Message Received

While we were at Family Camp, I experienced something.  I have no idea how much thought actually went in to it, how much planning – when it was imagined up, did the orchestrators have any idea what affect it might have?  As I mentioned in my previous marathon picture post about camp, there were skits every night at campfire.  These skits were silly and cheesy, but always had a point.  They built on each other and each night we learned a little bit more about the characters and their quest.  As goofy as they sometimes were, these skits had a point to them, “What we want versus what we need”.  The characters all wanted something, something that didn’t seem ridiculous or undeserved, but definitely a want rather than a need. They were following a map to this wonderful place that would have just what their heart was desiring.  It’s probably not much of a stretch for your imagination to guess that ultimately, the point of these skits was to remind us that God knows better then us what we want AND need and He is waiting to grant us all of that when we are finally with Him in heaven.

We had been having “church” on Saturday.  The kids had been off with the camp staff “rescuing” the characters from the skit (they had chosen the wrong door and been tricked by a satan-y character at campfire the night before.) and all at once they came bursting through the doors of the chapel, so excited about their mission.  Our skit characters all realized that they had made the wrong choice and had been rescued, they also realized that because of their mistakes they now knew exactly which door they should have chosen.  They each got very excited and invited all of us to come with them, come with them to “La Puerta”!  They each took a section of us the audience and even though we all knew we were probably just going to the cafeteria for lunch, you couldn’t help but get a little excited, too.

And this is where my memory starts and plays like a movie that I will treasure forever.

The characters were running, with huge smiles on their faces.  College kids dressed as a sailor, a cowgirl, an indian princess and an explorer, turning and motioning for us to come, FASTER! And my kids ran.  They ran as fast as they could toward the same cafeteria where they had been eating all week. To say they were in the moment would be an understatement.  Lila took Jessie the cowgirl’s hand and together they burst through the doors.

I knew that he was just Josiah the horse wrangler.

But for that moment, dressed in a long white robe with the crimson sash, his dark skin and big brown eyes – he truly looked the part.  He knelt down on his knees and called to her, “Lila, I’ve been waiting for you!” He scooped her up and she hugged his neck so hard.

I know it was all just part of a skit, the finale of a beautiful week, and a college boy with olive skin and kind eyes.  But for that moment, seeing this representation of my Savior swinging my baby in absolute delight, with the cafeteria decorated like a royal ballroom – It was like I had been given a tiny glimpse of what Heaven will really be like.  We can read about it and imagine it, but to actually be given a visual of it, that is a treasure I will keep forever.

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My mom has been sick.  A kidney stone presented itself 2 Sundays ago and last Friday, she made her second visit to the emergency room in 24 hours.  After being in terrible pain off and on all week, after having the ER doctor see that there was a gigantic foreign body stuck inside of her, she was finally deemed sick enough to have some action taken.  Our dear friend Pam called me Friday morning and started our conversation with, “Your mama said you don’t need to come……” Any daughter who is worth anything knows that as soon as someone tell you your mama said you don’t need to come, you best get your bootie to wherever your mama is.

My weekend plans hadn’t included a trip to Arkansas, but that’s where I found myself Friday evening.  Spending the night in a hospital room with my mom, only this time it wasn’t me in the bed wearing the sassy backless nightie and we didn’t stay up into the wee hours admiring a precious new baby.  We did stay up into the wee hours, but that was due to other things.  We made our way back home at around 5 in the afternoon, two exhausted ladies who hadn’t showered and looked like death warmed over….nursing milkshakes and finally feeling a little better.

I stayed until Monday so I could go with her to the urologist.  Not because she wouldn’t be able to understand his instructions or his plans for what to do next, not because he was going to do anything else right away…..honestly, I wasn’t really sure why I had insisted on staying to go with her.  But sitting in the waiting room and then in the treatment room – it hit me like a ton of bricks.  This was the same office where my Poppy had been given a death sentence….twice.  We sat, waiting for the same doctor who nonchalantly told him to go home and get his affairs in order because there wasn’t anything that could be done, staring at an anatomical diagram of just what prostate cancer looks like.  For the record Dr. Kilambi, he outlived your 18 months, I would just like to point out that you were wrong on that.  Worse than all those reminders was the fact that the doctor didn’t even remember who she was.  His face, his words and even his hands, because I think that’s what she probably stared at after she heard those first few damning sentences – all of it will be tattooed in her mind forever.  But he doesn’t even remember her.

And that is why I stayed.

The thought of her going through that kidney stone by herself is what pulled me to Arkansas, but I shudder thinking about her going through that office visit alone even more.

And that is when I think about Lila running, full force into the arms of Josiah the horse wrangler at Family Camp.  That is when I pull that memory out and watch it over and over, closing my eyes and pretending not that I am back in time watching it, but instead, that I am in the future.  That we really are in Heaven and my girl is running to her Creator and Poppy is there and Matt is there and we are all perfect and nothing is ever going to break our hearts again.

“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” Revelation 21:4

I wish I had a picture for this.  I wish you could see what I got to see that day in July.  I’m sure that when they were having staff week and learning all the skits and taking CPR classes, there was no idea at all that they would be preparing to send a message that one mama desperately needed to receive.

 

 

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