FAIR MESSAGE

 

Our local county fair—like many—has one building dedicated to the community's agricultural life. We can always count on seeing at least one gargantuan pumpkin, plates of prime vegetables, and brilliantly-hued cut flowers. In past years, there were also displays by local Granges (associations of farmers), showing off their particular area's products and achievements. This year, there were just a handful of displays—perhaps victims of rural attrition and the clampdown of public events from Covid-19. But I had to take a picture of these Grange-sponsored folks who didn't need my reminder to smile. Their sign read, “Pride in the Past.” A smaller one to the side said, “Hope in the future.”

Because of my studies of hymn stories, the signs brought to mind this title: “O God, Our Help in Ages Past.” Sometimes, the historical circumstances behind classic hymns get quite complicated. This one, written by Isaac Watts in 1714, came at a time in English history when people were uneasy about the nation's political future. (Sound familiar?) Watts, a child genius who would write more than 600 hymns (some say as many as 700), had been born himself into a time of political turmoil. His father was imprisoned under the previous regime because of his political views, and his mother would nurse him on the prison steps so his father could could see his baby boy.

Now, another royal was in charge: Queen Anne. But she'd endured poor health all her life. She'd had twelve stillborn children, and five live births. But four of those died before age two and one died at eleven. She would die at 49 with no heirs. By a 1701 rule, she was succeeded by her second cousin, George I. Nobody knew if he'd be as strict and intolerant as previous kings.

In the midst of those politically trying times, Watts turned to Psalm 90 for inspiration: “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations” (v. 1). His quill began scratching the lyrics: “O God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come; Our shelter from the stormy blast, And our eternal home!”

Maybe not “pride” in the past, but faith based on God's faithfulness and trustworthiness. And yes, because He is God, hope in the future. Four hundred years since Watts' hymn, that message hasn't changed. From everlasting to everlasting, He is God (90:2).

When the fair was over, these smiling stuffed folks were either disassembled or taken to somebody's porch for autumn décor. But for whatever smiles they provided the fair's visitors, they offered this message for me. Without God, we're no better than stuffed clothes in a display. With Him, there's truly hope in the future He has planned.

From the fair, go to historic Westminster Abbey in London, for congregational singing of this hymn:

Westminster Abbey - Oh God Our Help in Ages Past (glitch free) - Bing video

GONE

I write at length this week to remember some remarkable friends. God teaches us through wonderful people we have known.

We hadn't driven west of our neighborhood for a while—east is the route that takes us to “town”--and were shocked by a gap just a block west away. An old house in that block was gone—torn down, most of the debris removed, only a derelict “free” refrigerator by the sidewalk. A couple decades ago it had been replanted there by house-movers who lugged it about a mile and a half from a high-profile spot near the town's major health clinic. Now, it was gone.

The symbolism of that neighborhood loss was stark for me, as within days three dear Christian friends died. Gone....to Heaven. But gone from earthly contact. All were role models for me. As I have processed their deaths—correction, their Home-goings—I have reconsidered the words of Moses in Psalm 90 as he anticipated his own death at age 120:

Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom....Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days....May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands. (Psalm 90: 12, 14, 17)

Longtime friends from our church, Al and Georgia Burgener were 95 and 90 when they died within a short time of each other on Sept. 15. Their daughters were with them as the end came in the comforting surroundings of their neat, cared-for home. Al was a worker-bee who lived quietly and diligently. After a career delivering milk, he went to work as a church janitor, serving way into retirement years. He kept their home's yard immaculate, even into this last year—with the concession of hiring out the lawn mowing. He also loved sports and sometimes shared watching games with my husband.

Georgia was the complement to Al's quiet demeanor. Outgoing, social, she made friends wherever she went. Neither she nor Al were Christians when they married. Four daughters came in rapid succession, and in the busyness of mothering Georgia felt her spiritual void. She visited a church—daughters in tow—and had a follow-up visit that led to her accepting Christ as Savior. She kept praying for Al, and in time, he, too, decided to follow Christ. A quiet man, he honored the Lord through his diligence and steadfastness.

As their daughters grew into beautiful, talented teenagers, the boys came around. She insisted that their dates be Christian young men. That meant that some heard her present the “Four Spiritual Laws.” As a result, lives were changed. Some ended up in ministry vocations. Her nest empty, she still impacted her world and growing “grand” family. Her outside-the-home interests—including “senior swims” at the YMCA and a weight-loss group—became platforms for her faith. I remember her joy when one of her swim-partners started coming to church.

I was about a decade older than her daughters, but she still scooped me into her friendship circle after my marriage. She modeled good people skills for me. She also modeled service. When I broke my ankle at a terribly inconvenient time (I was care-giving my mother-in-law, slipping into dementia), Georgia was among those who showed up with beautiful meals to help carry us through the worst of being “laid up.” Later I returned the favor a few times when they went through illness. By her reaction, you would have thought my plain cooking was something a gourmet chef whipped up.

For several years we exchanged the same silly “old-age” birthday card featuring birds known for their longevity. For example, the Algerian condor, 106 years. We'd add an appropriate note each year as we sent it back and forth. Georgia also did something nobody else had done for me: she put on a surprise birthday party for my 65^th birthday. She was 81! But I came to her house to find many dear friends gathered to celebrate me! I cry to even think about it. She'd asked the guests to bring something (like fabric or gift cards) to support my ministry of sewing baby blankets I donated to local hospitals for families in need. Imagine, a party honoring that! In subsequent years, she'd always ask, “How many blankets are you up to?” (I got to 1,400 when she died.)

More important, Georgia prayed. She knew the burdens of my heart. She prayed and checked up on the requests. About two weeks before her death, when Al was struggling to live, I called and asked if we could have a “two minute porch visit.” With Covid concerns (even though we'd both been vaccinated), she sat in a chair on the porch and I had a chair in the walkway. She, the encourager, now needed encouragement. Two minutes went to fifteen. I broke the “no-contact” protocol and hugged her when I left. I had no idea that in the next two weeks a cancer diagnosis and major stroke would end her life. How sweet that Heaven called both the same night.

Three days later, I got word that an incredible friend, Dan Miller, died at 84, his polio-damaged body just worn out. Some thirty years earlier, I heard him speak at a banquet honoring church volunteers, and it was a WOW! event. He was one of the last victims of polio in North Central Washington in 1955, just weeks after he graduated from high school as a decorated athlete. Yet, despite profound disability, he headed for college determined to major in physical education! As he put his dream before his college advisor, the wise man said, “Let's see what you can do.” And Dan did it, becoming (like my husband) an elementary physical education teacher despite significant paralysis. Plus, he taught himself to play guitar (holding it backwards to accommodate his disability) and played in a band. And, later, he got his pilot's license and even flew an ultra light.

Finally, when post-polio problems made his daily school-administrator-role harder and harder, he retired early, transforming his occupation into “inspirational speaker,” sharing through humor and honesty his life story of breaking barriers. Mostly through word-of-mouth, his opportunities exploded over the next twenty years. In more than 1,500 presentations, he spoke to thousands in 44 states and provinces. He had major appearances:

*8,000 at the “Million Dollar Round Table International Conference”

*6,000 at back-to-back services at Schuller's Crystal Cathedral

*12,000 at Gaither's 25^th Praise Gathering in Indianapolis. (Plus, featured in a Gaither Homecoming video.)

*13,500 at two California Christian school teacher conferences

Besides the mega-conferences, there were the smaller gatherings—like my church's “volunteer banquet.” After hearing him, I told my husband, I need to write up his story. Dan and his wife Judy were so gracious in that process, which eventually resulted in articles in major inspirational magazines. Then it went in a “Chicken Soup for the Soul” book. And finally, gathering together our notes, I helped him write his autobiography, Living Laughing and Loving Life. He self-published, selling or giving away an extraordinary 72,000+ copies. (The cover--reflecting Dan's sense of humor--showed his son cradling a fish like a baby and holding a granddaughter like a prize catch.)

Because of the friendship that developed through our interviews and contacts for the articles, it was a natural transition to help him prepare his autobiography—without charge. Asking for pay never was in my plan. I was simply glad to help spread his amazing life message. But Dan and Judy were givers. I needed a newer computer. He gave me his when he upgraded. Then came a traumatic year when we were nearly killed by a drinking driver. A few months later, Dan was speaking in our town and called our home. I was at the hospital with our son, who needed some treatment for his face scars from the wreck. My husband took the call; Dan told him to take me to a certain computer store. While in town, he had picked out a new system for me, paid for it, and told the salesman who to call. I wept over this extravagant gift—a boost to me and to our high school kids as the technological age took hold. For several years, they also sent unexpected/unsought checks of “appreciation”--sharing the blessings of his speaking ministry.

In our life journeys we will encounter difficult people and wonderful people. God knows we need the latter's encouragement. And as we have been blessed, we are in turn to bless others. How grateful I am for these “senior-than-me” folks who lived out in winsome ways the Lord's command to “love one another.”

I miss them. We will meet again. The house has left the lot. There's an empty spot on earth. But there's a new home, in Heaven.

SIGNIFICANCE (Psalm 90)

(A continuing series on the 48 psalms commended for study during times of feeling down, from counselor/pastor David Seamands’ book, Healing for Damaged Emotions.)

Above my kitchen sink is a framed calligraphy of Psalm 90:12, 14, in a refreshing version, prepared and gifted to me by a friend. In his retirement, this smart engineer-type guy took up calligraphy! I knew his wife better, as she was co-leader (with my mother) of a pre-teen girl’s “Horizons Club” (a version of long-ago Camp Fire Girls). Her daughter and I were classmates from grade school through high school, though we went our separate ways after graduation and lost touch. He died in 2004 at age 85, she at the same age two years later. Still, I will never forget their investment in me as one of their “girls” during the awkward adolescent years. I love the simple but beautiful script he chose for these verses:
Our lives are over in a breath.
Teach us to count how few days we have and so gain wisdom of heart.
Let us wake in the morning filled with Your love, and sing and be happy all our days.

LIFE LESSON

“Teach us to number our days aright,” wrote Moses, the psalm’s author, “that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Living to 120, Moses outlived his predictions of typical life span of 70 to 80 years (v. 10). Those years “quickly pass,” he declared. Bible teachers observe that Moses spent the first forty years of his life thinking he was “somebody” (favored adopted royal son). For another forty years, he was a nobody (a criminal refugee in the wilderness). In the third forty, he found out God can do with a nobody (leading thousands upon thousands of former slaves from Egypt to the Promised Land). If we were to review our biographies, how we’d position those age numbers for ourselves would be telling!

Did Moses ever get depressed?  No doubt! Think of his fall from royalty to obscurity when his anger and resulting choice of murder sent him to obscurity amidst baa-ing sheep. Then came a God-task that needed God-enabling-power: the Exodus. Leadership is a lonely place, and mistakes are costly. Moses’ anger cost him the privilege of stepping foot in the Promised Land . The story is in Numbers 20; in reading it, notice the “we” of verse 10.The Israelites were grumbling about no water. God told Moses to speak to a certain rock and He—God—would cause it to burst forth water. Instead, Moses yelled, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water our of this rock?” With that little pronoun, he put himself on the same level as God in bringing about a miracle Then he angrily struck it instead of speaking to it.

LIFE PURPOSE

At life’s end, Moses had to just look across the horizon to Canaan, realizing that for all his labor in leading the unruly refugees, he would not enter it. Sometimes we don’t know why certain things we feel we deserved are kept from us, but we need to trust the wisdom and love of God for what we lack in this life. As sinful humans, we pack a lot of “entitlements.” Our consumer culture doesn’t help. We want more, and more. Moses’ attitude adjustment comes in verses 14-15:

Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.  Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble.

Many mornings my “quiet time” is tear-soaked as I pray for difficult situations and people in my life. I want things solved, not to drag on and on. But my husband keeps reminding me that I can’t fix the world.  Only Jesus can. I’m just to do the best I can with the abilities and opportunities God has put before me. My “significance” is measured in a different way when life is done. Thus I pray with Moses:

May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands. (v. 17)

Should old acquaintance be forgot...

Yes, that's me in the upper-right corner, in 1965.

Growing older has its advantages, like senior coffee at McDonald’s and senior discounts at various stores. (For some reason, our “Senior Center Thrift Store” doesn’t have senior discounts. Hmm.) This year I reached another “senior event” about which I had mixed feelings: my fiftieth high school reunion. In 1965 I was among 460 teenagers graduating from Puyallup High School on the west side of Washington state.

 I gave my high school years my best effort, graduating in the top twelve academically. The class “brain,” no surprise, got a doctorate from Yale. (Two B’s in physical education kept me from a 4.0.  I married a physical education teacher. Go figure.) A decade after high school, the many friends who penned in my annual that they’d remember me forever had shrunk to two who sent Christmas greetings for a few years. In those decades before social media, if you didn’t write, call, or get together, friendships tended to fizzle, especially if you moved away from the core community of graduates.   

When the invitation came, I debated over spending $100 a couple for the event at a local casino (presuming drinks and dancing were part of the plan). The strongest drinks in our house are Pepsi or morning-blend coffee. I’ve only done “happy dancing” when I got a book contract in the mail.  My “gambling” is taking a risk on pull-date yogurt from the local discount grocery.  Plus, the reunion was scheduled for our wedding anniversary, and a three-hour drive away. I decided to stay home.

The organizers were doing a “reunion annual” and invited class members to submit a “bio” telling what they had done since high school. Not surprisingly, the student body president became a doctor and the football star spent his life in construction. Many wrote of buying big boats and RVs for retirement. Some had seen the world in military service. One taught in Japan for 26 years. Another spent more than forty years in public relations and lobbying across the nation in Washington, D.C.

 A classmate I didn’t remember earned a doctorate in gerontology and conducted 2,000 workshops in places like Thailand, China, Northern Marianas, Guam and Canada. Oh yes, she also volunteered in Mongolia, trekked with gorillas in Rwanda, and horse-camped in Turkey. Another classmate, to her doctor’s amazement, survived brain cancer.  But the last page held names of 67 members who’d passed away—15% of the class. Some guys may have lost their lives in the Vietnam War. Even 50 years later, without going to our original annual, I could recall their faces

Our daily treks through the wood-floored halls of an old school had united us. But our life choices had separated us.  So had our spiritual choices. I considered going to the reunion for the opportunity to tell what Christ had done for me. But the celebration venue didn’t really lend itself to that. Instead, in my “reunion annual bio” I mentioned that a certain Bible verse had been my life guide.

I know of people who used alumni connections to the glory of God. One from my husband’s high school class went away to West Point and a distinguished military career. But upon retiring to his hometown, he contacted fellow alumni and invited them to participate in a monthly E-mailed prayer request list.

The “golden class reunion” did take me one place, to Psalm 90, attributed to Moses. Two verses especially seemed appropriate for perspective on milestones:

Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom (v. 12)
May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands. (v. 17)

No social event can compete with what’s ahead for those who have trusted Christ. The heavenly “graduation” will surpass it all!

Making 'Psense' of Psalms--Psalm 90: Lifespan

 Part of an ongoing series on selected psalms.

I pondered a blip of punctuation, the hyphen, as I wandered among graves at a small cemetery where many of my husband’s relatives are buried. Perched between birth and death dates, that hyphen represents the brevity of life. As expressed in a couplet found on many plaques, “Only one life, ‘twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last.”  The quote’s author was C.T. Studd (1860-1931), who left stardom in England’s cricket-playing circles for sacrificial years of missionary work in China, India and Africa.

A similar message comes from Moses, whom most believe wrote Psalm 90. Scripture records two other songs by him. One was a victory song after the Red Sea swallowed up Pharaoh’s army (Exodus 15:1-18). The other was his “farewell sermon” before ascending Mount Nebo to die (Deuteronomy 32:1-43). Scholars suggest he wrote this reflective psalm about the time of incidents recorded in Numbers 20. His sister and brother died, and God barred Moses from entering the Promised Land for dishonoring God in a water-from-the-rock episode. Those circumstances left Moses keenly aware of mortality and of the short lifespan allotted to do God’s work.

Psalm 90 opens with the grand expanses of time known to God:

Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
Eternity is “forever backward” and “forever forward.” Our lives are but tiny dots on this infinite timeline, but God is its entire, unfathomable existence. God had no beginning and has no ending. He is our “dwelling place” or security. As Moses also said in Deuteronomy 33:27, “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.”

 TO DUST.... (vv. 3-6)

“You turn men back to dust,” says Psalm 90:3. One morning my vacuum cleaner gave up in a burst of toxic fumes. I suspected it was beyond repair, so I was an easy target for a call offering me a “free rug cleaning” for learning about “a comprehensive vacuum system.” The cleaning consisted of a misting of spray, then vacuuming by the demonstration machine—after more than two hours of sales pressure. That included shaming me as a housekeeper by vacuuming the top of my mattress, which yielded  a thick haze of dust mite debris on his pristine demonstration filter. The truth is that all mattresses get these tiny, dead-skin-munching visitors over time. (Note I said “mites,” not “bed bugs,” a different and vicious problem.) I didn’t buy his super-deluxe and overpriced vacuum, but I’ll never forget that “dead-bug dust.” On the bigger scale, these bodies that we pamper at such great expense, at the end, also return to “dust.” The mighty end up like mites. Our earthly existence is temporary. We’re like fresh morning grass in the thin Palestinian soil, burnt quickly the same day by the merciless sun.

THE BAD NEWS (vv. 7-12)

Sin offends a holy God. The first sin brought the ongoing penalty of death. God knows all our sins, public and private (“our secret sins,” v. 8). Though Moses lived to 120, the typical life span was 70 to 80 years, and still is. Because of sin, we suffer the death of dreams, relationships, plans and finally health.

In 1975, Natalie Babbitt published a children’s novel titled Tuck Everlasting. The main characters were a family who had discovered the “fountain of youth” and would never die. But because others around them did die, immortality wasn’t all that great. They realized they’d experience the world’s brokenness forever, unable to get away from it. Here’s where the New Testament answers the sorrow of the Old.  When Jesus came, He said, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25-26). Believing in Him and His promise of eternal life will make immortality in Heaven a real and wonderful thing. In the meantime, we have work to do: “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (v. 12).

THE HOPEFUL NEWS (vv. 13-17)

In the mid-1980s, an older friend gave me calligraphy he had done of Psalm 90:12, 14 from the 1966 Jerusalem Bible translation. It hangs above my kitchen sink, reminding me daily of its truths:
Our lives are over in a breath.  Teach us to count how few days we have and so gain wisdom of heart.  Let us wake in the morning filled with your love and sing and be happy all our days.
Psalm 90’s closing section is an appeal for God’s mercy in the short time we do have on earth. Every day is a gift. Even though the days, months, and years may bring their share of sorrows, God intends that we grow through them and beyond them. Moses was bold enough to ask God to allow the bad times to be balanced by the good: “Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble” (v. 15).

When I am around people whose conversation dwells on the past or on their difficulties, I feel dragged out. We can’t undo the past, but we can go forward with God into a fresh future. Our trust in God can encourage others to do likewise, and is a testimony to the generation behind us: “May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children” (v. 16). Notice the phrase, “sing and be happy”? Indeed! Singing happy and worshipful songs lifts the spirits.  One suggestion: the classic 1719 hymn by Issac Watts that paraphrases Psalm 90, “O God, Our Help in Ages Past.”

JOB EVALUATION (v. 17)

Employment typically involves a regular “evaluation,” in which a superior tells the employee what’s been done well and what needs improvement. The “evaluation” of our whole lives is still ahead, and will take place in Heaven before God. The psalm ends with a reminder that life is so short that we dare not throw away our skills and opportunities, particularly those which draw others to the Lord Jesus. Moses concludes:
May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands.
The word “favor” in Hebrew is noam, which also translates “beauty” or “delight.” Derek Kidner, known for the Hebrew scholarship in his commentaries, preferred “delight.”

God, who crafted us--weak humans that we are--does delight in seeing us do what He originally intended, and that’s to bring Him glory through the skills He gave us. Doing so will lead, at the end of this short life, to the “well done” from the Master (Matthew 25:21, 23). As often said, we’re saved not just to “get to heaven,” but to serve well until we get there. Or, as Ray Waddle remarked in

A Turbulent Peace (Upper Room, 2003, p. 110): “Knowing the inevitability of death brings zest to life.” Time’s short: live it for God. One life: live it right.

Next; Psalm 91

This fragile grass

My husband is a substitute teacher, and one recent snowy day he went to the tiny rural school at Palisades, about a 40-minute drive from here. It’s at the end of a narrow coulee carved long ago in the Ice Age. Part of the coulee has been scrubbed of sagebrush for alfalfa fields and orchards. Coming home from teaching, he passed dozens of deer foraging where they could. Going back up there the other day, we counted probably five dozen, chewing what they could out of the frozen turf.

I’d been thinking a lot about Psalm 90 recently, and those hungry deer reminded me of verse 5: “You sweep men away in the sleep of death; they are like the new grass of the morning—though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered.”

Talk about a downer verse! A little background may help. This is the only song by Moses included in the book of Psalms. Though he wrote other songs (like the epic one in Deuteronomy 32), this one must have been significant enough to pick for an ancient hymnal largely featuring the songs of King David.

We’re not told when he wrote it, but I imagine it was near the end of his life as the Israelites finished forty years of wandering before entering the Promised Land. Moses wouldn’t go with them, a consequence of dishonoring God with a temper tantrum at Meribah (Numbers 20). Plus, as judgment on unbelief and cowardice after spies checked out Canaan, all but two who left Egypt (the believing spies, Joshua and Caleb) would miss out on the Promised Land. Thousands of graves dotted the landscape of their wanderings around the Sinai. Now only descendants remained.

If I were in Moses’ sandals, I probably would have said this, too: “All our days pass away under your wrath: we finish our years with a moan” (v. 9).

Psalm 90 has been on my mind in part because of people we care about “finishing their years.” In some cases, it’s been when they’re too young¸ like a talented violinist who befriended my daughter at college. She married a widower with child, had two more children with him, and is now gone in her thirties—of colon cancer. A friend our age is slipping away with ALS. Another couple we know nearly lost their son to a dying heart until a heart transplant gave him extra years. He married, and last week his wife (age 36) had her life turned upside down by strokes.

Three weeks ago I helped an older friend with Alzheimer’s navigate the curb to a car; her funeral is Friday. This week someone died as a result of an accident barely a block away in early December. I remember coming home at dusk after my walk and seeing the red lights of emergency vehicles just beyond my street. A 79-year-old man who lived alone in a little cottage was struck when he jay-walked across the street. He was walking home from the grocery store, as he had done hundreds of times—sometimes nodding to my “hi” when we passed. The police markers of where he landed reminded me how life can change in an instant. I could sing a duet with Moses: “Relent, O Lord! How long will it be? Have compassion on your servants!” (v. 13).

Psalm 90 has this discouraging “you-live-and-then-you-die” tone to it—unless you hear the “Hallelujah Chorus” ringing behind stanzas like this: “Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days” (v. 14). In this I hear echoes of the Westminster confession: “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”

Moses would have had a different song if he knew what we now know: that Jesus changes things. And that includes death. Our earthly bodies may be as grass, vulnerable to the day’s heat and dryness (or to the nibbling of starved deer). But Christ has “destroyed death and has brought life and immorality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10). We have the assurance that “to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21) and being with Him in Heaven will be better by far (v. 23).

Moses almost got it all correct. “May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us,” he wrote (90:17)—and indeed it does, for those who believe in Christ, and who express that through growing love and service in His name, for however many days allotted on this planet. And then, for God’s children—better by far!

Vaporized

It happened here in my kitchen--a reminder that life is brief.

A few Saturday mornings ago, I opened my E-mail and discovered a writing friend from long ago was coming through the middle of the state. Could they swing by, about noon that day, so she could see me? We’d met at the Mount Hermon Christian Writers conference the year she was honored as its outstanding new writer. She has several books behind her now plus speaking here and abroad.

Noon…that calls for lunch. I decided chef’s salad would be a good choice, especially since we were having a mini-yard sale. I put four eggs on to boil and set the timer for twenty minutes, taking it with me to my writing corner.

About fifteen minutes later I smelled something bad and followed my hunch to the kitchen. While the eggs were happily rolling in boiling water, the red-hot burner had melted a hole in a plastic container of Stevia, a natural sugar substitute, sitting about six inches away. Stevia had poured out of a half-inch hole and headed right to the burner.

While I pulled away the mess with a damp cloth, I realized I was feeling very, very sick. After opening windows and turning on fans, I went outside for fresh air. Soon, my husband came in and discovered my mess and me sick. He called the Poison Control Center and they researched Stevia. It’s a plant sugar, so shouldn’t be toxic. But I took to bed by an open window like a lady of old on her fainting couch.

I was still pretty puny by the time my friend and her husband arrived. They’d gotten plenty of fresh air en route…on his motorcycle. As they pulled off chaps and got alerted to my “incident” (which really seemed insignificant...burnt sugar?) she graciously came in the kitchen and helped me pull together a salad. By then the odors had dissipated.

Later, I mentioned my feeling so silly about my cooking incident to my daughter…who mentioned it to her husband…who asked, “Was it odors from the melted plastic?” That seemed far-fetched until I did a little search on the ‘net and came across dire warnings about a toxic substance called dioxin released by burning plastic. So maybe there was a real reason I got so sick….

But the bigger perspective? I have it above my sink, just an arm’s length away from the stove, There I hung some calligraphy done years ago for me by the husband of my girlhood Camp Fire leader. (We’re talking ancient history.) Using a translation he especially appreciated, he chose an old-style alphabet for this from Psalm 90: “Our lives are over in a breath; Teach us to count how few days we have and so grain wisdom of heart. Let us wake in the morning filled with Your love and sing and be happy all our days.”

Tonight I speak to convicted drunk drivers, something I do every month as part of my “giving back” after surviving being hit by a drinking driver in 1997. That night, my life could have been over in a breath. I also realize how few days we have in eternity’s perspective. None of us can presume to live to old age. The time to love God and others is now.

How can I put a sweet ending on this? Well, it did involve “sugar,” or at least a sugar substitute! And trust me, it no longer sits on the stove where it was so handy to add to a cup of java. One time of being a dizzy graying brunette is enough. And by the way, my friend’s signature book and speaking topic is rising above your fears. Is that a funny coincidence, or what!