The Man on the Middle Cross

Happy Birthday, Jenny. I was coming home from Jackson this afternoon and, pulling into town, I couldn’t help but drive over to the cemetery and pay a visit. All day today I have thought about you. And still, I shake my head in wonder that you are gone. It continues to be so surreal. As I pulled in to the drive of the cemetery, I tried to get my head to wrap around your death. It is still so unbelievable to me at times that I have to say out loud - my big sister is dead. Though, it’s more like - my big sister is dead? I found your spot and parked the car and walked over. I knelt down and ran my fingers over your name and your birthday and said them out loud, so it would feel more real, and I cried for you. I promise, I will never stop missing you. 

Fittingly, Dad sent me a You Tube last night of a portion of an Alistair Begg sermon. In it, he argues against faith plus works gaining us our salvation. He describes how he imagines it may have been when the thief on the cross was gaining entry into heaven....

An angel, questioning him, “What are you doing here?”

The thief, “Uh, I don’t know.”

Angel: (stammering) “Let me go get my supervisor.”

Supervisor Angel: “Ok, let’s ask a few questions. Are you clear on the doctrine of justification by faith?”

Thief: “Never heard of it in my life.”

Supervisor Angel: (stuttering) “Uh... and what about the doctrine of scripture?” 

Thief: (staring) 

Supervisor Angel: (frustrated) On what basis are you here? 

Thief: The Man on the middle cross said I can come. 

Alistair Begg says and more importantly, the Bible teaches, that is THE ONLY answer any of us can give. Our salvation, our entry into eternal bliss, is based solely on the merit and work of Christ on the cross. It is based on nothing I have done or can do..... 

So... back to your birthday. Birthdays make us think of gifts and since there is no more giving gifts to you on yours or even you giving gifts to me on mine, let me just say this - though we may no longer exchange any tangible gifts, your death, while heartbreaking and so deeply, deeply sad, has been and will forever be such a gift to me. Because I think of my own death so much more. It may sound morbid, but.... what a gift - to be reminded of death every time I think of you, which is daily. I am going to die. I had better be preparing for it. And claiming the cross of Christ every day until and especially ON that day He calls me home. And if (or when) I am asked, “On what basis are you here?” I will point to Jesus and say, “The Man on the middle cross said I can come.”

Love for the unlovely...

(2016)

You loved beautiful things.

An old, worn out book.  A lace trimmed handkerchief. The perfect shade of nail polish. Flowers and gardens and herbs. A well-written sentence. Antique furniture. An ornate doorknob. Simple stationary. A hand-knitted scarf. Timeless jewelry. Children.

You loved not so beautiful things. 

An outsider, hard to be around. A forgotten Labrador, with much life and love left to give. The friendless. The betrayed. The left out. The tone deaf. The teased. The alarmingly imperfect. The ostracized. The beaten down. The underdog. You loved the underdog.

How many times am I reminded of you in the day, and an old, familiar aching burns in my soul. A burn that longs for you to be here, to be a phone call, a short drive away. And I find myself longing to be there with you even more than I want you to be here with me. Imagining you taking me by the hand and showing me around and not even being able to catch your breath for all the wonderful you have to share with me...yet, we have an eternity to share it...

Lauren, these strawberries! Have you ever tasted...

Oh wait, come quickly! I can't wait for you to meet....

Stop - the singing - do you hear it? Did you ever dream it could be ...

This! This, we must go right this minute -- it's so much fun, you've never had this much fun...

Oh Lauren, there is so much to see and do and taste and love and feel. If you weren't here to experience it, you would never in a million years believe me!

But in reality, here I am on earth. So I'll go on imagining. I'll imagine you can see me hold my baby girl and wonder with me, "Is there anything in all this world quite as sweet and pure and innocent and lovely as a baby girl?"

I'll imagine you're laughing with me when Mac sings This Little Light of Mine and instead of "hide it under a bushel, no!", Mac is emphatic that his light will not be hid under a bush "hell, no!"

Or that you're here to run your fingers through Fowler's curls and agree with me that they are sheer bliss, and we are never cutting that baby's hair. And that smile...yes, that smile. God himself painted that one on.

You're with me every time Amazing Grace is sung and, with tears in our eyes, we belt out "When we've been there ten thousand years ... Bright shining as the sun ... We've no less days to sing God's praise... Than when we first begun...."

I was reading earlier today about a girl’s ability to find and love things in the most unassuming of places. Some of the things she loves others think are frivolous, petty, silly. It reminded me of you. Not the frivolous part but the admiration for the beautiful found in the seen AND overlooked parts of life.... And I was reminded that you loved not only the beautiful but you loved what so often the world calls ugly. And isn't that exactly what Jesus did? He loved the unlovely. He loves me, and oh how unlovely I am. How much lovelier is He for stooping down to live as Love amongst the filth. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jenny. For showing me the importance of loving the truly lovely AND the unlovely. For teaching me to look for the overlooked and to love them. 

Monsters

There are things that randomly, so randomly, spring to mind. And I’ll only be able to remember the tiniest fraction of the memory, and I need you back so bad to help me remember more of it. One sprang to mind recently...This one I didn’t really need you for but I thought you would appreciate it. I was very little, 4 or 5, in Mama’s upstairs bathroom in the “white house”. She was “getting her face on,” and I was standing by the window that overlooked the backyard. It was morning and cold and dark and gloomy. I was watching rain drops run down the window. They looked like they were racing, starting slowly at the top of each pane and then picking up speed until they were careening past each other near the bottom. I got bored with that game and started blowing my breath on the glass to make it sorta foggy, and I wrote my letter “L” in the fog and then wiped it clean and started over again. I think I was waiting to go to school. In the memory, we have somewhere we are supposed to be, and I’m not sure where so I’m thinking it was school. I love that memory. There is absolutely nothing remarkable about it but I love remembering how warm and cozy it was in her bathroom and the sounds of her make-up opening and snapping shut and clattering as she rummaged through her bag. There is no loss in my little world at 4 or 5. In that world, everybody I’ve ever known (or at least everybody that meant anything to me) in four or five years is still alive. Things feel whole and complete and safe, untainted and just as they should be. 

Another memory came to mind tonight... when we would stay with Granny and Grandaddy, Grandaddy would play hide ‘n seek with us. He would hide all around the house and we would go looking for him. It would go on and on, with him sneaking through the house and us on the hunt, until he would finally jump out and chase us, wildly screaming, into the bedroom where Granny was studying her Sunday school lesson. Oh my, but did we LOVE for him to scare us like that. What a thrill! I was much more easily scared than you, and I remember thinking my legs were going to fall off I was running so fast from him. Why was I so scared? It was just Grandaddy. I don’t know. Little kids are funny. But we didn’t call it hide ‘n seek. I think we called it Monsters. And that’s what I needed to ask you tonight. I remember thinking that something about what we called it didn’t make sense. So was it Monsters? Because that wouldn’t make sense to call it Monsters (plural) when he was the only Monster. So that’s what makes me think Monsters is right. Because the name was “off” a little bit. It’s a little sad to think y’all are all gone. You and Granny and Grandaddy. It’s very sad to not have anyone to help recall and retell the memories that only us four had - like Sunday afternoon drives and Monsters and lemon ice cream at the Dixie Cream and Lawrence Welk and sitting  at the kitchen table, all four seats filled. I miss you and her and him. I love the memories I have with the three of you, all four of us together. It feels like a lifetime ago. I am so thankful for you all. I am so glad for the memories. It was called Monsters. I’m sure of it now. 

Lordy, Lordy

 You would be 40 today. Happy Birthday. I miss you. I love you. 

My Sister’s Keeper

Ugh. It’s that time of year again. I don’t even know how to put this. I don’t have the words. There are just no words for how much I miss you. There are not enough tears to cry over losing you. If they filled the ocean, that still wouldn’t be enough. How I long to see you and talk to you and hear you laugh. It doesn’t get any easier. It doesn’t get one bit easier.... 

I’ve got the pictures of Ken and Dad and Jan Davis when they were babies hanging in our hallway. The kids ask, from time to time, for me to point out who’s who. We go down the row, “That’s Ken III; that’s Jan Davis; that’s Mo.” They know Ken III, and they know Dad. They ask me to remind them about Jan Davis. “He was Ken and Mo’s brother. He was killed in a car wreck when he was only 2 1/2 years old. Ken III was in the wreck with him and so were other people in our family. It was very, very sad. But Mo hadn’t been born yet, so he never knew him.” 

With Grandaddy and Granny gone, Ken is the one left to remember him and answer questions about him for us. When we went through Granny’s house several years ago, there was a small stack of pictures of Jan Davis and his Christmas stocking. They went to Ken because, again, he was the only one left in the family who knew him. There was no spouse to keep those things; there were no children to pass them down to. And I remember looking at those pictures of that little baby and being so deeply saddened and promising him in my heart, “I won’t let you be forgotten little guy. Even though I never got to know you, I will tell the younger generation in our family who you were. I’ll tell them what little we know about you, and we will keep your short life here on earth alive in our hearts.”

I have thought that about Jen from time to time. When Mom and Dad are gone, Lindsey and I will be left to keep her memory alive. We will get her stocking and her baby pictures, her keepsakes from elementary and high school and college that she tucked away in a little box. And I will pray that when I’m gone, my kids will look at pictures of her and promise her in their hearts, “I won’t let you be forgotten little girl. You were special. My mom said you were, and she loved you so much and missed you so much and wanted us to know you so bad. We will tell the younger generation about you. We will keep your short life here on earth alive in our hearts.” 

Just as the grief does not subside, nor does the hope. They are inseparable. For me, there is not one without the other. So as filled with stinging grief as this Christmas season is, it is just as filled with hope. .... All because of that little Baby who came and died an early death, without spouse or children to pass along  keepsakes to (had he had any)... BUT, what he did have was a host of ragtag followers that He used (and is still using!) to take the memory of his short life’s work and words across the globe, spreading the message of hope and redemption and salvation to the far corners of the world .... lighting up this dark, dark world. 

Keeping the memory alive, isn’t that what this season is all about? 

Happy Birthday

Today you would be 37. The second my eyelids blinked open this morning, you were on my mind, and my heart was flooded with hurt and pain and all the ugly of missing someone so much you can't even find the words to describe it. How will I spend your birthday with me here and you There? I will walk the dog and cook breakfast and clean the kitchen and make beds and change diapers and check the mail and go to the store and take the kids to the harvest carnival ... and I will choke back tears and swallow the lump in my throat and ache all over and wonder around aimlessly like I'm looking for something I've lost. Because I have lost something. But I can't get it back or have it back... not yet, anyway. I will think of you all day and in every conversation with each person that does not know I am especially grieving you today. And maybe I won't tell anyone that I am. Because right now I don't want to be consoled. I don't want to think about how every one of your birthdays that goes by uncelebrated here brings me one year closer to you There. I don't want to be reminded of all the great birthdays you had here and how we celebrated. Today, I just want to be sad and miss you and maybe even silently weep on the inside all day long. I want to wallow in the missing you and the sadness of not having you here. Tomorrow I will remind myself of how much better off you are, more so than I can fathom. Tomorrow I will remind myself of the 28 healthy years I had with you. Tomorrow I will let eternity rule in my heart, knowing it will be spent with you and with our Jesus. But today, your 37th birthday, I will be sad and I will miss you worse than ever before. Happy birthday. I love you.

Wish you were here...

I smirked a little typing that... Wish you were here ... Makes me think of old timey, beachy postcards... Which made me think of the time you and I were poking around in one of our favorite little shops and we found this quirky stationary and started lamenting that no one writes letters anymore. It's such a shame, we said. Like when you die, I won't have any correspondence (Who says that in everyday conversation? Apparently me?) between the two of us. People don't save their emails or text messages. And even if you did, it would just be written in this informal type that gives no window into the human soul like authentic handwriting can.

Huh... I said that. I said, "When you die, I won't have any written words between the two of us.... We ought to start writing one another letters, like they did in the good ol' days..." "Yeh, we should," you said, "but who has time for that? Maybe one day...." Gosh. That was probably a little over a year before you were diagnosed, maybe two before you did die. If only we'd known....would we have taken the time to write one another? Who knows...

What I know is we didn't. What I know is I have very few things that actually have your handwriting on them, one of which is a short grocery list written on a tiny hot pink sticky note, stuck to my red beans and rice recipe. Every time I reach for that recipe, there your note is, almost mocking me because while I know you wrote it when you were sick, I can't remember the circumstances or the specifics of that particular day.. Like did we go to the store together that day, what was the weather like, what did we watch on tv that night, what did we talk about, how long was I there for, and on and on...such minor things but, oh, how I wish I could remember.

Another is a list of memories you had written down to share at our wedding rehearsal dinner. You didn't finish it so you read it that evening in its incompleteness and said you would finish it up over the summer and give it to me then. Except you didn't. You didn't get to finish it. And truth be told, I happened upon it, tucked behind some little tchotkes on a shelf in your bedroom, when I was cleaning one day. And something inside me said - take it. Take it home. Take care of it and when she gets better give it back to her to finish. Except I didn't. Because you didn't get better and now you can't finish it.....

I wish I could write you, Jen. I wish you could write me back. If I could write you a letter tonight, this is what I would say...

Dear Jennifer,

I love you. I love you in the only way your sister could. I love you different than Lindsey loves you, though, because she and I are different and the relationship, the friendship, I had with you was different.

I miss you. I miss you every single day. Every single one. Can you believe it? There is not one single day that goes by that I don't think of you and miss you terribly. Does that sound trite? Cliche? You know, I don't really care if it does. Because its positively true. The ache is different day to day. Sometimes it's a dull, almost numb, ache. Sometimes it's a sharp and painful ache. But I go along... day by day... week by week... month by month... *And now it's years that separate me from you.

I wish you could come and visit. I'd introduce you to Fowler. You would think he's the best. And then of course you met Mac but you could get to know him, and you would see that he's the best too...and so very much like you. I'd tell you all about Lindsey and Eli and Dottie and the new baby Jenny Clay, named after you! And I know Matthew would love to see you. He loved you. He told me the other day how much he wishes he had gone to Nashville to stay with you when you were sick, to help you, to be there for you. I told him how much you would have loved that, how much it would've meant to you.

I'd show you around the house, our grandparents' 1940s home. We could talk about when Grandaddy would  play hide and seek with us and about the time we ate so many King Leo peppermint sticks we got horribly sick and also about the time Granny practiced baptizing (by submersion!) our little Presbyterian fannies in the front den while Grandaddy watched the Sunday afternoon race. We could talk about Fowler's upcoming birthday party, what I should get him, what I should get the boys for their Easter baskets, what they should wear for Easter ... You would be full of ideas and have the best ones, I know. Nobody cares to talk about that kind of stuff with me, ad nauseam, the way you did. You always indulged my selfish me, me, me talk.

I have a confession to make - I have prayed for The Lord to deal with my selfishness. I'm so miserably self-absorbed and no one felt the effects of my wretched, me-oriented world more than you (and perhaps Matthew ;). I'm sorry for my selfishness. I'm sorry I was concerned more for me than for you. I'm sorry I did not love you sacrificially. I'm sorry for the hurt I caused you, and I know I did. I wish I could wipe it all away. I am thankful for The One we love who has wiped it all away.

On that note, enough about me.... Tell me about you... How are you? What is it like? Who have you gotten to see? Where do you live? In a house? In a mansion? Just off a street paved with gold? How is the food? What do you do everyday? How do you feel? Are you laughing because my questions are so short-sighted and silly? ...Most importantly, what is He like? Do you even have the words? Can you find a way to describe him in a way that my finite mind and rotten heart can understand, can grasp? Oh please! Tell me all that you can and don't leave out one single part! The greatest and the sweetest and the deepest longing of all my life is to be there with Him... My life is like the morning fog - it's here a little while and then it's gone. It will not be long until I am there. How I pray The Lord will prepare me for it while I am here and prepare the ones I love most dearly. How I pray He will use me as His vessel to bring more into His heaven.

I love you, Jen. See you soon.

Your sister,
Lauren

*Romans 8:35-39
³⁵ Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? ³⁶ (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”^[a]) ³⁷ No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

³⁸ And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,^[b] neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. ³⁹ No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.