Were You Loved Enough?

My personal testimony is based on gratitude and thankfulness because it is the most beautiful way to truly see Jesus Christ in your life.  I am thankful for so very many things - including times of hurt, because after all, it is in those times and following when you realize the presence of a mighty Savior who led you through it. 

I am most thankful for the unconditional love of a Risen Savior.  There is a line in the movie Divine Secrets of the Yaya Sisterhood that is in the forefront of my mind at all times about the way I want to live my life.  In the movie, the daughter, played by Sandra Bullock, asks of her dad, played by James Garner, “Daddy, were you loved enough?” and his response is, “How much is enough?” 

There will be a day, which I hope is not any time in the near future, when I will attend the funeral of a man I really do not know.  I don’t know his favorite color.  I don’t know his favorite food.  For that matter, I don’t know his favorite anything and the most heartbreaking of all – I don’t know what he loves and if he truly loves me.  This man is my father, a man that has been so hurt by loss and circumstance that it seems his heart is eaten alive with anger and with bitterness.  We have not seen each other much during my life or even talked on the phone much because I decided that I would try to distance myself as a means of self-protection from constant hurt from cruel words and rejection.  However, I did share with him in a short phone conversation several years ago, that to me it felt like his heart was like a closed fist and encouraged him to open it because a closed heart cannot receive or give love.  His response was “I know” … but nothing ever changed. 

There is nothing I have ever wanted more than to be the apple of my father’s eye, and to be his princess and a daddy’s girl.  From the ages of 6 to 12, not a year went by when I would blow out the candles on my birthday cakes, that I did not wish for this to happen; it never did.

And so I wonder -  how many years do I have left to get to know a man who is now in his seventies?  How will I feel and what will I say at his funeral?  I have no doubt that God, in His master design plan will orchestrate a sweet reunion before the end of his life so that my father’s closed fisted heart will open up and bloom like a flower to know that Jesus Loves Him Enough and so do I.  Maybe then will he know that I only wanted the same unconditional love from him. 

One of my friends, Debbie Pankey, attends a church in our area and shared with me recently that a little girl in kindergarten was baptized and before baptizing her, the  pastor read something she had jotted down on a note card.  It read “I am a princess, not because my dad is a prince, but because my Father is a King.” 

I am thankful that my Heavenly father is a King and I’m His Princess -  and that my answer to the question were you loved enough would be MORE than enough.  

What's In Your Treasure Box?

When we headed out on our move from Georgia to Texas, my mom and stepdad gave my daughter, Hannah, a “treasure box”.  The type of pretty display box you would buy from Kirkland’s with the brown metal imprinted top and wooden sides with a sliding lock on the front.  It was filled with handwritten cards, little books, and some figurines that would always be remembrances of her grandparents no matter how many miles they were apart.  Before both of their passings, we were fortunate enough to receive more cards to add to the treasures.  This precious box has its very own special place on our entry foyer table.  
 

One day when Hannah was probably in fifth grade or so I noticed the box was missing.  She had taken it upstairs to her room to refamiliarize herself with its contents.  She had placed the contents of that precious box out on her bed.  It was evident that Hannah needed them that day in her own space close to her heart. 

I immediately saw the scattered contents and my heart sank.  It was as if someone had drained my bank account.  This truly is no exaggeration because those treasures mean the world to me and I would never be able to replace them.  Even though material things in this life truly have insignificant value to me, on days when I want to call my mom, I know I have her sweet cards to read to provide comfort and a little bit of her presence.

This past spring I read the book Treasured by Leigh McElroy.  She begins her story by sharing about a treasure box she received in the mail with her grandfather’s belongings and what those treasures said about his life.  She goes on to ask an important question and that is what would be left in your treasure box after you leave this world?  What kind of life do you live and how do people know you? What things or moments would they associate with you?

I thought about my life and what I hope is placed in a treasure box I might leave behind, more importantly the treasures I hope to place in the hearts of others, but I gave more thought to the treasures of a sweet lady who was Hannah’s ninth grade Sunday School teacher, Mrs. Marianne Prichard. 

When Hannah received a card in the mail from Mrs. Marianne introducing herself before her ninth grade promotion Sunday, I knew that I would instantly love her – and I did.  She had a way with all the girls.  They knew she genuinely loved them and they knew they could tell her anything - even things they might not wish to share with their parents.  She and Jesus were their confidants.  Mrs. Marianne had the sweetest smile and the sweetest heart, but all the while she was suffering with cancer.  Through her chemo/radiation treatments and her body that began to fail, she had a most positive outlook and I looked at her with admiration – admiration of a woman who either suffered in silence or was completely overtaken with the love of Jesus because she knew the ultimate outcome of her final prognosis.

 

I think about Mrs. Marianne’s treasure box, which would be filled with every color nail polish that exists.  She always polished nails at the church fall festival and when we went to visit her at hospice several days before she went to be with Jesus, her nails were done in beautiful colors with a glittery finish.  I think about all the sweet cards and messages she sent to “her girls”.  I think about a pillow case that was made for her which described her to a “T”.  It was based on this poem:

“What Cancer Cannot Do”

Cancer is so limited...
It cannot cripple love.
It cannot shatter hope.
It cannot corrode faith.
It cannot eat away peace.
It cannot destroy confidence.
It cannot kill friendship.
It cannot shut out memories.
It cannot silence courage.
It cannot reduce eternal life.
It cannot quench the Spirit.

And I think about the faces of each girl who sat in the church pews at her funeral.  These things probably wouldn’t even begin to fill up Mrs. Marianne’s treasure box.  She was a treasure on earth who is no doubt receiving her treasures in Heaven.

What’s in your treasure box?