A Little Bit of Love

Donna fought back hot tears as she sat quietly in the back pew, trying to appear invisible. Big, fat droplets of moisture rolled down her cheeks, the drizzle threatening to become a downpour. “Stop it,” Donna admonished herself silently as she discreetly wiped each cheek with the back of her hand. “This is not going to happen here. Or now.”

Pastor Johnson had been speaking for a short time, but to Donna it seemed like hours. She knew this was where she needed be at a time like this, but still she didn’t want to answer the questions she knew the others wanted to ask. She didn’t feel like putting on a happy face. She hoped to slip out quietly just as soon as the choir began to sing the final hymn.

Donna’s eyes drifted toward the familiar spot just a few rows ahead to her left. Their spot. The place where she and Teddy had sat almost every Sunday for the past 22 years, surrounded by the people who had been like their second family. With both of them living so far away from their own natural families, this congregation had filled the gap and lovingly drawn them into the community. They truly had become family.

“Oh, God,” Donna closed her eyes and silently prayed, “Please help me understand why this happened. Help me to climb this overwhelming mountain of grief and uncertainty. God, help me understand how I could have been so blind to Teddy’s struggles. Help me forgive myself for not seeing the depth of his pain, and help me forgive Teddy for choosing to leave this world instead of reaching out for help. Oh Lord, I need to feel Your love and know that I will survive the destruction that is my life right now.”

As she prayed, Donna hadn’t noticed that someone had slipped into the pew beside her. She became aware of Pastor Johnson’s familiar “winding down” at the end of his sermon and slowly opened her eyes. It was then that she saw little Becky Thompson sitting beside her, looking up at Donna with innocent blue eyes. Donna tried to muster up a smile, but found her eyes brimming with tears again.

Becky leaned in toward Donna, whispering in her quietest five year old voice, “What’s wrong, Miss Donna?”

“I’m just a little sad, Becky.” Donna whispered back, fighting the tears, “You know my husband Mr. Teddy passed away last week.”

Becky nodded, “My momma told me, Miss Donna. She said Mr. Teddy was sick and went home to be with Jesus.”

“That’s right, Becky,” Donna told her, “and I’m just missing him a little bit right now.”

“Miss Donna, can I tell you a secret?” Becky whispered.

“Sure, Becky, I’d love to hear your secret.”

“When my daddy died last year, I was really sad. I missed him a lot and I felt like my tummy had a big hole in it. My momma told me that it was okay to miss my daddy, but that he wouldn’t want me to go around with that big hole in my tummy.”

Donna smiled at Becky, “What else did your momma say?”

“She told me that there was only one thing that would fill that hole, but it was up to me if I wanted to let it get filled.”

“What was that one thing, Becky?”

“It was love, Miss Donna. Momma said there were angels right here on earth that could help me fill that hole that was left when my daddy died. I just had to let them in.”

Donna felt her eyes filling with fresh tears as she put her arm around Becky.

“There’s one of the angels, Miss Donna,” Becky said, pointing to Mrs. Davis, a sweet little gray-haired lady who had been one of the first to welcome Donna and Teddy over 20 years ago. “There’s another,” she went on, nodding toward Bert Jones, the choir director.

Donna couldn’t speak. She just sat in the pew with Becky, in awe of the magnificent way in which God had had answered her prayer.

Becky began again, “You know, Miss Donna, you can get that hole in your tummy filled too. All you have to do is know where to look for the angels.”

Donna smiled through her tears and pulled Becky tightly to her side, “I know just where to look, Becky. I know just where to look.”

Hope Fulfilled

Hope stood motionless at the door, her hand frozen on the knob. Her biggest enemy was waiting for her on the other side and she really didn’t want to face it right now.

“If only I could postpone it for a little bit,” she thought. “If only I could just pretend the last two days hadn’t happened. If only I could have stuck to the plan I wouldn’t be such a failure.”

Failure. Such a familiar word in Hope’s mind. In her thirty-five years she had rarely visualized herself as anything but a failure. As a child it had seemed she could do nothing to please her father, yet she continued to strive to make him proud. It didn’t matter how many awards she won for her academics, her father had only seemed to notice the things in which his only child couldn’t excel.

Growing up, Hope quickly learned that Daddy expected her to have the same love of sports that he did. He began to take her to ball games when she was just a preschooler. Hope remembered that he got upset with her when she had gotten bored and wanted to leave before the game was over. She realized that it pleased Daddy when she enjoyed the game, so she became very good at pretending.

Hope tried really hard to become a good athlete, but she simply wasn’t good at sports. By the time she had entered junior high, Hope had given up trying to please her father through athletics and began to focus on her studies. “If I can’t be a good athlete,” she had reasoned, “then I’ll be a straight-A student. Then I know he’ll be proud of me.”

True to her word, Hope excelled in academics. By the time she was a freshman in high school, she was at the top of her class. As a senior, Hope was awarded a four-year scholarship to several prestigious universities. But Hope’s passion was art, so she turned down the lucrative offers to accept a lesser scholarship and pursue her dream of becoming an artist.

Hope’s father was quick to remind her that she was making the biggest mistake of her life and that she would live to regret chasing a dream that would lead to a dead end job. So Hope entered art school with Daddy’s failure label already in place. Although she eventually graduated, she never fulfilled her dream of becoming an artist. Instead Hope found a job at a local bank and spent her days wishing her life had turned out differently.

Hope had learned that she wouldn’t ever meet her father’s expectations, and long after his death she was still labeling herself a failure. In love, in money, in looks, and most of all in her weight.

She had struggled with an addiction to food for as long as she could remember. The bobbing scale had never been her friend and Hope had been bingeing and purging for as long as she could remember. Oh, there had been periods of stability through the years, but for the most part she had been in bondage for over twenty years.

And now. Here she stood on the other side of the bathroom door delaying the inevitable - facing the aftermath of the storm of food Hope had gorged herself on over the past two days. She knew when she stepped on that scale the waves of guilt, shame and failure would wash over her like a tidal wave. She knew that when that happened she would be compelled to find a release for that pain. Hope began to turn the knob, but stopped when she “heard” something in her head.

“Hope,” the voice said, “don’t go in there.”

Hope thought she must be losing her mind.

“Hope,” she heard the voice say, “Measuring your worth by that bathroom scale won’t change who you are. And it won’t change how I feel about you. I love you Hope.”

Something deep within her stirred and she had a vague sense of connection with this voice. It had to be God. But why was He talking to her? And why now? Hope couldn’t explain the overwhelming sense of longing she felt at that moment, but she knew only one thing. She wasn’t sure how to find Him, but she knew He loved her and she knew somehow He had found her.

As Hope turned away from the door, she knew her Father’s dream had been fulfilled.

Swinging High

“Wheeeee! Higher, Mommy, higher!” Missy had squealed with glee as she sailed through the brilliant blue sky, pigtails flying behind her like two golden streamers. Her face had been filled with the exquisite joy that can only be found illuminating the appearance of a 3-year old enjoying her two favorite activities – swinging in the park and spending time with Mommy.

It had been a picture-perfect day – the kind of day that a person wants to capture in a bottle and save forever. It was the kind of day that retains all of the sights and sounds and smells of each moment even after 14 years have come and quickly gone. That day had been the kind of day that finds itself as the backdrop of a beautiful page in a mother’s scrapbook dedicated to the life of her firstborn daughter – her little girl.

As Shannon peered down onto the page of that precious day in Missy’s third year of life, she suddenly found herself longing for that instant in time when she was still the very center of her daughter’s universe. That little girl’s sparkling green eyes gazed back intently through the snapshot that had forever captured in time the bond that these days weren’t visible in a teenager’s all-knowing glance – better known as “the eye roll.”

“Where are you going, Missy?”

“Out,” came Missy’s usual reply.

Patiently, Shannon continued, “Out, where?”

“Good grief, Mom,” Missy exclaimed as she shot her mother a look that was intended to wound her, “I’m going to grab a bite with Jenna and then we’re going to hang out with some friends. Do you have to know everything about every single moment of my life? And while we’re at it, why can’t you call me Melissa the way I’ve asked you to? Is that too much to ask?”

The hurtful words and cutting look had their intended effect. Shannon sighed deeply and addressed the stranger in front of her, simply stating, “ No, Melissa, I guess that isn’t too much to ask. Please be careful and be home by curfew.”

And with that Missy was gone. Gone into the world of teenage girls and boys who know everything there is to know about everything. This was a world where parents ceased to exist and, for teens, that made life all the more desirable.

Shannon picked up the scrapbook on her lap and moved into the kitchen, blinking back the fresh tears that threatened to erupt. Sitting down at the table where so many of their special conversations had taken place, she began to reflect on the time that had passed between that splendid day in June and this lonely day in February some 14 years later.

“When did I lose her?” Shannon wondered, “When did my little girl go from happily being Mommy’s shadow to this unfamiliar individual simply tolerating the woman who gave birth to her? At what point did I lose control?”

At that moment, Shannon felt a deep stirring within her to open her devotional Bible which was lying on the table. She tried to dismiss the sensation but the more she resisted, the stronger the need became and she realized that it was the Holy Spirit nudging her to seek the answers to her questions from the only One who could answer them.

“Okay, Lord, I’m listening,” Shannon said out loud as she reached for her Bible, “help me understand what I did wrong with my little girl. How can I get her back? What can I do to bring her back to me…and to You?”

The house was remarkably quiet. Shannon closed her eyes and listened for the answers, trusting that God had heard her plea and would show her the way. Time seemed to stand still as she waited upon His voice, waited upon Divine guidance. As an unexplainable feeling of peace enveloped her, Shannon slowly opened her eyes and turned in her Bible to the promise that God has for each one of His children:

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11 NKJV)

Smiling, Shannon looked down into the green-eyed girl’s eyes once more and claimed that truth for her daughter. She relinquished her control to the One who had Missy’s future in His hands.

Letting go felt good. It felt like swinging high on a perfect summer day.