Brenda Rodgers

Category: surrender

  • Halt

    Halt.

    Life once again has brought us here.  The halt will not be for nearly as long this time, but that does not stop my memory from replaying the feelings from the past nine months when our halt seemed like an eternity and I could not imagine it truly ending.   This time I do not feel like I am looking into oblivion, and for that I am very grateful – and I am still very grateful for John’s heart that makes that possible.

    I am sitting in Duke Clinic as John gets a PICC put in so that he can go home on an IV medication.  For over a month now, he has been sick.  We have not known what was wrong.  First we thought a cold and didn’t think much about it.  Then we thought it was strep throat and went to our primary care doctor.  It wasn’t strep throat.  Next we thought it was Mono and went back to our primary care doctor.  It wasn’t Mono. Just this week his bloodwork from his monthly biopsy showed that the virus John’s new heart was exposed to has decided to show it’s ugly face, and it is active.

    It feels good to know what the problem is and even better that there is not any immediate concern.  John’s doctors told us that at about the six month mark this virus likes to remind its host that it’s still around.  Like we needed a reminder.  We have a lot of reminders from the past valley in our lives.  John will be on an IV medication for a few weeks, and then will hopefully be better than ever as he has been the last several months.

    Our nights and weekends are once again spent nurturing John’s body instead of doing things we enjoy.  The daily struggles we experienced last spring have resurfaced.  The feelings of defeat and exhasution have returned.

    Honestly John is not anywhere close to as sick as he was last spring when his sick heart was still trying to sustain him, but for me I think just the taste of those days has left me more irritated, frustrated, and concerned than I even was back then.  Back then I didn’t know what to expect.  I didn’t know what was going to happen next or how bad it could be.  I didn’t know how good it could be either.  I just lived the experience, like on adrenaline, not knowing what was behind me or ahead of me.

    Now I know, and in many ways it is even harder to rest in God’s all-knowing peace and provision.  Now I want to just throw up my hands and say, “You’ve got to be kidding me!  Enough!  When is enough!”  I got a taste of  “the good life”, and I don’t want to go back.

    When in reality the good life is still now, and the good life was back then. 

    Today I have John.  We have a future. 

    Back then I had John.  And we had a future. 

    “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11 (NLT)

    This is just proof, as we were told, that a heart transplant is not a cure.  It’s just a better way to manage a life that will sometimes be filled with health and sometimes will not – just like all of our lives.  I don’t know why I am surprised by this every time something happens in my life that I don’t like – like I was blindsided for the first time and never expected to experience any more days of uncertainty.  Jesus specifically says, “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 (NLT)  He says “here of earth”.  I will be here on earth until I am in Heaven with Him, so every day has the potentil to be a day that my life halts.  He also says, “MANY trials and sorrows.”  So I will never be completely finished with my trials and sorrows until I am with Him.

    My test is to relish in these times of halt and remain faithful in thanksgiving that God is the same as He was last summer, when He held me tight and allowed me to experience His peace.  These are the times when I get to hold on tight once again, and just halt, so that He can show me that He is still here, His peace is still available, and He will provide for me everything I need.

  • Deserving of a Home

    The other day I was talking to a friend who told me this story . . .

    There is a girl who is a senior in college, and she is wrapping up her year with student teaching as she completes her degree in education.  She is a good girl – a smart girl who is hardworking and studious.  She is a great student and will most likely be a great teacher.  This young lady grew up in a Christian home with a southern Baptist preacher for a father.  And she just recently shared the news with him and her mother that she is a lesbian.

    Her father kicked her out of the house.

    As I heard this story my heart broke for the girl because of the turmoil and fear she must feel on the inside as someone who most likely knows what the Bible says about homosexuality.  And then my thoughts turned to her father and mother who must also be feeling the same feelings for different reasons.

    I imagined myself in their position and what I would do if my child who I loved and raised and taught the Bible came home and told me similar news.

    I thought about this for a while, and then I imagined Jesus saying this to me.

    “Do you deserve a home?  Did you deserve a home all those times you sinned and I poured down grace upon you?  Do you deserve a home now as you continue to struggle with those inner battles and I continue to pour down my grace upon you?  Are you worthy of a home?  To me you are.  That’s why I came and died for you.  To give you a home.”

    In this scenario, kicking a child out of the house communicates that she is no longer deserving of a home.  Her sin is too great.  She is too disgraceful.  She is no longer welcome.  It is not as if the rest of the family is in danger or her parents are trying to break a cycle of enabling of a life-threatening behavior.

    If this is the case, I should have been homeless a long, long time ago.

    As Christians, we must respond to each other – especially our family members and children – in Spirit-led mercy.  We all sin and we all fall short of God’s standard (Romans 3:23).  To take this away from a person is trying to play God to them and nullify the Cross in their life – the life Christ died for.

    I am not a parent.  I am not facing this issue in my life right now.  However, I pray in humility that if God blesses us with a child, I will walk in Spirit-led mercy as I raise her, discipline her, and teach her.  And if God does not bless us with a child, then I pray that I will continually be humbled through the experiences around me, that I, too, every day, deserve to be homeless.

    The Cross of Jesus is the only thing that makes me worthy of a home.

  • My Year of Joyful Mourning

    Happy New Year!

    This New Year’s Day seems more significant to me than any other New Year’s past.  Last night at 11:59 closed a chapter of a year of my life which was most definitely the most painful and yet the most rewarding.  It was my year of joyful mourning. 

    I mourned over the pain John endured for months at home when he couldn’t breathe or walk or sleep.  I mourned when the doctor told us a heart transplant was our only next step for his survival.  I mourned when the phone rang late at night and the doctor on the other end told me to come quickly – John was really sick.  I mourned as I drove to the hospital by myself and all I could cry to God was “Please!”  I mourned when I sat with him all night and he was unresponsive.  I mourned when three days later he got even sicker and life support became our next only option. I mourned over the reality that my life may go on without him.  I mourned over the other sick people I saw in the hospital.  I mourned over the people who endure crisis without Christ.  I mourned my mother’s death. And I mourned this fallen world that brings such pain.

    But I also experienced a divine, indescribable joy that could only be from Christ himself.

    I felt joy for another chance. I felt joy over the lives that were changed through our story.  I felt joy for God starting John’s heart again in that elevator in the hospital.  I felt joy for a heart that would give me more time with John here on earth.  I felt joy when I saw John’s eyes open and his head nod for the first time after surgery.  I felt joy praying in the small chapel in the hospital knowing that I know my Savior personally and He hears me.  I felt joy seeing John’s face in the sunlight for the first time in over thirty days.  I felt joy driving him home again. I felt joy when I got to talk to my mom and take care of her and visit her one last time.  I felt joy for the 34 years I had her in my life and for the mother she was to me.  I felt joy when I spoke at her memorial and had the opportunity to give other people a glimpse of her life that I experienced.  I felt joy when I heard the news that I would be an aunt for the first time.

    I read this verse this morning, and it sums up where I am beginning on this day.

    The Lord your God carried you, as a man carries his son, in all the way you went until you came to this place. Deuteronomy 1:31

    As I say good-bye to my year of joyful mourning I am thankful for the parts of it I will carry into this coming year and the years to come.  I am of course thankful for the fond memories I will always hold in my mind, but I am also thankful for the experiences that drew me closer to God so that I can abundantly experience this life here on earth and Christ’s life within me.  I am faithful that all things work together for His purposes (Romans 8:28), and I look with joyful anticipation to see how He has prepared me to be used by Him to share His love with others. 

    You crown the year with a bountiful harvest; even the hard pathways overflow with abundance.  Psalm 65:11 (NLT)

  • Peace

    This, the second week of Advent, we meditate on Jesus as the Prince of Peace.
    I often think about what is the one, most important thing that I have learned most over the past several months.  What do I wish I could share with everyone I meet and have them truly understand it and experience it the way I have?  What does my heart ache for others to know about Jesus?  It has to be that He is the Prince of Peace.
    “Rejoice in the Lord always, I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all.  The Lord in near.  Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:4-7

    I remember being confused in times past by “the peace of God which transcends all understanding” because I did not feel that peace.  I was constantly anxious about my future, my wants, my hopes, my dreams.  I continually prayed that God would give me this kind of peace.

    And then he did.  But not until after I surrendered to Him.
    It was through the surrendering that led me to be capable of experiencing His peace, and it was the circumstances He allowed that led me to experience it.  It certainly is the peace that has no understanding, no basis, no logic, no formula because it is supernatural.  It is from God himself living within me and me surrendering to that Life.
    His peace is amazing.  It allows you to wake up each morning not knowing what the sunset will bring and have hope that no matter what you will be perfectly fine in Him.
    I wish I could say that every one of my days is like some of those that I have experienced over the past several months, but they have not been.  Each day is a new challenge to surrender.  And then, only then, does the peace come.

  • Jesus Cradled Me

    I invite you on a journey into a time in my life,

    not too long ago,

    when Jesus cradled me in His arms,

    encompassed my being,

    became my every breath,

    my every muscle,

    my every thought.

    For if He did not I would lay down,

    lay down and curl up,

    and wither,

    wither into the fear.

    But He cradled me.

    Cradled me and swayed.

    Swayed back and forth.

    And peace.

    Peace overcame me.

  • Death, Stop Crouching at My Door

    If I was a screenwriter, I could not have written a script of a love story as dramatic and emotional, clearly capturing the circle of life, as my life is right now.

    The story of John’s miraculous journey is now becoming a part of the past. Of course, it will always continue as we share his story, and he continues on with his new heart, but the day-to-day climatic events are becoming more scarce and life is becoming what is once was and what we had hope in it becoming again.

    At the same time we have been rejoicing God’s gift of life to John, my mom’s story has been brewing into a heartbreaking struggle that leaves us mourning the future. It is a strange dichotomy that is difficult to wrap my brain around fully.

    It began the night John got sick with the staph infection in the hospital – the dreadful memory of the Sunday night. As I rushed to John’s side in the middle of the night, my dad rushed my mom to the emergency room. She stayed there eleven days with the conclusion of stage four terminal cancer in her lungs and bones. Two months ago she was at our house cleaning out the brush in our backyard.

    This past weekend was the first opportunity, since John and I have been home from the hospital, that I have had to go and see my mom. I have been heartbroken ever since.

    She is frail and weak. She has aged decades in just a month. She requires constant care. And she knows that the end of her life is near. I stayed up with her both nights I was there because she was in so much pain. Our roles were reversed for the first time in my life. She has always taken care of me. Now I am taking care of her.

    My mom and I talked about the future. I told her some things that I needed to tell her. Of course they are things that should not have waited until now. I have learned the lesson of life’s fragility. You would think that I would have learned that with John. I think I have been better at showing John my love. My mom deserved that too.

    Last week the doctor told us that he expects my mom to live for about three more weeks. Of course, God is in control of that, and we have no way of knowing His timing or will. Today my dad had to move her into a hospice because she requires 24 hour care that only professionals can give. Her pain is unbearable.

    I cry constantly. I am completely heartbroken.

    God is faithful, though, and as I went to bed on Friday night, after seeing her for the first time, he reminded me of His truth – His promise. He told me, “This is only temporary. You will miss her for a while, but you will spend eternity with her in Heaven. And she will be perfect.” For a moment I felt joy.

    So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

    If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.

    I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

    “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

    1 Corinthians 15:42-57