The Tides of Life

I brushed my hair over my speckled sunspot zapped forehead. The doctor had said I would look like this for a couple of weeks. I know this is really a very little thing....but I felt like I had to apologize every time I walked into a room. The good news is the sideswept bangs that all but cover my eyes got me all kinds of compliments.
"I like your new hairstyle!"
"Did you get a new hair cut? Very nice?"
"No," I answered, my hair puffing out with each breath exposing brief glances at my traumatized skin, "I am in hiding."

All around me however, spring is in full bloom. I hope to carve out time today to take our old senior friends in the Alzheimers unit out for a drive to go sit along a quiet lake. The neighbors have been wonderful. We are all staying in touch with each other updating on the health of our old friends Comer and Evelyn as we take turns visiting them. Kristin has been exceptionally enterprising, hanging a bird feeder outside Comer's second floor window. Kristin's kids had to climb on her shoulders to accomplish that feat. And then Kristin got them fast food and they had a picnic in Comer's room. She said you would have thought she had taken them to Disney with how grateful they were. Sweet Carolyn manages to visit after her long days of work. And Andi sent girlscout cookies.

In our homeschool, we are studying World War 2. This is one of the least cheery moments of our human endeavors. We are currently reading a true story about an entire Jewish community shipped to Siberia. The horror and degradation they endured is incomprehensible to us as we sit in our free nation, surrounded by wealth and daffodils. One line struck both Asherel and me powerfully. The author, Esther Hautzig wrote of a beautiful young woman who when told to grab her most precious few possessions and then be herded onto the cattle car bound for Siberia, snatched up her makeup/toiletry kit. Throughout the grueling ordeal while the starving, freezing, louse covered, unbathed Jews struggled to survive, this one young woman continued to put on her make up, cleanse away the day's grime from her face, and oil and brush her long hair. The author wrote that she was "elevating vanity into courage."  I love that line. In all the dehumanizing, degrading, horrific events of her life under Hitler's world, she said in her small way, "I am human, and I have worth."

I suspect it is hard for Evelyn to cling to that, separated from those she loves, lost in her own  decomposing memory. Or Comer, longing for the beautiful home he no longer has the strength to remain in. Or for the Japanese swept away by a powerful ocean that treats their buildings as though they are toothpicks in the tsunami. It all reminds me we are in this together. And precancerous lesions frozen off my forehead are nothing in the vast panorama of human suffering. In every one of those events, I hear God reminding me that the body is not what will be preserved, and it will get knocked around, kicked around, and ultimately destroyed. But when all is stripped away, our soul remains, and as the tides of life recede, we are left on dry land clinging to the hand of the One that is left standing.

But until then, thank goodness for long bangs.

Matthew 10: 26-30
 ²⁶ “So do not be afraid of them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. ²⁷ What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. ²⁸ Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. ²⁹ Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. ³⁰ And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. ³¹ So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.