Last night, laying in bed, I thought about all my memories I have of him (more than I had mentioned in an earlier blog) and I just became overwhelmed with tears. I think that living so far away makes it worse, but at time it makes it better. Over the past week or two, I've been wrapping Christmas presents on my kitchen table. That table holds so many memories so it's hard not to think about him. I have the table that we all would gather around in Dutch Bend. Whether we were playing cards, having supper or just talking it is a piece of furniture that will always mean the world to me. I sit and wonder how we all fit around it. Paw Paw, grandmommy, mom, dad, Heath, and me. I'm pretty sure I was always Pawpaw's lap or daddy's (both were/are tightly wrapped around my little pinkie!) I remember sitting at the end that was closest to the living room, Paw Paw would be reclined back in his nasty black vinyl chair that had duck tape all over it to cover the tears. I would always rub his bald head (I'm blaming him for my love of bald men) and he would just laugh.
I remember being 3 or 4 and living in our old house and I had left my bike in the middle of the drive that went to both our house and the barn that use to be there. Paw Paw came flying in one day and ran over it. I remember crying to him "paw paw you ran over my bike!" and he simply answered "you shouldn't have left it there." Plain and simple. How could you argue with that answer? On my 18th birthday, he insisted that he have a special present for me. It was a small jewelry box with butterflies all over it. He made a big to-do over it and made sure I knew it was only from him and that he picked it out himself. How could I not know? He had my aunt Luanne write his name in the lid of it! He was so proud of it! While I don't really care for butterflies, I will cherish these forever. It still sits on my dresser and I dare anyone to mess with it.
We all get so busy with life and things that life throws at you. Some days I can get so angry about stupid stuff that I can just crawl you up one side and down the other. The perfect example of this was a phone call on Friday morning. Men don't usually like to hear they are wrong from a woman. What makes this worse is a young woman telling an older man. Hey, I can't help that you don't know how to do math right. I was ready to lose it and it still was bothering me today. I decided to see what my daily Bible verse/topic was for today out of my "Keeping God in the Small Stuff" book that my Aunt Lisa and Uncle Horace got me for graduation from Auburn. Just picking up this book made me think about Paw Paw and how he had to miss my graduation because he was sick. Not to mention that after graduation, while we were all back at my place, my grandmother had to leave because Uncle Billy called to say Paw Paw had been admitted to the hospital for pneumonia. The topic for today was ...Anger. There it was staring me right in the face in big letters and the verse that went with it was "Stop your anger! Turn from your rage!" Psalm 37:8. What a slap in the face. I know this was God's way of saying "Be still and know that I am God, Stacey. I've got it all under control." While I don't read this every day, I have read all of it in bits and pieces over the last 5 years. So out of curiosity, I went back to that day in August...August 25th...
August 25th-God is in the Big Stuff. Three short paragraphs to read so I read them and the last one was even more of memory for me. "Remember, when God's people pray, God listens, and He promises to "heal their land" (2 Chron 7:14). We should never think that God can't work in the big stuff as well as the small. And when He does, we shouldn't be surprised." What caught my attention was "Heal their land." This is a song that the choir sings and has always been a favorite of mine. Paw Paw sang his heart out in the choir and I can imagine him singing this song in Heaven, just as he did at church. I haven't been able to go to our church yet. I'm still not ready to do that just yet. Especially since he would always come and sit with me if my grandmother was keeping the nursery or doing the sound booth. Maybe at Christmas...although that is just two weeks away.
I also looked at the days following his death leading up to the funeral.
August 26-What You Have isn't Yours. God makes this very obvious to us. Everything we have is not really ours and of course we are His. He will take us whenever he pleases. "The rich and the poor have this in common: The Lord made them both." Proverbs 22:2
August 27-Sharing and Holding Back. Simply stated "Share your blessings with others, but keep your whining to yourself." Paw paw was very quick to share the word of God and to share his blessings with others. I hope that one day I can have one ounce of that. "Though they have been going through much trouble and hard times, their wonderful joy and deep poverty have overflowed in rich generosity." 2 Corinthians 8:2. No doubt, this fits Paw Paw to a "T."
August 28-Is God Too Weak? God is powerful enough to save a nation, and He is loving enough to save you. "When our enemies and the surrounding nations heard about it, they were frightened and humiliated. They realized that this work had been done with the help of our God." Nehemiah 6:16. Why does this seem to fit, you may ask? Because the verse we used for Paw Paw was "You have fought the good fight." We may be weak in flesh, we will fight our own battles, but we can't do everything on our own. God is never too weak to bring us home and watch over us. He will never put us through something that we (ourselves and God) can't handle.
August 29-What Motivates You? "Let your primary motivation be the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit." My dad gave us all an excellent speech the day of the funeral. He spoke about the hard work (the motivation) that is instilled within us from Paw Paw. Heath and I never had the chance to be lazy. If daddy wasn't "motivating" us, Paw Paw was. Sure, it's easy to want to do nothing, but wanting to and actually doing nothing are two separate things. The drive within us won't allow it. There are many days I say "I'm not doing a thing today" but within an hour, I'm up doing something productive. The day of the funeral, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to speak. I slipped away that morning so I could call Keith and he gave me additional motivation. I kept saying, "I don't think I can do this" he was quick to tell me it wasn't about me and that I had to do it for Paw Paw. When I got home from the funeral, he had also sent me a text that said "We all go through it. It's something we have to deal with. They know we love them. Keep your head up and be strong. Everything will be fine knowing they are looking down on us telling us to hurry up, this place is awesome." We all find our motivation. Whether it is instilled within us or from someone who God brought into our lives unexpectedly when you weren't looking. He absolutely knows what and who is best for us. "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth." John 16:13
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