Yearly Archives: 2010

Afraid of the Dark

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As a young child, I remember being afraid of the dark — not exactly the dark, but of what might be hidden in it. One night I cried with gusto from the upstairs bedroom, hollering for Dad to come and save me. When he appeared in the doorway, I wailed out my problem. “A big bear’s in my closet!” I said, pointing to the half-open door and the darkness inside.

He confidently walked toward the closet, calmly telling me there was no bear in there. “I’ll prove it to you,” he said.

Although I wanted to believe him and he’d never lied to me before, I was trembling as he reached for the door knob. Scooting into my covers till they were up to my eyes, I shouted, “Watch out!”

He bravely reached into the darkness, pulled the string to turn on the light and said, “See? There’s no bear.”

Squinting from my twin bed, I inspected the closet from a distance. And there was the clothes bar with all my familiar-looking dresses hanging on it, and no bear. He was right, and I could relax. With Daddy in the house, I felt safe.

Several of my own children have gone through periods of fear, virtually always at night. As a three year old, Klaus wouldn’t sleep in his room alone but insisted on bunking with seven year old Linnea. Then, when Hans was three, he wanted to sleep face-to-face with Klaus, who had grown into a fearless four year old.

Some of my widowed friends have struggled with fear too, after their husbands died. Although most men would be no match for a robber with a gun, most wives feel secure anyway when sleeping next to them. But once a mate has died, imagination alone can be fear’s invitation to come on in.

On several occasions since Nate has been gone, fear has crept into my bedroom with me. Climbing onto the bed at night is still the loneliest moment of every day and sometimes produces fear. “Did I just hear something? Is someone coming?” (It took a while to get used to acorns thumping on the roof or cracking on the gutters.)

But what’s a widow to do? She can get a big dog like Jack, but far superior to that is to call on the God from whose eyes nothing is hidden. Scripture tells us fear doesn’t come to us from the Lord but is an emotion from our enemy, Satan. Bringing the Heavenly Husband into a mental confrontation with fear is to replace anxiety with peace, just as my earthly Daddy did for me years ago.

Having confidence in God’s ready presence is a definite help during fearful moments. And being certain he is with me when it’s dark outside the windows or just dark inside my emotions is even better than owning a big, barking, protective, snarling, attack dog.

”For you are my lamp, O Lord, and the Lord will lighten my darkness.” (2 Samuel 22:29)

What were the odds?

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Nate and I were born ten days apart but grew up not knowing each other, and our families didn’t meet until after we did. Our childhoods unfolded in similar ways, though, starting with wild tales told by our mothers of what it was like to labor and deliver in hospitals without air conditioning, in August. (My mother’s quote: “A trip to hell’s door.”)

This week, while looking through Nate’s old photographs, I came across a childhood parallel I’d never noticed before. I found a picture I knew I’d seen someplace else. Paging through one of Mom’s old albums, there it was. Her photo mirrors Nate’s.

The pictures were taken of each family vacationing in Silver Springs, Florida, about to take a ride on a glass-bottom boat, popular entertainment back then. They would view brightly colored fish, sunken ships and scuba divers who were busy finding treasure. In my picture, (the one on top) Dad and Mom with us kids sit in the first seats on the left side of the boat. In the other picture, Nate’s family also sits in the first seats on the left side of a boat.

So we had the same family vacation in what looks like the same old boat at the same attraction, some time in the 1950’s. Our fathers both succumbed to buying the photographs, which wasn’t typical for either of them, and both families managed to keep track of them for 50 years. What were the odds?

Mom used to tell of a similar coincidence from her past. When she was an infant, her mother would “air the baby” in a buggy each afternoon, believing children needed sunshine and fresh air. Because they lived in a Chicago neighborhood, an alley ran behind their house, across from which lived another family with children. The two families never met, but after Mom and Dad were married three decades later, the connection was made.

Dad was 13 years older than Mom so had clear memories of living in the house across the alley. He told us of seeing a woman (our grandmother) rolling her baby out into the yard each day to nap. That baby was Mom. Although her family moved away before the two could meet, once Mom and Dad compared childhood addresses and dates, they put it together. What were the odds?

I believe God puts unlikely circumstances like these together continually, around the world. He’s arranging happy “coincidences” by the millions, and is probably doing it just for his own pleasure. When he opens our eyes to “get” even one of these unlikely connections (like the glass-bottom boat or the baby carriage), we all get a big charge out of it. And as we move through the eons of life in glory with the Lord, I have no doubt he’ll reveal every instance of “chance” he orchestrated, and we will be in awe.

We’ll have plenty of “time” to listen to his cleverly executed arrangements and will be mouths-hanging-open-stunned by his ingenuity. Maybe he’ll even let us watch ourselves on a cosmic video of some sort.

But best of all, we’ll be shown it had nothing to do with chance. What were the odds?

100%

”Come and see what God has done, how awesome his works on man’s behalf!” (Psalm 66:5)

Focal Point

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All of us know a hostess with the mostest. These are the people who thrive on entertaining and happily do the work of pulling together an event for their guests. It’s delightful to be invited to one of their gatherings. As a result of careful attention to detail, guests feel welcome, sensing a certain eagerness on the part of the hostess.

Once the guests are called to the table, they can expect a feast for the palette and also for the eyes. Every good hostess appreciates the opportunity to display a dramatic centerpiece on her table. Her creative arrangement becomes a focal point for those seated around it and usually summarizes the theme of the evening. She decorates the rest of her table based on her choice of centerpiece.

She might choose a floral arrangement or a candle display. I’ll never forget a bridal shower with a beach theme and an artistic centerpiece of shells, starfish and sandals scattered over an inch of white sand. Anything goes, according to the whims of the hostess.

Occasionally a centerpiece will be so large guests can’t converse over it. Although the impression is dramatic, the result is side-to-side conversation rather than round-tabling one topic together. When this happens, a good hostess will remove her centerpiece, because bigger isn’t always better.

The most impressive centerpiece I ever set up was a display of candles in painted Swedish holders. The holders were made of wood, and while we did the dishes, they caught on fire. Before we noticed, flames had burned through the tablecloth, the table pads, the table itself and the rug. It definitely qualified as a dramatic centerpiece.

Although not all of us can be extraordinary party hosts, we do each choose a centerpiece: it’s the focal point around which we gather all the parts of our lives. Yesterday at the beach I watched a massive yacht cruise by, no doubt someone’s life-centerpiece. Other focal points might be a dream home, a fulfilling career or a certain person, possibly a child.

I‘ve been thinking about Nate in this regard. Although he was my “other half” and an everyday partner in my life, he wasn’t my centerpiece. Had he been that, his death would have caused me to push back from the table and exit the conversation of life. And that’s probably true of any centerpiece we choose. Once it disappears, we have trouble participating.

Moving forward is only possible if a new focal point is quickly established. Or we can choose to focus on the only centerpiece that can never disappear – Christ Jesus. He has been, and will continue to be, my life centerpiece. Without him, I’d feel like a guest at the table who’d been excluded from the conversation.

Nate often said, about someone enjoying one of life’s richer experiences, “He has pulled a chair up to the banquet of life.” With Jesus as our centerpiece, the banquet can be rich indeed. And he manages this even without the dramatics of a centerpiece bonfire.

“Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.” (1 Timothy 6:17)