Jolt of Joy

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Nate has been gone a little more than two years now. Yesterday I found a stack of pictures I’d tucked into an upstairs drawer, photos I hadn’t seen in over a year. He was in every one of them. The value of these images has skyrocketed, because we can never make more.

I love looking at pictures of Nate, staring into his face, thinking about him. For a split second, he’s back.

Last week I came across one of the weekly index cards he wrote for each of our away-from -home kids every Sunday. As always, it was covered with his difficult-to-read handwriting, sharing family news. I read it three times, studying his words and especially his signature, “Love, Papa.”

Today I had a third split second visit from Nate in the most unlikely place: our basement freezer. I was digging around for a bag of pecans I knew were in there someplace, holding frozen packages of meat, veggies, and chocolate chips in my arms, when a pale pink Post-it fell to the floor. It had a tiny white shoe taped to it with the word “Thoo” and an arrow pointing to it.

When our toddlers were learning to talk, Nate had always been fascinated with their mispronounced words. He loved language and read dictionaries for pleasure, but no words fascinated him more than the ones his kids created. He found particular delight in using their nonsensical vocabulary in his own conversations, words like “chach” for lunch, “setsup” for catsup, and “eltenoh” for elephant.

As for the pink Post-it, one of our 18 month old girls had first called her shoe a “thoo,” and Nate found that charming. He began using it to refer to his own “thoo’s,” and years later, when Barbie-doll and her beau Ken-doll joined our family, he laughed and laughed over their tiny shoes. Long after the girls had left dolls behind, we gave away our accumulated Barbies, Kens and their dilapidated wardrobes, including enough shoes to impress Imelda Marcos.

Then, as we were packing to move two years ago, one of Ken-doll’s miniature white bucks appeared under a bookshelf, its mate long gone. Nate didn’t just enjoy a private chuckle and sweep it into the dust pan. He put it in his pocket instead and made a plan. Eventually, the “thoo” silently appeared on my dresser, a tiny inside joke between a husband and wife.

How that piece of paper got into the freezer I’ll never know, but I have a hunch. Our God cares about the little things and loves to surprise us. He knew I’d get a little jolt of joy today from that tiny shoe and so arranged for it to walk back into my life via the freezer…

…a thoughtful God reminding me of a thoughtful man.

“Love never fails.” (1 Corinthians 13:8a)

Overloaded

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Today while running errands I was waiting at a light when a spectacular semi-truck turned in front of me. It had more tires than I’d ever seen on one vehicle, all doubles, 4 to an axle except on the cab. As it drove past, I counted: 36 wheels.

All I could think of was how difficult it must be to keep that many tires in good shape simultaneously. Are they wearing properly and balanced correctly? Are their lug nuts snug? Rotating tires must be a nightmare similar to playing Mancala with game pieces too heavy to lift.

Why so many wheels?  The answer is, tons of weight inside.

It made me think of all the excess weight we carry, not in pounds but in burdens. Trouble comes when we try to carry too much on only 2 wheels.

This morning in Bible study we were in Exodus, reading how Moses was trying to lead a million obstreperous people through miserable circumstances. He was doing the best he could, but it wasn’t good enough. He didn’t have enough wheels to hold up his heavy load, and it was ruining him.

God saw the problem and brought Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, to the massive Israelite camp at exactly the right time. In learning how burdened Moses was he said, “The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone.” (Exodus 18:18)

So God planted a fresh idea in Jethro’s mind, and Jethro passed it along to Moses. The heavy weight was quickly redistributed to helper-judges, which gave Moses the 36 wheels he needed to continue moving the massive group forward.

Years later he again found himself weighed down by the impossible burden of his role. The people were crushing him with their complaints, so once again he went to God. “I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me.” (Numbers 11:14) It was time for a new set of tires. God provided them again in the form of many able helpers, and Moses’ load was lifted.

What about our 21st century loads? More often than not we take on impossible weight, dragging under the heavy burden while trying to give the impression we’re living feather-light. When others see us bent beneath our loads and ask if they can help, we say, ”No thanks,” not wanting to add to their loads. But as we learned in Bible study this morning, if we accept the help of others, a blessing comes to them as well as to us.

Moses modeled what to do when we’re overloaded. Step 1: ask God to lighten it up. Step 2: listen for how. We’re to avoid the extremes of either asking no one, or asking many of the wrong ones, because our best burden-lifter will always be God.

“Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.” (Psalm 68:19)

Story Time

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Our daughter Linnea and son Hans, both busy young parents, share a love of books. These days, however, their personal reading time is at a premium since their collective offspring are ages 3, 2, 1, 1, and 1 (with another non-reader arriving in February). But Linnea (with Adam) and Hans (with Katy) try to share their love of books with their children by way of daily story times.

Nate, too, was intentional in his efforts to transfer his passion for reading to his 7 children, purchasing a giant book of classic fairy tales while I was still pregnant with our first. This book was a hardbound volume weighing 5 pounds that was full of tiny print, not exactly the stereotypical children’s book. (I favored plasticized board books with which our baby could simultaneously get educated and cut teeth.)

After Nelson arrived, Nate made good on his intentions and began reading to him nightly. One day, 3 weeks into parenthood, he said, “Do you think it’s too soon to introduce poetry?” I laughed but had to admire his gusto.

Toting his 5 pound volume around the house, Nate took advantage of multiple opportunities to read to his drooling audience of one. Thanks to him, by the time baby #2 came along, we’d gotten into a happy bedtime routine of stories, songs and prayers that continued until the kids were teenagers, much like many families we know.

Today I look at my bookshelves, pared down by two-thirds when we moved, and at least one-third of the books are still for children. I’ve hung onto them partly to read to grandkids but partly just because they’re comfortable old friends.

God was the originator of words and stories, and he has filled Scripture with them. Over the years we’ve learned much of what we know about him through the stories he’s given us. Also included in the Bible are the stories of people who rejected him, and we’ve learned from those, too.

Parents begin story time with a question: “What would you like to read?”

God also points to his stories with a question: “Which do you believe?”

All of us buy children’s books with care, wanting a measure of control over what goes into young minds. The volumes that make it onto our shelves have been screened so that any choice a child makes is a good one.

But there’s one big difference between that and God’s story time. Parents have already made the acceptable choices before their children approach the shelf. God opens the whole library and says, “The choice is up to you.”

“This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Write in a book all the words I have spoken to you.’ ” (Jeremiah 30:2) “Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.” (Proverbs 30:5)