Tending to All Things Life Giving

My husband will nurture a plant until is has absolutely proven itself dead beyond measure. Our backyard is a rescue mission for struggling plants. We are even willing to buy plants at a discount when we discover them on the “Help, I am barely thriving!” rack at the nursery. Jim worries I will throw him out when he is old and not so lively anymore just because I am more apt to say, “The plant is dead and won’t revive, I am tossing it.” I am discouraged by dying plants, where my husband is inspired to pour more love into them. I may desperately want them to live but I am tortured watching the struggle. And lets face it, a dying plant isn’t pretty.

Thriving plants and beautiful blossoms are life-giving for me. Little vases scattered about the house with snippets of blooms from the Hydrangea bush, finally filling out after 8 years of an inordinate amount of tending, bring me joy. Though vases filled delight my husband as well, he is inspired just as much by the efforts of nudging life into a plant determined to die.

When we walk around the yard to see how the plants are doing, we are delighted by a few overcomers. We thought we were losing the Kangaroo Paw, but this year it has blooms stretching up to the sky. The Sweet Pea shrub I bought Jim last year in honor of his mother has recovered wonderfully. I like to plant things in pots and it just wasn’t having it, so we put it in the ground. I thought it would never recover from the transplant. And so, on it goes. We celebrate, after all the extra care, when a plant recovers from a near death experience. We mourn when one is lost.

While we may not always be in agreement about whether or not a plant is worth saving we both share the same desire to come alongside people to encourage and mentor. So many people are feeling the great gap between being followed on social media and being known. Jim and I both feel privileged when being trusted with another person’s story, and everyone has one. We want to hear how God is working in a life that had once been on the “Help I am barely thriving” rack. People need to be seen and heard. This is the life-giving encouragement they need.

I have felt the Holy Spirit pressing me to make more space for people – inviting them into our home. This seems like an inconvenient time; Jim is tired from the current treatment and we don’t know from week to week what doctor’s appointments will open up for him. Planning is done loosely. But still my heart tells me to tend to relationships and make space for people and their stories. Maybe this draw to fellowship isn’t just about others, but about tending to our own need for meaningful fellowship. We all need to have friends, as well as be a friend.

I for one want to surround myself with a few people who will actively be in relationship with me. Gordon MacDonald writes in A Resilient Life, “There is a certain ‘niceness’ to a friendship where I can be, as they say, myself. But what I really need are relationships in which I will be encouraged to become better than myself. Myself needs to grow a little each day. I don’t want to be the myself I was yesterday. I want to be the myself that is developing each day to be more of a Christlike person.”

We don’t do life well alone, nor were we meant to. Jesus calls us into relationship, first with Him and then with others. In order to have strong, healthy relationships we must be intentional and invest in them regularly. We can build relationships by taking time to linger over a meal or a cup of coffee, really listening to one another and praying together. To know and be known. These kinds of friends love us when we are strong and when we are weak. An intimate friend holds you accountable and encourages you to become your better self. This type of relationship happens with only a few. This type of relationship doesn’t just happen; it is tended and nurtured until death do us part.

  

I believe the nudge for me currently is two-fold: make space for others and encourage relationship building by seeing and hearing, as well as investing in intimate relationships. The intimate relationships nurture life through being known to one another, challenging one another, listening to and praying over one another. These close friends are the people with whom we laugh and cry. These are the people who do life with us.

When I walk out my front door I bump into the roses hanging over our entry and every time I have forgotten about the bees. Often by jostling the rose I disturb a bee sipping nectar. He buzzes around my head in frustration as if I just woke him from a nap. We are on good terms. He doesn’t sting and I don’t swat. Almost no time passes before he has buried himself once again in the delicately scented blossoms. Relationships can be that simple – we are on good terms or they can be an act of service – giving value to another human being by seeing, hearing and giving a helping hand. We need a bit of both, but we all need the one or two or more who are truly known by us and by whom we are truly known. These are the friends who don’t give up on us even when we are wilting.

The Uninvited Guest

Heavy, gray clouds weight the sky. No rain. Even on a sunny day in our southern California home there would be a lingering bit of gloom; an uninvited guest has taken up residence and we don’t like it. By mid-March trees and flowers had been blooming for weeks. The beauty all around us was incongruent with the news my husband received from his doctor. It’s prostate cancer but the biopsy (Gleason numbers) marked it aggressive. Weeks and months after changing insurance, before we knew, left us in long periods of waiting for a new primary doctor, urologist, biopsy, scans and finally an appointment to see the surgeon next week – all this after waiting for another scan that never was approved.

We do our chores, we eat our meals, we go to church, we chat with friends and family. Life looks normal, but it is now a cover for the invisible alien in our home. We work around it as we wait for its removal. Others have had worse – we know some of those brave souls – but this is our journey. We are hopeful but nervous. Thankfully we know who keeps track of our days and has all the details of our lives in His hands – our Lord and Savior, Jesus.

It is a reminder our lives on earth are temporary. It is a reminder that we do not know what tomorrow holds. It is a reminder to be clear about how you want this day to be lived. It is a reminder to be grateful for the people in our lives, the life we’ve been given, and the simple things this ordinary moment holds.

We finish an ugly, difficult puzzle that has taken too much real estate in our house since Christmas. We watch episode after episode of The Great Interior Design Challenge, lunch with Dad Joiner, hem curtains, weed flower beds and take walks. Because, what else can you do when cancer silently creeps in and only makes itself known through your blood work?

You keep living and working, that’s what you do. You link arms with everyone you know and you pray. You trust God. If we truly believe all we say we believe about Him, then we can trust Him with this demand on the flesh. No amount of waiting on insurance can change God’s plan.

We make plans we know we may have to change when a surgery date is set. We look forward to sunny summer days, barbecues, and my daughter’s wedding. We celebrate significant birthdays. We will slow down for a bit while healing happens, but we live our lives the best way we know how, even in limbo. Isn’t it true we are all in between something – waiting. So it’s a good idea to live the best we can today. Though we are sometimes anxious not knowing, this is just a chapter in the narrative of our lives; it isn’t how the story ends. For that I am deeply grateful.