Until We Meet Again My Angel on Earth

 

The moving truck with all of our belongings from Georgia arrived on Fir Grove Drive on Valentine’s Day 2007.   I caught a glimpse of her across the street throwing a football with her grandson.  We smiled at each other several times as I unloaded boxes and took them into our new home.

The next day, she showed up at our door with chocolates and welcomed us to this quaint, little cul-de-sac street filled mostly with original homeowners from the 70’s, some of which were (and still are) retirees from Shell.

When she arrived at our door, I was unpacking items to be placed in our china cabinet.  One of them was a Lladro figurine given to me upon leaving my position at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.  I worked for the CEO of this health system, which is the largest children’s hospital in Georgia.  Any time an employee left that organization, he always made sure they were given a Lladro figurine.  One that resembled their characteristics.  I was normally the one given the task of selecting them.  So, at my going away party, when I received an angel figurine with dark black hair, I almost chuckled out loud while at the same time feeling flattered that it was an angel.  I later learned that his wife had picked it out for me and she didn't realize the importance he had placed on each selection resembling that person's physical features.

I was unpacking the Lladro figurine as she came in our front door and I said, “wow, this looks like you!”  Turns out Lani Grant became my angel on earth that very day. 

Two months later, when I received the call that my mother had passed away suddenly of a heart attack, she was the first person I called and she immediately ran across the street to comfort me.  I was 36 years old at the time and still needed and wanted my mother.  During that deep pain, God gave me Lani.  She had her own children to love, but somehow found room in her heart to adopt our little family of three and love us just the same.

She would call me sometimes and say, “Hey you wanna hear a funny?” I always needed those laughs when she called.  She would pray for me – all the time.  She would share pictures of her great grandchildren and her latest life updates.  

Yesterday, when I learned that she went to be with Jesus, it was like losing my mother all over again.  To be loved so deeply by Lani was such a precious gift.  I’ll cherish it forever. I’ll forever miss her calls and texts to share her life and to check on us.  She was so very special to us.  

I’m so glad you were able to run into the arms of Jesus, Lani.  It's where you truly belong, even though my heart aches just the same.  I’ll always cherish my china cabinet Lladro figurine as a forever reminder of you and your love for us.  

My angel on earth.

61 Card Pickup

I never counted them.  I just kept writing them and putting them in the mail.  My hope was to send enough cards and photos to catch my dad up on a lifetime he missed with his daughter before it was too late.  Was it enough?  Only God knows the answer to that question, but I have peace in my heart to know that it was JUST enough.  Just enough for peace and love that only God could provide.  

After many year apart, I traveled to South Carolina to visit my dad in March of 2022 for his 82nd birthday.  Here's the story if you missed it How God Let Me To See My Dad.  It was a wonderful visit and he said it was the best birthday he ever had.  After I returned home, I began to send him these cards.  In April of this year, after his 83rd birthday, I traveled to South Carolina to make another visit.  This time with his granddaughter.  It was a sweet visit and he was able to see her all grown up at 25 years old.  In one of the cards I sent him, I included a photo of her at the age of five in her ballerina attire and tap dance get up.  Telling him that while she loved ballet, she would not tap dance at her recital to the tap dance song because she said, "I don't like the music."  I had hoped that would give him a chuckle the day it arrived while he spent his days in assisted living soon to be placed on hospice for cancer.

In the last couple of weeks, my dad's health began to decline rapidly and he made his entrance into Heaven last week.  I have felt a feeling of doom all of my life knowing that someday I would attend the funeral of a man I did not know.  There was SO much more to know of  him, about him, his heart, and his soul.  

As I entered the funeral home, my aunt Sarah told me where she wanted to me to sit, which was on the first pew, on the very end, two seats down from her with my Hannah in between us.  What I didn't know at the time was that she placed me there purposely because after the two soldiers removed the flag from the top of his casket and performed their ceremonial folding of it, one of the soldiers knelt down and presented it to me. I lost all composure the tears just came.  I'm grateful for it and will cherish it forever.  I also learned from the chaplain that performed the funeral that my dad talked about me and said his 82nd birthday was wonderful because I was able to be there.  It became quickly apparent that the chaplain knew a special part of my dad's heart and that in itself was huge.  My dad was a very private person, so him opening up about his life was a really big deal.

In addition to the flag, I was gifted my dad's Bible. When I arrived home the next day, I flipped through it to find some keepsakes he had placed in there.  To my surprise, I found a prayer he had written to God asking to help him be a better person.  A lifetime of anger and bitterness is hard on a person and only God can change a heart.  The flag was more than enough, but the letter made it all complete.  He knew he needed to be better.  We all do in our own way, don't we?

In the same bag containing his Bible were all the cards I had sent to him.  61 cards.  Cards that tried to make up for a lifetime.  

 I cannot ever recall a time when my dad ever told me he was proud of me.  But the two things he did tell me I will cherish forever.  "I'm sorry." and "I love you."  

While in South Carolina, my daughter and I were able to visit a landmark called "Pretty Place."  It's a chapel that sits 3000 feet above sea level looking over the mountains.  I have never seen anything so beautiful.  We sat together in silence looking at God's beautiful creation. 

 Feeling thankful for His majesty.  And most of all --- for His healing.

"I will lift up mine eyes to the hills..." Psalm 121:1

61 cards

It's ALL About the Trust - How God Led Me to My See My Dad

I’ve cried heart wrenching tears on an airplane on two different occasions before now, but this time was different.  The first time was my first ever flight on the way from Atlanta to my dear friend, Christy’s wedding in Bermuda, when the pilot announced that we needed to get into the crash-landing safety position with our bodies leaning forward against the seat in front of us and our hands crossed over our heads because the landing gear was malfunctioning.  The flight crew’s plan was to land the plane on a runway covered with foam for a somewhat softer impact.  Fortunately, in the last few minutes of the flight, the landing gear extended, and we were able to land safely.  My dark green silk shirt was stained with tears full of fear and at 23 years old, I was thrilled to know I would live to see another day.

The second time was on a flight from Houston, Texas to Atlanta, Georgia to plan my mother’s funeral.  Just hours earlier I received a phone call informing me that she had passed away from a sudden heart attack while getting ready for work that morning.  Devastating doesn’t even come close to describing my wrecked, broken heart. Those were the ugliest tears I’ve ever cried, and I truly did not care who saw me or what anyone thought of my blubbering, snot filled sobs. 

The third time must truly be a charm because it was just so peaceful.  I was on a flight home to Houston, Texas from Greenville, South Carolina.  My husband, Barry, and I were on an airline we had never flown before and our seats were not together.  I was in a middle seat in between the teenager to my left by the window who was engrossed with his video game on his phone and the girl in her mid-twenties to my right who slept the entire flight.  Barry was across the aisle from me in a middle seat like me.  As I sat there quietly for the two-hour flight home, I could feel the silent tears continuously roll down my cheeks.  These were tears of joy at the very goodness of God.

Two months prior to this flight I was attending a ladies Bible study where we were discussing personal life hurts and all the sudden, I said, “I don’t trust God.”  After the words rolled off my tongue, I gave one of the leaders, Lillian, a shocked look which displayed the surprise on my face because I had not intended to say these words.  Especially not out loud!  Even though it’s what I felt, I never wanted to acknowledge it.  The other leader, Gigi, later told me she was proud of me for my honesty.  My distrust came from many areas of childhood hurt, but primarily my relationship with my dad.  My parents divorced when I was a very small child. I have wanted nothing more than to have a relationship with my dad all my life.  However, due to hurtful life circumstances, he became angry and bitter, which caused his words to become more like poison arrows instead of kind and loving.  I have come to realize that God has been protecting me all these years from continued hurt.

Through a series of what could have only been God’s ordained steps, I went to visit my dad at his new residence, in Greenville, which was an assisted living center, for his 82^nd birthday.  The experience at the airport on the way to see my dad and what transpired while visiting him led to the silent tears of joy streaming down my cheeks on my flight home to Houston that day.   

In all honesty, I was truly afraid to take this trip.  From the minute we booked it, to the minute we arrived.  However, God had it all planned out.  Every minute.  He was showing me He was there.  On our travels there from Houston, God showed me that I could trust Him because He had already gone before me.  At the airport food court, we met a sweet couple from Kerrville, Texas who sat at our table.  They were 82.  She was in a wheelchair, and he could walk, but needed a back brace for lumbar support and moved very slowly.  I was able to help them with napkins, straws, and eating utensils because their mobility was limited.  I knew then that God was showing me a mental picture of 82.

I sat next to a little boy named Josiah when we arrived at the gate.  In between playing a race car game and choosing videos on his iPad, he would tap me on the shoulder to ask me a series of questions, which included “Can you guess my favorite color?  What about my favorite food?” It took me a little while, but I finally guessed them all correctly.  These are questions I’ve wondered about my dad my entire life.  I don’t know my dad and he doesn’t know me.  As strange as it might sound to some, this is our reality and our story.  I had chills because yet again God was showing me, I could trust Him. 

After getting settled at the hotel upon our arrival, my Aunt Sarah drove Barry and me to the assisted living center.  When we arrived, Barry and I waited in the lobby before heading down the hallway leading to my dad’s room.  As we began to walk, I was so afraid, almost to the point of having a panic attack, and kept looking back at Barry with a facial expression that said, “save me”.  He smiled and used his hands to make a forward moving motion for me to just keep going.  I wanted the walk down the hallway to take forever, but room 106 was just around the corner. 

When we arrived in my dad’s room, I entered the doorway and said rather loudly, “Happy Birthday”.  He sat there in silence.   I then asked him, “Do you know who I am?”  He said, “yes, I love you” and for that very moment in time as we exchanged a hug, it was like a lifetime of hurt, years of carrying the shame of feeling unloved and exhaustion from trying to work so very hard to earn and prove my self- worth had been washed away.  For the first time in my life, I felt free and that was due to God’s love and grace.

Seventeen people showed up to my dad’s 82^nd birthday party the next day at a local restaurant.  I looked at him and said, “If this many people show up to my 82^nd birthday party I will feel so loved.”  He smiled and said, “This is the best birthday I’ve ever had.”  The smile on his face when we sang Happy Birthday was a true depiction of this very statement.   

Before leaving to go back home the next day, I gave my dad a big hug and through voice cracked pauses and tears, I read him the devotional from Paul David Tripp’s New Morning Mercies on March 31, which is my dad’s birthday.  It read “So be careful how you make sense of your life.  What looks like a disaster may in fact be grace.  What looks like the end may be the beginning.  What looks hopeless may be God’s instrument to give you real and lasting hope.  Your Father is committed to taking what seems so bad and turning it into something that is very, very good.”

Yes, yes, He is indeed.  I am forever grateful for those silent tears on the flight home that day.

Are You Chasing Your Self Worth?

That’s the thing about writing stories from the heart.  They are personal and they require you to be vulnerable.  Vulnerability can be very scary.  But the truth is, you either own your story or you spend an enormous amount of time trying to cover it up.  

I’m a rule follower.  I love rules, I love guidelines and I love planned schedules.  I love them because I personally need that type of structure in my life (just ask my husband or my daughter).  However, when something goes awry, I get a little out of sync.  I am a typical type A personality and sometimes can even stress myself out when things are not going as planned. 

Which leads me to the whole point of my story. 

Like others, I have survived my share of childhood hurts.  Some of which I have shared, while others are too hurtful to even talk about. None of which were my fault.  

As a child I was sometimes tasked with being a peace keeper, so I have been a problem solver and sweet word commentator (even when I did not want to be) for as long as I can remember.  My entire life, I have longed for my biological father to love me and have unintentionally carried the shame of being unloved in an invisible backpack around with me – let me tell you it gets heavy!  So to solve that problem (you feel me?), I have tried to live my life in such a way that I needed to strive for perfectionism.  And I needed to strive for perfectionism because I thought that is what I needed to do in order to be loved.  After all, if I was good in every.single.way, HOW could he possibly not love me?!  

I’m thankful that I have experienced these things in retrospect.  I like sweet words and even when I was in the middle of a hurt, using those sweet words shaped me to the person I am today.  I’ve also learned a lot about perfectionism.  I don’t need to be perfect.  God loves me so immensely with ALL of my flaws that I will never be able to truly understand.  And I don’t need to chase perfect to be loved.  Friend, I don’t know if you are out there chasing your self-worth, but if you are – stop it right now.  You are SO worthy and you are SO loved.

God Shows Up

When I opened up the Sunday School curriculum and learned that this week’s Sunday School lesson was on Acts Chapter 17, The Altar to an Unknown God, I shed a tear and immediately pointed up and thought, God, this is YOU and repeated the words I heard a pastor once say, “You are definitely here showin’ up and showin’ out!”

My parents divorced when I was four years old.  I have wanted nothing more in my entire life than for my father to love me:  http://morninggloriesbypambullard.blogspot.com/2013/08/were-you-loved-enough.html

Along with the life hurt of divorce and other tragedies, my father has become a truly bitter person.  So much so that his words can cut your heart into a million pieces in a flat second.  It seems to be a self preservation method for him.  No love, no further pain.  But no love also blocks out any hope of true joy.  I'm honestly not sure he knows how to love at all and certainly not love deeply.

I have come to follow a pastor at a church in the Houston area who has the same story as I do.  His parents divorced when he was four years old, he never really knew his father and yet he somehow finds comfort in his life now by journaling.  At the end of every day he writes “Dear Dad, I wish you could have seen…or heard…or experienced this with me today.”  Oh, how those are my feelings too!  I attended his church one evening knowing that God had a word for me through him.  His sermon was on Acts Chapter 17, The Altar to an Unknown God. After a beautiful service, where souls received Christ and where many who were sick waited in long lines to be prayed over, I went up to the stage.  He was walking away and with a smile I waived for him to please come back.  He was gracious and came over to me and I said, “I relate to you on so many levels.  Thank you for sharing your life and your journey about your dad.  I have the same story.”  Ironically, he has just accepted a pastoral position at a large church near my father’s home town in South Carolina. Only God.

I have taught sixth grade girls LIFE Group for a number of years and every year when sharing my life with them and providing an example of how to live by faith and not by sight, I explain that I don’t know how God will do it, but I know that He will reunite my dad and me before he dies.

But more recently, I have felt God saying to me that I need to stop hoping and focusing on a love that hurts too much.

When Paul visited Athens in Acts Chapter 17, and he saw the altar with the inscription “to an unknown God”, he told the Athenians that they seemed very religious, and he was not sure who it was that they were actually worshipping.  They had no concept of our God of the universe because they were grasping at their gods in the universe.

I’m not going to hope or grasp.  I’m going to worship.  At the altar.  Of my God.  The one who will never leave me and will wipe away every tear.

Grief Is the Price We Pay for Love

It has been said by many that grief is the price we pay for love.  

 

I remember the day like it was yesterday when I found out my mom died suddenly of a heart attack.  It was a sucker punch to the stomach filled with the most unbearable pain I thought would never go away.

I’m still not sure how I made it on an airplane from Houston to Atlanta because my sobbing was absolutely uncontrollable and all I wanted during that time was someone at the airport, even a stranger, to hug me and tell me it would be alright.  I was hollow and my soul longed for comfort.  So much so that my sweet little third grader said, “Mom, please stop crying so much.” 

 

I showed up to GriefShare a month later still looking for a way to stop the pain.  I was 36 and I was not sure how I would make it without the love and guidance of my mother.  I still needed her!

 

I didn’t get to say goodbye.  She always made it a point to say “see you later”, never “goodbye”.  So I have learned that it really wasn’t necessary.  And I will see her later.
 

It took a while for God to mend this broken heart.  It’s honestly stronger than before and stronger In Him. 
 

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”  Psalm 34:18  
 

I am living proof.

 

Come join us at GriefShare on the journey from mourning to joy.

 

 

 

On Mother's Day and Every Day - Love Your Momma

I sat in the waiting area of an auto service center one afternoon earlier in the week while the tires on my car were being rotated.  When I arrived, the waiting area was not crowded, but it was loud and although I had not yet determined the source of the noise, it was difficult to communicate with the person at the counter to tell her what services I needed.    

When I sat down, the culprit of the noise became evident.  To my right sat two ladies, one in her mid-sixties and the other in her mid-eighties maybe even nineties.  The older woman was reading a book very loudly to what appeared to be her daughter.  She was reading a story about a young girl who lost her mother.  I was slightly intrigued by the story, but truthfully, at the same time a little annoyed at the reading out loud experience.  She read page after page and when she came to a word she could not pronounce or recall, there would be silence.  Her daughter would say the word and then her mother would wait a few minutes and either mispronounce it or say it correctly and then continue reading.   

I would glance over every now and then and observe this little frail lady with huge magnifying eyeglasses holding the book about 3 inches from her face.  It wasn’t too long before the auto service person told the daughter her car was ready.  She went and paid at the counter while her mom continued reading aloud.  She came back to the waiting area and said, “Let’s go to the car, you can continue reading to me there.”  The little lady got up, looked over at me and said, “She said we need to go to the car now.”  It was almost as if she thought I would miss her story time offering.  I smiled and told her to have a great evening.   

As they left, I noticed the mother’s hair all matted in the back and how thin she really was. It took a while for her to walk outside, but the minute the door closed behind her I began to cry.  If anyone had walked in at that very moment they might have looked at me and thought wow, this girl needs Jesus (boy, don’t we all – and always?!).   

I thought of how much I miss my momma and how I won’t get to see her on Mother’s Day or any day until I meet Jesus too.  But I’m also thankful she won’t be here on earth to deal with old age, dementia, needing to read aloud to exercise her brain, and to deal with matted hair from sitting back in a chair, lying in bed, and being sedentary too long day after day.   

What an example of true love this daughter had for her mother.  Selfless love. The same kind I’m sure her mother has shown her for many, many years. 

No one loves you like your momma except Jesus.  So on Mother’s Day and every day, love your momma because time is a gift and you never know when she won’t be with you any longer.