For Such a Time As This

Of course I would have never heard it if my husband hadn’t woke me as he was looking out our upstairs bedroom window.  Now that I think of it I am not sure how noisy he could have been just looking out a window.  Anyway, I did wake up and with barely a voice asked, “What.. are…you …doing?”.  He replies he is trying to figure out where the sound is coming from. I hear a very familiar sound and inform him that he is just hearing a train. “Not that… the beeping”.  ughh… no…WHY did he have to tell me there is a beeping.  He should know from our years together that if I EVER here a beep or a drip or a distant unfamiliar sound in our home we have to hunt until I find it and shut…it…down, or at least plan to fix or repair whatever it is and put ear plugs for the remainder of a night just so that I can sleep.

ok. Well, there it was “beep….beep…beep” and the more I focused on it the louder it seemingly got. Before I knew it my husband was fast asleep again and I was not.   I tried to put in my ear plugs but I could still faintly pick up the sound, not like a work truck backing up, faster and I could not take it any longer. I had to find the source of the beep.

Yep, I got dressed and started walking…down the hall…down the stairs through my foyer…living room…listening and turning my head to keep me walking in the right direction.  Well, it was obviously clear it was somewhere in our neighborhood or our small downtown area.  I am now through our kitchen and know that I am going to walk outside, in the night-time, 2:30 in the morning. I unlock our door and out I go, down the steps and took a left towards downtown (it’s only half a block away so don’t worry too much). I did have a moment when I realized, “SuAnne, you don’t even have  your glasses on, you don’t even have your phone with you if something happens and you need to call for help”, did that stop me? Nah, I kept on walking.  I had a brief moment where I felt a bit psychotic following a beep and was hoping that in a matter of seconds I would not face a hundred other night walking people being lured towards  this sound. But then I quickly acknowledged to myself that ONLY happens in movies so I kept walking in a town that was totally quiet, no cars, no voices, only the constant beep… and then I saw the location from where it came.  Just an upstairs apartment or business storage; lights on in every window.  I stood on the street looking up and proud of myself in finding the source of the annoying beeping sound.

I turned and went home and quickly decided to call the local police, not the 911 but the NON emergency number.  I tried to sound as polite as I could and not too odd as I am obviously reporting a ‘beeping sound’ and can’t imagine that it would be  high on their priorities at 2:40 in the morning but I did plant the thought that it could very well be a burglar alarm AND all the lights were on in the building. I was thanked for my call and they assured me they were sending the police “right over”.

As I was returning to bed I recalled a memory from almost 18 years earlier. We lived in a country home and my boys were about 5, 8 and12. It was a summer day and they were allowed to ride their bikes on the country road in front of our property.  At one point I realized that the two youngest were no longer in my view and the 12 year old was sent on a mission to locate the two youngest; not too worried but knew they were beyond their boundaries.  It wasn’t too long and the 5 year old came wheeling up the stone driveway and he saw my face of unhappiness and he quickly said, “He heard something, he said he heard something!”.  Of course he was referring to his older brother-the impulsive and adventurous middle son.  Another minute later the oldest returns on his bike saying, “I guess he heard frogs and had to follow it until he found them down the road-he’s coming”.   Hmmm. My son heard a sound and HAD to follow it, who… does….that???

As I climbed into bed and put my earplugs in I knew that eventually the beeping would stop and I also realized my son received that impulsive inquisitive genetic response from his mother and not sure that I am totally proud of this reality.

It wasn’t but a few seconds later that this experience quickly became a spiritual lesson for me.  How quickly and obedient am I to the voice of God when He is calling me to go in a specific direction? Do I at times put in my spiritual ear plugs and pretend I am not really hearing what I think I am hearing? Do I start to go down the path God has placed before me just to stop at the door and say, “Oh, I’m not really ready… I don’t even have my glasses or my phone in case something could go wrong?” and then turn around.

As I faintly heard the beeping I quietly prayed that I would be so willing to follow God’s lead wherever He takes me and that I wouldn’t waver in my faith and that I be ready everyday to hear His voice and be obedient to His calling. It was a lesson for only me that night as apparently NO one in our neighborhood or town cared about the incessant beep that called me out of bed and down a street in the middle of the night.

It was about an hour later that the beeping did end and was SO grateful but more grateful that God allowed it to teach me an important lesson in obedience and faith.

As we walked the long corridor following the security guard’s instructions there was mostly silence between us until I heard him say.”It’s been 16 years since I’ve been here”. I agreed.  Truthfully it won’t be 16 years until October 13th but who’s counting … A helicopter brought his father here and no one or nothing was ever the same following that painful day.

Today my son is no longer 14 but thirty walking towards his third child also brought by a helicopter as her perfect home within her mother unexpectedly came to an end by a team of skilled surgeons just a few hours earlier. So Mom lay recuperating in one hospital and baby is being cared for in another where they have the skills and teams to offer her the best chance of survival.

It was beautiful to watch my first born reach through the bassinet opening to comfort his baby daughter with too many tubes and monitors speaking words of love and reassurance. He is a father and he is loving his child. Clearly one can never know where life will take you and if a medical helicopter will become a part of your story …again.

Many have joined us to pray for baby Leah and I am believing she will grow and thrive and join her big brother and sister back in their home on the lake and this story will have a happy ending… that is my hope and my prayer.

Every day I talk to people who find cloudy rainy days bringing a sense of sadness to their day…yet why?  There is a true biological connection  between our mood, emotions and sunshine or lack thereof.  So,  for many people darker days with rain and without the healing rays of sunshine do actually have a very real sense of feeling depressed, “blue” or just “down”.

I stood at my side door the other day with the temperatures inching towards 80 and it really felt like summertime-finally-yet I could hear the distant rumble of thunder. It wasn’t long before the wind kicked in and within minutes the rain started falling…pouring…and I closed my eyes….I just listened and I smelled the rain.

The sense of smell is tied the strongest to our memory bank and in that moment as I closed my eyes I was taken back to the city streets of the town I grew up in.  I was taken back to my childhood. The sound of the falling rain and smell of wet grass and cooling city streets…I remembered running in the streets and down the sidewalks with my friends feeling the cool summer rain without a care in the world.  How was it that I could so quickly be taken back to that carefree time of simple summertime rainy day fun? Wasn’t it just 10 hours earlier as I was getting ready for work that I moaned to see I would have to start my day driving to work under a gloomy rainy sky?

Opening my eyes I’m reminded I live in a different city now far beyond the age of a child yet something in me would love to just run in the street and stop to feel the rain fall on my face…but then I think, “no, you’ll probably trip and break a hip or catch pneumonia or someone will think I need my own mental health professional- not that it would be a bad thing.

Thankfully I realize that I also have the blessing of having a childhood that offered me opportunity to play and run in the rain.  I don’t imagine we played in the rain when it was lightning but maybe it was a safer time when you didn’t need to lock your house door and lightning didn’t strike little kids playing in the rain.

It’s about perspective. Yes, too many cloudy rainy days in a row can actually affect a person’s mood yet we can also take a moment to be thankful for the rain. Some areas in our country are getting too much and now there’s flooding and sadly loss of life.  I know of another country living in a state of drought with people living in a chronic state of dehydration which also can end a life too soon.

I can’t stop the floods, I can’t bring the rain.  But I can pray to the One who can.  I also realize that there may be those who see the rain and may close their eyes and smell the aromas that may take them back to a terrifying memory from their past. I pray they find healing…

I am praying for the floods to recede and the rain to fall where there is drought  AND if you see someone who looks like they could be a gramma and she  is standing in the rain with her face looking upward it could be me smelling the rain and thanking God for happy childhood summertime rainy day memories.

At a glance we may look like the same 5 people; the same smile, the same color of hair, same height yet no one returns as same person once…you’ve experience Haiti.
Its not just living without running water, limited electricity, or the plateau sounds of goats, donkeys and roosters.  It’s about experiencing God; seeing Him in the beauty of the people as we watch them live their lives in Ayiti.
Is it possible to see God in a dry and thirsty land? Where people of all ages exist in a state of chronic dehydration? Is God in the struggling baby trees wilting from a lack of rain?   Can God be seen in the life of the single mothers struggling to meet the needs of their children?
Yes, I saw God in everything and you would too if you were there. It’s hard to put into words what you witness every day; women singing praises while they cook and sweep the rocky ground with homemade brooms, children singing and dancing at their chapel service, men up in the middle of the night to drive to get water for the community AND the baby trees.

https://youtu.be/SyxHOu4mH1w

God is in the anticipation of answered prayers….for rain to fill their newly  built cistern, for rain to water their gardens, for rain to fill the dry stream beds.

God is in the answered prayers for food when the goat or the chicken becomes the next meals for the family, when the nurse shows up in the community to help with their illness, when they have the strength to walk the 4 miles to the market and have enough money to buy fruit for the week and the strength to walk home again.

God is in the breeze…in the dark clouds that rarely produces rain yet brings shade from the baking Haitian sun, in the hardy drought loving plants and the people who trust in a God who hears their prayers.                    

       Tonight I pray for rain for my friends on the plateau, for strength to those God has                          called to serve there and that the lessons that God has taught us will remain                                         within our hearts until He allows us the honor of returning once again.

Yep, that’s how I feel, right now in this moment…unraveling plans.  When life unravels does that mean that God was never a part of the plan?  Does it mean the ‘enemy’ is winning? Not enough faith? Not enough prayers?  Just life?

One thing I have absolutely learned through life is that sometimes I may never understand or know why God allows bad things.  The only guarantee is that God remains in control through what appears as earthly chaos. I know He desires that I respond to ‘unraveling’ with grace and assurance in Him that He remains God and that I am not and that His enemy long ago lost the battle AND greater is He within me than he that is within the world.

In a world where planes fly into mountains ending the life of so many people my struggle today seems pretty small.  I am so thankful that God hears the cries and comforts the heartache of those who’ve lost loved ones on the side of a mountain and He has the ability to strengthen me in my much lesser…. need this night.

I trust He hears all of our prayers, cries and sighs of striving to live this life and I am SO grateful this life isn’t all there is but while I am here I will press on…