He Maketh No Mistake

We have been dealing with some less-than-happy family news in recent days, and I've returned to my personal "Book of Comforts" for precious reminders. Since I know that trials are common to all humans, I just thought I'd share this one in a more public way. Whatever you are facing, I hope it brings comfort. It came to me via a beloved aunt who graduated to heaven (because of breast cancer) long, long, ago. She had lost a teenage child (my cousin) and knew great sorrow. The poem still comforts me, as does her memory.        

He Maketh No Mistake

by A.M. Overton

My Father's way may twist and turn,

My heart may throb and ache,

But in my soul I'm glad I know,

He maketh no mistake.

My cherished plans may go astray,

My hopes may fade away,

But still I'll trust my Lord to lead

For He doth know the way.

Tho' night be dark and it may seem

That day will never break;

I'll pin my faith, my all in Him,

He maketh no mistake.

There's so much now I cannot see,

My eyesight's far too dim;

But come what may, I'll simply trust

And leave it all to Him.

For by and by the mist will lift

And plain it all He'll make.

Through all the way, tho' dark to me,

He made not one mistake.

My Dad

Cecil Grayson Irvin graduated to heaven in 1996. 

I wrote this tribute as a Father's Day gift to him in about 1983.

Just before he died, he promised to meet me just inside the gate.

The older I get, the more I look forward to that day. 

I know he'll be there. 

Daddy was a man of honor. 

He always kept his word. 

            My Dad is a tall, slender man (“Slim” the guys at work used to call him) with gentle blue eyes and slightly rounded shoulder caused, I am sure, by years of bending his 6’5” frame to catch the words of those shorter than he.

            Of course I can’t remember it, but the family tells of Dad teaching me to walk by standing me on the toes of his shoes as he walked backwards.

            I remember as a child waiting excitedly for the car to pull up in the drive when he returned from his over-the-road trucking job. He would unfold his tall frame from the driver’s seat and put on the brown cap that matched his driver’s uniform. Dad took pride in his well-pressed uniforms with the company badge embroidered on the shoulder. We often laughed to see other motorists slow noticeably when we passed, thinking they were being monitored by a policeman in an unmarked car.

            When I was little, he was often “on the road.” But when he was home, I climbed onto his lap after meals, just for the feeling of being sheltered by his arms while he visited with Mother or read the evening paper. When I grew older, and Tuesday and Thursday nights were Dad’s nights home, Mother would cook corn bread with ham and beans or round steak with biscuits, and we would bask in his presence, just glad that he would be there to share our supper, coffee, and late night popcorn.

            On Sundays, Dad read me the comics and then entertained me by taking out pen and paper and drawing Dick Tracy and Brenda Starr. I still love to read the comic strips, enduring considerable chiding from my husband for the habit. I can’t copy the characters like Dad, but I occasionally clip one to slip into Bob’s lunch sack. He enjoys it in spite of himself.

            When childhood terrors over starting school after the summer overtook me, Dad was there to help relax the wrenching knot in my stomach. With his quiet voice he reassured me that everything would be all right. I believed him, and the knot loosened, and it was all right.

            I don’t remember him ever spanking me. Mother says he didn’t. He never had to. There was just something in his quiet love for me that motivated me to obey.

            In the days before seat belts and car seats, Dad used to sit me on his lap and let me think I was guiding the car.

            On summer nights when I was in junior high, we went to baseball games, sitting high in stadium seats provided by the St. Louis Cardinals to students with the right grade point average. Dad bought me soda pop and peanuts and we cheered Orlando Cepeda, Bob Gibson, and Lou Brock. I knew every player’s batting average and skipped classes once to watch the World Series on T.V. Without Dad in the next seat, baseball just isn’t much fun anymore.

            He taught me to drive defensively—and then trusted me with his car on a weekend away with other students. I would have done anything to keep from betraying his trust, and we all drove carefully that weekend. Dad must have spent a couple of sleepless nights wondering if his daughter would become another highway statistic. But he trusted me. He understood my need for independence.

            I remember my first car. Dad drove it home, parked it in the driveway, and ordered me to change an imaginary flat tire.

            He spoiled me. On snowy mornings I would go outside to find my car cleaned off, the driveway shoveled so that I could drive off to classes at the university.

            I remember tears in his eyes as he walked me down the aisle to become Mrs. Robert Whitson. Those tears still shine every time we have to say goodbye after a visit that spans the miles between Nebraska and Illinois.

            When my first child was born, the familiar knots returned to my stomach over the responsibility of motherhood. Dad reassured me. He drove me to the grocery store and patiently experimented until he found a way to fit the infant seat securely in a grocery cart while still leaving room for groceries. He couldn’t have known how much it meant to have him there, his frame towering over me, protecting his “little girl”—and a new granddaughter.

            Dad loves the Lord. He serves in quiet ways that people often don’t notice. For years, he and mother visited widows of fellow drivers killed on the road, providing help with business details, organizing a fund to provide cash in the early days of widowhood. He still chauffeurs “the elderly” around town and on trips to the airport.

            Dad taught me how to walk. He taught me to love baseball and comic strip characters and molasses-and-butter on bread. He taught me to obey authority. He proved that things would be all right next year in school, and that I could be an efficient mother, after all. He taught me about my heavenly Father, too. Oh, not with many words, but by being there, by loving, by listening—by being so very much like Him.

            I’m over thirty now, and much too old to call my Father “Daddy,” but he will always be “Daddy” in my heart … in my thoughts … in my prayers … because part of me will always be a little girl when he’s around.

            I love you, Daddy … Happy Father’s Day.

Mother

The last time I saw my mother, she didn't know who I was. And yet, I can smile through my tears at the memory of the little old white-haired lady sitting on her bed at the nursing home waving good-bye to me, as I turned to look back before stepping into the hall. She was happy. At peace. She knew I was someone nice, and she seemed pleased that I had come to visit. I managed to control the tears until I got to the car in the parking lot, and then I lost it. 

My mother--and it was Mother, never "Mom," which she proclaimed disrespectful, was not an easy woman. She bore scars I didn't know about until I had grown up and left home; scars from an unspeakably difficult childhood endured in the days when abuse was hidden and mental illness was something to be ashamed of. You didn't seek help. You just made do. You did the best you could and sometimes the best you could do was to cling to the fringe of sanity while your panicked family called for the pastor to come. 

In honor of Mother's Day, I sing her praises, because in spite of the deep wounds and the regrettable moments and the profound sadness she carried with her, my mother was amazing. She and my Daddy were married for nearly sixty years. They modeled commitment, and one thing I know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that I was loved. What a gift. 

Mother loved Jesus. Most of the Bible verses I can recite were learned when Mother was the head of the Primary Department or Vacation Bible School or Girl's Auxiliary. Most of the hymns I can sing from memory resonate from a childhood spent sitting next to Mother on a hard pew at a poor Baptist Church. We were there for every service. Sunday School and morning church. Training Union and evening church. Wednesday night, too. If the doors were open ... we were there. It's a rich heritage. 

Mother loved flowers. To this day I sometimes amaze my husband because I know the name of this blooming bush or that tree or those perennials. "That's a flowering quince," I said just last week. "Mother loved them because of those bright blossoms right next to the stem." I don't know if she had a favorite flower, but irises probably ranked right up there. We had several varieties, and I still remember "Wabash," with it's dark blue drops and white crown. 

Mother was not a good cook, mostly because she grew up very poor and had to learn to make do. It was food. Eat it and be thankful. But she could make a blackberry cobbler like no other, and she always made one for me when I was home to visit. And the fudge she made -- only at Christmas -- oh, my. Still makes my mouth water to think of it. 

She loved books. One of my earliest memories of Mother is of her reading aloud to me when I was sick. Pinnochio, I think it was. And while I may doubt the name of the book, I don't doubt that one of the reasons I love words is because of Mother, who was never allowed to go beyond the 8th grade, but who found a way to educate herself by reading ... and who passed on the joy of words to me. 

Nora Odell Combs Irvin 1913-1996
Cecil Grayson Irvin 1915-1996

And so, on Mother's Day ... I remember Mother, and look forward to the day when I'll see her again. She graduated to heaven in 1996. Since then, she's been joined by my Daddy, my first husband, the grandson I never met, and an entire host of extended family. 

Thank you, Father, for the blessing of Mother.

Grief and That Thing We Call "Closure"

What follows is the epilogue from my book How to Help a Grieving Friend, A Candid Guide for Those Who Care. The book was written to provide help to friends who are wondering how to give meaningful comfort to hurting hearts. It is a result of my personal experience with profound loss--and my personal experience apologizing to people for the stupid things I said and did when they were hurting and before I'd personally experienced profound loss.The working title of the book was "Lifestyles of the Well  Meaning But Clueless." It really was. 

     The older I get, the more I realize that the subject of grief is much bigger than the subject of death and dying. We humans grieve many kinds of losses in our lives--the loss of lifelong dreams, the loss of youth, the loss of a marriage ... experiencing loss and grief is part of life. I've become more tenderhearted as the years have rolled on, but I still have a lot to learn about how to help my grieving friends.  

In Closing ... A Word About Closure

My oldest son's best friend was killed when the boys were four years old. His mother cried when my son graduated from high school over a dozen years later. She has two healthy, wonderful children and a good life. But grief for the loss of her firstborn son returns with the milestones she will never share with him. It would not surprise me at all if she sheds a tear when my first son's son is born--grief for the grandchildren she will not have from that beloved son, no less beloved because he left us when he was only four years old. No other child can fill the Thomas-sized hole in that mother's heart.

     My best friend died in 1996. In 2003, when I was on my hands and knees scrubbing the toilet in what used to be her bathroom (and was now my bathroom because I had married her widowed husband), I cried. The last time I scrubbed this toilet, my best friend was dying in the other room. I wish she were here. I wish she hadn't died. I wish ...

     My new husband found me crying and understood. We laughed, then, about how convoluted life can be and how, if I still had my best friend Celest, there would be more than just a a slight problem with my having this new husband. I have a new best friend. But she is not Celest. The Celest-sized hole in my life remains.

     I am remarried. Life is good. But my love for my new husband has neither replaced nor diminished my love for Robert Thomas Whitson. I wish he could be here to talk late at night with his sons, to teach Sunday School classes, to give the elders' reports that always included humor and made the congregation laugh, to cheer on the Huskers football team. When our first grandchild is born, I know I will cry because I am crying even now as I write this. God has given me new love for a new mate. But it is new love. The old love remains. No one will ever fill the Robert-sized hole in my life.

     Jesus promises His followers that His burdens are light, and I have been in grief long enough to experience His lightening of my load. But it is a lightening, not a removal.The emotions of loss are still there just on the other side of today. Sometimes those emotions punch open the door between the past and the present, march into my life, and remind me of what I have lost.

     We do not close the door on people who have changed our lives forever. We celebrate what they have meant to us, and we look forward to seeing them again. And sometimes, even decades later, we cry.

     So in the closing of this book on grief, I want to say that closure, in the way most people mean it, does not exist. We gain new friends, we have more children, we remarry. The pain of loss becomes less, and we learn to live around it. But we still carry it. Sometimes it returns in full force, and we find ourselves crying, years after everyone around us assumes we have accomplished what our culture calls closure. This is painful, but it is not necessarily a bad thing. I think it is part of being human. It is part of loving and being loved. 

     And yes, it is worth it.

--Stephanie Grace Whitson

 

to read the rest of How to Help a Grieving Friend: http://tinyurl.com/l4trqpo

Christian Fiction with Native American Characters

A reader who had just discovered my Dakota Moons series (pictured at right),

asked me about other Christian fiction with Native American characters, and so I asked some of my

writing friends for titles. Here's what I've compiled:

Burning Sky by Lori Benton

Walks Alone by Sandi Rog

Beneath a Navajo Moon by Lisa Carter

A Whisper of Peace by Kim Vogel Sawyer

Abraham's Well by Sharon Foster

Series by Marol Schalesky:

     Only the Wind Remembers

     Cry Freedom

     Freedom's Shadow

Series by Laura Frantz:

     The Frontiersman's Daughter

     Courting Morrow Little

     The Colonel's Lady

Tender Ties Series by Jane Kirkpatrick

     A Name of Her Own

     Every Fixed Star

     Hold Tight the Thread

Also by Jane Kirkpatrick

     Love to Water My Soul

     Sweetness to the Soul

Prairie Winds Series by Stephanie Grace Whitson

     Walks the Fire

     Soaring Eagle

     Red Bird

Dakota Moons Series by Stephanie Grace Whitson

     Valley of the Shadow

     Edge of the Wilderness

     Heart of the Sandhills

ENJOY!

     

A Promise Kept

I don't often review a book on a blog, but I've just finished Robin Lee Hatcher's newest, and I can't just move on through my day without doing everything I can to tell others about it. Yes. I'm that enthusiastic about it. The book captured me from the first page. Of course it has all the elements that would draw a reader in--a flawed heroine in a difficult place, a glimpse at past lives through discoveries in an attic, a gorgeous setting, and a darling dog. What's not to like?

The thing is, this story begins with broken threads and weaves them into one of those tapestries that shows God doing some of His best work--taking brokenness and making it whole--but doing it in a way that no one would expect. Hatcher's characters know heartbreak. They know what it's like to pray and feel like the words got no further than the ceiling. They know what it's like to just go through the motions of everyday life ... waiting for something--anything--to happen. In other words, they know real life. Hatcher doesn't dodge the tough questions, but in the end she gives a message we all need, which is that God is sometimes doing His very best work when we think He's stopped paying attention.

Read it. You won't be disappointed. In fact, you'll probably put it on the "to be re-read" pile.

http://www.christianbook.com/a-promise-kept/9781401687656/pd/687656?item_code=WW&netp_id=1156338&event=ESRCG&view=details

For Young Mothers Everywhere

I remember being a young Mom who felt like she wasn't accomplishing enough when "all" she did was hang out with her children. When the house was a mess and supper was sandwiches and the laundry wasn't folded and and and ... I remember. On those days, I would sometimes go back my "Favorite Quotes" binder to remind myself that what the world called success and how I had prayerfully decided to define that term would always be at odds with one another.
Here's one of those reminders (a gift from my mother-in-law).

I Took His Hand and Followed

Author unknown

My dishes went unwashed today,

            I didn’t make the bed.

            I took his hand and followed

            Where his eager footsteps led.

            Oh, yes, we went adventuring,

            My little son and I …

            Exploring all the great outdoors

            Beneath the summer sky.

            We waded in a crystal stream,

            We wandered through a wood.

            My kitchen wasn’t swept today,

            But life was gay and good.

            We found a cool, sun-dappled glade

            And now my small son knows

            How Mother Bunny hides her nest,

            Where jack-in-the-pulpit grows.

            We watched a robin feed her young,

            We climbed a sunlit hill …

            Saw cloud-sheep scamper through the sky,

            We plucked a daffodil.

            That my house was neglected,

            That I didn’t brush the stairs,

            In twenty years, no one on earth

            Will know, or even care.

            But that I’ve helped my little boy

            To noble manhood grow,

            In twenty years, the whole wide world

            May look and see and know.