Standing Propped Up In The Need of Prayer

The call came at ten fifteen as I was walking down the hall headed towards the bedroom. It had been a busy day filled with a board retreat in our home, a run to Smiley Parker’s Feed and Seed to pick up fertilizer for the hay fields and feed for the horses and cows, and all the usual farm chores. I was tired from getting the house and yard ready for the retreat and a night of sleep, sweet sleep, beckoned me. It was not to be.
Tina’s voice was weak and frail sounding. She is in the hospital for complications from dialysis and is struggling. Yesterday she endured a heart catheterization, a needle in her chest to draw off fluid around her heart and dialysis. Vince, her husband, is having recurring pain in his leg from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He needed to go home to his bed, take his medicine and sleep.
As I drove through the quiet dark night, I marveled at our friendship with Vince and Tina. Vince was one of our main carpenters for the house we built here on the farm. He took great delight in fashioning wooden shiplap board walls and creating the cutout slat pattern for the front porch rails. Tina, raised hard and turned out cranky, is dear and tender underneath. She makes the best buttermilk cornbread I have ever eaten. Last night she needed a skin face for God and I was tagged It.
Hurting and afraid, she began talking as soon as I entered the room. “Tell me about our grandbabies”,she said. So I did. I told every story from this past week as she sat on the side of the bed resting her back. Aidan’s new girl friend Rory, Mason’s learning his letters and numbers, Mead sitting on the potty, Matthew going to his first lock in at church...As a final flourish I added the story of Jacob, a once upon a time grandchild of mine, peeing on his head at school... accidentally, of course. All though, knowing Jacob, it could have been accidentally on purpose. Then she began to talk and talk she did until two in the morning. We talked about spring, good weather coming, gardens to plant, fishing with the grandbabies, moving up the hill away from all the construction confusion and dust at the bridges, good friends, and life in the hard places. The pain pill came at two and by two thirty she was asleep so I slipped out and drove home to my bed.
Courage and grace come in the strangest packages sometimes. There she lay, tired and hurting and afraid of “passing out”, a salty dog of a woman, in her suffering transformed into creature of gratitude and grace. She thanked me for coming. No thanks were needed but I did tell her I would take a pan of cornbread when she got home.
All of us live on the edge. We live with the illusion of having our lives under control and that is what it is, an illusion. Our need for one another, our inability to manage alone in time of great sorrow or illness, mirrors our need for God. None of us stands on our own two feet. We are always propped up by others and ultimately, held up by God’s presence. It is easier to know our frailty and utter dependence when we are laid up or knocked down. Whether we choose to name it or not, to claim it or not, all of us will be laid low at some point(s) in our lives. That time of suffering, of absolute inability to manage, can be a holy time, a time to choose to let others care for us. The spiritual got it right... we all are standing in the need of prayer.
Tina kept saying, “You don’t know how bad it feels not to be able to do for yourself, Peggy.” The truth of the matter is I do know. I haven’t been laid low by physical suffering, yet, but I have stood in need, propped up by friends and family during dark hours of sorrow and depression. It is hard not to be able to do for yourself but it is also a great gift. In the dark quiet echoing silence of the soul when the body plumb gives out, you can hear the footsteps of God coming to you. Skin faces of God in the faces of friends and family surrounding you, propping you up, holding you in the Arms of Love until you are able to stand once again, infinitely grateful for the Love the will not let you go. When my time comes to face physical limitations, I hope I will be clarified and cleansed, transformed into a creature of graceful acceptance, my hard crunchy heart softened by need, keeping my face turned towards God and my soul rising up towards home. May it be so, Lord, please, for Tina and for me?

Down to the river to pray...

There it was in my dream, the river, much as I remember it from my childhood. Dark brown clear flowing water with old water oaks leaning over the banks, Spanish moss flung over the branches like gray scarves draped just so, white sand bars, fish that come to nibble the hairs on your legs if you stand still, and the hot still air that cools as you walk down the steep bank to stick your toes in the cool water...
The Withlacoochee River was our summer playground, fishing hole, baptismal pool and the coolest place we could find on South Georgia hot summer days in the Time Before Air Conditioning. We lived only a mile from the river, the boundary between Florida and Georgia. Often after chores were done on Saturday, we would flee to the river for its comfort, carrying a picnic supper. I learned to swim, sort of, in its flowing current. The closest I came to death was launching out in my timid dog paddle way, swimming to impress my daddy, losing my footing and going under two or three times. I carry a vivid memory of the circle of blue sky in the midst of the brown water as I slipped under and under and under again... peaceful image in the midst of great fear. And there the river was, again, in my dream last night.
It has been a hectic week, a week of contrasts, decisions and pain. Sunday afternoon I wrenched my knee badly when I fell from Dixie Chick. Tim, Bill and I spent all day Monday in the lawyer’s office, my leg elevated on various pieces of furniture, trying to reach a mediated agreement on our pond repair. Mama and I spent most of Tuesday sitting in the doctor’s office waiting to be seen. It is a simple sprain, painful and a pain to live with but nothing that time won’t heal. Wednesday I taught one class. Thursday I had two three hour classes. Friday I carried my neighbor to the hospital and sat with her and her husband for the morning. Saturday I finally made it to the grocery store, the feed store and Rose’s. In between all the activity, I lay around with ice packs on my knee. My house is a wreck, a dirty wreck, with piles of all sorts decorating every available flat surface and church meets here this morning. I needed the river.
In my dream last night, I was driving the geezermobile down the old blacktop faded gray by the hot summer sun. Instead of turning at the beer joint on the state line, I drove a little further and turned left at the white church trimmed in red. As I drove by the river, I could see fish jumping for joy, smell the sweet hot smells of dirt road and river and trees and moss. Like the fish, my heart soul leaped for joy and all was well. And there it was... a piece of the river flowed over the road, unseen depths, road going in one side and coming out the other. I knew others had crossed over because there were houses and people on the other side. Unknown depth, unknown risk, could the geezermobile (and I) make it through the water to the other side? I got out of the car and stood there yearning to cross over but afraid to try... blue circle in dark brown water time. I woke before I could decide and lay in bed pondering the meaning feeling of my dream.
Lent is my river these forty days and I have been standing on the banks wanting to get wet. The hectic events of this past week have kept me dry. It is time to drive the geezermobile down into the water to pray, let the brown clear rushing waters wash over me and rinse my soul out. Let the water carry all the dust and grime accumulated this past year away leaving me washed whiter than snow. It will be over my head and I risk losing my life to save it but that is what Jesus said we must do. So here goes... holding my nose in case I go under, I am wading into the unknown depths of the river, praying. It is well with my soul...