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The Lord's Peace, the Devil's Turmoil

7/11/2013

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7

The moment he stepped in the house, his eyes shining with excitement, and triumphantly asking, "Do you want to go to Argentina? I might have a job there." I knew. A wave of peace crossed over me and I knew that it was what we've been waiting for. I hadn't even heard what the job was.

But God had provided. Here me and my husband had been anxiously going over and over our options, not able to decide where to go or what to do when he graduated from the university and it was only a couple months away. He'd done well, he had a lot of great opportunities, but nothing felt right. Then, when we saw Argentina on the horizon it felt like someone had gently showed how to get out of the maze and onto our life road.

Ok, I was excited and nervous as well, but the peace that we were doing the right thing overrode the other emotions. Even when people told us we were crazy (and only slightly jokingly) I wasn't worried. This was what God wanted for us and we were going.

However, it took only one phone call and my world broke into pieces of uncertainty, doubt, and grief. Some one I loved and cared about deeply, a friend I kept close to my heart, had called me up to bluntly tell me she didn't want me to go. She needed me to stay close. She wanted to see my children be born and watch them grow up. She wanted to have coffee with me and talk about books and go to the movies. And you know what, I desperately wanted all those things too.

Getting on the plane suddenly seemed like a vehicle to broken relationships and hurt friendships.

I didn't talk to anyone about it for a while. But, one day, sitting with a colleague at work I brought it up. I told her I didn't know if I could go anymore. The lady, a sweet friend and Christian seemed surprised, "But you were so excited, so certain about it, just a week ago."

I nodded and bit my lip. "I don't think I'm doing the right thing by my family and friends though. I just don't know anymore."

"Lora," she said seriously. "We all have to make these big decisions. Everyone does. Do you know how God lets us know when we are going the right way? Peace. We'll have peace. But the devil likes to destroy peace with uncertainty. If you have doubts and worries now, they're not from God."

I blinked and suddenly remembered that feeling, that certain peace when my husband had told me about the job. And after some prayer and deep breaths that peace washed over me again. Argentina was the right road.

And it really was. That whole 2-year experience changed my world. It strengthened my marriage. It reinforced my faith and cultivated my personal strength. And all those friendships and relationships that I had then are still intact and even richer as we learned to share our lives over the di.

But I wonder if I hadn't sat down that morning with my co-worker and bared my soul to her, if I would have gone at all. God used her to help me understand what He had been trying to tell me all along.

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Under the Knife

6/19/2013

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I walked into the hospital clutching a brown paper bag of surgery supplies and trying to continue to breath. Next to me my husband held my hand and my mother-in-law chatted away about how excited she was to meet her first grandchild. But me...well, I was just trying not to dissolve into the weakness of a panic attack.

In my head I waged a war of battling fears. How many times had I already told myself that everything would be fine? So what if they had needed me to go buy my own anesthesia, gauze, etc and find my own blood donors? Yes, in the States that would never happen but here it was common practice. Babies still made it into the world...even in this hospital that didn't have soap in the bathrooms. Breath. It was ok. God was with me. But my emotions were being held together by threads as wispy as spider webs.

Oh, God! I breathed those two words over and over. Oh, God, Oh God.

Most of all, I needed to keep my mind off the horrors. In the tiny hospital of a Patagonia town I was going to go under the knife as an over-worked gynecologist brought my daughter into the world. The million and a half things that could go wrong danced inside my head like naughty little demons.

I could feel the terror building up inside me as the nurse came to take me away. My husband gave me a kiss and Mamá hugged me, but they couldn't travel into the surgery ward with me. I was alone. The nurse talked away in Spanish and the words got all scrambled up in my head. I could feel my breath coming short and shallow and begged myself to stay calm. This will all be over soon. Everything is going to be fine. Just fine. I'll be holding my little girl before I know it.

Another surgery was underway and I was ushered into a room with a TV. The nurse started me on an IV drip of something and I had no idea what was coming into me through the tube. Whatever it was, it did nothing to calm me down and I could only stare blankly at the remote in my hand. A jittery chuckle blasted from my trembling lips as I looked at it...nothing playing on TV could possibly help right now. I closed my eyes and begged the fear away, feeling my strength beginning to crumble with my terror.

God, please, please, please. Get me through this. Let me stay strong and do whatever I need to do to help this go well. Be with my daughter. Be with the doctor.

Something eased within my chest...a completely unearthly feeling.. like a strange detachment and serenity came over me. The anesthesiologist came in and smiled at me. I smiled back. When he spoke I was surprised that the Spanish words were no longer scrambled and bizarre. He was talking to me about a cousin of his who had been to the United States. It wasn't everyday an American woman opted to have her child in their small seaside town. I asked him about the IV drip, thinking they must have started me on drugs since I felt so peaceful. He laughed and said it was only nutrients since I had been fasting. He was going to administer the epidural for the surgery.

I didn't hardly feel the needle when he gave me the epidural but eventually I felt the medicine take over and I was wheeled to the surgery room. Everything happened so fast. A sheet went up. A nurse reminded me not to talk. And I laid there peacefully wondering at the calmness that had begun long before I had came into the room.

Then I heard the most exciting sound in the world. A little cry, one unhappy little whimper, and then a grumpy newborn with pudgy cheeks and black hair was nestled next to me. I broke the rules and spoke. How could I not? "Hello. Wow, you're so beautiful. Hello, love. Hello." I begged the nurse to tell me if she was ok and the lady laughed. My daughter was perfect. Oh, God, Thank you!

But I must not speak more, the doctor was still finishing the surgery.

That peace stayed with me even after they took my baby away, and finished the surgery. It wasn't until I got back to my husband and saw the bundle in his arms that any tears came from my eyes. The great waves of fear and anxiety washed over me in a gentle crest of emotion. God had held back that storm.

"She's beautiful, Honey." My husband said. I nodded, but couldn't stop crying for a while. Finally I took a deep breath and took up that precious child in my arms. Every baby brought into this world is a miracle and my daughter was no exception. And I'll never forget that experience as God walked with me through my nightmares and held my hand until I was back in the light.

"And surely I am with you always..."
Matthew 28:20

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Argentine Roses

6/12/2013

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“Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well."
Luke 12:27-31

                I was going to run away. How? I didn’t know. We were living in the middle of Patagonia. Spring had finally announced itself. The weather was fair and the land was alive. But looking out my window I could only see the barren vastness of ground stretching before me like a dreary future. Everything that was wrong with my life teased and taunted the dreams I’d had before I’d come to Argentina.

                Leaving the United States and getting on a plane headed for the Southern Hemisphere I had imagined I was going to be Kathleen Turner in Romancing the Stone, taking off to South American and writing a legendary novel. Of course, I was leaving my sister, not going to save her; and my Michael Douglas was expecting me, had already did his best to make the ranch house cozy for his little wife.   The adventure was exciting at first—new people, new language, and new places. But then reality set in and painted the landscape gray. I saw people maybe once week and had trouble relating to all of them. My Spanish that I was so proud of turned out to be pretty embarrassing and made normal conversation difficult at best. And while we’d seen some beautiful land, I felt that I’d seen it all and now was ready to go home.

                My husband was busy those days. He had land that needed extreme TLC before it could hold livestock and he was there only in the evenings and mornings, his mind always on the fences he was going to build and the cattle he was going to buy. I was desperate. We didn’t even have Internet or a phone so whining to my friends and beloved family was out of the question. Even if had been a possibility, I didn’t want them worrying. In one word…I felt abandoned. I didn’t even have the heart to pray about it.

                Sunday came around and I broke out my Bible and tucked the chair next to the wood stove in my lonely weekly ritual. But I couldn’t focus on anything except the sadness and despair that filled me. Would I ever make friends? Could I actually write the novel that had wormed its way into my heart? And goodness, was I EVER going to have children? Those nasty worries had grew into terrifying fears for me.

                I heard the truck pull up and put down the Bible. Strangely, my man was home early. Time to plaster on a smile and pretend I was doing just swell. He came in with a grin and said, “Hey, you want to go for a drive?”

                I wanted to yell back, no. I don’t want to go for a drive. I want to crawl into a corner and mope. I want to be left alone. But I answered instead, “Sure.”

                He then gathered up a couple jars and my kitchen shears and I was too annoyed to ask him why. I got in the truck and he started driving down one of the dirt roads. We came over a hill and what I saw made me gasp.

                A glorious rose bush spread out like a massive hill next to the road. It looked extraordinary in the rocky, stubby countryside which was so dry that there was hardly any grass. My husband pulled over and smugly asked me if I was surprised. I was. I really was. As we gathered the roses for the jars, he told me what the neighbors had said about the bush. Apparently it had been planted about a hundred years ago at the original site for the ranch house, but when that house had been abandoned and had crumbled away to nothingness, the rosebush had thrived, alone, for over thirty years.

                And then it hit me. Who cared for all those glorious golden blooms? God did. I heard again the words written in the bible almost as if Someone gently whispered them in my ears. “Consider how the wild flowers grow…not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, …how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith!”

                I felt shamed by my lack of gratitude for God’s gentle protection of my daily life. I felt exultant that all I needed to do was turn and ask him to care for me. If he nurtured these roses, on this nearly deserted road, in a land that was only sparsely populated…couldn’t I trust him to care for me too?

                Hope bloomed within me and I felt a surge of peace blow the blues triumphantly away. It was a turning point for me—a huge one in my life that I will never forget. I hope someone somewhere sees those golden flowers and recognizes the magnificence of our Gentle Protector, our loving God.

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Miracles Happen Everyday

The Lord's Peace, the Devil's Turmoil

Under the Knife

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