The Runaway Fishing Pole (A.K.A. My Comical Life)

"I cried out to the Lord, and he answered me from his holy mountain."     Psalms 3:4

He was bringing in perch off the dock about every minute.  Pure joy and pride on my six year old's face  every time that bobber went under.  It didn't matter to him that each one was between two and six inches long, only that they were biting over and over again.  The start of a deep love for fishing.

Naturally, someone had to stand there and take the fish off the hook every time.  I found myself in this lovely spot and was enjoying it immensely.  As a mom, it is impossible not to feel joy when you see your kids so excited about something.  So, when he accidentally threw his kid fishing pole into the water with his next cast, I did what any mom would do to save him from disappointment.  I reacted without thinking.  :-)

In a moment, I found myself plunged head-first under the water with only my legs from knee down holding me onto the dock.  Reaching...reaching...almost got it...

Nope, come up for air...

Plunge back in...reach, reach....then...

(panic)  "MOM!  THE BOBBER'S UNDER!  THE BOBBER'S UNDER!"

Oh, boy.

Plunge and reach as far as I can....SUCCESS!  I grasp the handle of the pole on the bottom of the lake.

The problem?  I can't get out of the position I have gotten myself into!  My arms weren't long enough to reach back to the dock and pull myself back.  So, laughing and screaming for my son to take the pole and someone on shore to come help me, I flapped my arms as my head bobbed in and out of the water.

Of course, help came and I was rescued from my impulsive dive.

What do you plunge into without thinking about it because it will bring love and joy to someone you love? It is so easy to do with my kids.  For so many parents, it would come naturally, and when all is said and done, we wouldn't regret it one bit.  I didn't, he caught the fish.

It amuses me to think about how I do this in my everyday life.  I plunge...often.  And, without fail, I often find myself calling to Jesus for help as I flap my arms.  What a comical scene it must be from Heaven!  I picture them all up there laughing at my idiocracy as they faithfully bail me out.

And there is the truth.  No matter how often we get ourselves up a creak without a paddle, when we cry out to him for help, Jesus is faithful and answers our call.  And he will the next time, and the next, and the next...

Hope in Something or Someone

Patience has never been my strong suit.  I do okay with patience as a mom and teacher, but when it comes to my life going according to plan, I am pretty pathetic at being patient.

You're probably aware that as we go through life some memories stick out more than others.  Important events tend to have a more detailed presence in our brains than those of less importance.  I couldn't tell you what the hospital room looked like when I had my wisdom teeth taken out or what I wore to a birthday party in the second grade, but I can tell you the color of the couch, curtains, floor, flowers, etc. in the conference room at Iowa City where I sat down with the genetics team to learn about my son Miles' future outlook.  I remember what the team was wearing, the details of their jewelry, the sounds in the background....

It was a memorable event in my life because it forced me to face the biggest obstacle in my life:  patience.

As I sat there, they told me that no one on record in the world had ever been missing the same part of their chromosome in the way Miles was.  In other words, they had nobody to compare him to and therefore no idea what his outlook was.  They didn't know if he had full mental capacity or extremely limited.  They didn't know if the heart defect was related or not.  (Although in all likelihood, it was.)  They couldn't tell me if the impact of the deletion would be noticeable right away or undetectable his whole life.  "He may be 5 years old before we know what he is capable of."

This was my worst case scenario...forced to be patient...to wait and see.  As a person, I want to know what to expect RIGHT NOW so I can prepare myself for it.  You could give me the worst news possible and it would be better for me than the unknown is.

This is one of the ways I am greatly flawed as an individual in my ability to handle life's curves, because more often than not, there is a wait....a lull in the chaos.

A friend recommended that my husband and I read Pete Wilson's book, "Plan B" this summer.  It has been helpful in so many ways, but in one of my favorite chapters Wilson uses the analogy of chaos at the cross to chaos in our lives.  He quotes scripture and describes all the different emotions of the day of  Jesus' death and then asks us as the reader to think about how the disciples must have been feeling.  He suggests that we often hear about the Friday death on the cross and Sunday's miraculous rise from death, but points out we never hear about Saturday.  What must the disciples have been feeling after the chaos of death?!  Jesus had been the devotion of their life and now he was dead.  Saturday must have been so hopeless, so helpless to them.

So many of us suffer from this "Saturday-ness" in our present cirumstances.  Waiting for God to answer our prayers...feeling hopeless and helpless.

Wilson then describes two forms of hope:
1.  Hope in something.
2.  Hope in someone.

In our chaotic circumstances (and everyone will go through something), we often have only hope to accompany us.  The difference is in which hope we cling to.

In my situation with Miles, it was Saturday.  I was clinging to hope in something...hope that he would be okay, hope that he would be normal, hope that it didn't mean anything we couldn't handle.  Eventually, I was left without hope because my hope was in someTHING instead of someONE.  Hope in something can disappoint us.

Hope in SOMEONE never will.

Jesus is the hope, the one promise, that will never let us down.  In the midst of your chaos, Jesus is where you can always cling to hope because he is the symbol of God's unfailing love.  His death at the cross shows that there are no limits to what God will do for us.  His resurrection shows how powerful God really is.

So...in your circumstance I cannot promise that hope in Jesus will take away your cancer.  It doesn't mean that the person that has wronged you will tell the truth.  It doesn't mean that your son will live.  It doesn't imply that you will get the job you've been looking for.  It means that God loves you and has a plan....and in this there is unending hope.