Having it all Together

Some of you might suspect that I am one of those people who has it all together. Well, I’ll tell you something, and I’m pretty proud of this. I ordered my Christmas cards VERY early. We had a nice fall photo, I found a fabulous deal, and I ordered them. No muss, no fuss, no last minute rush. They’re gorgeous cards, too: heavy cardstock, shiny, lovely sentiment, and I even added a pre-printed personal note on the back. All I have to do is get some stamps, put them in envelopes, and address them. I’m practically done with my Christmas cards, and I bet you haven’t really thought about yours, since it isn’t even Halloween yet.

Yup, I’m pretty impressive, until you realize that these are LAST year’s Christmas cards. I did all that – ordered them early, got a great deal, LOVED the finished product – in October of 2013. And then…I never sent them.  Doggonit, here they STILL sit, taunting me. They remind me of what a failure I am. They were a good deal, sure, but they still COST MONEY, and I still wasted that money. And here’s another thing. NOW what do I do with them? I can’t throw out those beautiful pictures of my family! Am I supposed to use them as coasters? Call them dated but attractive bookmarks? Donate them to the Post Office Dramatic Play box at the preschool?

Maybe you have your own “last year’s Christmas cards” type of mistake weighing on you. We all have many roles to fill, and the weight of our perceived failures can be enormous. I’m here to tell you, don’t carry that weight alone. The Christmas cards are a funny example, but it’s not funny to feel like a failure.

Most of you know about our extremely difficult summer. I’ll summarize, for the few who may not. On June 24, my mother-in-law, Barb, suffered a cardiac arrest due to low oxygen levels in her bloodstream. She had CPR for about 15 minutes and was intubated and airlifted from Austin to Rochester. She was initially unresponsive, and we wondered if we had lost her. However, God had other plans. Slowly but surely, Barb made a recovery. Every day for the next two weeks, I spent time up in St. Mary’s Hospital with my father-in-law, Les. It was summer, so my schedule was wide open and I was available to be up there. I had conversation after conversation with Les. Caring for his wife had become very difficult for him. In retrospect, it is clear that he was overwhelmed, and probable that he felt like a failure; however, he continued putting up his veneer of defensiveness and refusing all offers of assistance. One day, exactly two weeks after Barb was admitted to the hospital and well into her recovery, Les didn’t show up at the hospital. We called, but there was no answer. Les had committed suicide. The date was July 8, Les and Barb’s 53^rd wedding anniversary.

It doesn’t get easier, no matter how many times I say it. Since then, we have been in recovery mode. We have tried our hardest to understand what is impossible to understand. We have helped my mother-in-law transition out of the home she loved and into an assisted living facility. We have fought through a sea of paperwork and waited a cruelly unreasonable TWELVE WEEKS to receive a death certificate. We have slogged through day after day with a heavy weight on our shoulders, and we have often felt like failures handling the responsibilities we have in our new role in Barb’s life.

BUT, and this is a BIG but, we have also felt tremendously loved and cared for. We have seen the body of Christ in action. We have felt the prayers of many of you, supporting us and helping us to “just do the next thing.”  We have had amazing offers of assistance that blessed us beyond our ability to express our gratitude. We received cards with lovely, hand-written notes. We received meals and gift cards for food. Two of my dear friends, Sara Theisen and Dede Brushaber, went above and beyond. They somehow understood how easy it is to fall behind when you are grieving and overwhelmed. They sat with me one afternoon and addressed and stamped thank-you notes. Those notes almost became exactly like my Christmas cards, as I had them printed but I don’t know if I would have found the will to get them sent, but for the love and kindness of friends.

I’m not here to tell you how to help a grieving friend or family member. My message today is this: when it’s your turn to fail, don’t fail alone. At Les’ visitation and funeral, we were introduced to so many wonderful people in his life. They comforted us, and almost all of them said, in one way or another, that they wished that Les had let them help him. Failing is inevitable. None of us can do it all, and certainly none of us can do it all PERFECTLY. God designed the body of believers to be to be our safety net. Believe this one thing: it’s OK to ask for help. As a result of observing how Les closed himself off from the help that was readily available to him, R.J. and I have vowed to say “Yes” to offers of help. We refuse to shut ourselves off from the resources God gave us. Sometimes, helping you might be exactly what someone else needs to do, as a part of God’s big plan. I think we all have a head-knowledge of the fact that God can use our failure, sometimes even more than He can use our successes. The problem is turning that head-knowledge into action. Learning the skill of confessing our shortcomings and being willing to accept genuine mercy and assistance is the challenge. In addition, remember that we do not know the future. Even if we play things out in our heads hundreds of ways, we are finite. We cannot see all the possibilities that our infinite Heavenly Father can see. Let people help you. Let them in to see the whole you, failures and all. It will humble you and it may be painful, but God will not disappoint.

OK now, back to my 2013 Christmas cards.  I believe I am going to send those cards out THIS year. No point in buying new ones, right? As I have let you in on my failure, I am encouraging each of you to let others in on your failures. And as graciously as you offer help, be willing to accept help. Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 says it well:

“Two are better than one,
    because they have a good return for their labor:
 If either of them falls down,
    one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
    and has no one to help them up.”

Praise God, this is what a community of believers is designed to be. If two are better than one, then think how amazing we can all be when we utilize all the help we have in each other!  Life in this world can be a fragile entity. Who better to “do life” with than the body of believers God has given you? I pray that as we live and love and fail together, we will learn to lean on the One who is perfectly trustworthy and Whose love never fails.