A woman I know has found her beloved. Though things will not be official for a while, come next summer she will be married. Before she met her intended, she had longed for a husband who would pray with her. Answering the desire of her heart, our Good Shepherd is cleaving her to one of His own undershepherds. Surely His goodness is overflowing, for as a pastor her beloved rejoices in this woman's hunger for the sweet, sweet Gospel, her clinging fiercely to the Gospel and eschewing all else, and the ineffable satiation she finds in the fellowship of praising, giving thanks, and petitioning our Good Shepherd with another child of God!
Cleaving. A contronym in that it means both to separate and to join together. Funny that. In Christ, we are buried and risen, we are dead and alive.
Anyway, hearing her talk about her wedding made me start thinking about my best friend. Since that conversation, I have been trying--for several days now--to remember even a single moment of Bettina's wedding. Just one color or smell or song. An exchange or a morsel of food. The cake...how can I, Myrtle, forget wedding cake? Not one moment. Not a single second of my best friend's wedding do I remember. Just eleven years ago.
So, yesterday, I asked Bettina if I was at her wedding. She promptly answered. No asking why I wanted to know. No twitting me about how I should remember my own best friend's wedding. No trying to get me to remember myself. Just an answer. [Oh, how I love that woman!]
Not only was I there, but I was in the wedding. I was her bridesmaid...apparently in a dress I didn't like. [What a horrible friend am I that I let her know I was not a fan of her choice! Something about my thinking that I looked like a pink sausage in it??? And, no, I do not know where the dress is...what happened to it.] But what was so amazing in her answer was that she told me that they had the bridal party sit since I could not stand long enough for the ceremony. How sweet was that? How loving!
Since he is plowing through my blog, perhaps Fred could count up all the Bettina-is-so-very-wonderful entries there are in the past eleven years. However many there are, there are not enough of them.
In any case, my dearest friend understood my anguish in the question and her answer. She also said it would be okay, that she promised to share her memories of us. That's Bettina for you, always offering love and acceptance. Too, the marvel of her really, is that she always sees the best in me, not the worse.
If you were to ask me what I see in Luther's exploration of the 8th Commandment in the Large Catechism, I would say that I see how Becky has lived our friendship. She not only seeks to be truthful and to not spread any untruths, but she oft covers my own foibles and flaws with her own honor. When she looks at me, she see not the sinner--which I most certainly am--but the redeemed saint. She sees me not as a struggling sheep, full of doubt and despair at times, but a beloved child of God and her sister in Christ. That she looks at me, sees me this way, is a marvel and surely one of the greatest blessings in my life.
I have wondered though, just how hard it is on her to be my friend...especially of late. I wonder if it bothers her that I do not remember our friendship. Christ has helped me, in the past while, to understand that we are friends, even if I cannot remember most of the past sixteen years. He gave her the words, based on His Word, that would help me to understand this: Covenant friends.
In many ways, I see that as a choice, a binding choice the way a woman and a man are bound together in marriage...through thick and thin. Though, to be sure, sixteen years ago, Bettina probably didn't think she would have to face this much thin in our friendship.
As I have written before, her telling me that she viewed us as covenant friends brought a peace even my lack of memories could not break. Because that meant our friendship was something God was building. What He has done before, He can certainly do again. Of course, she is sort of both David and Jonathan in our friendship. So, uhm, where does that leave me? Mostly, I think about us being Frog and Toad. She is clearly Frog and I Toad. Frog and Toad...good stuff there. Bettina and Myrtle...good stuff there.
If one were to write a book about friendship, the shape of it that God can craft even in a fallen world, even between sinners, ours would be a great model...at least her half would be. She is an altogether extraordinary woman. And, as I have said for a long while now, if everyone in the world could have a Bettina in his life, this world would be a much, much better place.
So, having struggled to capture the magnificent blessing that is Bettina once more, how could it be that I cannot remember her wedding? Smells and sounds have been intense triggers for me of late, wont to bring on the nemesis born of PTSD, those blasted anxiety attacks. Shouldn't some smells or sounds bring on a flood of memories of Bettina? Ought not there to be some balance in all of this? I wish with my whole being to remember that day, to be able to look back and share her joy. Or the memory of any day, really, with Bettina.
But the heart of her is that she will tell me the story of her wedding if I ask. She will tell me the story of her first cherub's birth. She will tell me the story of our camping trip. She will be the keeper of the story of us.
Truly, she is the greatest blessing that God has bestowed upon me outside the salvation won for me by His son and the gift of faith brought to me through the Holy Spirit. For...surely...God knew the measure of my days and caused my path to join with Bettina's so that when I stumble, when I am lying on the ground, there is someone who, if unable to help me get up, will sit beside me in the dust and love me even when I am bloody and beaten and unable to see the light at the end of the tunnel that is the day I will be taken into the arms of the Savior we share. And, too, I think...well...that God knew the measure of my doubts and despair and caused my path to join with Bettina's so that I might understand His love for me, even the me I am now, because if she, with all her weaknesses and sin, can love me so fully, so completely, with such acceptance and a willingness to look past my own weaknesses and sin, then my Good Shepherd, who is perfect, loves me even more!
Because I am the beloved daughter of a God who causes our cups to runneth over, He has given me a new friend whose magnificence is in her ability to share the sweet, sweet Gospel with a gentleness and a sensitivity that is truly extraordinary. I am humbled, often, by her emails, by her listening to my confusion and anguish and then speaking in such a way that I can hear, that I can grasp--even if fleeting--the sweet, sweet Gospel. [And, if there is anything I have to say about it, she will eventually have a book that tells others how to share the sweet, sweet Gospel with wounded souls using gentle and sensitive words.]
I do wonder, though, if she will be able to carry both halves of the friendship, as does Bettina. I have wondered if she will be willing be the keeper of the story of us for me...and remain patient, when I ask her the dozenth time, how her visit me was just last month...or was it two months ago??
I suppose the larger truth is that I worry--beyond the wedding, beyond the friendships--about what I can no longer remember, the good things that I can no longer remember. May it never be so, but I worry about the day that I no longer remember the One who has given me those friendships, those good gifts. For those who lose their memories, what they often retain is the distant past. For me, that would be a devastating loss. For me, to go back to living in my past would be a nightmare.
Where will I be without knowing who I am in Christ? If I no longer know Him, will He know me? If I can no longer call Him Lord, will Jesus still be the keeper of the story of us?
In all the hell, fire, and brimstone of the bible, it is not God's wrath and destruction that terrifies me so. It is two small places: it is the Holy Spirit leaving Saul without him realizing he had strayed so far from God that he lost his faith and it is Jesus saying to the men who called Him Lord and did service in His name, "I knew you not."
Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
15 comments:
Yes, Myrtle, the God who has promised never to leave you nor forsake you will know you even if you no longer know him. The God who knew you in Christ before the foundation of the world, will still be the keeper of your story and still know you as His daughter even if you get to the place where you are unable to articulate or even think the word, "Lord."
Thank you, Dolph. You can repeat this a few dozen times, if you will.
I have wondered, though, that line about knowing before the foundation of the world. It's in a favorite hymn of mine. I understand it not.
"Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.'" (Mat 25:34 NAS)
22 "And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given to them; that they may be one, just as We are one;
23 I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, that the world may know that Thou didst send Me, and didst love them, even as Thou didst love Me.
24 "Father, I desire that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am, in order that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me; for Thou didst love Me before the foundation of the world.
25 "O righteous Father, although the world has not known Thee, yet I have known Thee; and these have known that Thou didst send Me;
26 and I have made Thy name known to them, and will make it known; that the love wherewith Thou didst love Me may be in them, and I in them."
(John 17:22-26 NAS)
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,
4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love
5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will,
6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
(Eph 1:3-6 NAS)
You were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers,
19 but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.
20 For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you
21 who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
(1Pe 1:18-21 NAS)
Thank you, Preacher Man!
That passage in Ephesians is part of a larger passage that is an absolute favorite of mine.
I think that I had understand Christ to be known/loved/chosen before the foundation of the world, but not me....
Hmm...but you did not promptly name the hymn, too. Do you know to which one I am referring???
I'm sorry, nothing is coming to mind regarding the hymn. Could you give me a line or two of context?
And by the way. Myrtle, too.
Two hints: 1) it has blood in it and 2) there is a 6 in the number from the LSB.
AWESOME hymn by the way...you should sing it on one of your shut-in visits!
"Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness" is my guess without looking it up.
Looked it up. Nope.
#556 "Dear Christians, One and All, Rejoice". Great hymn. One of my favorites too!
Myrtle, from what you say about Bettina, I don't think you ever have to worry about her tiring of keeping the story. Some people were just made to do that, you know? It sounds like Bettina was. And there's something else I would like you to think about. I have actually had a blog post percolating around in my brain on this topic. In recent months it seems I have had several friends going through really, really trying times--family members with cancer, new babies facing huge physical challenges, husbands losing jobs--and I have tried to encourage and pray for them as I know others have and have been told things like "Sorry to trouble you" and have had them apologize for "bothering" me (and others) with their trials. And what I have had impressed upon me and tried to share is that being allowed to share in their trials with them and being asked to pray for them is not a burden, it is a blessing. God blesses us through giving us the opportunity to love and support and encourage one another. It makes me think of Pat Robertson's recent utterly stupid pronouncement about how it's okay for someone to divorce his or her spouse if the spouse has Alzheimer's. He is suggesting I guess that because the burden is so great and the Alzheimer's patient doesn't know the difference that somehow it's acceptable. HOGWASH. The person who would do such a thing, who would turn his back on his spouse in that situation, is hurting himself a whole lot more than he's hurting his spouse. It's true, the advanced Alzheimer's patient probably won't know the difference. Someone will care for him or her. But the spouse who abandons the one he promised to cherish and serve for life is ripping a wound in his own heart and soul. He may not realize it, but he is. And he is denying himself the blessings that God would most certainly give in his continued service and devotion to his spouse.
That has been my experience when I have been blessed to be able to pray for and try to encourage others. Certainly it's not on the scale of the example above and I don't mean to suggest that it is. But in a very tiny way there is a similarity in that the opportunity to care for another blesses the caregiver as much or sometimes more than it does the one who receives care.
Oh, and please don't be too hard on yourself on the memory stuff. Memory is such an inexplicable thing. The ability to remember really has nothing to do with how much you value the memory. Case in point. Just a few weeks ago my husband asked me to come and look at something on his Facebook account. It was one of his FB friends directing his choir in the sanctuary at his church. My husband told me to look and see if I noticed anything. I didn't other than that it was a guy directing choir in a church. My husband said, okay, let me show you this picture and he showed me another shot of the same church, this time a picture of the organ. I said "It's an organ." Finally he gave up and told me, "Sweetie, that's the church we got married in." Sigh. My defense is that I was not a member of that church (wasn't Lutheran at the time) and after we married (and I did become Lutheran) we moved away and joined a different church. Still, you would think a bride would recognize the church she got married in!
Dear Cheryl,
The memory stuff is part and parcel to the MS and is a VERY big deal to me. Sometimes I do not know my name or what day it is or where I am (though that is less of a problem being home all the time). I rarely write by hand anymore because I forget to form letters.
Most of my friendship with Bettina is in her hands. I simply do not remember the times we spent together. I think the saddest of this loss is our trip to Italy. We joke about her ire of my snoring the night we were both sick, but it is a story I know. I do not remember anything of the 15-day trip. Not Rome or Florence or Pisa or Pompeii or Fisole or Venice. Nothing of a once-in-a-lifetime kind of trip. For me, I am no longer strong enough for such a trip, so it probably was the single trip of my life, my first and only real vacation trip as an adult. I look at the photos to try and hold the story of our trip in my mind, but I do not remember being with her, the sights and sounds and smells...the joy of sharing that with such an amazing woman.
To be blunt...for someone who used to have a 151 IQ, for whom everything came easily, the cognitive loss is devastating. Yet there is nothing really I can do about it.
As to your blog post, I VERY MUCH am looking forward to reading it. I DO understand the bother, the burden mentality because I have been told that the enormity of my grief, my hurt, my needs is too much and is burdensome and is even selfish to share. I truly have.
Also there is this mentality that if someone is not bound to you, such as a spouse, then if helping that person is hard on you, you should not do so. You should walk away and protect yourself.
I struggle with this. Not just because I am single and do not have family support. I struggle with this because of what it means. I think the Christian answer is you lay down your life to help another...and laying down your life is not just dying. But the world's answer is you only help if it doesn't hurt you. This confuses me and I do not know where the truth lies.
I do know, whether or not she admits it, that Bettina has sacrificially helped me at times and has sometimes struggled to balance her vocation as wife and mother with her covenant friendship with me. I have tried to help her do this, when I have understood the burden. But I do not always see as clearly as I should. I wish I were a better friend to her.
Had she counted the cost with me, though, I simply wouldn't be here. I am thankful she did not follow the way of the world.
Ah, yes. I understand now. I wasn't connecting the memory loss to the MS. You see, not having met you in person and only knowing you for a short time I'm still not quite connecting all the dots. I'm so sorry for the memories you have lost, Myrtle, and so glad you have a friend willing and able to recreate some of them for you, even if they come to you as stories and not as things that you own. I guess maybe it's like a parent telling a child stories about when she was little? If you hear the stories enough it's almost like you can remember them even if you can't.
Myrtle is still helping me connect the dots of her story. What can I say but that there are an awful lot of dots! :-) Seriously, Myrtle has helped me understand many things pertaining to pastoral care of which I had no real ken before making her acquaintance on FB. For that I'm grateful. Don't let that go to your head, Myrt!
Anyway, she has been patient with me (generally!)as I try, in my small, ineffectual way, to understand her story, but also encourage her to see Jesus Christ as the keeper, not just of her story, but the stories of all the baptized. It's amazing how, in Christ, these separate strands of story are intermingled and interwoven into one unified story -- a most wondrous narrative of God's redemptive love for His people in Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. It's the best story of all, and when we get to the end of the book -- the consummation of all things at the return of our Savior in glory -- the story is really just beginning. And it gets better and better and better.
Thanks Cheryl and Myrtle for your thoughts here. It's a privilege to read them.
Cheryl, once again you have said something perfectly for me! Yes, it does feel like a child asking to hear stories about when they were little. And I do like to hear things over and over. Even if I know it only as a story, I can still cling to knowing that it happened, that it is real. I do not ask Bettina to tell me things as much as I would like, hardly at all. But I know that if I ask, she will promptly tell me.
Post a Comment