It Is Well With My Soul

From the moment my mother-in-law extended the invitation over the phone back in the fall, I really didn’t want to go.  I reluctantly agreed that we would - and right up until the very moment we pulled out of the driveway, I felt like my little dog on a trip to the vet.  He’s fine until we arrive and then he literally stops dead in his tracks outside the door of the vet’s office.  Without fail, he either has to be dragged in by his leash or picked up and taken inside where he will shiver uncontrollably and cling to us until the whole visit is over.

I had not been “home” in over a year and previous visits had been short ones.  Intentionally.  Barry and Hannah have visited more often, but each time -- well, I chose not to go.  The plain truth is it hurt too much and not going was my way of guarding my heart.

While we have lived in Texas for almost 7 years now, I’m reminded of what “home” is to me on a daily basis.  Every morning my sweet boss greets me with a loud “Good morning, Peach!” and even today, most people I meet here say, “I can tell by your southern dialect that you are not from here.  It sounds as if you are from the deep south.”  Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.  And correct me if I am wrong, but the last time I looked at the map, here in Texas, we are as deep south as you can get without going to Mexico, right?! (Okay, yes, I get it.  Texas is more west and not deep south.) For a while I became very self-conscious about it and then came to the conclusion that this is who God made me to be - a girl from Georgia, from the deep south - with a southern drawl, who loves sweet tea and every Zac Brown song about red Georgia clay, pine trees and Highway 20. 

I miss Georgia, but most of all, I miss the memories of all that was there for me.  All that was there until now - which makes my heart hurt.  As I write this, I feel a lump in my throat at the thoughts of visiting the small town I grew up in, riding in the back seat with my brother as my mom drove us to the same grocery store every Saturday, seeing the house we grew up in and the long driveway we would ride down on whatever we could find when it snowed, prom pictures in the front yard, and opening Christmas presents together on Christmas day.  To drive by or even visit the cemetery where my mom and stepdad are buried is just so very painful and honestly, I just don’t have the courage.   They are now gone and so is all that I once knew of “home” as I remember it.  

Today, I’m glad that like my little dog at the vet’s office, I was picked up at the door to go “home” and it was so much fun to go to the only existing old style cash only movie theatre in Cedartown, Georgia (where the mom and pop owners will tell you if you don't carry cash with you, just stop by and bring it tomorrow),  have some girl talk in the nail salon with my niece, Madison, witness the culinary expertise of my nephew, Brandon, who made a swan centerpiece out of an apple, laugh and share stories about life and raising daughters with my brother, Britt and his family, visit with my mother's lifetime best friend, share in a devotional from Sarah Young's Jesus Calling with the Bullard family and hold hands as we prayed, be a part of the Bullard girls playing a Duck Dynasty shooting game in our matching pajamas on Christmas Eve, and our trip to the lake to shoot guns on Christmas day (yes, I sure did).  Oh, how I feel blessed to have these new memories of my time at “home”. 

The history behind my favorite hymn reveals that its lyricist, Horatio Spafford, wrote it following a family tragedy.  Right in the midst of a heart that was hurting.  I’m thankful that the holes in my heart have been filled with special new memories of “home” but even more so that … 

It Is Well With My Soul. 

With Love,

The Georgia Peach

 

 

 

A Letter from Grace

He stands at the corner of a side street near I-10 and the Heights exit in Houston most weekdays adorned with his cardboard sign which reads “Vietnam Vet” along with several medals hung from his neck from days gone by.  Beside him sits a rolled up blanket and a backpack.  Even on the cloudiest of days he wears dark sunglasses.  I often wonder if it is for the sake of convenience so as to avoid eye contact as he holds out his cup to receive a donation or if it is to cover the results of an eye injury.  Either way, it reminds me of the old adage, “the eyes are the windows to the soul” and the dark sunglasses make it very difficult to see to the windows which reveal his soul. 

It has been three years since I slowly approached the corner and rolled down my window to hand him a sealed envelope.  The contents of which included a personal letter and some money for bus fare.   I had just read the book Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall.  I learned from Ron’s experience with a homeless man named Denver that homeless people don’t need money, they need friends. 

The letter was heartfelt and I explained that while I wasn’t sure what circumstances in life led him to be homeless and to be on this particular corner every morning, there is a God who loves him and that I hoped he would use the money in the envelope as a way to get to the local mission, Star of Hope, as a new start.  I knew he needed a friend, but to protect my safety, I signed the letter “Love, Grace” a pen name, which was my grandmother’s name. 

The next day and days following as I approached the corner, I hoped he would not be there.  I hoped he had made it to the mission.  To my disappointment, he was still there then and he is still there today – with his sign, medals, blanket, backpack, cup, and dark sunglasses. 

On this Thanksgiving Day, I count my blessings. Abundant blessings. And as I do, I am most thankful for a God who loves me AND who loves the homeless man on the corner at the Heights exit off I-10 in Houston, Texas.  He is a God of hope.  And He provides hope and a promise for those who believe in Him of an eternal life far better than any hunger, eye problem (whatever it may be), homelessness, and suffering endured here on earth.   

Give me courage and bravery, Lord, to share more of YOU with those who need HOPE for today and for tomorrow.  

 

 

The corner.  This picture was taken two days before Thanksgiving.  It was raining and 39 degrees.  He wasn't there -- and for that I am thankful.

A Mama's Soul Is In Her Hands

I was in the midst of a project at work and was dialing the phone when I looked down and saw them.  Right there in front of me on this crazy work day, there they were - my mother's hands.  It's amazing how you can be in the midst of something hectic when God nudges you to take a moment to spend a few minutes with Him in reflection of your life.

All my life, everyone in my family has told me that I have my mother's hands.  Of course, when I was a teenager, I would roll my eyes and smile as it didn't seem all that flattering.  Now, that I am older and I think more about her sweet hands and what they did for me, I feel honored.  Those hands reached out to me as I learned to walk, they spent countless nights rubbing my legs over hot towels as I struggled as a little child with growing pains, they dried many tears over life hurts and they patted my back, which was always the end result of a tight hug. 

I didn't always like or understand my mother's decisions.  Growing up she would always tell me, "You will understand when you have a child of your own and when you are the mother of a teenager.  Only then will you truly get it."

As a teenager and even after I was married, if I had been driving in the rain and forgot to call her, she would call me to ensure I made it safely to my destination.  In all honesty, most times it was absolutely and completely annoying because if she couldn't reach me (this was before cell phones), she would call every friend I had or every friend of a friend or their relative to FIND me to be sure I was safe from the rain.  Barry and I still laugh about it because she was relentless like a private detective!  She was persistent that way.  That's what a mother's love will do for you.

Things have changed since then.  Now, I would give anything for her to call me after I've been driving in the rain.  Oh, how I wish she was here to use those hands to dial my number.

Today, my Hannah got her driver's license and as she pulled away in her jeep, driving alone for the very first time, I could feel my heart leave my body and it was then that I knew what it felt like to have the need to try to find your baby after she's been driving in the rain to ensure she was safe - no matter how relentless. 

Mama, I truly get it....now.

"...So you see, my dearest Mama--

Yours are hands of love.

And I bet the Lord will notice

When he greets you from above."*

 

There's no doubt He noticed when he greeted you, Mama.  Thank you for your loving hands and how precious they still are to me.  I can still feel the love you extended from your soul with those sweet hands.

*Tommi Jo Casteel, Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul

 

"Big Red" - be good to my girl!!

Have A Little Faith

It has been a week today and I still cringe at the thought that the words actually came out of my mouth.  I know better.  It was a heartbroken moment and in haste through the tears, I spoke.  Before I thought about the words I was saying. 

I had just left the ICU where a sweet friend, Wendy, lay on life support due to an adverse reaction to some medication she was prescribed for a fairly minor illness.  Perfectly healthy…until now.  Weeks prior, we had talked about our lives raising teenage daughters and all that entails to include grades, boyfriends, their futures, their faith, and so much more. 

At the hospital, her husband, Tony, greeted me and took me back to see her.  We entered the room and he stood back at the sink area.  As I approached her, he said, “She has been the love of my life for 28 years.”  For fear my voice would crack, I shook my head with a knowing smile and acknowledgement.  Their son, Sam, a sixth grader, stood on one side of her bed and I stood on the other.  I rubbed her arm and I asked Sam to hold her hand while I held the other.  I led the prayer as we prayed for a miracle and pleaded with God to spare her life, as so many had prayed before and after that moment in time that week. 

I visited with her family in the ICU waiting room and when it was time to go, I hugged them all - first the oldest child, Hannah, and then the youngest child, Kayla.  Sam, the middle child, was last and by far the most profound of all. He hugged me tightly and I reciprocated.   It was like a death grip in the most literal form.  It was as if we were holding on to each other on a delicate balance so as not to fall off the edge of a cliff.  In my heart, it was his way of thanking me for praying for a miracle for his sweet mother, but it was something so many of us had done – not just me.  This hug from a sixth grade boy, who was clinging to everything he could to save the life of his mother changed my life forever and I can honestly say I will never be the same. 

I drove home in tears and that’s when the words that I said spewed forth.  Unfortunately, words that now make me cringe when I think of them.  I was the only one in the car and with tears streaming down my face, I asked “How could the God of Abraham who raised Lazarus from the dead allow a sweet mother of three children to be in this condition and possibly lose her life?”   

The truth is, Sam and I both were teetering on the edge of a cliff.  My cliff was a test of faith.  Sam’s cliff will now be adjusting to life without his mom because the next day, Wendy did lose her life here on earth, but oh, what she gained when she entered Heaven’s gates.  She lives on forever with Jesus in Glory.   

The service was beautiful and one I will never forget.  Tony’s eulogy beautifully described the virtuous woman Wendy was to all of us.  Our pastor could not have said it better when he addressed the three children and encouraged them to live in faith as their mother would want.  That was the legacy she left for them.  These words were meant to speak to them, but they so powerfully spoke to me – live in faith. 

This quote by Julian of Norwich hangs on my refrigerator and I might need to stop and read it as a reminder a little more often.  “See that I am God. See that I am in everything. See that I do everything. See that I have never stopped ordering my works, nor ever shall, eternally. See that I lead everything on to the conclusion I ordained for it before time began, by the same power, wisdom and love with which I made it. How can anything be amiss?” 

I am thankful we serve a God of grace and forgiveness and that even in my moment of weakness, He still loves me and He forgives me for my doubt.  

Have a little faith. 

If Walls Could Talk

There was a television show several years ago on HGTV called "If Walls Could Talk" which featured people who found hidden treasures of all kinds in their homes left behind by previous owners. Those treasures could be found in walls, floors and in all sorts of nooks and crannies - BUT you had to make this great discovery.

We were blessed enough to find a hidden treasure in our home back in the spring of 2012.  We had lived here for five years and Hannah was away on a spring break school trip to Washington, D.C.  Barry and I were painting her room and redecorating it as a surprise for her return.  We were scurrying around to get it all finished when he went into the attic to look at some wiring.  While he was there, he discovered a little cubby with a pull string chain light and a letter sitting in that space.  We had not ventured to that area of the attic until then.

The letter had been written on a piece of paper from a spiral notebook in red marker and it was from the children two owners back who used to live in this house.  The letter read: "To whoever lives here now. This is a message to a kid who might want to use this place - we used it as a Christmas hideout. We, meaning, the children who lived here before you and our next door neighbor, my best friend, Amy Pierce. My bedroom was the middle one upstairs. This place is sacred to us and so is this house so please be good and care for this home.   <3 Emily, Amy & Justin Verret. P.S. We lived here for 20 years."

The letter is tattered and discolored and it has tiny holes in it.  It has survived many a Texas summer in the extremely hot attic and for the life of her, Hannah still cannot not figure out why I would frame it and hang it in the hallway of our home upstairs near the attic door.  "It's just not pretty, Mom", she says.  But to me it's not about pretty.  It's about life and love and special memories that were once made in this home by the Verret family, especially their three children, who ran and played upstairs and in that attic for many years. 

Our street is comprised of a few middle aged home owners like us as well as some of the original homeowners who have lived here for over 30 years. We have shared the letter with several neighbors who know the Verret children and one neighbor in particular sent a photo of the letter to their mother, Sherry, who has now shared it with them.  Sherry contacted me recently and told me how much her children loved this home and how difficult it was for them to leave it when they moved  AND that they did remember leaving a letter in the attic.  While the letter lists all three children, it is influenced and written by Emily, who did not want to leave this home or her best friend, Amy, who lived next door.

I truly believe that no material thing on this earth can bring you true peace and happiness and I know that it was not this house or its structure that brought them joy. After all, we love it, but it's just a beige/brick, two-story English Tudor style house, built in 1977 and certainly not exquisite by today's standards. However, it was exquisite to their hearts and it is to ours.

If we ever move, that framed letter will remain hung on the wall upstairs by the attic door because it doesn't belong to our family.  It belongs to this house, which was a home to a special family before us. 

My hope is that our family will always cherish this home, which we jokingly refer to as the BB&B (Bullard Bed and Breakfast), as one that is filled with love and so very many special memories  - some that make you smile, some that make you laugh until it hurts, and some that are so precious they will make you cry.

 

(This is the letter shortly after we found it before framing and hanging it.)

To: Poppy. Love, Hannahpooh.

It was the last gift she could ever give him - only it wasn’t a gift wrapped in pretty paper with a beautiful ribbon as she so loves to do.  It was something wrapped in the deepest form of love you can imagine.  Love from a granddaughter to a grandfather. 

 

Starting at my sixth month of pregnancy, we knew her name would be Hannah Lynn Bullard. She was conceived even when the specialists told us it was very unlikely that it could happen.  She is our one and only child and she is our miracle.  So how could we name her anything else but Hannah, a child we had so prayed for just as Hannah prayed for a child she named Samuel? 

To my stepdad, Gary, known as Poppy to his grandchildren, her name was Hannahpooh from the moment she was born. Behind her beautiful smile and somewhat tough exterior, she has a heart that she protects most of the time.  In her almost 16 years of life, I have only witnessed her experience a truly heartbreaking cry on three occasions:  during the movies The Secret Life of Bees and Steel Magnolias and at Poppy’s funeral during the Chris Rice song Untititled Hymn when he sings the words “fly to Jesus and live”. 

 

Poppy came to live with us during the summer of 2012.  He had been fighting cancer for several years and came to Houston to undergo surgery and radiation/chemo at MD Anderson Cancer Center.  His surgery involved removing most of the skin from his upper thigh area and grafting it on his facial cheek area and throat to replace the skin removed with the tumor.  This was scary for a teenage girl and Hannah wasn’t sure how to process it.  He didn’t look the same after surgery, but we were hopeful….hopeful until he shared with us that he did not want to undergo radiation or chemo.  He said he was just tired and wanted to be with Jesus and with Meme, my mom, who had passed away in 2007.   

 

We were all somewhat angry with him and just could not understand why he would not continue to fight for his life at one of the best cancer centers anywhere. To our disappointment, he decided that he wanted to go back home to Georgia and would take what would come as it did.  It wasn’t long before the cancer was back with a vengeance, he was placed in hospice and his life here on earth would end. 

 

On the plane ride to Georgia, Hannah took out her ipad and crafted these words, which she so eloquently delivered at his funeral one year ago today.

 

“Poppy always had a lot of love. He was full of fun and adventure. He was really just a big kid at heart. I remember one day in the summer when Austin, Aubrey, and I had this bright idea to roll down Meme and Poppy's big driveway in office chairs. Of course he was all for it! We had the best time that day. Poppy knew how to have fun.

Poppy was also a man of God. I remember from the time I was born him reading to me from his Bible. Poppy loved the LORD and I always looked up to him for that. Poppy taught me to never be ashamed of what you believe.

When I came home from camp this summer and my mom told me he wasn't going to go through anymore treatments of radiation we were all upset with him, but Poppy knew his time to meet the LORD was coming near. Looking back, we shouldn't have gotten mad or upset with him because Philippians 1:23 says: “ I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.” Poppy didn't need to remain in the flesh on our account.

Seeing Poppy sick devastated me and my family.  Anyone who saw him sick knew that he wasn't the same upbeat Poppy who loved to eat all of his southern foods.  When I found out about him going to be with the LORD I was sad of course, but then realized this was a celebration. Ecclesiastes 3 says: "there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens:
-a time to be born and a time to die
-a time to be silent and a time to speak
-a time to weep and a time to laugh
-a time to mourn and a time to dance"

Today I choose to dance.”

 

We know that you are dancing now too, Poppy, and that the scars on your thigh and face are gone and your body is new.   You were not a perfect man, but a man who lived on this earth who experienced life, needed forgiveness - which you have received, and who loved to have fun.  Hope you are pushing some little children in office chairs in Heaven, Poppy.  They will enjoy it as much as your grandchildren did.

 

Thank you for your love.

 

 

Untitled Hymn by Chris Rice

 

 

 

 

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.