Anna Resurget

For those of you who are still out there, you may have noticed that I have not updated the blog since Dec. 7.  Last year.  There are several reasons for this.  It was mostly some personal things that I was struggling with.  Writing about Anna became less therapeutic and more a source of joyless pain.  Granted, I am not writing about her as a source of therapy, although I am certain that that is one result.  I am getting into things, however, which I do not intend to broach at this time, so I had better be quiet now.

I received a comment the other day from a girl in Louisville who was a classmate of Anna at Chenoweth Elementary School in Louisville in the second grade.  She had just recently heard about Anna’s death and had written to tell us she was sorry about it.  I guess the fact that people who knew Anna are just still just finding out about her death is leading me to continue to write.  And so I will write more.  Not because of how it makes me feel, but because I think Anna’s story needs to be heard.

And really not because Anna’s story needs to be heard, but because the gospel needs to be heard, and Anna’s story is the gospel.  I will write more on that later.  For now, let me cloase with this.  I want all of you to know that we still love and miss Anna.  We still grieve her loss.  We still, with slight modifications each day, honor and serve our Lord.  We still, though we lack understanding at times, await his coming with joy and anticipation.  And in that hope we move forward.  And sometimes in that same hope we sit and are still.  And sometimes, still in that same hope, we fall back a step or two, waiting for our gracious Lord to help us to our feet.

Blessings to you all.

Anna resurget.  Deloris resurget.  Nanny resurget.

We just got word this morning that Anna’s great-grandmother, Marion Lauterbach (“Nanny”), passed away early this morning.  She was 100 years old.

The picture here shows Anna reading one of Nanny’s birthday cards to her.  This was Nanny’s 97th birthday.

I am not the right one to tell you all about Nanny’s life.  But I can tell you a few stories about her that will give you an idea of who she was and the joy that she brought to people.

Nanny has always been a strong, independent woman.  She continued to live in her own home by herself up until the end.  For the last several years, however, her three daughters (including my mother-in-law) have taken turns spending the night with her.  Anna able to follow along on one of those overnight stays.  I think it shook her up a little bit.  When she came home she said it was kind of a rough night.  Apparently Nanny woke up in the middle of the night and started yelling “Fish! Fish!” at the top of her lungs.  That turned into one of our family jokes, when one of us would walk around and start yelling, “Fish!”

When Nanny was about 95, I am sure that I have the age wrong, she broke her ankle.  The doctor was very compassionate, but said that at her age, she would never walk again.  Her bones would not heal, and certainly not well enough for her to put her weight on them.  Nanny had the cast off and was walking again in about six weeks.

Nanny made my mom very happy one time.  My parents came to Richmond on one occasion and we all went out to Nanny’s house to see her.  I think this would have been the occasion of Anna’s memorial service in Richmond.  When Nanny met my parents she asked my mother how old she was.  My mother replied that she was 78 years old, to which Nanny gave a dismissive turn of the head and said, “Oh, you’re just spring chicken.”  My mom had never been told that before.  She turned to me with the biggest smile and laugh.

As Nanny got older her memory started to go.  It became very selective.  A homorous event happened at her 100th birthday party.  Nanny had a chair set and all the well-wishers came by and sat in a circle of chairs around her to visit.  Timberley and I came over towards the end of the party.  Timberley sat down next to her and began talking to her.  Nanny had too many visitors at that point and I think she just could not place Timberley.  We explained that was her grand-daughter, and that she was Norma’s daughter.  All to no avail.  Just then my father walked up.  She had met him only one time a year earlier.  We asked if she remembered him, and she lit up and said, “Oh, of course I do, how you doin’, Dick?”  We all just laughed.

I appreciate my time with Nanny.  Being 100 years old gives a person a certain privilege to say what one wants.  We always had very direct conversations about faith.  She had none of the usual inhibitions that our culture has, even among Christians, speaking about matters of faith.  She just spoke her mind.  I always found that very refreshing.

Anna (with a curtsey and her best British accent):  Would you like another cup of tea, mum?

Grandma Deloris:  Why yes, Anna, I think I would.

Aunt Alice:  I’m still on my first cup, Anna, but I will have another cookie.

Deloris:  Well look who’s coming!

Anna:  Oh my, I will have to set another place.  (Clapping her hands, she calls for Maid Nesty, but when no one appears, she begins gathering the things herself.)

Alice:  I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of meeting her.

Nanny:  What are all you young things doing?   Pour me some tea, Anna.  It sure is good to rest now, isn’t it Deloris?

I just left chapel at the seminary.  John Ewart, a professor here, was preaching.  His text was from John’s Gospel and was the narrative of the death of Lazarus and the events surrounding Jesus’ raising of Lazarus.  My morning was already filled with thoughts of Anna for various reasons, as most mornings are, and so this sermon was particularly poignant for me.  It was one of those services that are at once extremely sweet and extremely painful.

In the course of the sermon, John portrayed Jesus as calling forth to Lazarus and telling him to come out of the tomb.  He told how Jesus hated death, his enemy.  He was calling out to Lazarus telling him how to escape from death.  “Lazarus, come out this way!”  And Jesus defeated death that day, by calling forth Lazarus and raising him from the dead.

But what about Anna, or my mother, or the countless other believers who have died?  Has death won in their cases?  No.  I believe not.  Jesus still calls to each of them.  Just as forcefully as he called to Lazarus, saying, Come this way! Jesus called to Anna, is calling, and will call finally at his second coming to Anna, saying, “Anna, come forth from the grave!”  And just as surely as Lazarus was raised, so Anna will come forth from the grave.

It is a beautiful picture indeed.  And it will be a beautiful day indeed.

A while back I showed a picture of Samuel and Anna playing an Indonesian game where you have to tie a string around your waist, hang a pencil from the string behind you, and then try to lower the pencil into a bottle strategically placed beneath you.  I have often wondered if it is a form of Indonesian potty training.  If you’ve been there, you understand.  In the comments to that post, someone asked me if it was the “eel in the bottle” game they had heard me mention previously.

No, it is not the “eel in the bottle.”  Here, for your viewing pleasure, is a brief excerpt of the Eel Relay.

Samuel has asked:

I have found that God is all one thing or all the other except on one occasion.  This occasion is anger.  God is either one thing (on) or the other (off).  He is never in the middle except in anger.  He says to be slow to anger (the one exception) and abounding in love (on).  I think that we should be the same way.  Not only slow to anger and abounding in love, but in all areas of life.  Let me know what you think about this.

He is asking some thoughtful questions.  Check out his blog, Making Waves, to comment there.

Last night I was going through some old photos from our first year in Indonesia.  I looked at some of the brief videos we made with our little Kodak digital camera.  I will try to share some of these as we go along.  Here was one of Anna reading a book to me before her bedtime.  She is reading Angelina Ballerina and you can see me holding her Angelina doll in my lap.  Anna was four at the time.  The sound is a little rough at the beginning, but it seems to clear up toward the end.  Enjoy.

No Comment Needed

I recently learned of a new blog that you all need to check out.  It is called Making Waves and is designed as a place for discussion of important themes.  The creator of the blog, a fine young man from Wake Forest, NC, is choosing a topic for each week.  The initial topic is the issue of panhandling.  Check it out, but if you do, be sure you put your comments into the discussion!

I returned from chapel not long ago.  Alvin Reid preached a great sermon that all youth pastors or student ministers need to hear.  You can find it at the SEBTS website.

At the service we sang an old hymn, Jesus Paid It All.  As is often my custom now, I changed the first person pronouns to third person pronouns and sang the hymn from Anna’s perspective rather than from my own.  This hymn may be the most simple and poignant statement about Anna’s sin while living, her faith in Jesus while still living, and her praise of him now as she awaits his return and the future resurrection of her body.

She heard the Savior say,
“Thy strength indeed is small;
Child of weakness, watch and pray,
Find in Me thine all in all.”

Jesus paid it all,
All to Him she owes;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.

For nothing good had she
Whereby Thy grace to claim;
She washed her garments white
In the blood of Calv’ry’s Lamb.

And now complete in Him,
Her robe, His righteousness,
Close sheltered ’neath His side,
She is divinely blest.

Lord, now indeed she finds
Thy pow’r, and Thine alone,
Can change the leper’s spots
And melt the heart of stone.

When from her dying bed
Her ransomed soul did rise,
“Jesus died my soul to save,”
Did rend the vaulted skies.

And when before the throne
She stands in Him complete,
She lays her trophies down,
All down at Jesus’ feet.