Surprised by grace

Lately I've been thinking about the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery. It's found in John 8:1-11.

The teachers of the law and the Pharisees are anxious to catch Jesus in a trap, so they bring this woman to the temple courts. Jesus is seated, teaching a crowd of people gathered around him. The religious leaders interrupt, saying that under the Law of Moses this woman should be stoned. They ask Jesus what he thinks should be done.

At this point they might be avoiding sidelong glances at each other. They probably are working hard not to break into grins. They've got him! They know the Romans don't allow the Jews to carry out death sentences, so if Jesus says to stone her he'll be in trouble with them. But if he says to let her go, he will be violating Moses' law.

Never mind that the law required the execution of both parties. For whatever reason, her partner was allowed to escape, and she was brought to the temple, her humiliation on display for dramatic effect.
Instead of answering the religious leaders, Jesus bends down and writes on the ground with his finger. Which is pretty funny, when you think about it--Jesus, ignoring them, playing in the dirt. We don't know what he was writing, but we do know that it drove the religious leaders crazy. They kept questioning him.

Finally Jesus stands up and says, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Then he stoops down and goes back to writing.

And they leave. One at a time, oldest ones first. Finally, only the woman is left.

Gently, Jesus says, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"

She replies, "No one, sir."

"Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus says.

His answer must have washed over her like wave on the sand. Cleansing, obliterating the past.

Expecting judgement, the woman is surprised by grace. Grace so powerful, so unexpected that Jesus' next statement seems like a no-brainer.

"Go now and leave your life of sin."

Having met grace at the point of her greatest need, her deepest humiliation, her darkest hour, she is ready to follow Jesus anywhere. No way would she go back to where she'd been. She's been transformed by grace.

One thing that has always bothered me about this story is the absence of her partner. Adultery takes two, after all.

It isn't fair. He didn't have to bear public humiliation. He didn't have to sit while the Pharisees watched their best-laid plans to trap Jesus unfolded. He didn't have to wait while they decided who would throw the first stone.

He got away with it.

For the rest of his life, he carried the guilt of his transgression. He didn't get to meet Jesus face-to-face and hear his words of pardon. He got away with it, but he wasn't transformed. He didn't receive grace.

My journey to hysterectomy

At a well-woman check up this summer, my doctor noted I had an enlarged uterus. A sonogram revealed two benign cysts, called fibroids, The largest measured 8 cm, which is bigger than a baseball. Fibroids grow during the influx of estrogen that happens during every menstrual cycle. Once a woman goes through menopause, the fibroids will shrink to about a third of their size.

At 46, I am not too far away from 51, the average age women go through menopause. However, my mom and grandmother both were closer to 60 when they stopped, so I was looking at most likely 10 years or more for my baseball to become a softball or (yikes!) volleyball.

The other problem I have is menstrual migraines, also handed down to me from my mother and grandmother. Since entering my 40s I have been getting increasingly severe monthly headaches, caused by the fluctuating hormone levels during my cycle. Although there are no guarantees that removing my ovaries will eliminate migraines, it seemed like a risk worth taking. The possibility of skipping 120 debilitating three-day headaches over the next 10 years makes me smile.

The decision wasn't easy, though. I believe God made our bodies to function pretty well, and altering anything is risky. When I was debating whether to have  my ovaries removed, my doctor mentioned a trying a Lupron shot, which would put my body into menopause. Then we could see how my body would react, and if the headaches would go away.

Lupron is expensive, I found out, around $800 a dose. The doctor's office had to jump through hoops to clear it with my insurance. Then the Aetna drug people called me to make sure I wanted it before they shipped it. On the day I was to have the shot, I looked Lupron up on WebMD. Numerous patient reviews said the side effects were horrible. Most were taking it to relieve pain from endometriosis, and even the women who were getting help from the drug still weren't sure it was worth it. Several reviewers expressed regret for ever taking it and begged other women to reconsider.

I'd read enough John Grisham books about irresponsible drug companies to be completely freaked out by that, and I cancelled my appointment to get the shot. In the following weeks Aetna robo-called me numerous times, wanting me to refill my prescription. No thank you.

So I went into surgery on Friday with no real guarantees that this will help my headaches, although I think it will. I will no longer have the discomfort from the fibroids.

Since we are self-employed, we've had bare-bones insurance for years. We were forced to switch with ObamaCare last year. Right now it looks like it will be a blessing. From what I can tell our portion of the bill will be manageable.

I delayed having the surgery until we were through with our regular lawn care for the season. I've been looking forward to my eight weeks of recovery. I checked out Middlemarch by George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans), an 800-page classic novel found on many "must read" lists. I also plan to blog and set our business up on QuickBooks.

Right now the other employees of Franklin Lawn Service are getting ready for snow removal. I think I will take a nap.

At the Cross

We had communion in church this past Sunday. One of the songs had the powerful phrase "at the cross."

Where else is life distilled to its most basic form than there? At the cross only one thing matters--our response to Jesus' sacrifice.

When Dave and I were first married, we participated in an Easter pageant. He was a Roman soldier, I was one of the women following Jesus.

At the crucifixion scene we were all at the foot of the cross, weeping at the injustice.

And I realized a friendship I had at work was getting a little too important to me. My sin had put Jesus up on the cross. My tears of repentance were real.

In high school, I was a cast member in "Godspell." Midway through the second act Jesus said goodbye to each of his followers:  some with handshakes, many with hugs, all with a special gesture to signify each unique relationship. Just when we were starting to realize who our friend was and why he came, he was taken away.

In the play he was hung on a fence that stood in for a cross. Listening to him sing, "Oh God, I'm dying," while we were writhing at the base of the fence was a spiritual experience that gave me a glimpse of his sacrifice.

Our small school cast was a mix of kids, from different churches or no church background at all. Some athletes, some musical, some popular, some not. I determined that in my mind for the rest of my life they would be family. The ground was level at the foot of the cross.
 

Ode to Odie

Our family is in love with Odie.

We've had our Cavapoo for nearly a year, and he has a special bond with each of us.

He naps next to Dave's head while Dave is watching TV in the beanbag. Caleb plays with him by making quick movements and gets Odie running in circles. Harrison and Laurel give him a baths. Laurel is adept at putting on his harness and taking him for walks. I taught him to fetch my newspaper from the end of the driveway each morning.

The fact that we have a dog at all is amazing. A miracle, really. We were done with dogs. We'd had two puppies that we'd gotten from my parents, Abraham and Isaac. After about a year Abraham learned how to jump the fence, so he went back to the farm. Isaac stayed longer. He was an outside dog, but for some reason he was inside for a while one day and happened to pee on our bed. He was gone the next day. Dave gave him to a coworker.

Then a few years later we had Zoe, our big Great Pyrenees. She was the inspiration for our kindergartener to start his own business, "Caleb's Poop Scooping Service."

Caleb used his new tools at his Aunt Julie's and Aunt Jenny's back yards. However, after a few years the novelty of a dog and a business wore off. Both were neglected. When Great Pyrenees are neglected, they turn to barking. Incessantly. We got her a bark collar, which worked for a while, but then she developed a sore on her neck because we'd neglected to take off the collar. She's in a better place now. Dave placed an ad and we gave her to a family that had 40 acres.

And we swore that we wouldn't have any more dogs. And it was easy to keep our word, because we have a lawn service so we were reminded constantly of what dogs can do to a backyard when we mowed yards where people kept pets. And when we happened to step in a fresh pile and smelled it in the truck for the rest of the day, we would look at each other and say how thankful we were that we didn't have dogs.

A terminally ill customer of ours was having trouble caring for his dog Chloe, a Jack Russell terrier. He doted on Chloe, so we offered to give her occasional baths and take her on walks so he would be able to keep her as long as possible. I wondered if he had a plan for where Chloe would go when he would have to give her up. Chloe was 12 years old, so I knew the commitment would be short. Even though I grew up on a farm and firmly believed a dog's place was outside, I offered to take in his house dog. He told me that a neighbor had already spoken for Chloe, so I was off the hook. Our son Harrison, who was hoping for a dog, was crushed.

Then Dave went camping with our friends the Reeds, who brought along their adorable new Cavapoo puppy, Cora. Dave loved how Cora sat on her owner Danita's lap the entire weekend, and he was sold on their tales of how she was so smart they had trained her to ring a bell when she needed to go outside. Since she was half poodle, she didn't shed.

The Reeds told Dave they'd gotten Cora from a breeder in Missouri, so he started monitoring their website. When they discounted a 12-week old spotted puppy named Casey, Dave decided he was the one. He said we should take a road trip that Friday to pick him up. I had my doubts. Huge reservations, actually, in the form of 2,000 sq. ft. of new carpet that we'd just installed when we'd moved into our new house only a few months previously. New puppies and new carpet were not a good combination, in my opinion.

But the day before Dave wanted to go to Missouri, we got some news. It was one of those things that you hear about after the fact, so you can't really do anything but just feel sick. But I knew I would be thinking about it all day, and suddenly the thought of getting out of town with my hubby and processing it together on an all-day road trip was exactly what I wanted to do.

So we ended up in Carthage, Missouri, and brought home our little bargain puppy. I tried not to think about "Marley and Me," because their bargain puppy turned out to be much more than they bargained for. I held the scared little Casey in my arms the whole way home. The kids were truly surprised and happy to finally have a dog. We tried out several names. Nothing stuck until the puppy jumped and awkwardly fell flat on his face, so he became Odie just like Garfield's nemesis in the comics.

At Easter I asked my nephew Lincoln if he remembered our doggie's name. "Yes," he said. "Coyote."

On the way home from Missouri, the puppy had pooped and pottied when we stopped at a rest stop. "Maybe this will be easier than I thought," I said to Dave. Of course, those were famous last words. We have gone through all of the usual trials in trying to train a puppy. However, since our kids are teenagers, they actually can take care of him, and since they knew Mom was on the fence about the whole thing in the first place, when he would have accidents--and he did, including diarrhea until we got him used to his new puppy food--they would silently go for the spray bottle of carpet cleaner and a roll of paper towels.

We have adjusted and included Odie in our routines. Dave, Caleb and I love watching him race excitedly around us as we put up our equipment after returnlng from mowing all day. I catch the kids slipping him bits of food under the table, but I have been known to let him lick out my empty yogurt containers. Lately I've been taking him to the bank drive-thru when I make deposits, because they give out doggie treats. And that, my friends, is nothing short of a miracle.

Odie waiting patiently for his Milk-Bone to come at the bank drive-thru.

A Stitch in Time

My mom loves to sew. When she was in third grade, she begged her mom to teach her to use the sewing machine. She sewed all her clothes in high school. She even sewed her own wedding gown, as well as mine and my older sister’s. They were all gorgeous. 

A few years ago when my parents retired and moved from the farm to town, my mom’s favorite hobby became quilting with other women from church. Each year they would make a quilt to be sold at the Mennonite Central Committee’s annual relief sale. Each time they worked tirelessly to piece a beautiful quilt that would bring a lot of money for the charity.

This year my mom especially liked the fabric combinations that they chose for the project. The deep plums and sage greens were offset by natural tones and accented by a spicy salmon. The log cabin pattern was one of her favorites, and this one was called “spinning logs” because it had a twist:  each log cabin block was given a quarter turn, so the overall effect was a whorl, or pinwheel.

“I think it’s the prettiest quilt we’ve ever done,” my mom told me on numerous occasions. I wistfully wished I could buy it for her, but knew that it would be way out of my price range. All of the women from mom’s quilting group were excited to see how much their quilt would sell for.

On the day of the MCC sale, some quilts were bringing thousands of dollars, and one quilt even set an all-time record of $12,000. However, when the one my mom worked on was up for auction, no one bid. One of the women who had worked on the quilt put in a bid to get it started. She ended up with it for $500.

After returning home from the sale later that day, my dad fell and broke his hip. Thoughts of quilts were pushed far from our minds. Dad needed surgery, and spent several weeks recovering in the hospital, then rehab, then a skilled nursing facility. After being married 52 years, Mom and Dad both struggled sleeping apart from each other.

When things finally settled down with my dad and I learned who had bought the quilt at the MCC sale, my mental wheels started turning. Wouldn’t the quilt be comforting for my mom while she was alone at home?The price the quilt had sold for was more than I could afford, but maybe my siblings and I together could buy it from her and give it to Mom for Mother’s Day. I called them, and they agreed. My brother said he would get in touch with the lady who had bought the quilt.

I had a day of panic, thinking that she might have promised the quilt to one of her daughters. I encouraged my brother to call that night. He did, and the lady said she would be willing to sell the quilt to us.

Now I had to wait a month for Mother’s Day. But my sister, who lives in South Dakota, wouldn’t be able to come. So we decided we would wait yet another week, when she would be here for my oldest son’s high school graduation.

We knew Dad would want to included, so we planned to give it to mom at the nursing home where Dad was staying. However, my Dad was responding well to therapy and was released sooner than we expected. 

So when my sister came to Kansas we three siblings gathered at Mom and Dad’s house. We told them we were celebrating Dad’s first day back from the nursing home. Of course, we had something else up our sleeve. When we brought the quilt out and presented it to Mom, she stood speechless.

“Do you recognize that quilt?” my dad asked. 

“Of course, I thought it was the prettiest one we’ve ever made,” Mom said.

“We bought it for you,” I told her. 

“But someone else bought it,” Mom said, disbelieving.

“I know, we bought it from her,” I said. “Happy Mother’s Day!”

I couldn’t hold back the tears as I hugged her tightly. She couldn’t either.

                    

We took the quilt to their room. I was amazed at how the sage green walls of their bedroom matched perfectly with the sage pieces in the quilt.

“Mom, I think if we went to the paint store to pick out a color to coordinate with this quilt, this is the color we would choose,” I told her.

We fixed their bed and made it ready for them to sleep in that night. They would be able to enjoy it together on the first night of Dad’s homecoming.

Like it was meant to be.