PeaceMoms Blog

Life is full of them. Moving from one day to the next, from a special event to a regular day. Moving out of slower paces and back to a regimin. Saying goodbye to leisure and facing a Monday. I have the hardest time turning a page, moving on, disengaging from holidays and getting back to routine. I resist going to bed and waking up to start over. I'm the girl who clings greatly to a day, an event, a person, an experience... and when I have to transition to something new, I lock my knees and stiffen my neck, saying "no" to it with vengeance.
The problem is, all that resistance doesn't stop it.
The inevitable is change.
It's coming.
The clock is moving.
My child is growing up.
My hair gets more gray.
Time goes on with our without me.
Like it or not.

I talk big about being in the present and trusting God for the adventures ahead, but I cling tightly to what I know, what I'm certain of, where I've been, what I can predict. And, even those things are changing. Rapidly. I can't do a thing about it. I'd rather live in the fantasy that I can actually hold on to an hour, a hug, a Christmas morning, a lit candle, and somehow everything will move more slowly, that my responsibilities will be less, that opportunities will fall into my lap, that the dishwasher will automatically unload and the driveway will magically shovel itself.

We started back in our routine today, after our Christmas break. I had to wake up at 6:15 - in the dark winter morning. This was the time for almost three weeks, I would be snuggled in my white cotton sheets, putting off the agendas for the day, and walking a different pace. Today was different. I had to jump in the shower and get ready for schedule; for mandatory productivity; for control. The luxury of extended rest was over. I packed the school lunch, started the hot water for my morning tea, gathered papers for Ava's back pack, took Charlie out for his morning duties. You know, routine.

I learned something in my resistance. The routine I'm rebelling against is a good thing. It's what gives life balance. It's what reminds me that I'm getting to some of the places I want to get and achieving what I've dreamed about... It's what gives my marriage a sense of flow, and my child a sense of security. Routine actually saves me from myself. From my over analysis, my self destruction, my pity. Routine helps me put one foot in front of the other and get it all done, because there are deadlines and people waiting and refridgerators getting empty and children needing to learn and grow. Routine give me structure, confidence, safety.

If I slept in every day, didn't cook-up an official supper for the family, and watched movies and ate popcorn every night of the week, that would surely add to the suffering, wouldn't it? I'd feel lazy, unproductive, like I'm making no impact in the world. I wouldn't have the friends I have, or the neat house I'm proud of. I'd die probably. Routine connects me. If I didn't have it, the women at Ava's school, or the family I sit next to at church, or the teachers I work with, wouldn't be in my life at all, cuz they wouldn't have to be. Cuz there would be no routine. No "have to's". No one would be expecting me. Needing me.
I wouldn't want that.

So, here's to a New Year. And all the surprises it holds. Oh Lord, open me to it. Remind me that the routine isn't the enemy, just because the transition back to it feels like it. The routine is actually the gift. It's NEVER as bad as thinking about it is. The routine is where you are providing. 2012 is waiting for me. Absolutely anything is possible. Moving into it comes with a barage of my excuses and stories, but I'm facing it today. Eyes and ears open.

My father was gone. Just like that.
Shortly after I flew in from Seattle to visit my folks for Christmas break and Mom and I were left to figure it all out, there we were… in a town where we knew no one, a town where I didn’t want to be, and a town that was definitely in the wrong spot on the map, Mom and I had to find our way. Stumbling along with our questions and wondering what God was up to, we began a brand new journey.
A journey that had nothing to do with what either of us dreamed.

Dad was pastoring a large church. He had just arrived and was moving into a great season in his ministry. The people loved him. They were embracing a global missions mindset, which he so dearly loved. The energy behind his preaching had reached its peak, and his passion for others to know the Savior had become his single focus and the community was responding. He and Mom had experienced some healing from other hurts, and deep satisfaction was finally making its way to their worn out spirits. Pastoral ministry is the only life they knew and though wounded a bit, it was the joy of their lives together to see people come to faith and experience the fullness of life in Christ.

It was a cold and crisp Christmas Eve night.
Dad was stepping to the pulpit to preach the Christmas message, “A Thrill of Hope”. With his worn Bible in hand and the church bulletin peeking out the top of the tattered pages – where the sermon title was scribbled in his notably illegible handwriting – Dad felt a pain in his heart. The church was packed to the brim with eager worshippers waiting for the annual telling of the story of the baby in the manger, when Dad fell to the ground.
A hush fell like a blanket over the congregation while everyone waited in an anguished silence. There was nothing to do but wait… in silence.
The kind of silence that declares loudly, the horror no one dares imagine.
The medics arrived with their clipboards, and masks, rubber gloves, needles and cords, and gadgets of every kind. As he lay on the floor fighting for his life, they ripped into his robe to force the defibrillator on his chest as they worked to stabilize him.

He was rushed to the hospital where Dr. Sharkuri, skillfully tore into his chest to see what he could do with Dad’s broken heart.
He fixed it.
We thought.

A few hours later, my Daddy slipped into heaven.
I never got to say goodbye.

Just after dawn on Christmas morning, the brilliant sunlight broke through the long, glass corridor not far from the entrance to the operating room. The doors flung open as the surgeon approached me.
His walk was somber, yet firm. His face; still.
I knew.
Handing off Dad’s wallet, watch, and glasses, with tears in his eyes and an embrace I will never forget, he had to deliver the awful news,
“I’m so sorry. He didn’t make it. I tried so hard. I really did”.

I can see the doctor even now.
A man of great skill and talent, wasn’t able to heal the preacher on a Christmas morning and he felt defeated. Dr. Sharkuri, a devout Muslim, had great respect for my Dad and so wanted to play his part in protecting the man who had brought hope to so many, but he couldn’t do it. His human hands had limitations. The great and sovereign God guided the surgeon’s hands, I am certain, but something went wrong.
Or maybe, it wasn’t wrong, just not what I wanted.

I don’t really know what the doc was thinking specifically in that moment because he definitely was a man of composure and poise, but I’m guessing his faith came into question. Not about who’s right, the Christians or the Muslims, but where is God? How and when does He lend his gracious hand? Why isn’t He lending it here and now? What could I have done differently? How could the preacher have made other choices to avoid this critical moment? There on an operating table in the middle of a Christmas night, two great men came to know that life was at stake.

Real human life.

And whatever differences divided them, none of them mattered now.
The preacher’s heart was in the doctor’s hands.
He took Dad’s heart out of his body and held it in his very own hands.
And when he gently placed it back, it was still broken.
Broken for good.
I don’t understand. I won’t understand. I don’t need to understand.

But a new story began that day.
A new Christmas story.
The Muslim Doctor and the Christian Preacher.
Their encounter; a sermon being preached to hundreds of people in church that night, on prayer chains, waiting on phone lines, loitering in hospital waiting rooms. All of us waiting, wondering, questioning. Why? How?

Perhaps Muslims hearts and Christians hearts are really just hearts.
Hearts that God loves. Hearts enclosed in bodies God created.
Hearts that He molds in His infinite wisdom to love and feel and cry and laugh and wonder and need acceptance and seek after Him… and even break.
Hearts that we can’t fix on our own.
Only He can.
Hearts that are dependent on each other to meet the greatest needs.
Hearts that choose paths that are different, or ones we don’t like or understand.
And even though my heart sees and loves a savior on a cross who hung there for me and rose again that I might have eternal life, other hearts don’t see it that way.
It’s okay.
I am called to use the heart I have to speak the language it knows.
To love whom God loves.
To share the message of the risen Jesus with everyone, in a language they know.
Which is simple:
Love them. Listen. See. Give.
Speak only when necessary. Knowing when to keep silent.
Believing He moves through us in the silence.
And always trusting that He’s got the whole world in His hands.

On that unforgettable Christmas night, they came together. Both hearts.
One fighting for the other.
Loving what they held in their hands.
Each other.

We are so distracted.
We imagine Christmas to be a certain way. The right way.
When it doesn't turn out how it's supposed to, we're disappointed. We can't appreciate the way it really is, because we're too focused on what it used to be, or how it will be someday. Our minds are taken hostage to a time away from now where it was always better; happier.

I love to decorate with white lights. I put them on the front bushes. I hang a wreath with white lights over the garage. I put a Hello Kitty pink and white tree with white lights in my daughter's room. I have white candles on the kitchen counter and white lights on the dining room table. As soon as it turns slightly dusk, I turn them all on. I play Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Andy Williams, Amy Grant. The vaccuum has been run, the dishes are put away, the laundry basket is empty, the dishwasher is running, drawers are sorted, phone calls are returned... and I'm at peace about not sending cards out this year, cuz we're trying to cut back.
So, the atmosphere is set. I'm going to be happy now. I'm going to sit with my daughter and read. We're going to look at each other and laugh and tell stories. My husband is going to be available and present and glad to sit with us.

And none of it is that way. At all.

I'm standing over the empty kitchen sink wishing I still had the college friends in the room, down the hall. My husband is downstairs in his man cave planning and plotting for our financial future, or watching old movies on our worn out computer (I'm never quite sure what he does down there). Ava is tucked in her cozy bedroom watching a movie on her mini-DVD player.
We're a million miles apart in our 1600 square foot home.
I last for awhile, thinking, "Oh, this is okay. It's a season in our lives. It'll pass. Everyone goes through this." Then I turn to facebook, or more cleaning, or the phone, or the shower... where I usually cry, or write, or imagine some more. My sisters are far away and busy. My brother is content in his lakeside home. My Dad is in heaven. My carefree life of indulgent dreams and lack of awareness has become more practical and predictable. The years where we had time to kill and new adventures to dream, are long gone. The season where cash flow was greater, eye contact was longer, or jokes were funnier feels distant; robbed from us forever. And suddenly, the white lights and soft music, tantalize me as a reminder of what is missing and will never be, instead of lullaby me into the present reality where God's surprise awaits. Then I miss it. I wouldn't see it, if it knocked on my front door.

There's lots of things we need right now. And I do mean need.
But maybe not being able to buy them is exactly what I need instead.
Because there are plenty of people in the world who don't have those things and they are just fine. At least I think they are.
Maybe those college friends are still there, they just come in phone calls, Christmas photo cards, and occasional visits rather than being next door. Maybe my daughter would come chat with me in the living room, if I'd just take my hands out of the sink - getting lost in thought - and get out a coloring book and invite her to join me.
Maybe my life is more quiet and the house isn't full of kids and chaos, for a purpose bigger than I can see, at least not now. What if I could look at this season from the eyes of a more powerful woman who actually gets to decide how I'm going to receive what's happening. What if I could walk away from the empty sink, take a trip down the stairs, and sit in the chair across from my husband's cluttered desk and be with him. I could ask him a question, which might open a conversation, which might change the course, pulling me out of my head and into the room.

And, all those things we NEED for Christmas can wait and what I really need, I already have. I resist when I see resisting, but I'm creating it, maybe. What I want for Christmas is my daughter's eyes and my husband's smiles. I want them. If I look further, I might see I already have them. What if they don't have me.

Is it this way for any of you? Are you lonely on Christmas because your head is taking you everywhere but where you are? I want "you" for Christmas. Not what you do, what you buy me, how you serve me, how you make my life easier. I want you. Is there someone in your life asking for you?

Its Christmas morning. There's a little girl in the next room, waiting for me.
There's a husband who's turned off his computer. Guess I'll turn off mine.
Merry Christmas.

I was blasting "Tennessee Christmas" in Woldt Residence Hall at Central Michigan University in December 1984. I paid no regard to the posted quiet hours as I opened my door wide and danced around my room.
I used my curling iron as a microphone.
Yes I did.
It was just before Christmas break and the whole campus was distracted from studies as we crammed for exams, pulled all-nighters, and decorated our dorm rooms.
I memorized all the words.
Just like you, I imagined I knew Amy and Gary personally and under the twinkle of white lights and falling snow, we were sitting around a fire together sipping hot cocoa in their family living room. With that song, she painted a picture of Christmas I have never since dreamed otherwise. A few months later, at our final Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting, we stood arm-in-arm in a circle and sang "Friends". As we prepared to say good-bye to the graduating seniors, we wept together in gratitude for the close Christian bond we shared in the challenging years of shaping our faith as young adults. From season to season, Amy's music was the soundtrack to our life stories.
She knew us.
Magically.
After my own graduation, we gathered many times at Amy concerts, paying way more cash then we had, just to see her grand entrance under the glittering traffic light at the Fox Theatre singing, "Straight Ahead", and to walk across the stage at Cobo Hall in her controversial leggings and leopard jacket telling us, "you better wise up"! Oh my, so scandalous!
Those friends grew up and moved on, but I never quit going to her shows.
In the early 90's, I was struggling to find my way living in the Chicago suburbs. It was in Tinley Park Illinois at the World Music Theatre.
Kim Hill opened. A warm summer night; the concert atmosphere that makes your soul sing out-loud. I had just been jolted by a man I loved and a job I lost. I had signed an apartment lease and bought a new car and I was scared out of my mind. I paid dearly for my seat in the 5th row and as she walked toward the apron of the stage, she sang the words that are my mantra now, "Years of knocking on heaven's door, have taught me this if nothing more, it's gonna be alright"... She looked right at me, as if she had been there the night that man said he didn't love me and he never would. She saw my tears and nodded in assurance - as if we'd been friends all along.
That is the star power of Amy.
So famous, yet so personal.
I remember the moment now. I tap into it still.
Life got way harder since then, and the lyric to that song, still walks me through. Still. I don't know if it was God, but in my heart I knew, "I'm going to know her someday. I don't know how, but I am."

And more time passed. Lots of time.

I was active in the singles ministry at Willow Creek Church. We spent months planning a large event and Kim Hill was our headliner. I had just blown out my knee on a spring retreat and I was standing backstage leaning on my crutches. Kim was standing near the green room area, surrounded by people. I was off alone; waiting. Waiting for what, I don't know, but waiting.
Kim looked over at me and walked in my direction.
"What happened to you?", she asked.
Well, that started a conversation, which lead to me taking her to the airport the next morning. She said some beautiful things to me, and about me in the car on the way to Midway. She pulled out a scrap of paper from her purse, (I have saved it to this very day), jotted down her phone number and asked, "Hey, would you ever want to live in Nashville and work in the music business?
We could really use a person like you there?"

And Kim paved the way for a new chapter in my life.

She followed up with me several times and arranged for an interview at Reunion Records. My parents loaded up the motor home and drove me to Nashville - just for an interview - for the hopes that I could land a $7.50 an hour job. Can you believe it? I walked in the lobby and there on the wall, was a larger than life size poster of Amy looking at the famous locket... you know, the one with the strategically placed curl looming over her high forehead and porcelain skin. Just before they called me in to apply for the job, Michael W. Smith walked in - whistling a happy tune, just going about his business. I tried to act all cool like this was an every day gig for me, but I was jumping out of my skin. I never let it show. I just grinned at him and looked away. I think I may have wet my pants. Don't quite remember. (That's a story for another time).

Interview went well. Really well.
Kim called while I was in the lobby - checking on me; making sure I had arrived safely and was in good spirits.
She drove to the office and met me and the folks in the motor home. She treated us to an afternoon of touring around the Music City.
We ate at a Cookers.
I was in Nashville and I could tell.
Kim narrated as my Dad drove the family bus down music row and through Belle Meade, by the Parthenon and past Houston's (I love that smell on the corner of 30th and West End). Kim talked about everything Nashville. We parted as dear friends and then we waited.

I got the gig. I moved to Nashville.
Thanks Kim.

On a 1992 brisk October morning, I was sitting at my desk making a phone call, when I heard someone talking in the front parking lot.
I looked out the window.
It was her.
Amy.
She was holding baby Sara Cannon - just stopping in the office like a normal mom running errands. No stage and lights and fans and cameras.
Just a nice lady with a baby. My heart jumped a little, but I kept on with my day. Wondering when the time would come where I'd bump into her.

It was the office Christmas party.

I fretted over what to wear, finally picked something, and whisked away in my Volare' station wagon with the broken driver's side door, to the southern mansion where the party was. I walked in...again, like I do this every day.
Standing near the punch bowl and relish tray, I reached for a pickle and Kim and Amy were standing there. I smiled at them both. Acting cool.
"Oh Nadyne, have you met Amy before?" Kim says. And for a brief second, I kept the slick exterior until I burst. I remembered the warm summer evening when I was sobbing in the 5th row and this same women calmed my breaking heart and acted like a "friend". And though she was clearly one of America's most famous superstars, with deep and engaging eye-contact, she kindly extended a hand and a smile and said, "I'm Amy, what's your name?"

And for 20 minutes - maybe even 30 - she stood with me like she had nowhere else to be. Astonishing. Somehow I managed through my own frailty to communicate articulately to a lifelong hero and yet be human. I cried and laughed and acted like a dork - all in one. As her second Christmas record, "Home for Christmas" was filling the background, near the party's end, I stood by the Christmas tree and wondered how I got there. I wondered why God opened that door. A door I never even knocked on. Amy walked in the living room where I was. She was slipping on her coat when she noticed me. "It was very nice to meet you Nadyne. Happy Birthday. Welcome to Nashville!"

And from that day until now, there's a place in my heart that belongs just to her.

My job in Nashville didn't last.
It's excruciatingly painful end consumed me for awhile.
I wondered why, and cried night after night - listening to her music to help me grieve. I moved through it, stumbling - but saw the miraculous hand of God in a fresh way.
I'm grateful.

I encountered Amy many times until I finally left Nashville.
My season there had ended.
She was always kind; remarkably able to remember the concerns of my life.
Details. She stood in them. Mine.
Everything really was "gonna be alright" - just like she promised.

And it is.

And now, as I'm married and raising a little girl of my own, Amy's music is still in the CD player.

I saw her last spring. An intimate concert.
We chatted and yucked it up backstage after - talking about kids, and losing weight, and moving through, and standing tall, and living strong, and how to look skinny when you're posing for a picture... and what it's like to turn 50.

No, I don't hang out with Amy Grant.
No, she probably never spends a moment thinking about me.
But when our paths have crossed, and will again, she reminds me about what matters.
She recalls to me that we are in this journey together, walking side-by-side, all of us. No one is better than anyone. Everyone's experience matters.
Fame is unimportant.
She lets me know that she gets scared and wonders how it's all going to turn out, just like I do, just like you do.

And tomorrow she turns 50!
Happy Birthday my friend.
You embracing this season is yet again, a mark of your faith and an example for us all. You are a gift to the world.

Everything is alright.

I am always so contemplative during this season.
The changing leaves, the shorter days, the cooling temperatures all seem to sharpen my mind and deepen my heart to the things that matter most.
The people I've known.

I have 3 sisters. We are all taken up in our own lives and schedules and very little of what we have to spend in time or money, is on each other.
It's okay. It's how it goes.
We're married, mothers, working, investing ourselves fully in the corners we're in, and that's how its supposed to be I guess.
But, I'm sad today.
I'm sad our paths don't cross. I'm sad we don't make them cross more often.
There are times we could, but enough circumstances get between us and whatever it takes to get reacquainted costs energy we don't have.

One of my sisters lives nearby.
She's raised her children.
Now, she's helping them raise their children.
She has a story. It's her story and I don't know much about it.
I imagine her life is full. I long for a shared cup of tea and tears or laughter, whatever the moment calls for, but days keep unfolding and we don't connect.

I have another sister, who used to live here. She moved for a job. Not too far, but just far enough that getting together is an event and it costs money I don't have available. Her and her husband and children have made a new life somewhere else. Good for them. They're involved. They're growing up. I see them when they come home but I wish I could sit on the sidelines of their football games and look at the world through their eyes once in awhile. Miles and money get too big and I can't go. Christmas is coming, I guess that will have to be enough.

And then there's this other sister, who lives across the country. Far, far away.
It's been well over a year since I've looked into her eyes. Her children working and going to school and making statements and impacting their communities and getting boyfriends and breaking up with boyfriends and I'm not there to walk with them in it. Her children are having children. They are learning to walk and read and sleep in the big boy beds and they don't have much of a clue who I am.

These girls are my friends. Each of them offers what no one else can. We shared a bathroom for 15 years, 30 years ago and now, we rarely share a phone call. I'm looking out the window on this overcast October morning just wishing one of them would knock on my door, or that I had a spare couple twenties in my pocket and an 8th day of the week, so I could get in my beaten up Buick and drive to their front doors... with a candle, a joke, a story, a smile, a tear, and some time.

I have a hard time telling the difference between what "is" because we can't help it and what could be different with just a hint more effort. Would I see them if there was an abundance of minutes and dollars or would I find something else to do and spend? It's hard to say. Going by how I feel today, I'd catch the next train if I could just to be near them.

So, I watch other sisters. I see them in malls and restaurants sharing earphones and recipes and aches and frustrations, and I pretend.
What if that were us?
I think about my three sisters.
I wonder if we could all be together, somehow looking past all the things that have hurt us, and just treasure a space in the present moment simply to celebrate. Celebrate our dear Mom and Dad who gave us to each other.
To celebrate a moment in the mirror where we all notice the things that ONLY sisters share.

Life is so swift. It doesn't wait for money or time.
It moves. We move with it or its gone. Sisters are gone.

I think I'm gonna book a hotel room.
Maybe in Colorado somewhere.
We're gonna walk in the mountains, share too many morning cinnamon rolls and coffee, put on lipstick and go to dinner, watch romantic movies and shop, put on our cowboy boots and ride horses, take pictures and tell stories, and cuddle in our jammies and share the bathroom again.
Anyone have a credit card I can borrow?
Maybe I'll ask our big brother.

Hey Cliff, I'll write one for you next time.
Smiles.