The Best Nest

Almost every Sunday, as soon as we finish our craft, I get the amazing privilege of reading to my little cluster of four-year-olds. Some nights we squeeze onto the chairs and other nights, like the one just gone by, I sit on the floor with one or two on my lap and others standing, sitting, or kneeling close enough to see. This book, The Best Nest, happens to be one of their favorites.

We gasp in surprise when the raccoon pops out of the tree; we plug our noses when they investigate the smelly, old shoe; we wince when they pull out the man's hair; we "BOING, BOING, BOING" with the church bell; and together we say "I love my house. I love my nest. In all the world, my nest is best!"

I was a little like Mrs. Bird this morning. I wasn't too happy with my nest. Waking up to record cold temperatures, in a place that uses insulation sparingly, is not fun. One of the only motivations for dragging my self out of a nice, warm bed was the prospect of a nice, hot shower. I turned on the water, tested the temperature, pulled the lever to turn the shower on .... and was greeted with the clanging of empty pipes.

This is not the first time I have lost water because of cold weather (although never this early in the year), but the experience never gets better. Before I could stop them, the thoughts were filling my mind ... "If I lived in town, this wouldn't happen." "If I lived some place better, this wouldn't happen." "If I had better landlords, this wouldn't happen." As I stumbled through my morning preparations, that phrase started echoing in my still groggy brain. "I love my house. I love my nest. In all the world, my nest is best."

My thoughts paused long enough to register the truth that I have a house and I should be grateful. Three hundred and sixty-four (give or take) mornings a year, I have running water and I should be grateful. I have this amazing device in my utility room that heats the water as it passes through so I can take warm showers, wash my clothes, and sanitize my dishes and I should be grateful.

That was this morning, but this afternoon I began to recall all of the other reasons why my nest is best.

There aren't many people who know all that was involved in my move to South Carolina (and there are more dimensions to the story than I have time to tell in this post), but it was a whirlwind of a trip. When I arrived I had no place to live. It had been arranged for me to stay with someone at the school until I could find a house, but that fell through the first night. It was the next evening, after a hotel stay and my first day of work, before I could go looking.

A local realtor took me to the only place they had openings, an apartment complex on the other side of town. We pulled into the lot and my already low spirits sank a little further. Trash and other debris littered yard. Everything looked dirty and in a state of disrepair. I think the realtor noticed my lack of enthusiasm and tried to reassure me with the knowledge that the police kept an eye on the area...it didn't work. Touring the inside didn't help with its stained carpet, dingy walls, and cramped kitchen.

He took me back to his truck to wait while he looked at something that needed his attention. I sat there, trying not to cry (for the millionth time that day), praying "God, if I have to live here, I will, but PLEASE have something else!"

I managed not to break down when asked what I thought of the apartment, but my voice was a little shaky when I asked if he was sure there was nothing else. He mentioned some unfinished duplexes and asked if I wanted to see them. Not knowing what else to do, I said yes.

This time when he pulled into the driveway I wanted to cry again...because this time there was pretty little porch, bright windows, and clean white walls. And I knew...this was my nest.

It wasn't as easy as that, I had three life-changing weeks (another story, for another post) to wait on them to finish the construction, but I knew I had found the place especially prepared for me by loving Father. This is why I can say...

I love house.
          I love my nest.
                         In all the world, my nest is best.
                                                                  ...Thank You, Lord, for how You've blessed!

Proclamation for a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise by General Saxton

I hereby appoint and set apart THURSDAY, THE TWENTY-SEVENTH DAY OF NOVEMBER, as a day of Public Thanksgiving and Praise; and I earnestly recommend to the Superintendents of Plantations, Teachers and Freedmen in this Department, to abstain on that day from their ordinary business, and assemble in their respective places of worship, and render praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God for the manifold blessings and mercies he has bestowed upon us during the past year, and more especially for the signal success which has attended the great experiment for freedom and the rights of oppressed humanity, inaugurated in the Department of the South. Our work has been crowned with a glorious success. The hand of God has been in it, and we have faith to believe the recording angel has placed the record of it in the Book of Life.

You freed men and women have never before had such cause for thankfulness. Your simple faith been vindicated. "The Lord has come" to you and has answered your prayers. Your chains are broken. Your days of bondage and mourning are ended, and you are forever free. If you cannot yet see your way clearly in the future; fear not, put your trust in the Lord, and He will vouchsafe, as he did to the Israelites of old, the "cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night," to guide your footsteps "through the wilderness" to the promised land.

I therefore advise you all to meet and offer up fitting songs of thanksgiving for all these great mercies which you have received; and, with them, forget not to breathe an earnest prayer for your brethren who are still in bondage.

Given at Beaufort, S.C., this Ninth day of November, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two.

R. Saxton,
Brig. Gen. and Military Governor

Thanksgiving 1862 from the Journal of Charlotte Forten

Thursday, November 27 ~ "Thanksgiving Day" 


This, according to Gen. [Rufus] Saxton's noble Proclamation was observed as a day of "Thanksgiving and praise." It has been a lovely day - cool, delicious air, golden, gladdening sunlight, deep blue sky, with soft white clouds floating over it. Had we no other causes the glory and beauty of the day alone make it a day for which to give thanks. But we have other causes, great and glorious, which unite to make this peculiarly a day of thanksgiving and praise. It has been a general holiday. According to Gen. Saxton's orders an animal was killed on each plantation that the people might to-day eat fresh meat, which is a great luxury to them, and indeed to all of us here. This morning a large number - Superintendents, teachers, and freed people, assembled in the little Baptist church. It was a sight I shall not soon forget - that crowd of eager, happy black faces from which the shadow of slavery had forever passed. "Forever free!" "Forever free!" Those magical words were all the time singing themselves in my soul, and never before have I felt so truly grateful to God. 


... And what a significant fact it is that one may now sit here in safety - here in the rebellious little Palmetto State ...


But this has been the happiest, most jubilant Thanksgiving day of my life. We hear of cold weather and heavy snow-storms up in the North land. But here roses and oleanders are blooming in the open air. Figs and oranges are ripening, the sunlight is warm and bright, and over all shines gloriously the blessed light of Freedom - Freedom forevermore! 

Saying Goodbye...

The tears have come. I knew they would. They have been building up for about a week now. I didn't know when, or where, but I knew they'd come.

They like to tell you the steps of grief, but I have trouble believing they fit everyone and every circumstance when death is never the same way twice. I have lost family members and I have grieved their passing. I miss them and their roles in my life. But the losses that have shattered my heart the most over the years are those to whom I have no earthly relation.

I work with kids (teenagers mostly) because they are so full of life and so full of hope for the future. That's what makes their death so difficult to bear. I always thought it would be the phone call telling me that Seth, with his big heart and even bigger smile, was gone that would haunt my memories. The shock, the disbelief, the desire to wake up from an all too-real dream. A nightmare I never wanted to have to go through again.

Saturday morning, the family of Community Bible Church will be gathering to say goodbye to Laurian, a sweet girl from my Sunday School class. How do you say goodbye to someone who ran to give you a hug every time she saw you? Who loved to dance and dreamed of becoming a fashion designer? How do you say goodbye to anyone who dies so young? How do you answer the unanswerable questions?

I'm not able to be there tomorrow, but if you are reading this please join me...
~in praying for her family.
~in praying for the church family.
~in praying for the teens in the church, especially our Sunday School class.

So many are hurting, are questioning, are trying to understand...please pray that in this time we will learn to draw ever closer to the only One who can comfort our broken hearts and bring healing to our shattered world.

Memorial Day Memories

Four score and seven years ago...

Every year with each new batch of students one question remains the same, "How can you stand teaching this stuff? Don't you think history is boring?" I fell in love with American history about fifteen years ago, on a rainy Memorial Day much like today. Because of the weather, the annual parade up the hill to the cemetery had become a gathering inside the village fire station. The day's program was the same, a local pastor chosen to speak a few words and offer a prayer, representatives from the VFW and American Legion, and the notes from the Fairless High School marching band were still bouncing off the cement block walls when I got up to speak these words.

 ...our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation,  conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

It was tradition that three local kids would be chosen to recite during the program, one of the pieces I no longer remember, an elementary school classmate read "In Flanders field the poppies blow, between the crosses, row on row...", and I was chosen to do the Gettysburg Address. I still remember how my voice shook as I repeated the words of Lincoln.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

Memorial Day began to remember the fallen soldiers of the Civil War. To remember those who gave their lives for the life of our nation. Lincoln never took lightly the lives of the men placed in his care, each death impacted him immensely. But he was always mindful of what would happen if America failed this test. 

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate - we can not hallow - this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

Instead of using the typewritten sheet I had been given, I had my eighth grade US History textbook with me, I read the introduction to the Address about the two-hour long oration those gathered in Gettysburg heard before Lincoln rose to give his brief, three-minute remarks. My voice continued to tremble, now not just with nerves but also with emotion, as I repeated his confident statement that Americans would never be able to forget the actions of those who fought for our freedom and the charge he gave to all of us to continue the work began by those in the military. 

 It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - 

Lincoln made it quite clear, the best way to honor those who have died for our nation is not to have parades or picnics, barbecues or trips to the beach, but instead to have that same commitment to liberty and freedom that they found worthy of their lives.

that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Happy Mother's Day!

A Page That's Turned...

I was somehow unlucky enough to get stuck with a birthday the week before PASS testing. I don't really like working on my birthday, not because I think there should be a law against getting up early on your birthday (which, of course, there should!), but because I have always found birthdays to be a better time to stop and reflect on the direction of my life than the New Year. So tomorrow I'll be up early and out the door ready to review more South Carolina history before I get the chance to review my own.

Yesterday was one in a million, yesterday was just a blur

Yesterday was like a whirlwind, yesterday is a lesson learned

Yesterday was the chance of a lifetime, yesterday is a big regret

Yesterday wasn't quite enough time, it was a joke that I just didn't get.

May 6, 2009, seems so long ago and yet just like yesterday. There is so much that happened, so much I'll never forget, so much I already don't remember. I do know, however, that for all that has happened, good and bad, I have a richer, fuller, more meaningful life than I did a year ago today. I have...

...made new friends and lost some.

...gained a few more scars on both my hands and my heart.

...decided that there are things more important than grading papers.

...taken risks I never anticipated.

...realized that I don't need to apologize for who I am.

...faced the fact that those I love won't necessarily be around as long as I want them to.

Yesterday was a big disaster, yesterday I was the boss

Yesterday couldn't have gone faster, yesterday was one big loss

Yesterday I was the big dog, yesterday I was the tree

Yesterday I rolled with the punches, yesterday keeps hitting me

I have learned so much this year...

...that sometimes the things we want to do least are the ways God blesses us most.

...about the fickleness of human nature and the inconsistency of my own.

...that sometime mediocrity is okay, if it is simply a stepping stone from failure to success.

...that true friends will be there forever and the rest quickly fall by the wayside.

...that just when things seem hopeless, God sends a reminder of His hope.

...that sometimes walking for hours is the most restful thing I can do.

...that I can embrace the things I enjoy, simply because I enjoy them (like writing this blog).

But the bridge has burned, the thing I've learned is:

Starting new with a brand new sunrise,

Moving on with the things I've learned

Amazing grace has made me realize

That yesterday is a page that's turned... page that's turned...

Tomorrow, I start a new page.

(words in italics are the lyrics to Jonny Diaz's "Yesterday")

Thoughts of Hate on Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day typically brings thoughts of love and romance, flowers and chocolates, happiness and joy. Those are not my thoughts this Valentine's Day...my thoughts are those of hate. 


Love and hate used to be reserved for the most serious expressions of emotion, but now people seem to hate everything - winter, dogs, facebook changes, even Valentine's Day.


What is inspiring my feelings of hate on this snowy Valentine's weekend? ...Cancer. I hate cancer. ...I HATE CANCER!!!!! ...My normally quiet soul cannot scream those words loud enough. 


Cancer seems to be everywhere, silently infecting families, destroying lives. When I was twelve I watched it eat away at my Grandmother. Several years ago it finally claimed the life of a coworker who had become a dear friend. Today it has decided to attack my Grandfather. 


Multiple myeloma is the form this enemy has taken. "A cancer of the plasma cells." It destroys your bone marrow and eventually your bones. 


His cancer is still in the early stages, that could possibly make it more treatable...but it will never make it more lovable. 

The Man in My Life

John Robert Cumpston. To those who know him at a distance he is John. To his wife, family, and close friends he is Bob. To his children he is Dad. And to me… he’s my Grandpa.

I am unabashedly, unashamedly, undeniably a Grandpa’s girl.

It hasn’t always been that way, though, as a child I was usually afraid of him and making him mad, not that he was around enough for that to really happen. Usually about the time we would be making our way to my grandparents’ house, he’d be headed off to one of the local bars. If he was there, we were all pretty careful not to do or say anything that might upset him. I remember one Father’s Day when we arrived at their house he was reclining in his lawn chair very much asleep. As I was getting out of the car I was instructed to give him his card and a hug. The thought terrified me, not because I feared he’d hurt me but because he wasn’t easily approachable, so I took what seemed to me to be the easy way out. I laid the card on his chest and instead of hugging him I walked behind his chair and kissed the middle of his balding head.

I was in fourth grade when my grandparents divorced. After that I saw my grandfather even less than I had before. Then gradually he started appearing at family gatherings. I’d hear that he and my grandmother were spending time together. Once, my brother and I even got to accompany them on a date to Sea World (talk about weird!). It seems he realized that his life was incomplete without his wife. As he continued to try to win her back, he realized that wasn’t all his life was missing. He began attending church with my grandmother and in one service he surrendered his life to Christ.

John Robert Cumpston became a new man.

Different members of the family all point to different events that prove to them how much he has changed. I think the one that stands out most to me happened during one visit to my grandparents’ home shortly after they had gotten remarried. (Attending your grandparents’ wedding ceremony is another strange experience!) When I walked through the door, he looked at me and said, “There’s the first woman president of the United States!” (Maybe that’s why he wasn’t much of a Hillary fan?)

I had no plans to run one-day run for president (and still don’t), but to receive that kind of affirmation - at a time when I was beginning to realize that my other grandfather was not the man I thought he was and both of my grandmothers were always trying to “fix” me – from a man who rarely bothered to notice me, meant more than he could ever know.

Several years later, I was in need of a larger bookcase, so I asked him if he would make me one. Not long before my next birthday, we arrived home to find not only a bookcase but a matching shelf and mirror sitting on the back porch. I was thrilled and quickly filled it with books. It now sits in my apartment along with two others and a large hutch. (He once promised me a nicer hutch when I got married, but I think he got tired of having it sit around and gave it to someone else.) He has never taken the “Love Languages” test, but it seems to me that he most easily shows love by doing things and making things for others, so as I look around my little house I feel much loved.

One of the greatest misgivings I have had since moving so far away from my family is that something will happen to any of my family members, but most especially my grandfather, while I am gone. In the past 10-15 years he has been through heart attacks, open-heart surgeries, bypasses, a pacemaker, a defibrillator, colon cancer, diabetes, and eye surgeries. Recently he has been experiencing unexplained broken ribs. At first they thought perhaps it was just age causing brittle bones, but now they are apparently not so sure. On Tuesday, they’ll be testing his bone marrow to rule out any more serious causes.

Between now and hearing the test results, I’ll be worried. I’ll be worried, but not afraid. I will not be afraid because know that those many years ago my grandfather placed his life in the hands of One who loves him far more than I ever can or will.