Choosing to SEE - Mary Beth Chapman [85]
Granted, there is a part of me that feels entitled to be teary and angry. I’ve been through a lot. Not only last week, but this last year! However, then I quickly prayed to God, please . . . I don’t want to feel entitled, or act like I deserve to be in this place of self-pity. It is an ongoing war in my heart and my head! I tend to stay quite conflicted these days since Maria left and went to be with Jesus.
But let me tell you about the last several days! Two weeks ago tomorrow, our good friend, business associate, father to Caleb’s other band mates, awesome husband, mentor to my sons, left this world to go see his Savior and Maria . . . the result of a fourteen-month battle with pancreatic cancer.
David Lipscomb was an awesome friend and encourager . . . one of the first faces I remember seeing in the emergency room at Vanderbilt the night of Maria’s accident. I miss him. I am sad.
And I’m angry. Angry at David, angry at Maria, angry at Steven, angry at whoever would allow me to be and not be angry back!
I was at that place of not understanding God taking away those I love and leaving all of us here to wander around and heal the best we know how! That’s at least how I felt . . . partly because I had gone back to the doctor to ask about some medication that I had been on for awhile.
The funeral was 11:00 on Tuesday. The doctor’s appointment was Tuesday afternoon. We went straight from the doctor telling me I needed to add another antidepressant medication to the basketball regional semifinals for Will Franklin. Shaoey, meanwhile, had to read a big book on Laura Ingalls Wilder and then she was supposed to put together a pioneer outfit to wear to school on Pioneer Day, then a diorama with a scene from the book, and a book report. Thursday found me at the ob-gyn having my six-week checkup after a hysterectomy (yes, there was that too!). Friday was Pioneer Day!
It was a big, long week. I didn’t have time for anything I long to do . . . being at home, quiet, spending time reading, praying . . . you all know what I’m saying.
At any rate, I hope at this point you are all figuring out that I am really normal – or not – and on the verge of out-of-controlness! Friday night found us at Shaoey’s BB tournament in which she played one game Friday night, two games Saturday night, and two games on Sunday night! (They won39)
All the while I am the mother of the groom, with wedding plans coming down the pike fast. I just married off my daughter last October, my little girl went to be with Jesus, and Will Franklin is graduating as well.
I think I am realizing something through all of the craziness. Yes, God wants my quiet, and yes, God wants me to rest and hear Him and learn from Him. But all along, in the crazy last two weeks where I hardly had time to think, I realized that if I always think that I am going to finally get to that place where I am constantly trying to get – like in a quiet, picked-up house – then I’m wrong.
I need to choose to SEE Christ in every birthday party I drive to, every piano lesson that gets taught, every ballet tutu that gets twirled. God is with me. He isn’t waiting until I die for me to be with Him. He isn’t waiting until BB season is over or until I get completely healthy. He SEES me now. He is with me now. I know this is a simple realization, but it was big good news to me.
I don’t want to forget . . . I want to remember . . . God was with Maria on May 21 and God is with Mary Beth on March 10. I would ask your prayers as I try and navigate all the things that pull after me. I love looking after my family, and I really try to put that circle around them that they come first. After that . . . it gets fuzzy.
34
Spring Breaks
Though hope is clouded
It has not left us
Though pain runs deep now
You’re deeper still
And You are holding
All things together
Hold us together now
“Close To Your Heart”
Words and music by Steven Curtis
Chapman and Matt Redman
But you, O Lord, are a shield about me;
my glory, and the lifter of my head.
Psalm 3:3