Day of Grace
In Memory and Honor of Grace E. Smith 1992~2013
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Held

7/29/2013

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Rock climbing has never been one of my hobbies although I have admired from a far off the skill level and fearlessness one must attain to conquer mountain peaks. One aspect of rock climbing that has impressed me is tiny little things called “anchors.”

Anchors are devices that attach the climber to the face of the cliff or mountain. Odd how sometimes the smallest of things are the most fundamental and powerful, as to save one from death! As the climber ascends, with great force and exertion he drives anchors into the mountain surface along the way. If he happens to lose his grip and fall, he will be held and only fall the distance to the closest anchor. The hope is the anchor will support his free-fall and hold him till the climber can again retain grip and continue his journey onward and upward. The goal is to reach the top. The challenge is not to lose footing or grip as you make your way against gravity. Your hope is the anchor will catch and hold you. Your hope is that you will be held.

Over the past year I have given this concept a lot of consideration, the concept of climbing, mountains, falling and anchors. What do I believe? How far do you fall when what you believe is challenged? What happens when your faith gets violated by circumstances? Where do you go when the absolute worst nightmare becomes your reality? My realization is you fall till you are caught and held by your closest or deepest anchor, if you have one. If you do not have an anchor then there is no hope but to hit the bottom. If you are willing, after much time to heal, from the bottom you can start your ascent again, but the journey is slow and arduous. And much is lost in the process. However, if you have anchored yourself correctly, even during the worst of the storms, you can maintain your position or only lose a small amount of vertical ground if you happen to slip. This understanding of anchoring myself is a viable solution if I keep the focus of the vision, which is to reach the top of the mountain. My vision is not to climb the mountain but to attain the very top.
My faith was that Grace would live. And I climbed. I believed that with my whole heart and I climbed. I did not doubt. And I climbed. I was not alone in this but many believed for the miraculous on our behalf, especially Grace. The first time I entertained thoughts of her funeral were as Eric and I were leaving hospice, watching the hearse make its way with Grace’s lifeless body tucked inside. And I fell. Shock, grief, disbelief, bewilderment were only the beginning of my emotional state. Weeks went by. My hands, feet and heart slipped and I continued to fall.

This is the anchor that caught me. “Faith, Hope, and Love and the greatest of these is Love.”

After Grace’s death and burial I could not discuss my faith with even myself and would not dare to even look at the notion of hope. I was broken inside and there were no “horses or men” to put me back together again. But, gently my Father spoke these words and reminded me, “Love is the greatest.” He did not chide me for losing my grip on faith. Nor did He rebuke me for not remembering hope. He, very patiently, reminded me of Love. He revealed this anchor and gave me the choice to gain my footing or continue to fall. I held onto that rope and anchor with everything I had because when I looked down it was not the bottom I saw but the never-ending abyss. “Choose to Love!” is what I quietly shared with Eric that evening. “Let’s not concern ourselves with faith for the moment. Let’s not even try to deal with hope for our souls just yet. Let’s just choose to love. Let’s choose love God with all our hearts. Let’s choose love each other without question. Let’s choose to love our family and our life!” This word of the Lord was very timely because I could feel the bitterness wanting to rise in my thoughts. The walls that surround to keep out but also create prisons were starting to rise within. Thoughts of cynicism were beginning to whirl around my mind like an out of control dust bowl. But the anchor of Love caught and has held me tightly. To choose to love when you are broken and poured out is no small thing. To worship and praise God and love Him with all your might when you have no answers to the ever pounding questions of your bludgeoned heart is not a trivial thing.

And, He is not a trivial God. Months have passed and as I stood in service recently worshipping Him and loving Him, acknowledging my weakness and brokenness, like a vessel smashed to bits and the insides poured out and displayed before Him, He answered me again. His answer? A glimmer of Hope! He did not give me understanding of why or how or what but He offered me a piece of Himself, His hope. It was just a sliver, more like a dust mote or cell of skin really. But like I said He is not a trivial God and there is nothing small about Him. In that one molecule of Himself, I knew I was being healed and put back together again. Hope is being restored inside my heart, small like a butterfly landing but powerful like the changing of seasons. I am gaining my grip and strength to climb once again. My vision of the summit has not changed and my journey upward will continue. But most importantly I have learned it doesn’t matter if it is the slow and methodical climb upward or the rare but rapid decent of a spiraling misstep, I have an anchor that will hold. And I know with confidence I am HELD.


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Imprint

7/27/2013

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Life, it seems, follows the line of either climbing great mountains to forging through deep and dark valleys. We are always on the road to or through one or the other.

It is amazing what is left behind once Death comes to more than just your door but to your home to sit for a while. I loathed him and couldn’t understand why he sat there, watching, waiting and lingering like he had something to say but refused to speak. I wanted him to leave us alone, begged him to go. But, day after day he stood his ground like an ugly piece of furniture and I learned to live my life around him. Finally, the day come when he opened his arms and took my child with him. He took my daughter but also a part of me upon his departure. I find I am left with a hole in my soul and heart.

Right now it seems I am in the valley forging my way through, looking for that “piece” that will fill my heart. Time has given me the wisdom to know I am not looking for things to get easier. Death’s disturbance and theft is not something I want to shove under the rug and forget like a penny left on the sidewalk. I want to remember Grace, miss her and feel the pain of her parting for the rest of my life. What I need and am looking for is the strength to bear her memory well. To know when I feel the burden of my heart missing her, I have the strength to smile, say her name and boast of her life.

Here is the sight I have gained that is helping to strengthen me. Instead of seeing I have a hole and something is missing, I understand I have been “imprinted”. Pressure has been applied to the most tender part of me and I am changed. And because of who Grace was and our connection, the imprint is deep! A mark has been made that will hopefully never fade. I reason to myself, “What if the point was not to try to cover over those places within ourselves? What if the road we are forging through the valley to the mountain top was never meant to look perfect like the over-botoxed face that neither holds nor displays genuine emotion. What if the provision for ourselves and others were marked by our “imprints”?” But, no one likes to feel hollow or scooped out from the inside. No matter how pretty I try to make it look, no matter how “glorious” or how noble it rings to have imprints, it still feels more like a “pothole”. And where there is a “pothole” there is a hole with a “piece” missing.

It has been over two months since our Grace transitioned from this life to the next. Today the kaleidoscope of my sight has turned and the “pothole” has transformed into an imprint. The “piece” to fill it has come into view and I am humbled. Through this journey the imprint has become deeper and sweeter because I have found the rain of Grace. It wasn’t I was missing a “piece” to fill the hole; it was “peace” I needed to fill the imprint. What a change in sight that brings hope to my hurt heart and comfort to my everlasting soul.

A life filled with “potholes” turned to “imprints” seems to be the road I am forging right now. My imperfections are not covered over, hidden around bends or beautified by misdirection. With wonder, I watch as the rain of Heaven fills the imprints of my life and I am filled with peace. All I can hope for is a life to hold the sweet rain. To remember the imprints and glory in the mark of life and death on the road of my life is to live well. So with humility I drink deep of the water that fills those places, the potholes turned imprints and when I see someone thirsty as they walk their road beside me, journeying from mountain top to valley and back again, offer them a drink.


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Hope

7/15/2013

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“To love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.”
― Ellen Bass

Emily Dickinson described hope as “the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings a tune without words and never stops at all.” Both of the previous sayings reflect a true expression of hope- the small voice inside that beckons and woos us continually, even in the midst of our deepest wound, severest feelings of despair and confinement of abandonment, to fight to love again, to give ourselves to trust again and to press forward to live again. We are creatures made to hope. Hope is the essential ingredient that feeds our immortal existence. Like air is to our lungs is hope to our souls.

The integrity of hope that holds us is not as thin as the skin or being of wishes. Wishes can be likened to the mist of a beautiful cool morning. But, as the sun bears down in the heat of the day, the mist disappears and with it all thoughts of greatness and comfort vaporize. Wishes carry all the stableness and fragility of an overburden water balloon. It is not a matter of if it will burst but rather when it will burst. Wishes are the most temporary of tiny play things. Hope’s character is nothing like a wish, but rather more like a multitude of ideals threaded together to form something powerful and substantial. Its complexity and intricacies resemble the components of a genetic code of life rather than simple and independent random concepts. In the greatest sense, from the substance of our hope the structure of our faith is built, upon which, we live. Faith and hope are designed to go “hand in glove” so to speak. What successful life can truly be lived without the structure of faith as its vital component, even its foundation? A foundation embedded with hope as its material substance.

It is hope that beckons in the midst of brokenness, contriteness of soul or grief. When faith is shattered and emotions splayed, hope is there holding the jagged pieces in something like a state of “animated suspension.” Not one piece lost or hidden from sight. Over time hope draws your eye to examine those pieces of yourself very closely. Every detail, from every angle held perfectly still so you can inspect, dissect and choose. What do I keep and what do I throw away? When we look with the eyes of grief, anger, hatred or solitude it would be easy to throw away pieces that in their entirety are meant to be kept and pulled back together again. Tell me, how would a genetic code work or look if it were missing vital pieces or unnecessary pieces added? The answer, monsters inside would be created. But with the eyes of hope, the vital and necessary pieces of our faith, life, and emotions can be taken out of “suspension” and carefully put back into being one piece at a time. Thus retrieving and creating lush, vibrant lives.

I do not believe damage or devastation can quiet the sound of hope. Hope sings his tune all through the day and night. But, sometimes our ears are deafened to the deepest places of hope inside ourselves by the circumstances of our life. We all know loss, grief, dashed expectations, misplaced trust and broken relationships. And like lungs with no air, we will die without the sound of hope ringing in our hearts. Hope is not perfected nor does it grow when you have all the answers, or have everything “together”. Forced perfection suffocates hope. But, looking for answers in the midst of brokenness or grief releases the heart of hope to beat fast. To open your heart as you bow down and pour out gives voice to the sweet tune of hope. There is something so powerful about the stirring, lightness and essence of hope that echoes and resounds in the depths of our hearts. That is why when you hear the melodious wordless tune within yourself it is important to sing out loud from that deep well of hope. So, others when they hear it, may recognize the tune of hope within themselves. This is how we know hope dwells fully alive, thriving and healthy inside us, that we do not contain its song in ourselves but we give that mellifluous tune to others. For hope, in the finest of forms, was never meant to be kept closed in, like a bird in a cage, but rather given, shouted and shared as from the rooftops.


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Tribute To My Hometown

7/9/2013

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What makes a great community? That question, I am sure, is asked around the table at countless town council meeting halls and functions across this land. Leaders pour over this simple question to find the magical and elusive answer of how to attain community greatness. “Do we need better politics or political leadership?” “Does our town need to save more money or spend more money?” “What changes do we need to implement? What procedures need eradicating?” I am proud to say our community has the answer. Did you catch it? The answer of what makes a great community is hidden from within. The community has to make the community great. People sitting around a table grouping great ideas together may prove to have pocketed successful outcomes, but with that strategy alone, “Greatness” will never be accomplished within a community as a whole.

A community, in the most simple of terms, is a unified body of individuals. The concept of unity is nothing compared to the experience of unity. Once you have tasted of unity, you know there is nothing that can measure to it, nothing by a long-shot. You have heard the saying, “Persecution does not make character, but reveals it.” I think the same can be said about a community. “It is not tragedy that unifies a community, but rather the outpouring of love.” Love is seen in the small gestures of kindness given every day. Love is buying bows that loving hands have made or making chicken plates to sell. Love is in the hands of everyone who purchased those plates or t-shirts or dropped dollars, quarters or pennies into the buckets with someone’s picture on it. Love is doing for others whatever good is in your heart to do. When a community unifies to do for others, Greatness is achieved!

Eric and I have felt the outpouring of love from this community and the communities that surround Telfair County. We can honestly say we have tasted of your “Greatness”. There is no way we can say thank you big enough, loud enough or long enough to convey the experience of unity and love we have felt. You are the reason we can walk through a restaurant or buy a gallon of milk with a smile on our face. You are the reason we are not shut up in our home feeling so alone and out-of-place. People of the community have wondered how we can smile and laugh and carry on. The answer is simple. The answer is YOU! There are still tears in our eyes when we greet you on the street or hug you in a restaurant, but the smile is for you, from hearts of gratitude. That, in a small way but the only way we know, is how we can say, “Thank You!”

The Thursday Grace died, before we could even process what had happened, you were there going before us. We drove through the middle of town and saw you putting up purple bows on lamps and posts and doors, both residential and commercial. While Eric and I were feeling the deepest amount of grief we had ever experienced, we also felt the arms of our community reach out and pull us near. Our deepest grief was met with overwhelming comfort.

Acts of grandeur are appealing but few are everlasting. Small but perpetual and determined deeds of kindness and love build the foundation of unity. That foundation of unity holds the monument of greatness. It is through the veil of the mundane and routine of our lives we find the potential for greatness. Like drops of water erode stone, small acts of kindness built within a community yield the bricks of unity. When people close up or from a far off gaze upon our unity, they will proclaim, “There is a monument of Greatness!” Eric and I have gazed upon you. With every card sent, prayer said, bows, signs, t-shirts, plates and donations made, we have been touched by you and marveled. With thankful hearts we say we have felt your love and unity. We have beheld your “Greatness.”


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Watching You Leave

7/5/2013

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Watching You Leave

Journal Entry 07 05 2013

Yesterday as Eric and I were out driving we stumbled upon the most wonderful sight. Amusing enough to have us both craning our necks as we turned the corner and make up our own dialogue of what was supposedly being said.

Picture this. Empty silver Audi car parked in the right hand lane with flashers on as the Dad stands peering over the fence next to the road watching his teenage daughter, suitcase tagging along behind her, ticket in hand, giddily dancing toward the entrance to the bus station. He takes out his wallet, calls her back and offers her his money. She is smiling as she re-traces her steps back to him but you see it in the corners of her mouth and eyes. “Dad let me go! I’m ready!” He stood there outside the fence, car in the middle of the street, watching her leave. And he stood there until she was through the entrance and out of sight. And he lingered there still. As the dad walked off, his face toward the ground we did not look at him. All we could do was offer privacy for him to work out the feelings we know all too well. The truth is one of the hardest things we do as parents, is watch our children leave. I am sure in his mind he was picturing her in her knee socks, chubby cheeks smeared with sticky candy, scraggly wildflowers in one hand, puppy leash in the other, skipping as she talked to herself about princesses, tea parties and chasing butterflies in the back yard. But, our children are constant reminders that time does not stand still.

Transition. A three syllable word that stretches you like a rubber band. The first time this word became a reality as a parent was during labor. There is a stage called, “transition”. For those mothers who endured or fathers who watched, I understand the furrow of your brow as you recall those moments in time. Transition was the hardest change, movement and process of labor. Quite literally it was the “do or die” moment. Had Eric not been there walking me though every breath of the way, I would have given up all hope and the heat of pain would have consumed my whole body till nothing was left but sweat, blood and tears. But breakthrough was on the heels of transition and soon our Grace was in my arms and the pain and memory of transition was far out of mind like a forgotten bowl in the upper corner cabinet. But eventually you’re going to need that bowl so down it comes and with it thoughts of pain and fear.

The first transition of labor was just a test run so it seems because growing your children up from childhood to adulthood is nothing but constant change. Sometimes change comes like a bursting surprise of colors, laughter and music. Sometimes it hits you like a dull inevitable ache. Other times change crashes upon you like a 30 foot wave you never saw coming. It is one thing to walk your five year old across the street to his first day of class and quite another to watch your 16 year old drive away. Yet still to walk your 18 year old to the airport terminal and quite another to walk your daughter down the aisle. And yes it is quite different still to hold your child in your arms and watch as she transitions from this life to the next.

Your greatest hope as a parent is to hear the words we can only suppose this young girl said to her “Daddy or Poppy”, “I am ready! Let me go!” How many times have we heard that phrase uttered, muttered, declared and proclaimed? “I can do it myself!” They start declaring it early. Dressing themselves in polka-dots and stripes or while buttoning their shirts one button off. And you stand there gazing in his big brown hopeful eyes, smiling as you look at the catty wonkus shirt. You nod your head proudly, “Yes, I see. You can do it!” Parenthood is just as much, if not more, training for the parent as the child. We have to keep our eyes on the target, lest our hearts confuse the point of parenthood, which is to make them ready to leave. Whether we can admit it out loud or not we want to hear to proclamation, “I am ready. I can do it myself.” We, as parents, are the shoulders that hoist our children upward. We are the mega-phone that shouts “make clear the path”. We are the whispers in their mind and hearts that make them believe in themselves. We love our jobs! But then on the coat-tails of “I can do it myself” comes the quicksand of “Let me go!” This is the disdained rub. You can’t have one reality without the other. We make them ready. We show them the stars and explain their God-given glory and beauty, we show them themselves and boast of their God-given glory and beauty, we train them in the tools and resources to gain the galaxies and beyond and then….We hear the reverberations of declarations of the past, ”Let me go! I am ready!”, as they gaze heavenward, hopeful and excited about the worlds they will conquer, without us. So, we take our hands off, we back away, but linger as we watch.

It’s like standing in the sunshine while it rains. It is an odd and bizarre sight and sensation. On the one hand you are getting wet and you don’t like it. But at the same time it’s beautiful and awe inspiring and you know it won’t last forever. In just a moment it will all be over, no need to rush or fret. Standing there lingering as you are watching your child leave and go her own way is a bit like that, mixture of contradicting emotions. Parents and children, ups and downs, scrapped knees and wounded hearts, accomplishments and graduations until they are making their own path to worlds where you cannot follow. You are standing there, the constant monument of consistency and dependency, proud and hopeful but your heart tender and vulnerable, as you watch as from the other side of the fence which only highlights the feeling of the chasm between you. And you linger, watching as they make their steady and determined movement forward, transitioning yet again, until they are out of sight. I know it is the best thing, the right thing, the only thing to do at this point in time but it is also the hardest thing, watching you leave!


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Ash and Rubble

7/1/2013

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The scene could be from the 6:00 o’clock evening news. We gaze in horror at the skeleton remains of a charred and ruined homestead. The chimney stands alone like a humbled, weary soldier against the grey of the mid-day sun. Columns and beams still smoldering as the stench of smoke and ash clings heavy in the air. And you think to yourself, “What could possibly remain after such a fire?” And then you see the faces of the ones sifting through the ash and rubble looking for what remains. Their faces are just a reflection of their hearts, tear streaked and dirty. The look of pain and shock written in the sooted creases and lines around their eyes and lips, as they pick and plunder. And you think again with pity, “What could remain in that crumpled mess of a broken house scattered in blackened pieces?”

Losing a home to devastation, either to wind, fire or water, is one agony I have never faced. I cannot imagine what that must be like. But, I do know what it means to walk through devastation that challenges you beyond belief and your faith. I know what it feels like to be standing in the middle of a storm and watching the wind blow and the water rise and wonder to yourself what would be left when it is all said and done. Mine and Eric’s house of thoughts, faith, mindset and ideals caught fire. And the uncontrollable waves of heat burned white hot as the flames licked at the very core of our being. So here we are today. We are the ones sifting through the ash and rubble, wondering to ourselves, “What remains?”

Thoughts, attitudes or paradigms of faith can only show their true value when tested with the fires of trial and tribulation. How can you truly trust the integrity of a thing if it first has not been tested or tried? Being refined by the fire is not an easy process but it is simple. Those core values that glow and pulse in the heart of the fierce and raging fire and sustain their substance, shape and composition are the only things that can be built with and upon. Yes, there are those things that shine brighter, made sturdier and purer after enduring the scorching of heat and stinging of cooling water. Patterns of thoughts or faith ideals that cannot endure the heat of the day deserve to become nothing more than ash and rubble. They are the terrible dross of my mind and emotion. In them is no substance that can be mistaken for or identified as faith. The Fire knows and the Fire reveals. I must allow these fantasies of thoughts and attitudes of bolstered wishes that resemble faith, to burn like wood, hay and stubble. They do not remain but become charred beyond recognition and burned beyond useful anymore. The Fire distinguishes and the Fire sets apart. This process of refinement has two very important components that work together like bees and pollen to make life sweet and stable. I cannot rush this process nor can this process ever stop. The fires of the day and life are continual; therefore, I must be relentless in my actions. I have to know what remains and choose to build with those values, patterns of thought and faith. And, I must also look at the things which do not remain and clear out the charcoaled tidbits or towering blackened beams of ideals, actions and attitudes that make my mind, soul and heart a wasteland of rubble and ash. The glory of today is to find those things that radiate brilliance and light after the fire and with them build all the while ridding myself of the weight of ash and rubble that only cause my heart, faith and mind to be complicated and weighed down. The house that is built on the rock may be simple and low but in the end all that really matters is what remains when the day is over, the fire has raged and all is said and done.


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    Laura G. Smith

    Trying to understand what can not be explained.

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