"Isaiah 32: 1-2 - "You've got The Right Stuff"
It's a slow-starting Saturday morning. Late nights all this week, and too many 5 am wake ups. Today is one of those days, when the sun is peaking through the curtains, and the day promises a fruitfulness of purpose, and I am needing to connect with Papa before I do much else. Sometimes, it's not the loud sounds where God is calling you to sit with Him, it's the subtle singing of a hummingbird or kids playing next door, where you most easily find God. He is more in the everyday stuff of life than you can ever imagine. And the colors of my life are at best, a muted grey, without the splash of fuchsia and violet He throws into my imagination. I can't live well, when I can't feel, see, touch and know Him, in the simple 5-minute connect each new day brings. It's like I can hear Him strumming His thoughts into me, like a jazz musician who has played all night long in a New Orleans honky-tonk. The feel of the previous night's dancing is still in the room, you can smell some old cigars still wafting in the air, the never-slept musicians still can't put their pics down, and you just know that everyone had a great time last night. You can feel the life that was lived in that room last night as if the walls remember the fun. That is how He feels to me today. I feel God wanting to be here, and make His presence known. He feels sweet today, like He is waiting to say something rich.
He is strumming His vibes on His guitar, and He wants me to catch His melody. That is how easy it is to be with God. You just have to learn to recognize His voice, and listen. Like any art form, in time, your Spirit can catch a whiff of what His Spirit is thinking, and like any really great friendship that has been cultivated over time, you start to feel and think and know what is on His heart. I would not trade anything, anywhere, at any time, for any price, to ever lose this. I can live without a lot of things, but I cannot live without His presence. It would be worse than death to me, if I lost this presence that is better than life.
I think about last night. I drove a friend home from a Chanukah party late last night, and on that long ride home (and naturally, despite the talking smart phone -which can be pretty dumb at times if you ask me), we still got a lost (just for 20 minutes). I start laughing in the car picturing Ben in heaven probably rolling over laughing somewhere and shaking his head "I can't believe she still hasn't used her navigator or map. She hasn't programmed it yet". We talk about a lot of things - mostly, the shared experiences we have gone through in both losing our spouses, suddenly within 7 weeks." We have come through by God's grace, both of us, and are weathering life's challenges, knowing it is only the grace God has put in us, and the day by day dependence on Him, that will see us out of this maze and into the clearing, what we now call 'our new normal'. See, nothing is ever really the 'old' normal again when life shakes up the mix and you have to re-define and re-learn and re-engage and re-start and re-boot it all. You don't know where he ended and you began, because you were one. And now you begin again. Every day is different. But it's okay. Because our Father has a plan. And all of God's plans and purposes are good, even when life is hard and violent and sharp. God is sweet, and His sweetness only gets more tender in time. You will know that if you ever need to find that out. You find out how deliciously sweet is His presence and care for you when you need it most.
This morning, as I sit with my Messiah, I think about the husband, parents, friends, and friends in the Lord that have graced my life. Some of my dearest friends in life have come through, as they say, hell and high water, this past year or two. A good friend from back home of more than 20 years, who was with me when I met Ben years ago, and laughed and danced with us at our wedding, she buried her daughter to cancer just 2 years ago. She and her husband cared for, loved, fed and bathed their beloved daughter, and cared for her children, as she departed for glory. No parent should ever have to bury a child, and yet it happens. I think today of a dear, dear friends in the Lord, whose own adult child is fighting for his life in a hospital 2 hours north of here. In the midst of living their life, taking care of everyone, a freak and sudden illness strikes their son, and now they sit and wait by his bedside, and trust the Great Physician to lay His Healing Hands upon their son. We never are, nor can we ever be, truly prepared for those epic moments that steal away our breathe, shock our senses, or bring us to our knees. But, we can make it through and even beyond, when we know we are in the Lord's care, and He has answers, ways, plans and purposes we will never fully understand on this earth. And mostly, we just need to be loved well by those who care for us the most.
I think today of my (late) father, Victor. What a man he was! Not that we spoke like a King (he didn't). His colorful language, often was peppered with the best one-liners this side of the Catskills. He was a hard working-man, 2 jobs, hard labor, and never complained, went to work, sick or tired. But man, did he ever have a way with words (I think I get that from him). His observational humor was unlike anyone else I ever knew. We'd be in the car going somewhere, and the old guy in the car in front of us, who was daydreaming as the light turned green, would have everyone honking and people yelling epithets out the window, and Dad would look over at us kids (his captive audience) and shake his head and say "I bet the guy doesn't even know what year it is. He probably doesn't even know he is living. We should wake him up". Dad had a million of them. Never rehearsed, never planned. But what I remember most about Dad, was that he was always there. His word was his word. If he said he would be there at 2:07 sharp to pick you up, by golly, you'd better be standing there on the street corner there at 2:07 and be ready. Now my sister (who is in heaven now) and I, well, Dad used to say we might be late for our own funeral's. When my Dad was frustrated he would hum, and Viki and I had Dad humming a lot growing up. HHHHHhhhhhmm. He would just shake his head and look at us and say "I'm glad I wasn't handcuffed to a ghost and hanging by my neck at 2:07, or I'd be dead now". It was his own brand of humor, and all of us in the family, we got it. We got him. But Dad always had the Right Stuff. He kept his word. Always. He was there for his family. Always. He did what he said he was going to do, and he protected, loved and worked hard for us. The bills were paid, food was on the table, and we were warm. I have seen a lot of things in my years on earth, and when I was younger, I had been courted by some charming men. But none of it meant as much to me as a man who keeps his promises, and protects those he loves. A faithful heart is the best part of a man, to me.
Ben had that same quality. He protected his wife, his family, their name, their honor, his friends, and even his pets. He 'covered' us all with a blanket of hope: I am there for you, I will always be there for you. Day or night, you can count on me. Forget the flash in the pans, they will pass. It's funny, not long after we married, Ben was looking at a box of old pictures, and I heard him give out a 'whoa' when he saw me in my 20's. Youth and beauty are more obvious than wisdom [in anyone under 30]. Ben said 'honey, can you look like that again'. I then showed him a picture of himself with hair, and replied 'only if you can too. We will both be spending money for plastic surgery'. We laughed and realized we really were happy, just the way we were. We had 'the right stuff'. (And truth be told, his head with less hair on it than 20 years earlier was far more attractive to me now, because I knew the brains and zest for life inside that head which made him unique). Ben used to tell me his (Dutch-Jewish) mother would say to him as a young boy "Allemaal Hersens" ('all brains' and then pat his head). And I never knew a man who had so many wonderful dreams, inventions, hopes and ambitions and just sheer joy, the joy of living, going on at one time, inside of him. What made him wonderful was who he had become, and if time had to march on or steal a few hair shafts to get him to that place, oh well, so be it. What counts is what lasts, that is what I call 'the Right Stuff". Real friends, who will be there for you and with you come what may; that's the Right Stuff. Faithful spouses and faithful parents and faithful friends, there is nothing to compare to this. "See, a King will reign with righteousness and rulers will rule with justice. Each man will be like a shelter from the the wind, and a refuge from the storm, like streams of water in the desert, and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land." Is. 32:1-2
For me, the non-sequitur of youth; is that at 20 or 30, you want to keep your looks and your strength, but you want to know what only those who have lived long, and hard and well, can know. Just like the Latin phrase 'non-sequitur' (meaning 'it does not follow') - the conclusion will never follow the premise. There are some things you can only know by living through them. Like that 1983 movie that Ben so loved 'The Right Stuff', which honored the U.S. Mercury 7 Astronauts, Ben used to tell me he couldn't wait to get to space, and if he had a chance, he would want to go. When the talk of civilians possibly taking space travels had come up, discussed by the Richard Branson types of inventors and adventurous explorers, Ben once asked me if I wanted to go into space with him. 'Ya gotta be kidding honey, I don't even want to get on the DC Beltway with you' ha ha. I would say, I'll wait till the rapture (Mt. 24:30-36) till I take my first space-flight. I know who'll be driving (the Son of God and and the Holy Spirit) and I know where I'm going I don't have to worry about making it back. [Well, my beloved, you have a view from heaven now that is beyond your wildest dreams now]. You had the Right Stuff.
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