Another Step in the Journey

Sunday morning as we wrapped up praise team practice, it was time for Sunday school and the seniors were starting to trickle in for their class in the sanctuary. Last Sunday I remember going over to Carol and asking her how she was. Found out she was scheduled for this heart cathaterization last Wednesday, and was scared half out of her mind.

This morning was such a different picture. Carol had come in, put her Bible down, and hobbled to the front in fast motion. She was on a mission, and that mission was ME. She came up to me and said, “I want to THANK you for praying for me,” which is what I had done. Others prayed, too, not just me. That way nobody gets credit but God, eh?

So Carol said while she was getting this cathaterization she felt the prayers of all these people. She also said she had prepared for her ordeal by getting together a list of scripture she could say from memory while it was going on. As they started the procedure she started her scriptures. They finished before she did. “We're all done.” She said, “It's over? I'm not finished!”

But the really cool part is this: when they checked her out a while back she had a 45% blockage. Wednesday she had NO blockage. None. She went home with a clean bill of health, at least on her heart. Now she's going to be able to get her knee replaced, which is why they were checking the health of her heart. No more hobbling ANYWHERE on a mission. So we'll be praying for Carol June 18th, which is when her knee replacement surgery is scheduled. I'm also praying, BTW, that knee replacement will be rendered unnecessary.

As I went out into the entryway to go downstairs, I gasped. Kenny was there, greeting people at the door just like he always does. Kenny loves to welcome people in, hand them a bulletin, shake their hand, be the first to give them a smile on a Sunday morning. But, see, we buried Kenny's wife Thursday. Nobody would have thought any less of him if he'd stayed home today. Here he was, giving me my bulletin, and even mustering a smile, and I looked him in the eye, not to pry, but to connect with him today.

It happened really unexpectedly. Last Sunday after church, after that glorious service where I soared on wings from person to person, I got a prayer chain email that Marilyn was in trouble, that her colon had shut down, and she needed urgent prayer. I prayed for her. I know a lot of people did, but Monday she was gone.

This morning there was a big hole in the church. It was right there next to Kenny, where Marilyn always sat. His door job done, he stood through the songs, looking different than I've ever seen him. He looked a lot older today, and sad. It's not that I was staring at him or anything, I just kept looking for Marilyn.

Later we went around for our greetings, and I went and spoke to Carol's husband. We rejoiced for his wife's good news. Then I crossed the aisle and hugged Kenny. He got a lot of hugs today. It's hard to say whether they helped or not. I remember when my dad died hugs helped a lot.

* * *

Almost two years ago we started realizing my daughter was not crossing her eyes on purpose, just for fun. It had gone from the occasional crossing to a pretty steady thing, and it was severe and scary in an older child like that.

Ever had deja vu? My daughter told me way back then that she felt like something that had just happened had happened before. I explained deja vu to her, and said maybe that's what she'd had. She had the experience again a few days later. Then she was experiencing it every day, then several times a day. One time I remember she'd just experienced it, and she said, “I guess I'm just the deja vu kid.” I had to hold it together for her, but I was terrified and I wondered what was going on in her brain that was causing the constant stream of deja vu and a severely crossed eye. I hugged her a lot during those days. I remember hugging her and thinking no amount of hugs today would make up for the lack of them if they ended tomorrow; but I hugged her anyway.

Then an MRI ruled out anything neurological and we went from terrified to practically dancing in the street. My rabid medical goggling produced some hits regarding the deja vu. You see, in those days both eyes were still trying to work. When our eyes focus, they focus together. In a kid like my daughter, when one eye focuses and then the second, the first eye causes the brain to register that something happened. Before the brain has a chance to “time-stamp” the event, the second eye focuses on it. With no time reference, her brain just tells her this has happened before—sometime. Deja vu.

So then a time came when she wasn't experiencing deja vu anymore. We just forgot about it; but recently it's started up again. Which is good news, because now her eyes are both trying to work again. Her weak eye is fighting its way back. Tough little eye; tough little kid. It's an uphill struggle. She has to do her exercises, she has to patch, she has to get plenty of sleep. We go one day without any one of those elements, and there's a huge slide backward. But we slug on, and I pray every night, and I can't think of anything I've wanted so badly. I've chosen my battle and the hill I'm fighting on is my daughter's healing.

So two weeks ago when I pulled a muscle in my back, I asked for prayer and went to bed. My friends prayed for me while I slept and in the morning the pain was gone. Dude, it was amazing. I'm thankful to God. No fuss, no muss; somebody prayed, God healed me, and I got up the next day and did 17 minutes of mime routine. This old mime was putting a little postscript on things, resurrecting a career that ended years ago. That's all. But God healed me and graced me like Samson to minister one last time. And yet this little kid who wants to dance, but can't be trusted in a roomful of dancers not to bump into somebody, that little kid struggles for her healing.

It's a trust thing, really. Some people take up their beds and walk. Others struggle with pain. I don't pretend to understand it, and the story isn't all written out yet. I guess if God healed us all every time the earth would be populated with the elect from the beginning of time on. What a pile of mess THAT would be. I think for each of us there has to be the one healing that doesn't happen—for now.

But does God tell us to pray for our sick? Yup, right there in the Bible. So that's what I'm gonna do. Whatever He wants to do, I'll leave to Him to sort out. For the stuff that's yet to happen, and for the stuff that HAS happened, I lean heavy on grace.

'Tis grace that brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.

* * *

In a sense this journey that I'm on is about nothing bigger than seeing my daughter healed. In another sense it's way bigger than that. Unexpectedly, I'm changing.

I led worship at a little tiny church in the mid 1980's. That was my first experience at it. When I started I led like some anointed cheerleader, trying to get everybody on the bandwagon; we were worshiping God, and everybody better fall in line. God's grace was on me and I wasn't booted from my job. There came a time of epiphany when I realized that if I wanted to lead worship, then all I really had to do was worship. Like a train leaving the station, all I had to do was say, “All aboard,” and anybody wanting to join me on our “day trip to the throne room” was welcome to join. Just go and they'll go too. It was wonderful and freeing and so refreshing as I just worshiped, and lots of people worshiped too.

Yesterday as I led worship I realized the model has changed again, and I didn't even know it. As I led yesterday I started singing without a word, began to connect with God, and yet I was connecting with people in front of me. I'm falling in love with this group. There was Kenny, of course, and a big hole there next to him. And as we sang “Glory to His Name!” I saw Carol all glowing as she sang from her heart. On Amazing Love I saw O., this guy who came back to the church after a failed attempt at suicide. “Amazing Love, how can it be that You my King should die for me?” O. was tearing up with the perpetual headache for which we pray, and his wife was crying with her head on his shoulder, connecting with God as we sang about the amazing Love that drove them both back to church. Their whole family is struggling, and I found myself praying as I connected with God there. And around the room I was tiptoeing in spirit, not intruding on peoples' time with God, but praying over them as I connected with God and the good words and music—and with people.

So I'm reconnecting with people in worship, not as a cheerleader, but with this new element of compassion. And I don't know whether that element of compassion is changing the way this congregation worships, or if the change was already there and I just didn't notice. People really are connecting with God, just the way we pray they will, and we will. We've gone from being those upstarts who brought in those newfangled choruses—to the people who worship with them. We sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, and we tell God how much we love Him, and we beam at each other as we share our communal experience.

“And as I wait I'll rise up like the eagle. And I will soar with You. Your Spirit leads me on by the power of Your Love.”

* * *

Sunday afternoon scores of us converged on Deborah's house, armed with our invitations to the annual Deborah G. Memorial Day fish fry. I've been trying for a long time, now, to capture in photograph what it is about that place that's healing. This time I think I got just a little taste of it.

After visiting and eating too much I went around some of her property, armed with nothing more than my little hp camera.

It's really hard to capture, and I know I didn't get all of it. It's more than just the trees and the pond.


There's something indefinable here. Deborah has been praying here for a long time, and she has a true gift of hospitality. She entertains armies of people, giving of herself, cooking huge main dishes and relying on the rest of us to bring a veggie or dessert dish to pass. She mingles and enjoys every person there. Then she lets you go on your own, no pressure, no self-absorption, just go on and have a good time with my little slice of heaven here on earth.

So I went off on my own, quietly scoping the perimeter of the house, looking at the flowers she's planted, the landscaping, the parts she's left wild. Coming around to the front porch, I captured the rockers.

I've been to Deborah's parties where these were filled with people relaxing and chatting while watching the kids play on the front lawn. Today, despite the gorgeous temperature, the rockers were strangely empty. At that moment I heard a faint sound of music—harmonies rising and falling in waves from far away, and I remembered.

Years ago I was singing one Sunday and envisioning heaven. In my imagination I pictured myself walking outdoors in heaven, drawn to the door of a gathering place. There was a faint sound of singing coming from in there, and I cracked open the door quietly and went in. I was in the back of a church-like meeting, and people looked around and smiled at me. Puritan costuming, down in time to hoop skirts, right on down to the Great Depression-era clothing my grandparents used to wear. These were my mom's ancestors, and mine. All drawn together to praise God, with one thing in common—these were the seed of the righteous who had been mighty on the earth.

Centuries ago one righteous puritan came over to America – a puritan before the puritan movement went so horribly bad. He undoubtedly shared the odd belief of many of those old puritans—that all their descendants would be Christians forever. Right or wrong, one good thing came out of this strange belief. They prayed for us. Centuries ago this Puritan stranger was praying for me, that I would know God. And not all of us did, but every generation there was a remnant who believed.

There's this church down in south Georgia that's been standing there since colonial times, and many of this righteous puritan's descendants ended up there after leaving New England in the aftermath of the witch trials. They built the little Midway church, settled in as a community, and out of that tiny church came the mighty on the earth. Signers of the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Senator, numerous state-level officials, pastors, missionaries, an unusual percentage of Godly leaders. Theodore Roosevelt had ancestors that came from that church. Today the little church stands empty most of the year, and the descendants are scattered all over the country: scientists, internet pioneers, pastors, missionaries, moms and dads like me. Once a year they have a reunion at that church, and many of the sons and daughters go back. I've never been. The internet connects us now in many ways, though.

So here I was in my heavenly imagination, all those years ago, at the back of this meeting, and these heavenly people turned and smiled and I, wayfaring stranger on earth, felt welcomed and a part of this imaginary group. And it was over in a flash, and I was back in my own congregation singing I forget what song. (I have a vivid imagination sometimes. I'd like to be a writer someday.)

But as I stood looking at those rockers on this porch, I was drawn again by singing, and it was “Amazing Love,” the song we sang that morning in church. I went looking for the source of the music, and found a happy group singing and playing in Deborah's basement.

I was absorbed into the group. I found a spot on the sofa and added my harmonies to the ones already floating up out of the underground room.

And I, wayfaring stranger here on earth, I felt welcomed and a part of this group. I kept choking up as I sang, living the experience on two levels:

Amazing love, how can it be that You, my King, should die for me? I was singing to God at the Deborah G. Fish Fry.

And on a second level, I was with this group, singing together, sitting next to a lady who is going through a heartbreaking divorce, but for today her face was beaming, she was experiencing a refreshing she'd JUST told me she needed, and we were together celebrating God's love that died for us and made us better.

And that, I think, is another part of how God works on earth. We share His outpouring as a community. We are not separate. We are welcomed and part of God's family.