"Is that right? Well, welcome! We are are so glad to have you."
Her mouth spreads into a wide grin. She says, "Thank you," nods her head and moves on.
This exchange with one of my favorite residents (ssshhh) never fails to amuse me and usually happens a couple of times a week. She of course, has been there for years.
I tell Paul she reminds me of when we were visiting churches a few years back. We would receive the first time visitors pack of bread or cookies. Sometimes they were just yummy enough that we would joke about how we could pull off being first time visitors again just to get the free loot.
This has to be one of life's greatest mysteries for me. One of my favorite movie scenes is of
Mr. Diggery telling Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy that he expects they will probably return to Narnia again - but not through the wardrobe. No, he himself had already tried that. This scene always produces a mixture of excitement and anxiety in me. How the heck are they going to get there? It would devastate me to find such an amazing place and not know how to get back.
The truth is we rarely, if ever, return to wonderment in the same way. There is a uniqueness in experiencing something for the first time that is undeniably intoxicating and unrepeatable. It's why so many people look back on their first love through rose colored glasses. Its unlikely that things were really all that perfect or you'd probably still be together. No, a more realistic perspective is that it was all wonderfully new to you. Feeling this level of intense regard for someone else and having it reciprocated. And you miss the thrill of discovery.
Every day around 2:30, another resident comes to the desk. Her face is wrought with worry. She wants us to call her husband immediately. He got there early that morning, just left about 30 minutes ago and will be back before supper to eat with her and put her to bed. Exactly what he does 7 days a week without fail. He is not well, exhausted with the kind of fatigue that can only be understood by a caregiver and we are all worried about him. The next 2 hours become an exercise in patience. Her anxiety heightens, she accuses him of not caring about her. She cries and sometimes screams terrible things. We try everything to redirect, explain, comfort, alleviate fears, and walk with her through this perceived crisis. She cannot trust, cannot wait. We hold our ground. When he returns, he is always so gentle, responding to her anger with love and kindness.
I know all too well that this is a result of the disease process. This is not a judgement of her character. The truth is, I love her too. But its different. She does not trust the relationship. She does not let me meet her needs as I see them. It saddens me as a nurse that she won't let me care for her. I hate to see her anguish, so unnecessary. What troubles me most is how much I'm like her.
We recently learned that the renter of our house for two years has decided to move on. He has been a great tenant. The circumstances that led him to rent our house in the first place are both comical and completely providential. Not my plan. It happened in the very last days before we moved, with no idea how we would pay rent and mortgage since I had not yet secured a job. To this day, I have no idea what we were thinking. God handled the matter seamlessly and we never lost a cent.
Fast forward two years. We both have great, secure jobs and love where we live. So guess what happened when I learned our renter was moving out? Sheer panic. Certain doom. We may have to eat out less. How could God step out like this? I told him that I wanted our renter to buy our house and it looked like that was going to happen for awhile. Why would He do this to me? Why would he change the plans? I had it all worked out. We would have saved money on realtor fees. I have a bad back. I have two teenagers. Why am I being persecuted?
And so I asked people to pray (aka I demanded that someone call God and tell Him to get back here stat.) I did my research, got a realtor, made the calls, planned, planned, planned and worried without ceasing. And guess what? He did show up. With a completely different plan. The moment my husband was beginning to fax our signed contract to the realtor, he got a call from an old neighbor. A colleague of his called, was moving back to Indy and needed immediate housing. He wanted to rent a house for a year in our school district. Ours was perfect. After some fast and furious texting, we have new renters. Again, with the seamless thing. Again, not my plan.
It occurs to me that being lost, clueless or needy doesn't bother God in the least. He longs to meet our needs where we are. He doesn't care if we come to the throne without a business plan. He actually prefers that. "Come just as you are," he said. We are His beloved. And He positively loves it when we realize its our first day here. We have never been in this moment before. How do we presume to know what is best?
I'm not sure I know how to let go of this. I'm the girl with a plan. Flying feels an awful lot like falling and I have no intention of jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. The truth of course is that airplane is fated to crash, I just don't know it yet. After all the ways He has provided and made our paths straight, how can worry still be my knee-jerk instinct? I don't know. I'm still working on this. I am so very grateful that His mercies are new every morning. I do know that I want to please God. I want Him to smile when He sees me coming. And I want to go back to Narnia.
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