Author: Ann Tatlock

A Red Diaper Baby Meets an Angel

/ Ann Tatlock / 10 Comments

Sometimes, people really are touched by an angel. Here’s my husband Bob’s story…

For the first forty years of my life I was an atheist, influenced by my childhood. My two sisters and I were what’s sometimes called “red diaper babies”—that is, our parents were Communist-leaning leftists. Even when the Cold War was at its height and  American patriotism ran high, my parents believed the Soviet Union could do no wrong. To Mom and Dad, capitalism was what was wrong with our country.

Although we lived a middle class lifestyle, our “church” was devoted to the coming of the Revolution, which would make all people equal in service to the State, which in turn would provide benevolently for all.  An elemental tenet of this church was that those who believed in God were superstitious and ignorant, and those God-believers, in essence, were enemies of the people.  Phrases like bourgeoisie, reactionary, and crypto-fascist were common in our household.

~~~

So how did I, a red diaper baby, come to be a Christian?  It was certainly not because of my own efforts.  It took an encounter with evil.

Over a matter of years, I watched as my former wife succumbed to a toxic mix of alcoholism and bi-polar disorder. Affected in bizarre and harmful ways, she changed from a caring and affectionate woman to a stranger possessed by forces beyond her control. Even her voice at times would change from her normal tone to a deep, almost baritone note. Eventually, as her personality collapsed, so did our marriage.

From this experience I came to realize that evil is a presence.  With that realization came the logical conclusion that if there is an “evil,” by what measure do we define it?  What makes evil, evil?

Evil is evil only if we have something “good” to compare it to. What then, I began to wonder, was the good? I resolved to find out. Though I’d been raised atheist, my upbringing had been within a Jewish cultural context since my father’s family was Jewish.  So I was far more familiar with synagogues (but only from attending Bar Mitvahs!) than I was with churches.  After considerable reflection, I decided to look up a rabbi.

~~~

I went to bed that night determined to start my rabbi quest the next day.  And then a funny thing happened—I met an angel. Not one of the cute little winged cherubs that flutter around the edges of greeting cards. This one meant business.

In a dream—though it’s probably best called a vision—I was visiting a friend in a kind of hospital.  I hadn’t seen him but once or twice since high school, and that was decades ago.  Although the building seemed like some sort of institution, there were no signs in my friend of sickness. He seemed perfectly well and happy. Too, there was a quietness to the place that I found disturbing. Today I recognize it as serenity. And yet I was frightened, afraid that “they” would hold me there against my will. I ran down corridors, down stairs, as “they” came after me—the usual nightmare scenario.  Finally, I reached the doorway to the great, grassy lawn.

And it was there that I was caught by a strong creature, whose features I could not make out.  He held me down.  In his right hand he held a large hypodermic.  His words were these: “You don’t understand.  You need this!”  And then the needle entered my arm.

I don’t recall waking immediately from the dream/nightmare/vision, but when morning arrived, I woke up with a singular thought that I could not shake: “Jesus Christ is Lord.”

~~~

What? Jesus Christ is Lord? How could that be?  Jesus was just one of those superstitious myths, someone who never really existed, a figment of the religious establishment. And yet, the thought not only failed to disappear as I awoke more clearly, but it began to seep into my consciousness as a reality.

Because of my recent divorce, I had purchased a small home that had been a parsonage of a church in the neighborhood.  Some days later, with the message of Christ’s reality now fixed in my heart, I sought out the pastor of that church for conversations. Many conversations.

I bought a Bible and began to read. Not a whole lot made sense to me until I opened the book one day to Jeremiah 31, and began reading at verse 31: “The day is coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.”

And I read further: “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.” That, I knew, was exactly what God had done for me. He had quite literally injected me with his truth, and with his own hand he had written his words on my mind and heart. I knew I was a Christian.

Not everything about my life and actions changed immediately, but over time, the intellectual acceptance of God’s truths became a transforming reality. As I began to read the Bible from cover to cover, I slowly became a different person, one who began to see life’s purposes and other people in a whole new way—a far better way. I joined a church, and in a Bible study group I met Ann. We have now been married for 26 years.

So after having been an atheist, a cynic and a red diaper baby, here I am—a child of God, thanks to his grace and mercy. And an angel armed with a really big hypodermic needle.

Ann BD 2011 1  Ann Tatlock and Bob Blank

Sometimes You Cry (And so does God)

/ Ann Tatlock / 10 Comments

rain_drops_ Something happened recently that made me wonder for the first time in my life whether God is cruel. Rather than a loving Father, was he actually more like Zeus, that tempestuous Greek god who sometimes entertained himself by hurling lightning bolts toward earth?

Our pastor’s teen-aged son Thomas had been on dialysis and in need of a kidney for some time. Finally, the perfect donor was found, a family friend. We all rejoiced, called it a miracle, an answer to prayer. Our pastor’s wife, Sarah, was enduring her own health crisis. She had just been through chemo and was facing radiation, but thankfully a break in the treatment afforded her the strength to be with their son when he received his new kidney.

The day of surgery was girded by prayer. By mid-afternoon, an email was sent out: All went very well. Both Thomas and donor were doing fine. When Thomas awoke, he whispered to his mother, “I’m so thankful it’s done.” And everywhere, you can be sure, God’s people rejoiced.

Early the next morning, the second message came. Thomas had undergone emergency surgery. The kidney had somehow developed blood clots and couldn’t be saved. The transplant had failed.

~~~

I stared at the flashing cursor on the screen, feeling stunned. And that’s when the thought came to me that maybe God is cruel. Had this been some sort of joke, a Zeus-like lightning bolt aimed at good people who had trusted him?

I was angry. I was scared. In that moment, and for the next few hours, I doubted the very foundation of my life. And I did something I hardly ever do: I cried.

~~~

Once upon a time, a ship got caught up in a deadly storm at sea. The storm lasted not just for a night, or for several days, but for two full weeks. Wind and rain pounded the ship so violently and relentlessly that finally, as one man later wrote, “All hope of our being saved was at last abandoned.”

That man was Luke, the author of the book of Acts. He was traveling with the Apostle Paul, who was a prisoner being taken to Rome. Finally, the ship ran aground near the island of Malta, and while the ship was lost, all the men survived. They were welcomed by the inhabitants of the island. A fire was built for them, and they were fed.

And then some wonderful things began to happen. Paul prayed over a sick man, a man of some prominence on Malta, and he became well. When the news spread, others who were sick came to Paul, and he prayed for them, and they too were healed. The islanders marveled as they witnessed the power of God. In turn, for three months, they generously provided for all of the needs of the shipwrecked crew (see Acts 27 & 28).

Once upon a time, a raging tempest left a ship’s crew devoid of all hope. But in spite of what they felt and how it looked, there was hope. Paul and Luke and the others were brought by that very storm to a place they never expected to be, a place of healing, and rejoicing, and hospitality and camaraderie. A place where good things happened.

~~~

A basic tenet of Christianity, a message every evangelical Christian has heard: God works all things together for good—all the storms, the shipwrecks, the trials and tragedies, the failed kidneys.

Something else to consider as well: Sometimes while he is working all things together for good, God cries.

Certainly he did when he was here on earth. You see, when I was angry about the failed surgery, I ranted at God, telling him he has no idea what it’s like to live in this world, to face the daily struggles, the heartache, the loss. But he stopped me with the words: Yes, I do. Don’t you know that by now?

 Jesus, God in the flesh, experienced everything we experience. While on earth, he was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. He knew temptation, hunger, disappointment, loss. When one of his closest friends died, Jesus wept—even while he was walking toward the grave to raise Lazarus back to life. Even though he knew the ending, he still suffered the grief.

Even though he knows the ending to each of our stories, I believe he grieves with us today in all our sorrows, because we belong to him and he loves us.

~~~

When the surgery failed, our pastor wrote: “God is no less faithful today than he was yesterday. God is no less loving today than he was yesterday. Our faith is unshaken even if our understanding is reeling.”

God’s goodness is unlimited. It’s our understanding of his goodness that’s limited. We simply can’t always know what he is doing, what island the storm is taking us to for our own sake and for the sake of others. But God knows.

Just as Jesus told Peter, “You do not know what I am doing, but later you will understand” (John 13:7).

Until we do understand, we trust. And we believe in and hold on to God’s love, because it’s the one thing that sustains us through all our trials, and brings us to the good places we are meant to be.

 

Meeting God on the Horizon

/ Ann Tatlock / 2 Comments

Do you really believe that what you believe is really real?

~ Del Tackett, The Truth Project

Child's drawing When I was a child drawing nature scenes, I—like most children—harbored a strange perception when it came to the meeting of earth and sky. In truth, they didn’t meet at all. The sky was always a blue strip across the top of the page while the earth was a corresponding ribbon of green across the bottom.

In between was a whole lot of nothing. Just a huge patch of non-color in which hung the sun and into which the trees shot up their branches and the flowers their blooms. It was in this place of nothingness that the people made their homes and walked their dogs and had their picnics and lived their lives.

At that young age, I didn’t understand that there was something called a horizon, a place where the human eye perceives a meeting of sky and earth, a point at which blue touches green and all the gaps are closed and the picture is complete.

~~~

I wonder how many of us wander around in that place of non-color all our lives because we think that God’s heaven—with all of its accompanying mercy, goodness and joy—is up there while earth is down here and somehow, for some reason, “never the twain shall meet”?

How many of us live as though there is no horizon, no place where God’s Spirit leans down and touches the human soul?

~~~

I have lived that way myself. I have lived as though God only watches from a distance while I am tempted to despair, that he looks on in indifference while I have unmet needs, that he makes no move in my direction when I feel crushed by loneliness or feelings of isolation.

I’ve lived in this place of non-color and nothingness, though thankfully God allowed me only to pitch a tent in this desert rather than to build a permanent place of residence. He has helped me pull up stakes and has walked with me, pointing all the time toward the horizon, saying, “Meet me there.”

~~~

Heaven and earth do meet, and that’s the whole point of our existence. A maturing of faith, a growing in our knowledge of God, assures us that God is not up there but down here, right here with us, around us, in us, touching us, closing up all the empty spaces, making us complete.

In our despair, we find within our hearts a glowing nugget of hope that can’t be denied. In our need, we receive provision—an unexpected check, a loaf of bread, an anonymous gift. In our loneliness, we sense a love that wraps itself undeniably around our soul and, even in the darkest hour and sometimes even in spite of ourselves, never lets us go.

~~~

We have to allow God to be more than a pleasant thought or wishful thinking. He has to be more than an idea, a theology or a vague concept. We have to allow him to be what he is: Lord of creation, God of all mercy, a Father who through the death of his own Son Jesus tore open the curtain to the Holy of Holies and allowed us to enter into his presence.

We have to let his heaven touch our earth, every moment of every day. We have to live our lives on the horizon.

And we can. Because he himself brings us there. He created us to dwell with him there. On the horizon, he fills our lives with his love.

~~~

The joy of Jesus must rush through all the corridors of your mind. The heart must know He has come to guide, comfort, and help in the hour of need. There must be no doubt, no question that God has chosen to come and commune with His servant….I want God’s total presence. I want to flow in His river of love.

                                                                                             ~ David Wilkerson*

*From David Wilkerson, Have You Felt Like Giving Up Lately (Grand Rapids, MI: Fleming H. Revell, 1980), pp. 55, 56.

Karen’s Story: Trading Fathers

/ Ann Tatlock / 2 Comments

In this excerpt from her memoir, Trading Fathers, Karen Rabbitt describes how God first revealed his love to her. She was dealing with a lot—as a child, she was sexually abused by her father, and as an adult, she had two serious emotional breakdowns, one postpartum, in 1975, when she was 23, and the second two years later.

By 1979, she was both terrified of another breakdown and was praying for a revelation of the love of the Father. Because her trust in her earthly father’s goodness had been betrayed, she was struggling to trust God’s goodness. Weighed down by shame and guilt, she didn’t understand that rather than sending punishment, God wanted to fill her life with good things.

But all that changed one special night. Here is Karen’s story…

~~~

Because the psychiatrist had no answers for me, I asked God. I wrote my request in my journal, with a date: October 30, 1979. It had been two years since the second crisis. “Help me understand so maybe it won’t happen again.”

God began to answer the next day. Jerry and I, as was our habit, were lying in bed together, reading before sleep. In the new issue of Logos Journal magazine, I saw words that changed my life. A chaplain quoted a schizophrenic woman: “I’ve always been taught you should be so good before taking the Lord’s Supper.”

Then he wrote: “Here was her guilt—a core problem in the lives of persons with mental- emotional problems.”

In my journal, I wrote:

That hits home. I think that God is going to just throw me away if I don’t do tremendous things for him—intercession, drama ministry, some other enormous, demanding activity. God has helped me a lot with free-floating guilt, and I feel pretty close to being healed of such high requirements for acceptance. A growing awareness that God will accept me—that he may not have a demanding work for me to do . . . that he will welcome me with open arms if I’m only able to be faithful to my family—Jerry and Jenny.

As I wrote those words, a warmth I’d never felt before began at the top of my head and flowed through every inch of my body. In one swoop through my being, God’s love filled my heart. He was smiling at me. His arms were open as I walked into his embrace. It was the revelation of the Father’s love I’d been asking for.

Jerry noticed my deep breathing. “You okay?”

“Never better.” I leaned over and kissed him. I could have kissed the whole world.

Though excited, I also felt a deep calm. That was new. Excitement, for me, usually led to racing thoughts that made it hard to get to sleep. That night, though, I drifted off easily, with a sense of Jesus’ arms around me.

The next morning, I picked up my Bible and opened to Jeremiah, where I’d been reading the last few weeks. I’d been making an effort to read the Bible more consistently. The women at Prayer and Share all seemed to set aside a daily quiet time for prayer and Bible study.

Jeremiah rang with God’s thundering judgments against his people for their disobedience and rebellion. I knew I was disobedient, too. I didn’t know exactly in what way, but there was always more I could be doing. That morning, though, as I began to read in chapter 26, something clicked.

Verse 3 says, “Perhaps they will listen and each will turn from his evil way. Then I will relent and not bring on them the disaster I was planning because of the evil they have done.”

God wants to change his mind and stop the punishment. I looked around my cozy house. I thought about my good husband. God has given me so much. I wrote in my journal:

It’s taken a long time to have a real sense of God’s desire for me—that he has good things for me—that he grieves at my sin; not sadistically rubs his hands together as he looks forward to seeing me in pain as I live out the consequences of sin.

I had not yet realized how my father’s seeking pleasure at the expense of my pain had impacted my image of God.

What I knew at the moment God revealed his love to me was a joy I’d never felt before. That surface feeling of joy didn’t last more than a few weeks, but it settled in my heart.

Previous to this revelation, I had only hoped in his love. After this revelation, my roots grabbed hold of the soil of his tender care.

~~~

Postscript:  After this revelation, Karen has never seriously doubted God’s love. And she has not had another breakdown, in spite of taking no medication for the last 40 years. The revelation of the love of the Father changed her life as much as becoming a Christian seven years prior to this experience.

You can read the rest of the story in a free pdf of Trading Fathers at:

https://karenrabbitt.typepad.com/files/2013-trading-fathers.pdf

More resources, including videos, from Karen are available at: www.tradingfathers.com

Karen Rabbit Karen Rabbitt

Scattered Thoughts on Flying Blind

/ Ann Tatlock / 5 Comments

seagull_flight My friend Jamie Britt is completely blind and has been since birth. She has never seen sunlight, rose petals, mountains, the colors of a rainbow. She has never seen colors at all, and tells me she has no idea what they are. She has never seen her mother’s face, nor even her own face in a mirror.

Being a visual person, I can’t imagine going through life without working eyes. I’d sooner surrender any of my other senses than go through life without sight. Sight is what most strongly connects me to the world, what grounds me in place and time.

And that’s why, for me, the most challenging part of being a Christian is putting all my hope in what I can’t see. Believers walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). For that reason, we’re told not to bother putting too much stock in what we see around us because it’s temporal. Only what can’t be seen is eternal, and that’s where we’re to place our hope. (2 Corinthians 4:18).

Thank God for working eyes, but apparently they’re no help at all when it comes to what really matters. When it comes to the eternal, I’m flying blind.

~~~

I can’t see my Father’s face. I can’t see the branches on the Tree of Life, nor the water in the river that flows from the throne of God. I can’t so much as see a distant light in the window of one of the mansions Jesus spoke about, even though my heart’s navigational system is carrying me there.

And it’s not just the place that’s beyond my view. I can’t even catch a glimpse of what I’m destined to become, because what we as believers are destined to become doesn’t yet exist in this world.

~~~

I read many biographies and autobiographies, mostly of historical figures. The title might be something like “The Life of So-and-so” or “So-and-so: A Life,” as though the book is the summation of what that person has done and the final account of what that person became.

But any completed biography is only the prelude to one’s real life. That’s it. At the time of death, the person has only reached Chapter 1 of the real story. Because we can’t fully become in this world what we were created to be. We can only make a start here. The Apostle John, who walked with Jesus in the flesh, tells us that “what we will be has not yet been revealed.” We won’t be our true, complete, real selves until Jesus returns, and then, “we will be like him, for we will see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

~~~

Walking by faith until that time isn’t easy. In fact, it’s a real struggle. My human eyes tell me that I’m getting old, that I haven’t accomplished much in this world, that some of my dreams will go unrealized, that in the end I will slip away unnoticed. As I go through the day-to-day routine of my existence, I sometimes find myself wondering, what’s it all for?

I don’t know. And that’s the thing: I don’t know because I can’t know. At least not fully. I do know in part, because Jesus said those who have ears to hear should listen to his words, because they hold the key to life. I have heard the words of Jesus and they point my heart to that place I cannot see but that I know is there because his words are true. His words are Truth. He has told me that he is preparing a place for me and that when he comes for me, I will see him as he is, and when I see him as he is, I will be like him.

That’s when the real story begins. That’s when my eyes will be opened.

~~~

I try to imagine what it would be like for Jamie if suddenly she could see. What would it be like after a lifetime of darkness to see a color, a face, a ray of sunlight? Everything would at last take on shape and brilliance and form, appearing for the first time as it really is. Wouldn’t you and I—if this were us—spend long hours just looking at everything, gazing in amazement at what had been around us all along?

What a day that will be, the very first day we walk by sight, taking in the fulfillment of what God has prepared for those who love him.

Pete’s Story: The Illness that Led to Life

/ Ann Tatlock / 8 Comments

Soon after waking up in recovery, I was being transported back to my hospital room when I sensed that something had gone terribly wrong during surgery. Once in my room, my feelings of unease were validated by a quick glance at the faces of my wife, family, and friends. I was then informed by my doctor that at some point during the complex operation to remove a tumor from my spine, I had become paralyzed from the chest down and that it was highly unlikely that I would ever walk again.

~~~

For the first 50 years of my life, I lived what some have described as a charmed existence. My formative years were filled with athletic success, as I played top-tier Jr.A and D-1 NCAA College ice hockey. Later years involved starting a small business from scratch, which became very successful.

As my annual income increased to substantial levels, I was never one who had any problem whatsoever spending almost every penny of it on expensive material items like sleek sports cars and oversized luxury SUVs. Our main family home was in a high-end subdivision, in the “right” suburban Atlanta town. My beautiful wife Adele acquired an extensive wardrobe that filled to overflowing a large walk-in closet. The sheer volume of our kids’ toys, bikes, water skis, hockey equipment, and miscellaneous other sporting goods made it virtually impossible for us to park any of our cars in the garage.

~~~

I had successfully ticked most of the boxes necessary to achieve the American Dream. And yet, something was missing. To fill the emptiness, I turned more and more to alcohol until I steadily descended into alcoholism. My excessive drinking was often accompanied by volatile, unjustified, angry outbursts directed at my wife and kids at home.

For years, I lived a shameful lie. Having at best a lukewarm faith in God, I attended church with my family once or twice a month, mainly out of a sense of obligation (I was a cradle Catholic), or just to keep up appearances to help maintain the ruse.

~~~

Then the physical pain began. One day I was unable to finish my daily six-mile run due to what I thought was a groin pull. But rather than getting better, the situation deteriorated so rapidly that between the ages of 50 and 51, I had five spinal-fusion surgeries and a hip replacement. Still, none of these highly invasive procedures resulted in even the slightest reduction in the severe, nearly debilitating, lower back pain that dominated every single second of my days.

Then, at a follow-up appointment with my doctor, the X-ray technician took an image of my upper rather than lower back which, quite by accident, revealed the real culprit of my agony, a spinal tumor. Nearly two painful years later, the tumor began to hemorrhage; I was scheduled for immediate surgery at the renowned Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.

That surgery both saved my life and left me paralyzed.

~~~

As the surgeon broke the dire news to me, “Who I was” slowly dissolved right before my eyes. In that one gut-wrenching moment, I lost everything that defined me. After tasting the raw, genuinely fearful emotion of helplessness, I launched into a fit of rage, directed primarily at God. Why had he allowed everything in my life to be lost?

Over the subsequent days, I descended steadily, ever deeper into depression and despair—sometimes to the point of contemplating suicide. In desperation, I decided to devote some of my newly acquired “spare time” to search for answers to life’s existential questions, number one being whether God and Jesus Christ were real. My gut feeling was they had long since been proven to be nothing more than ancient fairy tales, mere myths, long-since debunked—logically, empirically invalidated by modern science.

I spent weeks researching both sides of the issue, reading the arguments for scientific atheism as well as the works of Christian apologists. I also began to delve into the Bible, to see for myself what it had to say. It was a lengthy process, but through my research, I became convinced that science does not disprove the Christian notion of a purposeful, infinitely loving and supremely intelligent being. In fact, I found the theist’s arguments more well-reasoned and the facts in evidence more supportive of their premises.

I was beginning to believe that God really does exist and that he is who the Bible defines him to be and who Jesus Christ revealed him to be.

~~~

Out of options, I decided to bind together the shattered pieces of my broken life and hand them off to God. But before I did, I wrote out and then formally confessed every sin I was directly responsible for and the negative impact it had on others. Almost instantly, I felt a lighter load, a freer, less chaotic sense of reality. A fresh start of understanding and forgiveness permeated the warm, glowing feeling of peace I was experiencing.

From there, it was as if I was gently lifted out of bed, caught up in the love of someone or some power so great and so pure it was something I had never associated with being part of a relationship with God. God, I discovered, was love! God is love!

My next move came more naturally than breathing the pristine air around me. I asked whether I might give myself to him, as broken as I was. I told him I could no longer bear the weight of all the sins, wrong living, purposefully hurtful actions, all the baggage that came with my alcoholism, the inability to accept my paralysis, and more.

The answer came immediately: “Is it not already lifted from you?” And indeed it had been!

So it was on bended knee (figuratively), I gave my life to Christ, devoting myself to serving him in any way the indwelling Holy Spirit should guide me. I have woken up each day happy, and I go to bed each night with my inner void filled by the love and beautiful truth that comes to the broken, once saved.

Since that time I have been hospitalized over 30 times due to various infections and other paralysis-related issues. My life as a paraplegic hasn’t been an easy one, but it was my suffering that caused me to seek him diligently. In return, he has given me a foretaste of Heaven, and I am now living in the warm, loving light and peace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

PJW- AFW Thrashers Casino Night 2010 Peter and Adele Wenzell

 

Alice’s Story: Graveside Epiphany

/ Ann Tatlock / 5 Comments

My friend Alice Wisler lost her four-year-old son to cancer treatments in 1997. Though she wrestled with deep grief, it was divine grace that kept her from losing faith in a loving God. Jesus is able to hold together all the pieces of a mother’s broken heart, and to give meaning to even the briefest of lives. Here is Alice’s story…

Daniel'sPlaceOakTree The cemetery was decorated in fog that morning when I pulled my Jeep to the usual parking place under the oak. Some think cemeteries, especially when foggy, are spooky spots. For me, the cemetery is a classroom. Revelations happen there.

When my son died at age four, I wasn’t interested in much of anything, especially not a lawn with buried bodies. It seemed strange and empty to honor a grave that held what was left of Daniel. I wanted him with me. Four years was not enough time.

While Daniel was going through cancer treatment, I had hoped for a normal family life again.  For healing, health, and kindergarten.  More trips to the park for picnics, and pausing to hear train whistles. More hours of reading Maurice Sendak’s books and laughter over wild things.

I had prayed, clung to Bible verses, and had faith that Daniel would beat the malignant tumor in his neck.

After his death, I cringed at the platitudes neighbors and friends offered.  “He’s in a better place.”  “You’ll see him again.”  “Don’t cry, don’t cry, Alice. Daniel’s with Jesus.”

Time passed, the platitudes continued, but, surprisingly, the cemetery changed for me. Instead of a place of sorrow, it became a setting for family traditions. My husband, three children and I had picnics on the grassy slopes, tossed Frisbees—even played softball. On Daniel’s birthday we let go of helium balloons with messages attached to the strings. They sailed beyond our reach into the August sky.

Now, on an October morning 21 years after Daniel’s death, I came to the cemetery alone. Once I parked by Daniel’s grave, I did my usual mothering—brushing away twigs and wiping bird droppings off his marker with a wet toilette.

The cemetery hawk circled overhead—most likely looking for a critter to surprise—but I rather liked to think he was protecting the gravestones. As he showed off his wing span, I continued with my ritual of walking around the grounds, pausing at markers to read the familiar epitaphs. There was Audrey who lived one day. Taylor, another infant, was just steps away. According to his stone, his parents were so glad he had come into their lives, however briefly. Peregrina, who had been a beloved mother and grandmother, had an armload of red roses in the vase on her stone. I continued my trek, breathing in the morning air.

Solomon’s grave was new to me. The scripture on his epitaph was well-known, but it was the first time I’d seen his gravestone. I took in the words written in bronze: I have finished the course. I have kept the faith.  II Timothy: 4:7.

My first response to this stranger’s epitaph was, Well, Solomon, you had 75 years, so the passage makes sense to put on your resting place.

Daniel?  He had four.

I thought of how Daniel wore a Jesus Loves You pin he got in church. I remembered how he wanted me to read to him about the vine and the branches in the book of John. He told me that you give gifts to your friends. He recited jokes from a book, memorizing all the punch lines, because he didn’t know how to read.  When we crossed the swinging bridge at Grandfather Mountain he held my hand because I am afraid of heights.

He had lived.

It was much too short a life.

But my mind didn’t stop there. I don’t know if it was something in the morning air or in the wispy patches of fog, but God got my attention.

Daniel’s life had a purpose and he fulfilled it. He ran his race with bravery, becoming a Brave Cookie to us. He had cherished his faith in God.

It was the first time in 21 years that I could apply this passage from II Timothy to the life of my boy. And from memory I recalled the rest of the passage found in that verse: I have fought the good fight.

It fit Daniel perfectly. As a cancer patient, he had fought hard through chemo, surgeries, radiation treatments, infections, and invasive needles.

I walked back toward Daniel’s grave as Jesus’ love weaved into my broken mother’s heart.

“You were created for a purpose and you lived it,” I said in the way mamas talk to their child’s grave. “I don’t know why you had to go so soon, but your life was every bit as profound as someone who got to live to see 75 or 85 or 92.”

The fog still hovered; there was no burst of sunlight, no sound of angel wings or trumpets, absolutely no physical indication that I had had an epiphany.

But my spirit knew. I think that it’s in these moments that Jesus’ love wraps us tightly. He gives us what we need, and it comes right when we are able to comprehend it, absorb it, and be thankful.

AliceWisler-2  Alice Wisler