Berry Blessed

Today is the 82nd birthday of a guy I’ve known for a large part of my life. Duke, as he is known by his family and friends, is my father-in-law. Many would say that Duke is a unique character, and with good reason. You might see him in the small Fayette County village, where he was born and raised, working in his vegetable garden where his specialties are beets, potatoes and corn or he could be found sitting on his front porch snoring with a gun magazine or a book (he’s an avid reader of a variety of subjects) in hand. Often though, he can be seen taking walks – a walking stick in his hand, a gun on his hip, a newspaper-wrapped bottle of drinking water, a package of chewing tobacco in his shirt pocket, and a metal bucket attached to a strap over his shoulder during berry season. Come rain or shine or snow, each Sunday morning Duke can be seen in his dress clothes making the short walk (which he had done for many years with his beloved Margaret) to and from the little white United Methodist Church where he worships.

It might be surprising for some to learn how much Duke and I have in common. We both enjoy stomping about in the woods and fields. We both like walking and exploring in the mountains, canning vegetables from the garden, and picking wild raspberries and blackberries. We grew up with decades between us, but both spent our childhoods berry picking. It was an activity passed on to me by my dad “Turtle.” In my youth, we picked for hours at a time during berry season, sometimes gathering berries by the gallons. Dad’s health has declined in recent years, so he no longer ventures out for berry picking. I’m thankful though that the love for berry picking was passed on to me and my husband Scott, then to our 2 sons, and now even on to our young granddaughters.

Last week, Scott and I had set a little time aside and made plans with Duke to drive to the mountains for some berry picking. Just before the time arrived to leave, Scott, whose job involves being on call, was needed to go back out to work. It’s nothing new for us, just a part of life for those in the telecommunications field. Not wanting to miss another day of gathering berries needed for making homemade jam, I decided that I would still go, even if alone. After making a quick call to Duke, I had a berry picking partner, so off we went to the mountains! Over the years, I’m sure we’ve picked berries together dozens of times. And here we were still at it, an 82 year old with his not-so-young-anymore daughter-in-law. Hours later, we emerged from the weeds and the jagger bushes with several buckets full of plump, juicy, shiny, sweet blackberries!

Our family is blessed, “berry blessed,” that today we’ll gather for Bud’s pizza and wings to celebrate another birthday together with the man all of his grandchildren call “Pap Duke.” When I open our jars of blackberry jam in the months ahead, it will be a reminder of these hot summer days spent together wiping the sweat from our brows and tramping down the weeds while filling our blackberry buckets. It will be another reminder of the blessings and the beauty of God’s marvelous creation and of His goodness to us.

HOPE NUGGET: Because he has his heart set on me,I will deliver him; I will protect him because he knows my name. When he calls out to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble. I will rescue him and give him honor. I will satisfy him with a long life and show him my salvation. [Psalm 91: 14-16]

The God of the Broken-Hearted

Have you ever had the experience of being close to someone whose heart has been broken? It can be an extremely helpless feeling. No matter what words you prepare and rehearse, you know that there’s nothing you can do to take away the pain. It’s a difficult place to be for the one who is on the outside looking in. It feels as though your heart is breaking too, breaking for the one who is suffering through a tragedy or loss or painful trial. It’s not always possible to be physically present with the one who is hurting. Sometimes distance stands in the way of giving a hug or putting your arm around a shoulder or crying together.

God, what should I do? What can I say? How can I be supportive? How can I help to ease the pain? I talk to God a lot, pretty much throughout the entire day. When I ask a question, I try to listen for the answer and I believe that He’s given me answers many times. Those answers haven’t always come in ways that are expected. Sometimes the answer comes in that still small voice. Sometimes, it’s through a scripture passage. Sometimes it’s through another person. Yesterday it was through music. It came when flipping through YouTube videos on my iPad while cleaning up after dinner.

“Say something that says something …. sometimes the greatest way to say something is to say nothing at all.” The answer came in the form of a duet by Chris Stapleton and Justin Timberlake. Song lyrics can be interpreted in whatever way the listener chooses. I knew what those lyrics meant for me at that moment. They meant that the greatest way to help ease the pain in this situation was to say nothing at all. They meant that “He [God] must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). They meant that my role was to love by simply sharing scripture passages. They meant that what was needed for the brokenhearted was not to hear from me, but from God. But God. The God of the Broken-Hearted.

He heals the brokenhearted…
…and binds up their wounds. (Psalm 147:3)

HOPE NUGGETS:

*The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. (Psalm 34:18)

*Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. (Matthew 5:4)

A Song of Thanks

Do you ever wake up singing in the morning? One day last week, I did. It wasn’t something that happened consciously, so I can’t take credit for it. It wasn’t even a day that I was especially excited about or necessarily looking forward to. That particular day meant that summer break for me had officially ended. The realization had come that we would not be together again as a family with our kids and granddaughters until Christmas break. It meant that once again I’d need to set my alarm clock and head back to my job with an inservice meeting in the morning. It was a bummer. All of it. “Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul….” I wasn’t singing when I lay down in bed the night before. Instead, I had been feeling sad because the summer months had passed by so quickly and I was anxious about the start of another school year.

Our family together in Anchorage Alaska, December 2017

God has a way of changing our outlook. He has a way of turning our sadness and our anxieties into joy. Sometimes He does so in unexpected and surprising ways, even when we’ve set our minds to looking at our situations negatively. Sometimes He needs to remind us of where our focus should be. Sometimes He uses a song to do that. “Thank you Lord for saving my soul. Thank you Lord for making me whole. Thank you Lord for giving to me, Thy great salvation so rich and free.”

It’s an older chorus which we used to sing years ago, a song which I usually don’t sing and which never even really comes to mind. But on that day last week, it came out of nowhere. It came as a reminder that I should be dwelling on all of the reasons to be thankful, especially of being thankful for God’s great salvation. When you wake up singing a song with that kind of meaning, your perspective changes. It just has to. And it changes the entire course of your day. And of the days that follow… Thank you, Lord.

HOPE NUGGET: Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. [1 Peter 1: 3-4a]