Tag Archives: Spirit

Gratitude, Curiosity, and the Spirit

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At precisely this time, 48 years ago, I was running some last-minute errands  in preparation for our wedding, which would be happening later at 3:00 pm,  December 14, 1974. I was at the store with a friend trying to find a blue garter (what a stupid tradition that was). Wyndham was playing a game of flag football with friends. What else would a groom do on his wedding day? I had just finished my last final of the quarter the day before (the UF used quarters rather than semesters). I had little time for wedding prep, as I had taken a heavy load of 22 hours to finish my studies early to move to join Wyndham. I had seen him once since our engagement in July, as he had moved to North Carolina to begin a new ministry. Though we wrote to each other often, we talked every other week. Long-distance calls were costly. I was a student and he was making 7k per year. (No worries, we got an increase to nearly 9k/year after we married. 🙂 We had to be creative for sure.) This would be my last day ever living in Gainesville, Florida. I would marry and permanently move away from my hometown. Two days later, I would see my first snow.

As I reflect on the precious years I had with my beloved husband, the main emotion I feel is gratitude. So much gratitude. Life wasn’t always easy, but the love and life we shared were beautiful. The last painful years during Wyndham’s illness were rich and precious, though incredibly difficult and even traumatic. I hold them as sacred. Wyndham will always be part of me…it would be impossible for it to be otherwise, and I am grateful he is forever part of me. But life is now quite different.

Three words that best describe my current state of being are gratitude, curiosity, and Spirit. I feel grateful and in awe of the beauty of creation. I feel grateful for the gifts of love, joy, peace, patience,… These are gifts from God. I cannot manufacture them. And what amazing gifts these are. Who else but God can give these?! I am grateful for daily food and water (especially combined with coffee beans) and so much more…so many blessings. I am grateful for my family and my friends. The relationships with my children and their families fill me with inexpressible joy. I love my cozy home and a place to stay warm. I love water, mountains, and sunsets. I’m thankful for animals…especially my Golden buddy, Denver. I’m grateful for the senses God gives me and for words and books and imagination. (I hope next week to share books read in 2022 and gleanings from a few of them.)

I love to learn. I understand more than ever before how much I do not know and cannot ever understand, and yet I long to learn more. The more I learn, the more amazed I become with God. I learn through life experiences, reading, observation, conversations with others, remembering, mistakes, listening more closely than I used to, and by making space to hear and experience God through His Spirit in my life. I value and am thankful for my deep dive into spiritual formation as I enter the final year of my doctoral program. I’m also learning through a Christian coaching certification program. I’m amazed at all there is to learn. I am grateful for curiosity. More than ever, I am gobsmacked (I often think of this word for astonishment as “God-smacked”…in the best way….as if God is saying, “Hey, do you even see what I am doing here?”) that God not only sent Jesus as Emmanuel, God with us…But, gave His Spirit as God in us. A reality, not a metaphor. To know that God became human so I could share His divinity is mind-boggling. This transforming reality requires serious thought and meditation.

So today, I thank you, Wyndham, for our shared precious memories. Little did I know what would lie ahead 48 years ago, but there is no one with whom I would have rather shared 45  of those years. Thank you, God, for always being not only by my side, but inside. I hold on to precious memories, but today, though my eyes may mist a time or two,  they make me smile in gratitude. And stay curious, my friends…marveling and relying on God within.

A Love-Hate Thing

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I love “Papa’s bench,” the memorial bench I purchased that was placed at the reservoir five minutes from my house. I often walk and pray around the two-mile perimeter surrounding the lake while Denver frolics and fetches sticks from the water. I chose a bench because I wanted a place to “sit with” Wyndham. I didn’t want a cemetery; I wanted a nearby place with nature’s beauty and fishable water.

The bench went into the ground while I was visiting Kristen in Connecticut. The town employee, who has been extremely kind and thoughtful throughout the process, called to tell me it was in the ground. Hearing that I was away, he put tape across the bench so I could cut the tape and also so that no one would sit there before I did. See what I mean? He is thoughtful.

I arrived back in town the next evening right before dark. I was tired and hot after my drive home. I grabbed some scissors to cut the tape and walked down to the bench that I told you I love. I cut the tape away, sat down, and cried. Ugly cried. I talked out loud, some to God and some to Wyndham. I told God I hated the bench. I never wanted a memory bench. I wanted Wyndham. I loved it, and I hated it. All mashed up together. After a good cry and talk, I settled down on the bench. The reservoir was low, emptier that I had seen it in a long time. No wonder my town has a water ban in effect. Also, the sweltering heat from the previous few days encouraged grass to grow in the water, and I didn’t like how it looked. I didn’t like much that evening, as is likely obvious by now.

In the quiet evening, as I sat still, I began to hear what sounded like a waterfall. As I looked up, I saw water gushing into the lake. I told God…”Okay, I get it.” You see— I felt just like the low, way too empty reservoir…with ugly weeds growing to add insult to injury. And yet, God reminded me that He makes a reservoir possible by being the stream of living water. He will fill my empty reservoir—not with a slight trickling of water drops, but with a forceful gush of living water sent by His Spirit. (As I attached this picture of the outpouring water, I noticed the reflection of the shape of a cross with power lines attached. Oh ,the allegory here…God really wants me to get this message.)

On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.
Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”
By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. (Jn 7:37-39)

(Interestingly, and adding even more depth to this amazing promise from Jesus, is that Jesus said this on the last day of the Feast of Sukkot, which included a water ceremony and chanted prayers pleading for rains for the harvest. Jesus was ushering in a new way of thinking.)

I must remember this new way of thinking, remembering that He continually pours love into my heart through His Spirit (Rom 5:5), like that water gushing from the source.

Somehow, my town knows when to turn on the water flow when the reservoir is low.  How much more does my God know when I need a fill-up? If my reservoir isn’t full, this also affects other people, not just me.

I’m happy to have a bench that I love and hate. I need physical reminders of memories. I think that is why there are so many celebrations recorded in the Bible, so many parables told, and stones of remembrances collected. We all need reminders.

Oh, and another little reminder from God to share. Later, I think it was the next morning, I was speaking with God about how difficult it can sometimes be to feel His presence. After all, I had talked with, lived, with, touched, and talked with Wyndham for forty-five years and now I have memories. With God, I have talked with Him for years and have His Spirit and His Word, but I have never seen Him or physically touched Him. That’s hard, and I think is why Jesus says “blessed are those who have not seen, and have believed.” (Jn 20:29)  I told Him it is also hard to not know what it means to be in the spiritual state after death, and though I know Wyndham is with God, I felt a need for reassurance that all was okay. I asked Him if He could please let me know this somehow. I didn’t need to understand it, I just needed to know all was okay. This is all I said, as I did not really even know what I was asking.

After I prayed, I got up, picked up my phone, and had a message waiting from a sister in another region, Kathleen Johnson. This was her message to me. “Jeanie, in my quiet time I thought of you. As I was praying to God I had such a strong feeling that God wanted me to pass on to you that everything is all right..”

If that is not the Spirit at work, I don’t know what is. Of course, I cried in gratitude.

And now, every time I sit on the bench that I love and hate, I not only remember Wyndham, but am reminded that Jesus is my stream of living water…and Wyndham is more than all right.