Today is Friday, May 21st, 2004; Karen's Korner #300

Thanks for sticking with Karen's Korner for 300 editions.

 

            I wrote this short thought almost two years ago. There are several changes in what I am writing, since that time. Our dog, Elmo, died a few weeks after I wrote this item. And we got a new dog, Lady, the same month. I also talk about not being a grandma, which I have the privilege of being today!

 

            This will be in the next devotional booklet, which I print. I hope that you enjoy the message:

 

 

How could anyone do that?

June 16, 2002

           

        Several weeks ago, Jim and I used our Christmas present from his sister and her family: two tickets to a dinner theater in Des Moines. We were seated at a table with another couple who lived less than an hour from our home.

            We exchanged get-acquainted conversation. He farmed with a son; she worked 20-plus years as their church secretary. Parents of three children. Several grandchildren. They were on their way to Iowa City to visit a daughter, son-in-law, and two granddaughters for the weekend.

            “Do you have any children?” she asked.

            “We have two,” I heard my husband say. “Our older lives here in Des Moines ……. our younger was killed nearly three years ago in a car accident…..tomorrow would have been her 29th birthday…”

            “I am so sorry,” she said. “.. I don’t know anyone could go through something like that……….”

            The performance started and the conversation ceased. At intermission time, Jim went out to our car and got my most recent devotional booklet to share with our new friends. She commented, “Our meeting has to be a ‘God Thing’. I have to give ‘dial a devotion’ next week for our church family. I have been looking for some material. I can’t wait to read this and maybe record some of your writings ....”

           

                            And then came yesterday’s note:

            “…..I don’t know why I am writing to you……..you probably don’t even remember who we are…..(she had our e-mail address from the booklet)…we just got back from Iowa City….” Their 7 ½ year-old-granddaughter, while she had a genetic disorder, had died unexpectedly. Her funeral had been several days earlier.

            Now their family was being asked to do, “..what they could never do….”

            I wanted to respond to her, but what would I say. Several hours went by and as I sat down at my computer, I asked God to tell her what He would say to her.

            I started by offering my sympathies to her and her family. I told her that I believed she and her family would grieve someone so special the rest of their lives.

            “But what are you going do with that grief?” I asked her. “Because we are Christians, we are equipped with additional resources. We have His Spirit on the inside of us. We can’t, but He can! Because of His Holy Sprit, we are equipped for the impossible….as He takes care of us moment by moment…..”

            I continued, “You have choices….you can stay in bed, cover up your head, wish the world would stop so you can get off….you can listen to the voices in your head telling you that ‘God can’t be trusted!’ or ‘what did you do to deserve this’ (I tend to call those voices: the devil!) Or you can get up, stomp your foot and tell those negative thoughts that you aren’t defeated and that you and God will have the last word. You will be victorious. You will see that granddaughter again, and this time it will be forever………

            I told her that I could still remember several days after our daughter Merry’s funeral, of walking through the kitchen and idly thinking, “God, this hurts so much, it would have been easier if Merry had never been born!” That thought lasted no more than a moment or two, before I began reflecting on the joys, memories, and love that our family would have missed, if those thoughts were true.

            “My pain and hurt at that instant weren’t even close to all the good times and good memories I had because I was fortunate enough to be a mom to two girls,” I penned. “It was then that I vowed that I would love more people and everything in our world, more often for the rest of my life. We had an old dog that I knew wouldn’t live much longer. I told Jim, ‘we have to get another dog’, which we did in a few more weeks. Sometimes dogs run away, get run over, die too soon…….didn’t matter. I was ready for love and interaction. If something happens to Elmo (new dog), I would get over, get used to it, and get a new dog; we have had him for three years now…….lots of memories, lots of interaction, lots of fun…nothing has happened to him. Even our old dog, which at that time was nearly blind and couldn’t hear, lived another year plus. Scruffy gave us probably lived a total of ten good years…..”

            I congratulated her on being a grandmother, a role I haven’t had the privilege of having to date. “..you are, have been, and will always be a grandma to a number of grandchildren,” I wrote. “Don’t let the pain of the loss of one, dull her memory or keep you from piling up lots of love on the ones you have now and the ones you may have in the future………”

            I closed my note by saying, “………I, too, am sure our sitting together at the table that night at the Ingersoll Dinnner Theater was a ‘God Thing’……”
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