Daddy's Girl

There was an aquarium in my first grade classroom that contained an odd assortment of fish and one snail.  One day, the aquarium sprung a leak.  We had to do something quick or else our fish were doomed, along with the lone snail.  So Mrs. Barker deviated from the schedule on the wall, ignored our spelling lesson, and rounded up a bunch of jars in all shapes and sizes. She took the little net that we had never had occasion to use and scooped up the fish one at a time and transferred them to their temporary homes.  I volunteered to have Daddy fix the aquarium.  Mrs. Barker called our house and told him how much she appreciated his willingness to repair our aquarium and wanted to know the best way to get it to him.  That was how he found out that I had volunteered him for the job.  After that, I started telling him so he wouldn’t be surprised if my teacher happened to call.

I was always volunteering him for something.  I didn’t see any problem at all with that.  After all, I was convinced that Daddy could do anything and I was perfectly willing to offer his help.  He made a gerbil habitat and a bookshelf.  He repaired a bench, a small footstool, a coat rack, and a globe that fell apart because Albert wanted to see how fast it could spin.  And, of course, he fixed the aquarium.  When I said that he would fix our coat rack, my teacher said, “That would be an imposition.”  I had no idea what an imposition was.  It sounded kind of important, though, and I figured it would be quite an honor.  

Daddy never complained.  After I grew up, I asked him why he never told me to just stop.  He said that it seemed important to me and he didn’t really mind the work, so he just kept on helping.  Plus, he was kind of fascinated by all the things I thought he could do.  I just laughed and then he said, “I wasn’t going to let you down.”  And he never did.

In June of 2004, Daddy died.  There are so many things he has missed in the past eight years – so many things that I know he would have enjoyed.   But I will always be thankful that he missed out on my cancer.  It would have been harder for him that it has been for me. 

And I am thankful for a Heavenly Father who can fix anything, too.  I am so thankful for His healing, His care, and His comfort.  It is hard for me to imagine that God loves me infinitely more than Daddy did.  Happy Father’s Day to both of my fathers.  I have always been a Daddy’s Girl.

You've kept track of my every toss and turn through the sleepless nights, Each tear entered in your ledger, each ache written in your book.  Psalm 56:8

The Right Teacher

 Mama got her driver’s license when my brother was about to start first grade.  The plan was that Daddy would teach her and she’d be out driving in no time.

There were a few glitches from the beginning.  Mama was short, so she had to sit on something to be tall enough to drive comfortably.  I offered the use of my pillow, but she opted for what Daddy called a “driving cushion.”  Problem solved.

Then there was her shoes.  Turns out that Mama had heard some awful story about a woman who caused a fiery crash by getting the heel of her shoe caught in the accelerator.  She decided to drive barefooted.  Second problem solved.  (I drive without shoes to this day.  You can’t be too careful.)

So, then the real fun started.  My brother and I would get in the back seat.  Mama was perched on her driving cushion, barefooted, with the seat pulled up all the way.  Daddy sat on the passenger side with his knees under his chin.

The lessons were always short.  Mama couldn’t follow Daddy’s directions.  Daddy sat with one hand holding the dashboard and one hand gripping the back of the seat.  He did not inspire confidence.  Every lesson ended with Mama and Daddy swapping seats and Daddy driving us back home.  Even I knew there had to be a better way, and Mama was determined to find it.  The plan in place had disaster written all over it.

Mama always liked to play Bingo and she and Daddy would sometimes go play at the Air Force base.  Mama won some money, bought some driving lessons with her ill-gotten gains, and soon had a license to drive.  Those lessons were one of the very few times when we were left with a babysitter.  The driving instructor refused to let us go along.  I told him that I wasn’t scared, but it didn’t change his mind.  I offered my services to alert Mama about any upcoming red lights.  He was not persuaded.  We stayed home with the babysitter.

That whole combination of student and teacher can be so critical.  It can be the difference between succeeding or not.  Mama and Daddy were a wonderful pair for almost everything, but not when it came to Mama learning how to drive.

There is a Teacher who is is always the right one, though.  With God as our guide and teacher, we can’t have a better combination.  Our job is to listen, to learn, to grow, to obey.  If we do that – and it isn’t all that easy at times – we are guaranteed success in the life God has planned for us.

Don’t miss your blessing!  Your Teacher is ready and willing.  It’s up to you to show up for the lesson.  Pray, read the Bible, participate in Bible study, listen for God’s voice.  We’ve got a lot to learn!

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Psalm 32:8

Looking Ahead

I found out pretty early on that Mama was adventurous and a lot of fun.  She also knew how to make the best of a bad situation.  I’m pretty sure that she was almost always that way.  When Mama was twelve years old, she decided to teach herself how to drive.  She was at Nanny’s house.  Nanny was her grandmother and my great-grandmother.  Mama got in the car and took off.  Not too far into her maiden voyage, she ran into the mailbox and knocked the post out of the ground.  Nanny could have had a major fit and Mama could have been in big trouble.  Instead, Nanny just looked at the mess and said, “Run get our bait can – there are lots of worms in this hole and we’re going fishing!”  Nanny knew all about that business of making lemonade out of lemons.  Mama gave up on being a self taught driver.  She didn’t learn how to drive until my older brother was in the first grade.  There’s another story about that. 

Unlike Mama, I wasn’t the least bit interested in learning how to drive.  When we were teenagers, my friends were anxious to learn to drive and get a license.  Not me.  The whole idea could not have been more unappealing.  I signed up for Driver’s Ed in school.  Hated it.  Hated it.  Hated it.  Didn’t get a driver’s license and felt somewhat fortunate and a lot relieved to have escaped with my life.  I actually made an A in that class.  Go figure – our grade was based on tests, not driving.

Time went by and I graduated from high school.  Without a driver’s license.  I started college.  Without a driver’s license.  I was an anomaly, but I was a very resourceful anomaly.  I always got where I needed to be.

If it hadn’t been for my brother’s best friend, I might still be bumming rides.  The three of us – my brother, Ricky (brother’s best friend), and I had gone to Deatsville to look at a snake.  (Yep – that’s another story, too.)  I don’t remember why, but we were in two vehicles and I was riding with Ricky.  On the way back, he said, “You can drive.”  What?!  Oh no I can’t.  No.  No.  No.  Bad idea.  Really bad idea. But he was persistent.  He said he knew I could do it and he would help.  So, with a white-knuckled death grip on the steering wheel – at 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock, of course – I headed onto the interstate.  God, please don’t let me get us killed.  Please help me.  PLEASE!!

And then Ricky said, “Where are you looking when you drive?”  Well, of all the dumb questions!  Where do you think I’m looking?!  He kept on, “Are you looking at the road right in front of the car?”  I said, “Yes.”  He said, “OK, that’s the thing we have to fix.  Look farther down the road at where you are going – that lets you really drive to where you want to be.”  I tried it.  Oh my goodness!  What a difference.  Driving was a piece of cake when I looked ahead instead of three feet in front of the bumper.  Who knew?!  Two weeks later, I got my driver’s license.  I was eighteen.  Really. Since then, I’ve had lots of chances in my life to employ my number one driving rule – look ahead to where you are going.  That’s how this cancer journey has been.  A year ago, I started looking ahead to where I wanted to be.  Done with chemo.  Done with Herceptin.   Done with radiation.  Cancer-free.  Getting on with my life.

Easy?  Nope.  Not even close.  But, so much easier than it could have been.  I spent my time doing as much looking ahead and looking up as I could.  God knew all along what I was going through.  He had it all under control, even when I didn’t.  My next surgery is Monday, May 14^th.  Reconstruction and port removal!  Woohoo!

All along, my prayer has been that I will learn what God has to teach me through this experience and that He will show me how to use it to help someone else.  I am amazed at the opportunities He has given me to help others in some small way.  I know for sure that it truly can be the small things that bring the most encouragement.  My prayer isn’t about doing something big.  It’s about not wasting this cancer.  It’s about doing what He has planned, no matter how insignificant it may seem to me.

Cancer doesn’t feel like a blessing.  The opportunities you get in the midst of cancer – well, that’s the blessing.  And I don’t want to miss any of them.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.  James 1:2

The Real Thing!

 

My grandmother taught me to love Coca-Cola as much as she did.  When I stayed with her, she always made sure to have Cokes and Little Debbie Snack Cakes on hand.  Not the greatest diet, I know, but grandmothers aren’t generally known for broccoli and salads.  My grandmother believed in the power of Little Debbie Snack Cakes.  She preferred the Oatmeal Creme Pies.  We had a dog that took a pill every day because he was allergic to wet grass.  Seriously.  There were times when my grandmother kept him for us.  She would give him his little tiny pill inside an entire Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pie.  She was his grandmother, too, I suppose, so he got the royal treatment just like I did.  He certainly never kicked up a fuss about staying with her.

My grandmother had a significant hearing loss.  She was deaf in one ear and had to have a hearing aid for the other one.  So, she sometimes missed things that happened because she didn’t hear well.  We were visiting her one weekend and my brother slipped in the bathroom and hit his head.  He was bleeding and Mama and Daddy were trying to decide if he needed stitches.  I was jumping up and down trying to see how much blood there was.  My grandmother had missed it all.  She came down the hall, saw all the commotion, and I told her that my brother fell and got hurt.  And his head was bleeding!  She immediately said, “David, I’ll fix you a Coke!”  That was her cure-all – the antidote for anything that ails you.  And she promptly brought David a glass of Coke loaded with ice.  He didn’t end up with stitches, just butterfly band-aids.  I guess the Coke worked.

Well, here I am again at the Cancer Center.  As odd as it may seem, this a very comforting place to be.  Strange, I know. But this place is actually very peaceful for me.  This is where I always talk to God.  Not just about cancer, but about other things, too.  I always start out thanking Him for healing me and then I move on to other things.  And I always end by asking Him to help me use this experience for something good – to help someone, to give someone hope, to provide some encouragement, to do whatever He wants me to do and to learn whatever He wants me to learn.  I will not waste this cancer!

If my grandmother were still here, she would bring me a Coke and a Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pie.    She would always say, “I know what you need.” And the snacks would appear.  Whatever she brought, it always made me feel better.  God is like that, too.  Right in the middle of cancer, He gives me just what I need to feel better.  He is just kind of amazing that way.

Mechanic on Duty

I went to lots of different schools I when I was growing up – seven of them from first grade until I graduated.  Through most of my elementary school years, we lived close enough so that I could walk to school.  Walking to school was not a chore for me – I actually enjoyed it.  When I was in the second grade, I walked to school past a gas station that had a garage attached.  There was a sign out front that said, “Mechanic on duty.”  I had no idea who “Mechanic” was, but it made me feel better and safer somehow just knowing that whoever that happened to be was “on duty.”  I even had a picture in my mind of what “Mechanic” would look like.

One Saturday morning, I was going shopping with my grandmother and we drove past a different gas station.  Guess what I saw out front.  A sign that said, “Mechanic on duty.”  What?!  Mechanic has moved!! Mechanic is now on duty somewhere else!  Is anybody on duty at “my” gas station?  It was a terrible feeling.  Mechanic had let me down and jumped ship.  Why on earth would Mechanic do that?  I needed Mechanic to be “on duty” when I walked back and forth to school.  It was a mystery to me.  What in the world was going on with Mechanic?

So, I decided to ask Daddy about it. I figured my Daddy could help me understand it if anybody could.   I told him about Mechanic being on duty at my gas station and how they advertised it with a sign right out front.  I told him how Mechanic had left me in the cold and moved on to another gas station.  Only, I didn’t have a clue what “mechanic” was, and I pronounced it me-chan-ick.  And I was pretty upset with Mechanic for leaving me in the lurch and not being on duty for me.  Good grief!  Anything could happen if Mechanic wasn’t on duty!  I didn’t know what that might be, but I figured it could be something pretty awful.  Walking to school just wouldn’t be the same.

Daddy explained to me what “mechanic” actually meant.  Are you kidding me?  That’s a person who works on the cars, not someone protecting us?  Who knew?  And there’s more than one Mechanic?!  So, “my” Mechanic is still there!  On duty still, for all the good it would do me.  I was relieved and irritated all at the same time.  It was so nice to know that Mechanic had not deserted me after all.  But, it sure was disappointing to find out that he wasn’t there to offer any kind of protection and that whole “on duty” business hadn’t meant anything even close to what I had thought.  Oh, well.  Walking to school would just be a little riskier.  Good thing that Stubby, my dog, walked to school with me every day.  He might just have to be a stand-in for Mechanic if it came to it.

Aren’t you glad that you don’t have to worry that God might be “on duty” somewhere else when you need Him?  I know that I am.  And I need Him.  Frequently.  Knowing that Mechanic was on duty was a source of comfort for me.  Knowing that God is everywhere is an even greater source of comfort.  I know that wherever I go and whatever my circumstances may be, I am NEVER out of God’s reach.  Nobody will ever have to "stand in" for God.  I know it because He promised me.  He promised you, too!  And while I sit here in the Cancer Center getting my latest treatment, I know He is right here with me.  On duty.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, nor will the flame burn you.  Isaiah 43:2

I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.  Hebrews 13:5

Where can I go from your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend into heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there; if I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.  Psalm 139:7-10

Santa Claus, Watercolors, and God

We were living in Mobile when I was five years old.  It was getting close to Christmas and I was excited.  My Christmas list was done.  I knew what I wanted Santa Claus to bring me and I just couldn’t wait.  And then Mama gave me the news.  She thought I would be thrilled.  I wasn’t.  She said that we were going to Montgomery to spend Christmas with my grandmother.  What?!  I need to be at home for Christmas!  This is terrible!! Santa Claus knows I live here, but he will never find me in Montgomery!!  But I didn’t say any of that.  I just cried.  And cried.  Mama was mystified.  I ordinarily loved going to my grandmother’s for any reason at all.  I would even invent reasons that I needed to go visit her.  But not now!  Not at Christmas.  

I finally told Mama why I didn’t want to go.  She told me that it wouldn’t matter and that Santa would find me no matter where I was at Christmas.  I was less than convinced.  I decided that the safest thing I could do was leave him a note.  That way, if he showed up in Mobile, he would find the note, know I was in Montgomery, and just swing by my grandmother’s house to leave my loot. Seemed like a good plan to me.  So I got my brother to help me with the note.  I figured he had as much to gain from that note as I did.  If Santa couldn’t find me, then he certainly wouldn’t find my brother either.  Our note was to the point – We are at Mam-ma’s house and you can leave our presents there.  Love, Susan and David How could he not find us with those explicit directions?

So, off we went to Montgomery.  The note was taped to the mantel so Santa could not miss it when he plopped into our fireplace.  Things were looking up.  On Christmas Eve, I got my grandmother to help me with a second note for Santa.  It was also pretty much to the point and went something like Susan and David are here. You are in the right house now. I got an early start on my note-writing obsession.

Santa found us!  On Christmas morning I was thrilled.  The one thing I wanted more than anything was a giant watercolor set.  It had seventy-two colors and lots of brushes and paper.  The box was about the size of a Monopoly game and it had a hinged lid.  I painted like crazy.  I even touched up a couple of places on the wall at my grandmother’s house.  I distinctly remember that nobody appreciated it.  

Sometimes I think we have a tendency to treat God like Santa Claus.  Tell him what you want and wait for him to bring it.  We know better.  But they do have something in common.  Just like Santa, God always knows where his children are.  We don’t have to leave him notes so he can find us, either.  He is always there – He sees you when you’re sleeping and He knows when you’re awake.  He knows if you’ve been good or bad.  He knows how we handle everything life throws at us – and He knows that we sometimes pout.  And He loves us.  Completely and unconditionally.  

I am at the Cancer Center again.  Waiting.  Waiting. Waiting.  Today I see the doctor and next week I have a Herceptin treatment.  While I wait, I am sure that God is watching over me.  He has been with me every step of this journey and has been fighting even when I can’t.  He will do that for you, too.  You don’t need a medical crisis or another type of emergency or a catastrophe.  He will be right with you in the “ordinary” as well as the stressful.  Ask Him.  That’s all it takes.  He WANTS to be there and do good things for you!

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us – Ephesians 3:20