A Trip Back 50 Years

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When I first heard my nursing school class was going to have a 50 year reunion, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go. I was afraid I wouldn’t recognize my friends with their old faces. Did I really want to resurrect 50 year old memories? Would my memories match my classmates memories of the same occasions?

The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to go. Then, because of already purchased tickets, I only had one weekend of the available dates that would be possible. It worked! I believe God opened the way.

We arrived in the States on Thursday afternoon. I flew from DC to Chicago on Friday morning. Carol, one of my classmates, picked me up at Ohare Airport and we drove to the Carlton Hotel of Oak Park. Some of the class were already setting up. We went together to eat lunch nearby.
I tried to nap in the afternoon to get a head start on jet lag recovery. No deal! I guess I was too excited. Jet lag didn’t keep me from enjoying a moment of the reunion.

So what did it mean to me?

Our bodies have aged, we have spent our lives quite differently, but we were the same personalities as we were 50 years ago. We laughed at the same things, we teared up over the same things, we cared deeply for each other.

We all thought that the ‘bad’ things that happened to us in school, only happened to us. With some shame or pain, we harbored these in our hearts for 50 years. When we talked, we found out many others had similar, or even worse, stories about these experiences. How healing and freeing this was!

Members from our class have gone to all 50 states and many, many nations on all continents. We took what we learned and experienced around the world! Many in our class have served in churches or missions, both long and short-term. We have been His ambassadors. Awesome!

Many have taught nursing, as well as practiced what we learned. Many others did not continue to work in nursing, but have used their knowledge and experience in other fields of service. Nothing has been wasted!

Although we didn’t recognize many of our classmates at first, with name tags that had our grad pictures, we soon caught up with each other’s lives. Such good, and sometimes painful stories, we all identified with each other.

Our tour of the hospital, nursing school and dorm was emotional. The hospital has been up-dated, added onto, and changed so much as to seem quite strange to us. But strong emotions and memories poured back when we walked down the basement hallway to the dorm. The ceilings were much lower the wall tiles, and old doors looked just as we remembered them. Our dorm has been abandoned many years ago. We saw where our sweet dorm mothers used to sit, the coat room where a few of our number got their first kiss. We wondered how the bumper pool table fit in that tiny space! The elevators have been out of service for years. The hallways were dark and the rooms were so tiny, we wondered how 2 or 3 girls could ever manage in the space for a year at a time! I guess I’m still processing all of this. I don’t have words yet for this part of the reunion.

I am so grateful for all the hard work done by the organizers to make this reunion so meaningful.

Passionate for Pre-born Babies

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In August, my niece, Kimberly Hubartt, posted what Abby Johnson said changed her mind about abortion. Here’s her summary:

“It was not the gruesomeness of abortion that caused me to leave my job. It wasn’t the blood. It wasn’t the baby parts. In fact, I spent years piecing together aborted babies before we disposed of them. It wasn’t the gore that changed me. The gore only showed me the death of something that I didn’t even consider valuable.

“It was the humanity that changed me. It was seeing a child fight for his life. Seeing that heart beating faster and faster until it finally stopped. It was seeing the natural fight or flight response that is in all of us…that’s what made me realize that abortion was wrong. Seeing that this tiny baby in the womb was no different than me…he was only in a different location…THAT is what changed my heart.

“This is why showing a woman the LIFE in her womb through an ultrasound is so incredibly effective. This is why showing her a tiny fetal model of her currently growing baby changes minds. Because we show her what IS…not what was.

“Where there is love, life naturally follows.”

To read more of her Abby’s story, see her Personal Information on her About page. It is really eye-0pening!

A New Mom’s Relationships

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I bumped into a young friend this morning while walking in the park. I hadn’t seen her for a few months. She was sporting a baby snuggled up in a front pack. The last time I had seen her she was eagerly looking forward to this baby’s birth.

We chatted about her baby (a great joy), her health (good), her plans (being a stay-at-home-mommy). Then we got to topics I feel passionate about. Relationships!

I asked about her husband. She beamed as she told me he is so helpful and hands-on with their baby. She is so proud of him. I asked if she let him know frequently how much she appreciates his help and interest in their baby. “Of course!” she responded. “I want him to keep loving our son!” she continued.

I asked if they were living on their own or with parents. She explained that they are saving money for a place of their own, but that probably cannot happen for three or more years. They live with her mom. “Does your mom like your husband?” With a big grin she answered, “Yes!” I followed with, “Does your husband like your mom?” She giggled and said, “Yes!” I told her she was very fortunate. There are many moms in her situation who could not say this.

Then she offered the concern that she and her husband share. Since they are living with her mom, their baby gets much more time with her. His parents are feeling a bit jealous. They are afraid that they will miss out on too much of their grandson’s early years. My friend and her husband are doing the right thing about this, though. They are making a special point to plan time with his family too. Being aware of fears and jealousies is the biggest advantage in securing the relationships intact.

These relationships are the strong elastic that helps us stay together and yet stretch to include others we love and care about.

My Friends are Hurting!

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This morning, as you and I often do, I was praying for my friends. These are women who love God, but each of them is in a trial. Some of them have been in their test for many years. Some of them are in the first shocking days of their trial. All of them want to honor God but wonder why they don’t see answers to their cries for help.

I don’t have an answer. I don’t presume to know why God doesn’t just do some small thing to make their lives so much easier. I’m not currently in this kind of trial, but I remember vividly how it feels.

Peter gave me some things to think about today as I read his first letter to “God’s elect exiles-” saints scattered, like grains of wheat, in inhospitable places. (1 Peter 1: 3-9)

He starts by praising God for our new birth into a living hope and into an inheritance.

This inheritance is kept for us in heaven. It can never perish, spoil or fade.

For now, we may have to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. But through our faith, we are shielded by God’s power until the end of time.

And what about these trials? They have come to prove the genuineness of our faith. Faith is of greater worth than gold which is perishable. This faith that we have will result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Peter’s faith had faltered even while he was walking with Jesus. His own failures helped him understand how hard it can be. But he had also seen his faith and the faith of the believers after the resurrection and Pentecost. Little, vulnerable grains of wheat, but each containing life, both sustaining and reproductive.

We are among those exiles scattered, like grains of wheat, all over the world. Left to ourselves we would have no hope. But we have a life, in our lives, that causes us to endure, grow, and reproduce.

Here is how Peter ends this section. “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

Yes, we have trials. Some of them are terribly hard to bear. But let’s keep our faith in God. We’ll let our faith grow through these hard times. We look to God to fill us with hope, knowing that our reward is safely kept for us in heaven.

My prayer for us today is Romans 15:13, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

On the same day I wrote this post, my husband was answering a friend who is in a terrible struggle. These were some of the words he shared with his friend.

“You have some of the same struggles that some of the great Bible characters had: “Why does so much trial and testing come to me when I am trying to live the right kind of life?”  The Psalms are full of that.

Even so, here’s what you can know for sure:

  1. It’s not punishment for things you did wrong. (That only happens rarely, and usually in the form of the consequences of our sin when we cling to it stubbornly.)
  2. It is not happening because you don’t have the formula right. Formulas are religion, not faith.
  3. It’s useless to compare your trials to anyone else, even Jesus. They are your trials. You feel the pain. You have the questions.

“About the higher purpose. The clearest idea about that, in the Bible, is Romans 8.28:

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

“It’s hard for me, as it is for you, to always feel like that is true, especially when I see rampant abuse, annihilation of innocent children, senseless suffering. But it’s even challenging for me when it comes to personal matters that cause me pain. What I try to do is to follow what one sister said years ago: ‘Father, I do not always understand. But I trust you.’ God is never the author of evil. He cannot be. So, when pain or evil, either one, come into our lives, he promises to bring good out of it for those he has called. That includes you, me, and all of us.”