On Hope and Wisdom and Fathers

My father was a deeply intellectual and profoundly faithful Christian man. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease when I was twelve . . . retired from teaching when I was fifteen . . . was in a nursing home when I was twenty-one.

Which means that by the time I was old enough to recognize the wisdom I wanted to glean from him, it was no longer there for the gleaning.

This has been a regret of mine. I have several times over the years mourned the lost lessons I could have learned from my father. This week is one of those times. Today, I wish I could ask my father this question:

How do you maintain hope?

My father had very high expectations and strict morals. I remember him telling me, with disgust, about the students in his college years who attended school dances -- such things were quite inappropriate, in his mind. I can only imagine the horror he felt at the moral decay he saw happening as a professor on his college campus during the 60s.

He was a naval officer in the Pacific in World War II. I can only imagine the frustration he felt at the anti-war protests of the 60s and 70s.

And I specifically remember his spitting out the label "crook"  when referring to Richard Nixon.

Between the sexual revolution, government corruption, civil rights violence, and Vietnam, it had to feel to him like the country was imploding. Going to hell in a handbasket.

Just like it feels to me now.

How do you maintain hope, Dad?

Intellectually, I can know God is in control. I can know that the country has been through worse and survived. I can know that God's plan and purpose are bigger than our country.

But I'm tired of feeling sad and hopeless.

Did Dad feel like God was judging the nation, like I feel? Did he cry out to God for mercy for a people who never deserved the grace He has shown them, like I do? Did he sit and think that there must be something to be done . . . something he could do . . . some answer to the crises . . . and feel lost when no answer came to him but pray, love, pray, speak truth, pray, pray, pray . . .

. . . like I do?

We need wise fathers today. Wise mothers. God grant us mercy, and grant us wise fathers and mothers. And grants us ears to hear them.

Conquering My Fear. Kind Of.

Root canal.

Are you quaking in your boots? The term epitomizes a horrible experience – how many times have you heard someone say, "I'd rather have a root canal than blah blah blah . . . "

I've had some pretty awful dental experiences in my past. I have terrible memories of my mother holding me down in the dentist's office while they tried to pull three stubborn teeth that weren't coming out on their own. It took hours. They would get one out and we'd all take a break before starting in on the other. And the main problem was that nobody believed me when I said I could still feel all this!!

I finally got a dentist in Hutchinson who told me that when I get nervous, my adrenaline neutralizes the novocaine.  He had to give me two or three times as much as his other patients to keep me numb. Finally! Someone who believed me! He recommended, when I moved, that I never again settle for any dentist who wouldn't give me enough meds to really numb me.

And I haven't. Dr. Ringler empowered me. When my first dentist in New Jersey sat back disgusted at my continual yelps while he tried to drill in my mouth and said, "Well, just what exactly do you want me to DO for you?" I left and found another dentist. (I wish I'd said to him, "I want you to stop patronizing me like I'm a child who doesn't know the difference between pain and pressure!!" But I didn't have quite that much courage yet. Walking out was a big enough deal at the time.)

So, surely it's understandable how scared I was going to see an endodontist last week for a scan to see what needed to be done with tooth #21. And surely you can sympathize when he said "root canal and surgical procedure" . . . and that he could do the procedure right then . . . and I started to freak out internally.

Because I knew I should do it. It had to be done or I'd lose the tooth (which is an option I considered, believe me, but they said that would be even more painful and expensive). I was on spring break, so I had no reason not to just get it done immediately. If I waited, I would just work myself up into more of a panic about it. Better to get it over with.

But I started to cry when I told the endodontist to go ahead. And I was embarrassed at my tears. Forty-seven-year-old woman! The tears just came – I couldn't stop them. I couldn't believe how terrified I was of the potential pain.

The procedure ended up taking forty-five minutes longer than they said because an instrument broke off inside my mouth and they had trouble getting it out (good grief – that WOULD happen to me). Fortunately, I was on nitrous oxide and completely oblivious. Gotta love nitrous oxide.

The good news? I didn't even hurt the next morning. Hallelujah, Thine the glory.

The bad news? A week later, I'm hurting and my gums are swollen. Gotta call the endodontist about that. Ugh.

The worst news? My bill. Good grief.

On Coughing and Praising

Although I feel like I've been blessed with generally pretty good health, I have two chronic problems that have plagued me for years. One is the sleep stuff that I'm sure you're all tired of hearing about. The second is that when I get a cold, the cough settles in my lungs and makes my life hell for weeks. Doctors have tried inhalers, all sorts of drugs . . . nothing helps. It's awful.

And after a week of a normal-person-common-cold, I have my cough again. I'm miserable. But a comment from someone in my BSF group is giving me a different perspective on it.

We studied the fourth chapter of Revelation last week. This is the first part of the vision John has, and it is all about the throne of God. The majesty of it. His awesomeness and splendor. There are living creatures and twenty-four elders (the details of all them I don't get, but it doesn't matter) surrounding His throne and worshiping Him day and night.

[Sidenote: Some people have said that heaven sounds boring, doing nothing but worshiping all day. But you know, I'm not convinced that we have nothing to do there but to stare at God and be awed by Him. I think we'll have plenty to do – scripture talks about us ruling with him (what that means exactly, I'm not sure, but it sounds pretty active). I suspect that this vision of John's is a piece of figurative imagery for us: "rejoicing in the Lord always", "praying continually" . . . that constant attitude of worship that we are called to be in even here on earth. In heaven, we won't be hindered anymore by our sinful, fleshly natures and that worship will come naturally. And won't that be wonderful?]

But back to my friend's comments. She told us how it hit her that, when the attacks happened in Paris, nobody in heaven suddenly stopped and looked and said, "Whoa, God . . . what's going on here?" No, they continued to worship – day and night, just like always. Because what happened in Paris was not a shock to anyone up there like it was to us. They know what we don't know. They see the big picture. They see what's happening on a macro-level and on a micro-level with all this chaos and tragedy and they know that it is all under God's control . . . it is all working toward His grand and glorious conclusion . . .  and they know that even in the midst of this, He is still worthy of all praise.

Now, it's not like I didn't know that in my head. But somehow, it penetrated my heart this week. And I needed that.

If God is working through even the tragedy and sin of terrorism to accomplish His will, what up with my whining about a cough? Like God isn't bigger than that? Like my irritated lung tissue is suddenly evidence of His negligence and impotence and lack of compassion? Like He clearly doesn't know what He's doing if He isn't going to stop this cough?

So, I'm coughing and praising. As best I can. Lord, I believe . . . help my unbelief.

Not Really Anxious . . .

Uneasiness. Not really anxiety or fear . . . maybe stressed, but not on the extreme end. I just find myself with a general sense of uneasiness all of a sudden. Sometimes after I think of something I need to do, but sometimes it's just out of nowhere.

It's reminding me of my history with depression. Back when I was working on my master's in counseling, I read some studies that gave me insight into my own depression problems. You see, I would, sometimes out of nowhere, have this kind of blue feeling. (Our emotions, you know, are actually feelings, something we physically feel in our bodies.) I would feel down, my body would be dragging, my thinking would be slowed, and I would say to myself, "I'm depressed. Why am I depressed?"

Well, friends, if you start looking for reasons in your life to be depressed, you're bound to find one. I'm so unfulfilled in my work! My husband just doesn't understand me! You'll find something. So I would find something (or several somethings) and then obsess about that something until I had cranked that little blue feeling up into a full-blown depressive episode.

But I started to realize that those little blue feelings often had nothing to do with sadness really. There were all sorts of other reasons why my body would create those physical sensations that my brain interpreted as depression. As I've mentioned before, I'm a sugar/carb addict and have been for years; coming down off of a sugar high gives you that blue feeling. I've had sleep problems for most of my life, as many of you know; sleep deprivation most certainly slows your body down and gives you that blue feeling. I'm kind of right on the line between an introvert and an extravert, so too much time surrounded by people OR too much time isolated by myself can both lead to that blue feeling.

In other words, I had to train myself to think correctly about my body and my situation; just because my body feels this way doesn't mean I have a reason to be sad. I usually don't. And even when I do have a reason, that doesn't mean I have to be sad. I can choose to think differently.

I've been trying to apply this to my general uneasiness of late. Yes, I have a lot going on in my life. Yes, my workload has increased and I haven't yet been able to figure out how I'm going to manage that well for the long-term.

But I always do figure those things out. I have a good support system in my family, and nothing is out of control here. I have no reason to feel anxious. This is just my body being wonky.

Now, why my body is being wonky is a good question. My youngest has been having what looks to me like similar symptoms for a couple months. And my oldest has a long history of anxiety. I suppose there's possibly a chemical reason for this, too. (I've concluded that, for whatever reason, my depression setting is a bit lower than most; I start further down than the average Josie, so it's a shorter fall for me to get to the bottom of the pit. Maybe something similar is involved with the anxiety.)

So, this is the new frontier to explore in my family: what's causing this jitteriness inside? Because while I can manage this, my girls seem to struggle more than I, which breaks my heart. And we may as well do the Barney Fife thing and nip it -- nip it in the bud.