather a couple of earthflows) that cap the lake’s northeast side (here). It’s mud like you have never experienced mud, mud that didn’t wash off, mud that clung to us like the theme song of a sitcom from 1986.

My kids loved it. They ran, they played, they dug, they buried each other. They could, because they were young and, well, lightweight.

[Read more…]

December 2, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Simple hope

Have you ever prayed to God about something for a long time? I mean, I really long time, so long that you started wondering if God was listening? So long that you thought to yourself, “Okay, maybe God’s got something better planned,” but you keep praying anyway? So long that your friends have started giving you that line about how sometimes God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers? (That’s from Garth Brooks, by the way, not the Bible.)

Have you ever keep praying anyway, because what you’re praying for is good: healing or health, or a new job, a mended relationship, or peace with your children? Have you ever kept praying, even though God was silent? Where’s the hope?

The first chapter of the Gospel of Luke tells the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah, who have been praying for a child for a long, long time. “Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord, but they had no children because Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years” (Luke 1:7-8).

[Read more…]

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