I have these new puppy dogs fresh from God and I just want to gather them in my arms, all of them, all at once and just take in the sweetness and light that they offer. I want to hold onto it. I want to be it.

I want to make it last, somehow capture it and make it stay. But there is no containing such beauty. It is uncontainable, unfathomable, too deep and wide and high and long for me to fully comprehend. I feel like my brain would explode if I did, my heart already wants to.

The beauty that these puppies represent calls to me and though I cannot fully grasp it, it is a promise. A promise that each encounter with beauty enlarges my capacity for it, making space within me for more. A promise that, one day, I will have room enough to receive the gift of being in the very presence of beauty Himself, Jesus.

So for now, I will sit with the puppy on my chest. I will breathe in and out with the rhythm of the baby and I will wonder at the marvelous gift this tiny little bit gives me by just being beautiful.

Anne
November 5, 2023

August 19, 2023

It has been my privilege and honor to love and be loved by Flynn. My privilege and honor to walk alongside Megan and David and be a witness to their great love and inspired care for their children.
The simple act of being present with them, with Flynn, something I’m having trouble doing today, has opened my already grieving heart to the wonder of gratitude.
Being at his bedside or holding him in my lap and holding his hand, tickling his feet, or running my fingers through his glorious hair, and then most of all being pierced by his smile and his incredible laugh. These are the best parts of a life well lived.

Albert Schweitzer once said:

At times, our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.” – Albert Schweitzer

Thank you, David and Megan for sharing yourselves and your children with me and our family. Flynn has been a beautiful, spark giving gift to my world.

Flynn my sweet
Your life is a blessing
Your memory a treasure
You are loved beyond words
You are missed beyond measure.

Loving you,

Anne

With Montezuma’s revenge as my souvenir, I returned from Mexico feeling quite diminished. My energy was low. My headaches were high. After a couple weeks, I was getting back to myself when my young friend died.  Now, I would say,

I am extravagantly diminished. 

I am stuck in a land of foreboding, of worry. It’s not like me to worry and so of course this worries me.

I am tempted to think  that I should know how to grieve by now; Know how to move on; maybe even hope to be immune to being stuck. I tell myself the old thought that loving deeply means grieving deeply. Grieving deeply can mean feeling immovable in the sadness. Yes, but it’s more than that.  I can’t seem to feel my future right now and I don’t ever remember feeling this way. In the past, there have always been people and events to look forward to. I just can’t seem to feel them just now. 

When I am alone and left to my own thoughts, I am a hollow vortex of dis-integration almost like my heart is so full it will accept nothing more.

There’s no anger, no questioning, just a pervasive muddling  like I can’t find my way out and wouldn’t have the energy to try even if I could.

I was cooking the other day using a recipe and I went off book but didn’t realize it. It was as if I went somewhere and the part of me that stayed, improvised. 

And so I sleep, alot, and I tell myself that taking care of my friend’s 5 year old has made me tired. I’m out of practice taking care of such high energy beings but that is not my whole story.

I’ve never understood the bond I have with my friend and I haven’t been very involved with her son. He was born and lived during the timing of my grief for Philip, my mom and Shauna. I have been distant, unhelpful, lost in my own trouble. 

I go through the motions of a regular life of connection. I take care of my routine business, appointments, dogs, car, house. I help my friend grieve her child by attempting to be helpful. But when I am not sleeping, when I am alone, I am sad and adrift. 

I sent Joe to his air show with Ricardo. They’ll be gone for a week. I had plans to do a retreat by myself and I was looking forward to it but now I seem to have lost connection to what I once cherished. 

I want to be able to deal with death but each new one shows me a different aspect and I am still so easily knocked off kilter.

And then, as I was watching TV the other day,  God seemed to use the exact dialogue of my life in the Star Trek episode…

Uhura was talking with Kirk.

“I’ve never been able to face death. Everyone has some way of dealing with it, of moving on but I don’t know how. It has gotten so bad that I can’t even look at pictures of my family and the most recent death has just brought it all back again.”

Kirk replies: “Our job puts us against death, more than is fair. We may not like it but we do have to face it. And right now death is winning. It claimed your family. It claimed your friend. It has convinced you to forget them because it’s less painful then holding on to their memories. You can’t let death win. You can fight back and hold on to them.”

I felt a glimmer of hope when I watched that. It seemed like somewhere in there was an answer I was seeking.

It made me visualize the scene as if Jesus and I were Kirk and Uhura. I’ve used something like this in counseling before, a sort of interactive prayer.

We are sitting on a bench overlooking the sunset where we’ve been before. We are having the convo above. Jesus takes my hand and tells me it’s okay to rest. It’s okay to not have it all figured out. He tells me He’s given me this time to be still because He’s doing a work in me that I would not believe even if I were told. 

“Go gently, be gentle, especially with yourself,” He says, “Do not fear the process. I am with you.”

Somehow, though I still do not feel my future, I do feel better with my now.

Anne

July 26, 2023
A total Eclipse of the Heart playing in the background

We will never be the same
As we were before this loss
But we are ever so much better
For having had someone
So great to Lose.
~Leigh~

A young friend of mine was called home to Jesus today. My heart bucks and fights against the reality. I cry out in pain at the tearing of another sacred bond. I fall to my knees and cower in fear. Thank God He does not leave me there.

John Denver’s Wild Country song comes to mind and beckons my retreat. St. Paul’s Romans 1:20 alongside it.
I run to the wild of Granite Basin Lake. My grandkids and son are happily basking in the cool waters and in the joy of being together. This frees me to seek God’s invisible qualities all around me;
to look up at the granite boulder mountains and the crisp blue sky and choose to be comforted by God’s invisible qualities, by His eternal power and divine nature that can be understood from what has been made. I focus on He, Who calls us home and He, Who holds me up when I cannot stand. He, Who assures me that through the brokenness of this world, through my own brokenness, He will bring beauty.

Somewhere down the broken road, there will be answers for this loss but for right now, I can feel this brokenness because I know my Lord goes before me. I know I am ever so much better for having had someone so great to lose.

Goodbye, sweet Flynn. I imagine that the completeness of your mother’s and father’s love have prepared you well for the love of Jesus Who welcomes you with His shining radiant love this very day.

Loving you,
Anne
July 16, 2023

Romans 1:20
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.”

To the Wild Country
By John Denver

There are times I fear I lose myself
I don’t know who I am
I get caught up in the struggle and the strain
With my back against a stonewall
My finger in the dam
Losin’ strength and goin’ down again

And I take a look around me
My eyes can’t find the sun
There’s nothing wild as far as I can see
Then my heart turns to Alaska
And freedom on the run
I can hear her spirit callin’ me
To the mountains, I can rest there
To the rivers, I will be strong
To the forest, I’ll find peace there
To the wild country, where I belong

Oh, I know some times I worry
On worldly ways and means
And I can see the future killing me
On a misbegotten highway
Of prophecies and dreams
A road to nowhere and eternity

And I know it’s just changes
Yes, and mankind marchin’ on
I know we can’t live in yesterday
But compared to what we’re losin’
And what it means to me
I’d give my life and throw the rest away

To the mountains, I can rest there
To the rivers, I will be strong
To the forest, I’ll find peace there
To the wild country, where I belong
To the wild country, where I belong.

On my question list for Jesus has always been why mosquitos? Our chocolate hacienda tour guide told us today that there is no chocolate without them. They carry the pollen in their feet and pollinate the cacao flower. Our guide’s name is … Jesus! Cross that off the list!

Our last clinic day. Always bittersweet.

Kelly’s devotion this morning strengthens my own of yesterday. Yahweh Jireh=the Lord will see to it. He asks me to trust His timing. He asks me to be willing to obey. He encourages me to be attentive to His provisions. He does not ask me to figure everything out and assure follow through and completion; those are His jobs. This frees me to be present with each person He brings before me knowing that He will see to the rest.

I watch the pink, blue, green, orange, turquoise and yellow homes with their tree trunk fences fly past my bus window. There are no two the same.

Along the river’s edge, I find lily pad lawns from dried up flooding; The dense tropical growth of the mango, avocado and  white fluffball palm trees are interspersed with the evergreens and alternate with the wide open many colored grass fields: wild, red grasses in the center of tall, maroon, brown and yellow fern stalks. They sway in the wind changing colors with the movement.

I am greeted my the familiar face of my new friend. Gilhenia is what I hear but my triplets, Katya, Karen and Karina Jimenez Leon, write her name as Virginia. She may be short in stature but she is big in personality and grand in smile.  She is full of questions I don’t understand even after I say Hablo espanol poquito… I use all my codes to why don’t you have internet? Did you resign try to convey I haven’t a clue and finally I shrug my shoulders. When she still persists, we walk up the path hand in hand to seek a code talker/interpreter. It turns out I am an examiner after all. What I anticipated was a short chat became a complicated history taking reassurance-giving Convo. Yes, Virginia, you are just fine. 

I know some Spanish and French and Creole, Navajo, Swahili but I have trouble accessing the language placed before me. As a result, I am slow to even say ‘Hola’ or ‘Gracias’ because I am filtering through several other languages. I feel so foolish yet at the same time it makes me imagine heaven.There, I’ll be able to speak whatever language comes out of my mouth and it  will be understood! And, yes Anne, it will be so fine.

Santiago is back and becomes our constant companion again. His shirt reads “Spread your own ideas” and I add: not disease. It becomes our pseudo motto in nutrition.

By day’s end, he will have landed 90 botella flips. We count together and cheer with every one. Joe joins us in the 20’s and soon catches up as the competition heats up. 

Daniella Marcella, who is 4ish, joins us with her unquenchable fire. She begins with cautious watching but commits her whole small self when I offer her a botella of her own. She literally spends every subsequent minute all morning working her skill and mimicking my excitement with each successful landing. I marvel at her persistence and joy.

Early in the day. Virginia’s husband Hector comes to me just as Abraham, a seminary student and one of our interpreters, walks past. I snag Abraham so that he can tell me what Hector needs. It seems that Hector saw one of our examiners yesterday just as Virginia had but Hector had forgotten to mention his sore arm. It seems that Hector had injured his arm sometime in the past and it has continued to hurt every day until now. I assessed it and found a monstrously tight knot, much like those I have on my back which I once named after my oldest boys,  David and Peter. It just so happens that we have a skilled medical student on the team and she has mad skills with relieving muscle pain.  I asked her to fit Hector in.  She was very busy all day but right at the end of our day, I brought long-suffering Hector to her and after only  a few minutes, the knot was released and Virginia was taught how to intervene in the future. Hector was so pleased he found me to tell me, in rapid, excited Spanish, how grateful he was. It was a sweet way to end our clinic time in Mexico.

Strength for today (bright hope for tomorrow): Strategic. I have been made with a distinct way of thinking; a special perspective on the world. An ability to sort through the clutter to find the best route. This is my strategy.  I sort through the events of my day with the strategic goal of seeing God’s hand and His perspective on my life.      

My heart  begins to sing. It takes me a moment but I recognize it:

Firm Foundation

“Christ is my firm foundation,
The Rock on which I stand,
when everything around me is shaken,
I’ve never been more glad
that I put my faith in jesus
because he’s never let me down.
He’s faithful through generations
so why would he fail now?
He won’t!”

I sent this song to Ari, pre-trip, to soften the voices of the naysayers in her life. I guess it has become the anthem of our trip.

We drive our two hours and return to our church from yesterday. 

I’m sitting in my family room again, as I did yesterday. My same family members haunt the hallways in the forms of my Mexican amigos. I am no longer invisible as they recognize me with grand smiles and endearing Buenos Dias. Benny is a thirty something handsome man wearing his signature red baseball hat and I learn his name today. His smile is outrageously sparkling and he welcomes me back with a vigorous handshake. It is later that I realize he reminds me of Philip.

This church family is lovely to watch as they care for one another. There are hugs and slaps on the back for everyone including myself.

Joe and I run our station like a well oiled machine. I welcome every patient with a smile and a blood pressure and he takes over from there. I am a bit surprised to realize that I am actually missing doing exams. When I began the trip, I felt so inadequate but as is so often the case, God calls me to be willing and when I say yes, in spite of my fear, I rarely have to do the thing I dread. Today, He has replaced dread with longing and that makes me kind of laugh. He knew, as Kelly did, that I have nothing to fear when God is doing the equipping.

Mi amigos, Santiago and Susanna, have returned today and they eagerly transfer over to mi loco nino, Joe. Water bottle flipping challenges go on all day. 

There are a set of teenage triplets running registration. Two of the three do the paperwork and one organizes the line. I’ve noticed the two paperwork doers fold the papers in opposite directions. I find that fascinating. When they ran out of forms, they each had a different idea about how to get me to understand this. One ran off to retrieve an actual form, one spoke rapid Spanish detailing the need and the third folded an imaginary paper in the air and put it in a bag. The last one beat the runner and we retrieved some more forms.

Our local, lovely gatekeeper of the door to clinic, Socorro, laughs and smiles at me every time I enter. She catches me savoring a moment in front of an electric fan and giggles. It becomes our thing to watch each other and it is a highlight of my day.

I felt a bit isolated from the team in our down the path locale, but somehow closer to this church community who seem to have made me a part of them. The cook took my face in her hands and kissed my cheeks saying something about manana.  Yes, indeed, until manana!

BHWB, MexicAnne

I awake to a lower energy day and to combat this, I wash our three pairs of scrubs in the sink, ringing them in a towel, and hanging them every which way to dry. I eat my instant oatmeal while sitting by the hotel window looking out at the bright day and I explore my Input strength.

“Those with strong input talents are inquisitive. They love to provide relevant and tangible help to others.”

I smile at this. I stayed up late writing last night. I’ve found that I have a need to process my day through words as I seek relevant and tangible help for myself from above and then seek to pass on what I discover.

It may be a low energy day but it was for a satisfying reason and this will ultimately fuel my new day.

We are going to a different church. It is by a river in the lush countryside. Joe is staying back at the hotel so it is Ari, the team, and I, who head out for our 2 hour drive.

The countryside is a kaleidoscope of tropical yellow and green. The tall grasses wave gently in the wind. It is a cross between watery Bangladesh and the savannahs of Africa, only with better roads. It is perhaps just as narrow, however, as I am startled out of my revelry by the occasional crash on the bus roof as we snap off an overhanging tree branch.

Our church is in a remote, rural town on the western river bank of the second largest river in Mexico. We walk a leisurely dirt path past a mud pond of ducks and chickens. The birds are singing in the trees that canopy our way and we enter the church from behind. The ‘front’ of the church faces the river.

We set up clinic in a partially finished cement building with uneven, loose dirt floors.  I am in charge of Joe’s station today and so I set up the height and weight. When I step on the scale, I am pleased to see that I have lost 50 pounds in the last two days! Wow! I must have really been sweating.  After a few failed tricks, I move my station to the cement floored church buildings farther away so that I can gain my 50 pounds back😉.

My first patient, 80 yo Susanna, sees that I am heat challenged, already, and offers me her spare hand fan. We bat our eyes at each other over our fans and laugh. Just two little maids from school, I sing.

Magania is my line helper and though we do not share common words we do share a common language of service. Her broad smile melts me each time I look up.

In between my patients, I feel like I’ve entered a zone of invisibility. It’s as if  I am transported back in time. The church people are greeting each other warmly. Smiles and laughter float above the conversations.  It feels like Old Timers day in rural New Mexico and Philip is everywhere. These are his favorite people, speaking his beloved language,making his best loved foods, and wearing his cherished white straw cowboy hats. Over by the kitchen, I see Philip’s Uncle Pat with his thin, long face and big, bullshit protected ears that peek out from under his 10 gallon.  Grandpa Sam with his round face and beautiful bald head comes walking in unsteadily, with his love in one hand and a cane in the other. Philip’s friend Rosario’s twin is here with his contagious smile and laugh. It is a bittersweet zone and I am partially grateful for the quick escape back into work.

Each time I weigh a young man, an older man peeks over my shoulder to see how much the scales says and then makes a few comments in Spanish. I wonder at this but with no interpreter I am left to my own musings. I try to relate that the scale is in pounds and not kilograms but I don’t think I am successful. Later, I suspect that he might have been converting pounds to kg for them and I marvel at his mental math skills. In this heat, my math skills are not at their finest.

In the afternoon, I find myself surrounded by my  four amigos:  Susanna, Ingrid, Santiago, Issac. They swarm to my side between patients and are shooed away by my math wizard when a new one comes. They teach me Spanish numbers and ABC’s in between.

I begin to flip my water bottle to make it stand and they watch tentatively from the sidelines until my nefarious plan works and they swoop in to join me. The laughter and competition heats up and I make a few furtive glances at the adults to see if we are getting too loud but find instead that not one adult is looking our way. To me, it sounds like a riot in the making but no one seems to even notice.

I love greeting every patient, shaking the hands of the elderly, holding the babies, wooing the under five crowd, playing with the olders. This is my favorite kind of day.

BHWB,

MexicAnne

Today, my mind is filled with concerns. My body aches. The heat is so oppressive. Will I be up to my tasks today? As my mind turns to ask God these things, He directs me to my strength book. I open to Developer. It tells me my strength lies in finding the good in others; in seeking out roles in which my primary role is to facilitate growth.

In reading, my gut response is one of denial; “That does not sound like me”, I tell myself. Yet when I look at my day yesterday, it is exactly me. Despite my deficits, I was leaning into my God given strength. I was watching for and facilitating the growth of others.  The Developer strength continues with the affirmation: do what you can do rather than what you can’t.

As always, God changes my perspective when I turn to Him.

I’m ready. Clinic day #2 here we go!

Dennis’ devotion on the bus ride encourages us to consider making prayer our first impulse when faced with the challenges of our day. A wireless connection, if you will and connection becomes my theme for the day.

We return to the same church. The heat factor is less though our thermometers still groan. They stopped entirely yesterday mirroring our own stamina issues.

I look over to Joe who is wooing his 2yo patient. The little boy is not interested in having Joe measure his upper arm circumference until Joe shows him his own muscles. The little one then mimics Joe with delight at comparing strength, a broad smile transforming his face. It is a perfect tactic and with connection made, the measurement is done.

Later, several high school boys, Joe’s contemporaries, come to clinic. As they wait on the bench to have weight and height taken, Joe takes the opportunity for a small prank that transcends their language barrier. While one is having his height measured, which takes a blink, Joe stands behind him and puts his finger to his lips, signaling the benched ones to stay quiet. When his patient asks if he is done, Joe directs him to stand still and waits to see what the boy will do. When the boy realizes he’s being pranked, they all laugh together. Connection made. Deed done with delight.

When I look over at Ari, I see that her interpreter is 8yo Adele with her mother. I marvel as I watch Ari take the reins of her station and teach what she has just learned to Adele. She teaches with ease and confident tenderness. It is hard to believe we have only been here two days. She is so self assured and comfortable with her work as if she is equally as well practiced.

Genuine faith has a habit of playing dominoes. One Domino informs the next which informs the next until there is a cascading faith reaction. Take clinic, for example.

Dennis encouraged the team today to respond with prayer as our first impulse. Domino #1a. Laura walked to a high school yesterday to offer the clinic to the students. Domino#1. Today the students came. Domino#2. One of those students came to CSI in great physical and emotional distress where he found willing hearts to carry his burdens and others to listen to God’s call to pray. Domino #3 and #4. With the help of our community of Domino/believers, our young man, accepting our care also accepted our Savior, Jesus. He left with his understanding parents several hours later. Holistically cared for, given physical and emotional acceptance, he was open  to spiritual acceptance as well.  He left with a calm spirit and our Living Hope.

The Lord gave victory to His anointed, CSI dominos. He delivered this needy one and He answered us all from His heavenly sanctuary with the victorious power of His right hand, our Lord Jesus.

Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God and though our boy was  brought to his knees, he did rise up to stand firm and able to become a Domino in his own right.

It is the marvelous, beautiful circle of giving put in place by God Himself:

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that He gave…

Prayer for our sobbing CSI child

Psalm 20:1-2,5-8

[1]May the Lord answer you when you are in distress;
    may the name of the God of Jacob protect you.
[2]May he send you help from this sanctuary in Chiapas, Mexico
    and grant you support from Zion.
[6]Now this I know:
    The Lord gives victory to his anointed warriors in CSI
He answers them from his heavenly sanctuary
    with the victorious power of his right hand, our Lord Jesus Christ.
[7]Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
    but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
[8]They are brought to their knees and fall,
    but we rise up and stand firm.

Psalms 51:10,12

[10]Create in us a pure heart, O God,
    and renew a steadfast spirit within us.
[12]Restore to us the joy of your salvation
    and grant us a willing spirit, to sustain us.

Psalm 72:12-14

[12]For he will deliver the needy who cry out,
    the afflicted who have no one to help.
[13]He will take pity on the weak and the needy
    and save the needy from death.
[14]He will rescue them from oppression and violence,
    for precious is their blood in his sight.

1 Peter 1:3-4

[3]Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
[4]and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you,

It was a good day at clinic!

BHWB,

MexicAnne