The Garden Of My Heart

I have been blessed with many heroes in my life, people who, at one point or another in time, had loved me and helped me along the way to become who I am today.    They inspired me, showed me the beauty that God has created inside me, and encouraged me to become all that I can possibly be.   They were there for me when I needed help, and taught me that God is bigger than any problem I may face in life and that He will always send help in the form of these heroes.  These wonderful people were used by God to heal me from past hurts and teach me about real love and friendship.

Over the years, especially the last 2 years, I’ve had to say good-bye to many of these heroes as they left this physical world for the spiritual one.  I have missed them terribly.   I get sad whenever I am struck with the realization that I can’t just pick up the phone to call them and hear their voices anymore, or be able to visit them, or ask them for advice, or. . .

This morning, as I’m grieving the recent loss of two of my heroes, Betty Malone and Uncle Ben, I am aware of something new.  Well, it’s not really new because I’ve heard it said before, and even said it myself, that our loved ones live on inside us, but this time I see a pictorial representation of it that I never saw before.    Betty, Uncle Ben, Karl,  Becky,  my grandmother, Doc, and all the heroes that had gone before them, aren’t really gone at all.    And the reason is:   When these heroes loved me and gave of themselves to me, their gifts had been used by God as seeds in the garden of my heart.   These seeds have become plants and trees that have produced flowers and fruits.    This garden is still thriving, as God tends to it, doing whatever is needed to keep the seeds of love growing.

Love can’t be destroyed by death.   Love keeps on growing inside the hearts of those who have been touched by it.   Sometimes the seeds of love are watered by tears of grief, as those who are still living yearn for the departed loved ones to be here physically.  But after the rain, there always is sunshine.  As I look inside the garden of my heart, I see here in a sunny patch, a yellow sunflower that grew from the seed of Betty’s love, still blooming brightly, cheering me on to keep writing and share my heart with the world.   And over there, in the shade, a violet that grew from Uncle Ben’s words of encouragement the last time I saw him is motivating me to keep singing.   And in the pond, the lilies that grew from Carl’s generosity and Karl’s affection are there to remind me that God is always with me even through hard times.   The whole garden is splashed with flowers of many different colors, and in the air I can feel the love that they all represent.  Yes, they are all here, my heroes, still living on in my heart.  And when I visit this garden, I am comforted.

Thank you, my heroes, for letting God use you to make my garden so beautiful!

Following Him

This morning, I heard a song that I haven’t heard in a long time by John Denver called “Follow Me.”   Although John wrote this song for his wife, Annie, inviting her to follow him on the road as a traveling musician, the phrase “Follow me” was also used by Jesus long ago to call his disciples to follow Him.     And I believe He still calls to us today to follow Him.   Hearing this song again made me reflect on my own journey from the time I first knew about Jesus as a very young child till now, 40-something years later.

Over the years, people and religious entities had tried to convince me that by following their beliefs and practices, I would be following Jesus and get closer to God.   They all could pull verses out of the Bible to back their claim (now I see that they would take these verses out of context and totally disregard God’s true nature that I have come to know since then).    I had followed some of these beliefs and practices, and had learned at nearly the cost of my own life that a religious belief system can be just as addictive and destructive to a person as substance abuse.

We are all born with a need to be loved and accepted, a need to feel that we are of worth and important.  God offers to fulfill this need for us through a personal relationship with Him that’s not based on anything we can do, but on His unconditional love for us alone.   Jesus came in the flesh to show us this love.  We don’t have to earn it, we just need to open up our hearts and accept it.   And because it is unconditional, we can never lose it either.  Nothing we can do will ever separate us from God’s love.  Yeah, it really is that good and simple!   But until we respond to His invitation for a relationship based only on His grace, and are changed from inside out by His love, we really won’t understand the simplicity and purity of this unconditional love, and we will forever try to fulfill this need within us through pleasing those whose approval we seek (having our sense of worth go up and down depending on how well we please them); and we will make others earn our approval as well.   We will also be vulnerable to those who want to manipulate and use us–all they have to do is feed our need for love and approval, make us feel important and needed, and they have us right where they want us.   It’s my observation that the fear of rejection and the need for approval are the two strongest tools used by people who want to control other people.

Jesus doesn’t use deception to manipulate you.  He doesn’t use the bait and switch tactics.  He doesn’t lure you to a party and then enslave you to a list of Do’s and Don’t’s.   He said His yoke is easy, His burden is light.  And I’ve found it to really be so!  You simply only have to acknowledge that He exists and invite Him to be a part of your life.  Listen to His quiet voice in your heart, and follow Him where He leads.  Get to know the people that He brings into your life and see them through His eyes.   Love them as He shows you how to love.   Just relax into His unconditional love and acceptance of you, then let your thoughts be challenged by His higher thoughts, and your ways be changed by His better ways.  Before you know it, you have become a vessel of His love to be poured out to others.

Religious people who are still trying to earn God’s approval for themselves will not be able to accept what I had just said in the previous paragraph.  They will say that it’s too simple; that you need to study the Bible, go to church, and do all these “Christian” things in order to grow spiritually.  I can tell you that I have done all that, and I have found that these things won’t do any good at all if you do not have a relationship with Jesus and have a clear understanding of His grace first.  For it is only with that understanding can you begin to learn to see things through His eyes.  Without learning to listen to that voice in your heart, which is His Spirit teaching you and guiding you, you’ll only be following an empty religion, and vulnerable to be indoctrinated by other people into their interpretation of who God is.  And you will feel fine until you fail to perform to the standard of that religion.    You will feel good or bad about yourself depending on your performance.  But in a genuine relationship with Jesus, you can wake up every morning feeling loved just as you are, regardless of your performance.   And you’ll also be able to accept and love others just as they are, regardless of their performance.   That is how Jesus transforms us into His likeness.

Yep!  Following Jesus really is that simple!  The lyrics to this song is very close to what I hear Jesus saying to me everyday:

Follow me where I go;

What I do and who I know;

Make it part of you to be a part of me.

Follow me up and down;

All the way and all around;

Take my hand and say you’ll follow me.

In Memory of Karl

On Friday, June 5, 2009, Karl Moore,  a dear family friend, left his earthly shell for his permanent home with Jesus.    Due to the confinement to time and space, not being able to be in two places at once, I will not be able to attend Karl’s memorial service.   So I am doing my own personal memorial of sort.  Today’s blog is dedicated to Karl.

I still remember the first time my family met Karl in November of 1991.  Paul and I only had 2 young kids then–Gawain had just turned 5, and Tristan was 11 months old.   It was our first visit to a small church in Castro Valley, CA, and as we walked into the foyer, up came this middle-aged man with a broad smile to greet us.  What caught my attention was his tie–it had large, bright pink pigs all over it.  Instantly, I knew I would like Karl!   Over the years that my family had attended that church, one of the things I looked forward to each Sunday morning was seeing what  loud tie Karl would wear to church that day.

Though the loud tie was what caught my attention, what endeared Karl to my heart was his spirit, and the love that he had shown to me and my family.   As a young family trying to make ends meet in CA, the toughest time for Paul and I came on New Year’s eve of 1992, when Paul lost his job.  By this time, we’d added another child to our family– Rebekah, and she was about 3 months old.   For the next 4 months while Paul was still looking for a permanent job, Karl, along with Carl Lazzereschi (another dear family friend who had also gone ahead to be with Jesus) would regularly come to our apartment, each holding two bags of groceries.  Then they would visit with us, offering encouragement and praying with us.  My family and I will never forget the love Karl and his family had shown to us. 

When my family moved from Castro Valley to Salida in 1995, we continued to keep in touch with Karl.   When Karl moved his family out to Modesto about 5 years later, and we also moved to a country property in Modesto, we naturally reconnected and visited each other on a regular basis.   Life was good then.   I can’t remember if we ever told Karl, but our kids had sort of adopted him as their grandpa, and he was helping our kids heal from losing their own grandfather (Paul’s dad) shortly before Karl moved out to Modesto.   The kids (some are not kids anymore now) still remember their visits to Karl’s home, following him around as he proudly showed them his garden, and they especially remember the fruit hedge and grapes! 

But alas, the good times did not last as long as we would have liked.  In January 2002, Chris, Karl’s first wife, passed away.  We walked through that valley of grief with Karl, grateful for an opportunity to be there for him in his time of need, as he had been there for us.   Karl loved to play pinochle, and apparently had a lot of practice during his army days.  Paul and I didn’t have a chance!   Week after week, we would go play pinochle with Karl, and the better he felt, the worse he would beat us. 

Paul and I still remember how much fun we had going fishing with Karl, just parking on the side of the highway and hiking out to the river.   Karl taught me how to grab the catfish just right so they can’t hurt me, whack each of them over the head, then clean and filet them.   Karl wasn’t quite old enough to be my father, but he was certainly one of the men that God had used to help me heal from the absence of a father’s love in my childhood.  About 7 months later, in August of 2002, we were so glad to see Karl coming out of his grief and going to Germany to visit his relatives.   I still remember how happy Karl was to embrace life again, to believe that he could survive without Chris by his side.  Little did we know of the tragedy to come which would take Karl into a valley none of us ever expected to go through.

While in Germany, Karl was riding in a car when it was hit by another car.   The accident was so bad, and Karl’s body was so severely damaged that the doctors had to purposely put Karl in a coma for about 3 months to give his body a chance to heal.    In late December, Karl was flown back to the U.S. in time to be with his family for Christmas, albeit he was still in a hospital, and unable to feel or move much of his body.  We were just glad that he was alive and back with us again.

We visited Karl as often as we could while he was at the rehab center, praying with him, and encouraging him to keep trying to regain his mobility.  Miraculously, Karl healed beyond what the medical professionals ever thought he would, and he was able to go home to continue his healing there.  We continued to visit Karl each week, as he fought the odds to regain the control of the muscles in his body again, and it was so wonderful when Karl regained enough of his upper body control to be able to sit up and beat us soundly in pinochle!    I couldn’t believe how happy I was to lose a game.

In September 2003, my family moved from Modesto, CA to Carmel, IN, but we continued to keep in touch with Karl.  We were delighted to hear about his  progress in physical therapy, getting closer and closer to being able to walk.   And we were so joyous to hear the news that Karl had fallen in love again and getting married to Karen.  We were glad that Karl would not be alone anymore.

In Summer of 2005, my family made a trip back to California to visit our relatives and friends, and of course, we stopped by to see Karl and meet Karen.    I still remember how great I felt to see Karl with Karen, so happy, so full of life, and making the best of things again.

But Karl was also living in constant pain.  He had to take so many pills just for his body to function in the way that healthy people take for granted.   Some people who don’t know Karl would say that he’s lost faith, lost hope, gave up, etc.    But I believe it’s the opposite.  I believe that Karl knew without a doubt that God loves him very much, and that there is a life better than the one we’re living.    It was his faith in what lies beyond that motivated him to stop taking his medication, to refuse medical intervention.   Perhaps there comes a time in a human soul, when the effort of keeping this temporal, malfunctioning body alive just isn’t worth it anymore, and what life there is here just pales in comparison to what lies beyond.  Perhaps at such a time, it makes sense to refuse medical intervention and simply let nature take its course.  Perhaps depression clouded Karl’s judgement and he couldn’t see how very much Karen and his family would miss him, and instead could only see himself as a burden to them.  I don’t know exactly what went on in Karl’s mind.  I only know that once Karl set his mind on something, you’d stand a better chance betting it would snow in Bangkok than persuading him to change his mind.   Some calls this stubbornness, but I prefer to call it steadfastness.  It’s this same steadfastness that carried him through those months of rehabilitation, that urged him on to defy the odds and confounded the medical professionals.  Karl simply set his mind on going to his permanent home instead of staying in this deteriorating one.

Karl, I will miss you, but I am glad that you are not in pain anymore.  And boy, not only can you walk without a cane now, I’ll bet you’re running and dancing!  Oh heck, you’re probably flying!

Don’t forget to reserve a spot for me at the card table.