by Victoria -

Always and forever a daddy’s girl

It’s Father’s Day and fitting to pay tribute to the daddy who shaped me in many ways into the person I am today.  I love you, Dad.

My earliest memories of my daddy are hazy. They center around a sand box, a white picket fence where my leg became stuck after climbing it when I wasn’t supposed to, and he had to rescue me, and the basement of the first house I lived in.   As I remember, dad and I were checking out the basement for things left behind because we were moving to a new house. I can still see my doll cradle tucked up under the stairs, and for some reason I didn’t tell him about it, so it didn’t come with me to my new home.

I wasn’t much of a talker. I think I was more of an observer. Being an introvert has its drawbacks.

I followed him around like a puppy dog and as I got just a little older, I became his helper.

He remodeled kitchens and bathrooms and bedrooms, and I was always hanging around watching him work and fetching the tools he needed and holding the ladder for him. He always knew the answers to everything and he was my hero. When my momma would say to me out of frustration – “left handed people can’t do nothing right!” He would pull me aside and say – “you can do anything you put your mind to.”

And his voice is the one I’ve always believed. Because he’s right.

Of course, we didn’t always get along. My teen age years were difficult for the both of us, what with boyfriends and learning to drive and gaining independence and every terrifying thing that comes with it.

My parents came from the mountains of West Virginia where college education wasn’t on their list of possibles, and for them growing up, graduating high school was usually not happening, either. But my dad worked hard and got his GED, then went on to become an electrician while he worked 40-plus hours a week at the shop for General Motors. He put his mind to something and he accomplished it.

So, when he offered to send me to a community college when I graduated high school with honors, I stupidly turned it down and I’m still kicking myself to this day. But that was a long time ago, and many tears ago, too.

We have always seemed to be able to understand each other, my dad and me. Momma, bless her heart, didn’t get either one of us. She would get angry at dad and expect me to side with her and when I didn’t she’d get mad at me too. She was an emotional woman looking for a bosom buddy to agree with her assessment of the horribleness of the situation and I didn’t fit the bill. That’s why she and my sister got along so well. They commiserated together about the unfairness of things.

At momma’s funeral, it was me that dad sat next to. It was me that made sure he was ok. It was me that stayed up with him, staying close, waiting to see what he might need. It was me that anticipated what his life was going to look like after momma was gone. It was me that he confided in and I turned into his counselor, listening and encouraging and praying for him.

My dad’s commitment to his marriage, his unconditional love for his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren is a study in steadfastness that many have forgotten in our day and age. How he patiently and tenderly cared for momma as she struggled with dementia and devolved into someone we didn’t know and who she didn’t know anymore either, is one of the strongest examples of courage I’ve ever had the privilege of witnessing.

He has always been the anchor keeping us safe in the storms. He is the one with wisdom and patience, explaining in simple language again and again how to do something. His voice is the one that calms my heart and stills my fears.

At 81 years young, his step is slower and his early Parkinson’s causes his hand to tremble uncontrollably. He can’t do many of the things he used to be able to do. But he’ll always be my role model and the voice I look forward to hearing answer the phone when I call.

The last time I ever hear these words –“hello, sweet thing!” will be a sad day indeed.

by Victoria -

A personal transfusion of God’s grace

This article is featured in GO! Christian Magazine’s Summer 2018 issue

“Just three years ago I was a totally different person physically and spiritually than I am now. Though I went to church I wasn’t as close to God as I should have been. A lot of the time I was more interested in myself than God. He was on the back burner.”

In September of 2015, Steve Brown was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia, a very aggressive form of Leukemia. His doctor, with a heavy heart, told him he had 3 to 6 months to live. He had gone to his doctor for a checkup, where they found some irregularities in his blood. Steve’s only symptoms were some fatigue and shortness of breath. His doctor took the time out of his schedule and did a bone marrow biopsy on his lunch break for him.

Steve was a fire fighter for 28 ½ years, retiring from the Fire Department in 2003. He went on to get his teaching certificate, teaching classes in Fire Standards, Hazardous Materials, and Fire Chemistry at Gulf Coast College. A teacher at heart, Steve said “I like turning the lights on in people’s heads.”

Up to the day of his diagnosis, he and his wife Connie were leading full lives. Connie had recently retired from nursing, and they were enjoying their grandkids and doing some traveling. After the news of his impending death, they both marveled at how God had set the stage many years earlier for Steve’s illness. You see, Connie, after becoming a nurse, had obtained her national registration in Chemotherapy and had run the outpatient chemo unit at Bay Medical. They were also debt free, and were part of a local church family and small group who gave them all the emotional and practical support they needed.

Four whirlwind days after hearing those terrifying words, Steve checked into the University of Alabama in Birmingham’s blood disease center. He was there for about six weeks where he had a port placed in his chest, receiving both chemo and other drugs. The treatment made him very sick with horrific headaches and exhaustion. They had to ‘wipe’ his bone marrow. Chemotherapy gets rid of as much cancer cells as possible, but it wipes out the bad cells as well as the good cells, so Steve had no white blood cells left to fight infections.

He went into complete remission for the first time in April of 2016.

In November of that same year, Steve relapsed. “This was the hardest time for me psychologically. I almost resigned myself that I was going to die. I wrestled with God over and over about it until I said, ‘ok, Father, your will be done.’ Then I had peace.”

Both Steve and Connie believe with all their heats that when you give your life to God there’s going to be divine providence in your life.

During his second remission, he was doing so well, they sent him home from the UAB 10 days early. During his sickness, Steve learned early on to read his Bible and pray. “The first time I got chemo I learned how real God is, and the second time around was how steadfast God’s Word is. Sometimes, I would be so sick or in so much pain all I could do was remember bits and pieces of scripture but I would stand on them and His Word saw me through.”

For Steve’s daily devotions he found himself reading a lot in the Old Testament reveling in the descriptions of God’s absolute power. The Holy Spirit encouraged Steve to substitute his own name as he read, making the verses very personal to him. Verse after verse began to jump off the page. “And the Lord said, I have surely seen the disease of Steve in Panama City…” Steve remembers many times waking up in the night just hugging God to himself as he clung to his Bible like a child to his blanket.

At one point Steve told me when he was in such agonizing pain, he was crying out to God, “Don’t take the pain away but help me bear up under it.”

Connie and Steve read a book by Alistair Begg about divine providence, and how we are sheltered under his protection and guidance. “Even though you believe in God there are days that you struggle so I always tried to look for the positive in everything. To keep my trust in God. Through it all there was going to be a good outcome one way or another.”

After the round of chemo, Steve was able to receive a bone marrow transplant, and during this last relapse and remission, Steve and Connie stayed at the American Cancer Society’s Joe Griffin Hope Lodge living among many other cancer patients and their caregivers.

On the day of Steve’s bone marrow transplant, he and Connie read their daily devotional with hopeful hearts. It read, “The Holy Spirit is Christ’s life transfused into you and flowing through you. The Spirit changes us from the inside out and empowers us to live out the call of God.”

They decided to start a Bible study at the Center of Hope.

A lot of the cancer patients in their group were in bad shape. One lady had throat cancer. When she first joined the group she could hardly talk or pray. Then a preacher came who had cancer and Steve asked him to lead the group. The lady with throat cancer was a pianist who played the piano at the Hope Center. During one of their Bible studies, they had a prayer meeting right then and it was awesome.

The will to stay alive was evident in everyone. Some patients were in intense pain, but, as Steve said,
“God has put eternity in our hearts and you could see it there”. Everyone checked on each other, shared their lives and stories, and encouraged each other.

With a smile on his face, Steve said “one thing we learned was that Stage 4 is just a number to God. Nobody knows how much time you have but God. I wouldn’t trade what I went through for anything. Jesus loved me enough to allow me to go through it to break me and make me into a different person. Isn’t that awesome?”

Steve and Connie continue to serve others in their church and small group, encouraging and strengthening hearts weighed down by sickness and pain. They bring the hope of salvation and eternity to all who will listen, praying with them in the power of the Spirit from lives that have been transformed from the inside out.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones. (Proverbs 3:5-8)

by Victoria -

Arizona Summer

As the blazing Arizona sun begins its languorous descent toward the distant mountains, the air tries without success to cool. Even after the sky bursts bright neon-orange with stains of pink and purple and varying shades of blue and the guardians fade to a dark presence, the stifling heat lingers, unwilling to yield, well into the night.

Sweating is just a fact of life in summer-time. Carrying a bottle of water wherever you go is a matter of life or death, at least it could be.

The lizards dart past and under a welcoming rock offering a smattering of shade, as quickly as their little toes will take them. How they can move that fast in such heat is an amazing accomplishment. They seem harried and nervous, as if the hounds of hell were searching them out. Not much else moves during the day. Siestas are commonplace among man and beast alike.

Saguaro stand tall seemingly without a care even in the most intense heat, miserly in their use of stored water. Who knows when the next rain will fall? Like sentinels they watch over all and record the inexorable passing of time. They have learned how to make the most of what they have, and how to make the most of what they are given.

Leggy plants with brave flowers do their best to enliven the landscape. Whites and yellows and pinks and purples soften the sharp spines of cactus and round the sharp edges of unyielding rocks. Their contribution is a feast to the eyes and thirsty soul, speaking poignantly of perseverance and steadfastness in the face of adversity. No matter the heat, no matter the lack of water, no matter the lack of soil. They stubbornly grow out of rock and lift their faces serenely to the sun that scorches their petals and fades their colors too soon.

The searing brightness bleaches out color. Arriving under a stand of Mesquite and Palo Verde trees color seems to pool there like small oases of painter’s palettes amidst a blinding washed out canvas. I measure my water. I want to make sure I have enough to get back without going thirsty.

Night-time is when cool-starved humans sit outside gazing at the deep black sky filled with stars and wonder at the magnificence of it all. Silent constellations with their silent messages attempt to reveal mysteries to deaf ears and blind hearts, and bats fly erratically back and forth snapping up unsuspecting bugs for their supper, and the still air is quiet.

In the distance a pack of coyotes spontaneously cry to the moon and their raucous cacophony sounds like the lost souls from Dante’s nightmare, jangling and disturbing in its longevity. Minutes tick slowly by and still they scream. Dogs bark their own displeasure at the ripping of the peaceful night veil. The bats continue to dip and flutter eating their fill. The constellations continue to quietly speak.

One last deep sigh of contentment and into the air conditioned house to finish out the evening and then to bed and then to rise again to the welcoming sun announcing a new day to enjoy and live.