School and Dad

Chris and I started back to school this week. This is our last week of formal classes. We are completing our B2/2 level and will then take the B2 competency test in May. When we started this process of language learning it seemed like such a far off goal … and my faith in achieving it was … shaky. Now, after all these months of learning … I look back at this process of language learning and my faith is still shaky! Ha … you think I’m joking! Actually, it’s amazing … nothing short of a miracle that these two people have grasped a new language. There are all sorts of statistics that say learning a language past a certain age is very, VERY difficult. Let’s just say, Chris and I (Chris more than me) way surpass that “certain age”. Again, what God has done with our lips and vocal cords is truly nothing short of a miracle!

Speaking of school, (don’t you just love this smooth transition), Parker was a creative genius (she is just like her mother) this week. Not saying she isn’t always but this week her creative juices were at an all time high. Every year her school has a “Book Fair”. The week culminates in the elementary students dressing up as their favorite book characters. Parker chose “the pig” in the book If You Give a Pig a Pancake. Her paper outfit was designed and decorated with a little help from a friend. She did an AMAZING job!

This week we got to experience one of those moments that shake your foundation a bit and get you out of “normal” life. My sister called late one evening with the news that my Dad had to be taken to the Heart Hospital in Oklahoma City. He is still in the hospital but doing much better. They (don’t you always wonder who “they” are? In this case, the staff at the OKC Heart Hospital.) will do more tests on Monday.
Its funny how one little phone call changes a moment. I was lying in my bed (yes, I’ve become a granny) at 9:15 p.m. watching my usual episode of The Andy Griffith Show before falling asleep. After the phone call, Andy was put on pause while I began to do what all girls do when they don’t know what else to do … cry! We didn’t know many details, only that he was having difficulty breathing, but in my mind I fast forwarded to him passing away, me being an orphan and various other extreme situations.

After my girlish bout of the water works, I whispered prayers of help to my heavenly Father. Funny how talking to my heavenly Father about my earthly Father seemed to make everything OK. I still shed a few tears when my over active imagination kicked in about worse case scenarios, but when I snapped out of it I kept hearing my heavenly Father tell me that He was with my earthly Father … that He was holding his hand … that He was right in the middle of the situation. What could I do, anyway? I am a million miles away. I am not a doctor. I am … nothing.

Why is it in crisis our flesh kicks into super human ability mode and we strategize over what we think we can do? Really … can we do anything? It’s in those moments we have to settle into our humanness and do … nothing.

In doing nothing, it’s there I discover the something I can do …surrender. Surrender that we have no control over anything. Surrender that we are not infallible. Surrender that ultimately, life has a cycle … and must come to an end. Surrender that if we trust what we say we believe, surrender is when we really do what we were meant to do … activate faith in a loving Father who is the only One who is capable of having everything under control.

So, my white knuckles of gripping my life too tightly have once again been tested. While I stretch out my fingers and let the blood begin to flow I feel somehow drawn to be stiller … and talk to my Dad more … both of them!