A few weeks back, a sister-friend said her final goodbyes to her husband, so we have been talking every day. It is a good thing that long distance calls don’t charge by the minute anymore. Like all long winded women, we eventually, let the conversation evolve to the practicalities of this new life for her. When the subject rolled around to how long it takes to downsize a house, I told her that it took a good month to downsize my OH home, but it took me a year and a half to clean out my mom’s house. She got quiet and started to cry. Needless to say, I felt bad. I reminded her that our parents were different critters. They had lived through the Great Depression, wars, floods, droughts and times when the pickings were lean in the pantries. She sniffled and said, “I know” and then added it only took her a month to clean out her mother’s house, but then she exclaimed, “…but you know I love my holiday decorations and books”.
Oh yeah, I did know that. She was a hoarder just like my mom, so then we spent time making a plan. She called on family and friends to help her get started, and today she is well on her way to having half of it sorted into piles to keep, sell, or give away. Best news, the house is almost ready to go on the market. She is tired, but definitely making headway into this new portion of her life journey.
We talked a lot about our parents these past few weeks. They were the “Depression Babies”. My mom and dad kept and re-used everything until it wore out. There were old canning jars hanging from the ceiling of our basement – jars full of every kind of nail, screw, bolt, nut and miscellaneous that can be imagined. Dad would put a nail or screw through the lid, and then just screw the jar of “whatever” so he knew right where it was. Mom had her own share of jars and containers full of buttons, material, yarn, aluminum foil, etc. ….. and I still have some of them on my shelves …. including some from my Grandma Mac.
Between the two of them – there were books and magazines everywhere. With no copy machines handy, they kept or clipped articles to be used later. Mom would often send many of her finds through the mail to friends or with special cards for anniversaries, births, deaths or Christmas. Dad’s were mostly things that he would use for the American Legion production that he and mom were always a part of in our small town or for the Dale Carnegie course or Masonic meetings. Worse – they stuffed things in every nook and cranny of those magazines and books – including money.
It took a looooonnnng time to clean out. Then again, part of it was my own fault, because I would get caught up in reading the quotes, the poetry they wrote to each other, letters they wrote to family members and each other during WWII, short journal entries of something that happened or sometimes, just the tally of monthly expenses with a short prayer written beside it.
So much of it that reflected their worldview and the Rock on which they chose to stand throughout their lives.
“Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
As I read through the journals, I wondered again if I should keep them. Photos were mixed in here and there. Mom’s drawings of different things that she just felt the need to draw (she had wanted to be an artist before she got married). Poems that my dad wrote her. Awhile back my brother and I got rid of most of their letters, but I did keep a couple that I put in the book of photos that I have put together of their lives. I doubt that my kids will find any of the multiple journals/notebooks interesting – and yet, I can’t make myself remove the bulk of them from my shelves.
It is not the photos or drawings that slow me down as much as the words. Words that reflected their fears, their joys, their busyness, their pain, and most of all – their faith. In the spaces of the words, I see their faces and hear their voices in my head and thank GOD that their feet were not misguided and their steps were secure as they taught me. They set a fantastic example for a kid who didn’t always listen so well.
“The Jewish rabbis have a quaint way of expressing this very idea: they say that they will not understand the Scriptures until the Messiah comes. But when He comes, He will not only interpret each of the passages for us, He will interpret the very words; He will even interpret the very letters themselves; in fact, He will even interpret the spaces between the letters!”
Pastor Chuck Missler, 1996
It is in those tiny spaces of Holy Scripture – those tiny spaces between the words and even the letters where faith truly begins to be guided or misguided – those tiny spaces where each individual worldview is shaped and molded. Like my parents’ writings, if we spend time with His words, we are able to see His face and hear His voice of the One who spoke life into them on earth and continues to speak life into them every time we read them. It is how the Holy Spirit is able to highlight just exactly the right verse when we need to see it. Yeshua Ha’Mashiach speaks it anew in those tiny spaces and reshapes our world so that we view it in a new way.
Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.”
Revelations 21:5
#latterdays #rapture #Hedrawethnigh
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