Home is Where the Heart Is

Last weekend, I went home.  Not home as in North Carolina where I was born,  but home as in a place where I once lived and loved and laughed and lingered.  A place that I still  long for.   The older I get, the more I realize how important the people who have been intertwined into the tapestry of my story here on earth have enriched my life.  How is it that when you are sitting across the table with a friend, coffee in hand, you can appreciate the moment.....but it is only years later that the memory gets richer and fuller with meaning,  even as the years and miles wedge an unsolicited distance?

 I think home is really people more than a place... My sister told me today that she believes that the lack of respect we are seeing in our country today is due to the absence of community.  There is a new place of isolation.  The internet is a wonderful tool, (and I love that I can keep in touch with you!) but it becomes a crisis when our families sit under the same roof with their individual devices and barely look up, much less enter a conversation, or heaven forbid, have dinner together...at a table!  And what happened to family visits in each others homes until wee hours of the morning....and sometimes family sleepovers!  People in this day and age might not even be able to grasp such a thought or they might even think that's weird!  There are some things I would do differently if I were to go back to those years we raised our kids together in Lynn, Indiana, but there is a lot that I would do exactly the same way.  We did have community!!!

For almost two decades, in the prime of our lives, we journeyed life side by side.  We were shoulder to shoulder in the trenches.  We learned together how to be mothers.  We shared our homes, our recipes, our philosophies and our children.  Mostly our lives were connected because we were following Jesus and we shared church.  And there is just something indescribable about going to church together!  Serving...sharing our gifts...singing...praying...eating...and worshipping together--that's just about as good as it gets in this life!

There was so much I wanted to say to you (obviously that wasn't meant to be since I woke up with laryngitis!) and so much I wanted to hear from you.  I didn't have enough time with any of you!!!!
I had so many questions to ask and too little time to do it!  But it was wonderful to see your face, to hear bits and pieces of of your lives, and just to hug you one more time!

Let me just say what I wanted to say, in case I didn't tell you or you couldn't hear me...Thank you for being my friend.  Thank you for enriching my life.  Thank you for sharing joy and sorrow with me.  Thank you for all the times we laughed.....and cried.  Thank you for the prayers.  Thank you for your influence on my children.  Thank you for being my community when I was far from my family and when I needed support and encouragement.  You were there for me.....in so many ways.  Your life has blessed me so much.  I love the memories we share.  I love the stories our children tell.  Because of you I love those corn and bean fields and I love how you can see the sky for miles.  I love your sunrises and sunsets.....but mostly I love the people God gave me in those special years as my babies grew up to be adults.  You are forever in my heart!

 

Tears are a language....

Tears are a language that God understands.  One night when my Mom's health was failing, we received an unexpected miracle from God.

Mother had been diagnosed in the early 90's with Hepatitis C which she received from a blood transfusion after open heart surgery in 1978.  In June of 2004 she suffered a heart attack because one of her repaired arteries had failed.  The cardiac surgeon said it would be too "dicey" to repair it.  Instead, he recommended a blood thinner to keep her blood pumping.  I'll never forget her words during those months.  Her response was, "My liver won't be able to handle the Plavix."   The doctors (specialist's collaboration...) told her she was between a "rock and a hard place."  She told them that Jesus was her Rock and that the hard place was His opportunity.  She decided to take the recommended drug.   I think she was choosing a slow death rather than a fast one....so she could have more time with us.

By September, she was experiencing multiple complications of the medication and the liver disease.  One of the most problematic was the restless legs that kept her and Daddy walking the floors at night.  Yes, he got up with her and walked...every.single.time.  They lost so much sleep.

The particular night that God's spirit flooded her room with healing power was the night that Jonathan and Jeremy were commissioned to go to their first Discipleship Training School with YWAM in Australia.  It was a glorious night!  My wayward sons had come "Home," Christi Anna and Michael, just married the month before, came home to see them off.  You see, the boys had been really wayward.  The whole family was in a state of rejoicing, especially Mother, who had invested so much prayer time and effort in talking to God about their return.  But that night, she wasn't able to go to the service, which tells me how horrible she must have felt.  It was something she wouldn't have missed if she had one ounce of energy and strength to get there.  Instead she was in the bed.

After glorious testimonies by Jonathan and Jeremy, "Carry Your Candle" by Christi Anna who normally doesn't sing solos except in her car...we all came home to share with Mother (in Pierce family fashion...piled on the bed with her...) about how it went.  Then we prayed for her.  All of us.  It was my sister and me.  It was ALL of our children.  We all prayed.  I can only imagine how blessed she was to hear her own grandchildren pray for her.   Never in my life have I sensed the Spirit of God in a room more than I did that night.

Mother began singing, and we sang with her:

"When I saw the cleansing fountain open wide for all my sin,

I obeyed the Spirit's wooing when He said, Wilt thou be clean?

I will praise Him, I will praise Him,

Praise the Lamb for sinner's slain.

Give Him glory all ye people for His blood can wash away each stain."

Jonathan was sitting on the bed at Mother's feet.  When he prayed, his tears spilled on the floor.  Later that night when mother got up, she stood in Jonathan's tears.  And a strange thing happened.  The restlessness in her legs never returned in the remaining four months of her life.

Thank you, God for making her more comfortable. Thank you for the healing she found in those tears.   Thank you for allowing her to witness the fruit of her prayers that ruthlessly strengthened our family and drew us all closer to the One who has called us to His purpose.  Thank you for your faithfulness in bringing her own prayers full circle and healing tears that gave her relief.

"They that sow in tears shall reap in joy."  Ps 126:5

We need to remember these stories.  Tell them to your children's children.  Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.  Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.....and when the Lord brings you to a land with flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant--then when you eat and are satisfied--be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of slavery.

In the past 24 hours, I have been reminded of the importance of passing along the legacy we have been given.  Just had to share this with you today.