Monthly Archives: November 2018
Jeremiah, an Eeyore With Faith
Had forgotten I wrote this. Appropriate for our political world today and my personal loss also. God is our bottom line.
I used to avoid reading the prophet Jeremiah. He seemed so negative, a real downer. But I’ve come to realize that he would make a great character in a modern novel. He has such a complex and conflicted personality.
Babylon’s long siege has brought terrible suffering to Jerusalem and its army is now battering the gates. Good old Jeremiah is loudly proclaiming, “Babylon is gonna win! They are going to haul King Zedekiah off. You might as well all defect and get it over with, because you can’t win. This is God’s retribution. You brought it on yourselves.”
Jeremiah’s really great for morale in a war zone.
But at the same time the Lord also tells Jeremiah to buy his cousin’s land officially, in front of witnesses, for the time when God will return Israel to Jerusalem. That would be like buying an ocean front house in Florida in the…
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Zip Codes in Heaven?
I had a fun blessing this morning.
The other day when exhausted, I attempted to close my husband Julian’s RX account with the Medicare medicine insurance. I didn’t have the correct number in reach and the recorded voice kept saying “I can’t understand your answer and kept asking for the same thing over and over, even after I kept answering, “He died.” Finally, I shouted, “Go to hell!” and hung up. Needless to say, the recording was unimpressed. Today, I started over, with the attitude that I was too tired to do anything else, so sitting down arguing with recordings was as good a way as any to spend this day. I at least had one of the magical thirteen digit numbers, so I finally got to speak to a person. After explaining that I wanted to close my husband’s account because he had died and thanking the woman for her condolences, she asked, “What is his zip code?” Of course, I couldn’t resist that. When I replied, “I don’t think they have zip codes in heaven,” there was a profound silence, followed by a smothered giggle. I rescued her by apologizing and admitting that I just could not resist that.
After that we quickly developed a rapport, so she apologized profusely each of the six times she put me on hold and I cheerfully told her it was fine, their music was lovely and I didn’t want to do anything today anyway. \And actually the music was lovely and soothing and during one protracted wait, I found myself kind of floating around in my head thinking about the oneness of all things and that the Spirit is in each of us and we are all in the spirit, and everything is one whether in this life or elsewhere and I actually felt close to Julian and comforted. Who knew? Attitude is everything.
Anyway, when she came back to tell me she needed to transfer me to someone with Medicare, I was very mellow and thought that was great, because I needed to call them anyway.
The transfer presented challenges however and at one point she and I both thought we had been disconnected. But what once was lost, now was found and we parted friends forever and I got a new person and new music. We played the “on hold” game for a while and then she announced cheerfully that she was going to transfer me to a live person. That made me wonder about her for a moment, but in the spirit of cooperation, I assured her that I definitely had a preference for alive people.
Heartbreak with A Rainbow of Memories
November 6, 2018 A sad morning, but much gratitude that Julian, my husband of almost sixty years, did not have physical pain. I was able to hold his hand and tell him I love him as we listened to the lovely song he wrote at The Meadows. Then he quietly quit breathing as his heart stopped. Tonight children, grandchildren, and a great-grandson gathered to chose photos of joyful times with him to celebrate his life and love. There was much shared laughter at wonderful and funny memories punctuated by moments of tearful awareness of our loss. As hard as this year has been, my worst fears never happened and there were moments of beauty, joy, and love sprinkled generously through it all. I am very blessed.