Ode to Phillip Hillery

I've had these words formulating in my mind for weeks since Philip's day of going home to Jesus, so I think I'll write them here.

Because of God's grace, we had the privilege of living in Madison, New Jersey for several years and attend church with Phillip and his beautiful family. It was a season of pain and joy and perseverance for Phillip. As an onlooker, I watched him struggle with who he was and how to live that out in a way that honored God. He was a gifted writer, a seminary graduate, a Christian whose waters ran deep....he had so much to offer. During that season, God chose to allow him lots of time to be at home with his family and to serve in his church.

He came to NJ to be with his dying father, moving his wife and five children from Texas. I always admired this selfless act of love and was inspired as I watched him and Ginger walk through the emotions of both of his parents dying within 2 weeks of each other. Every time I stopped by their home, Phillip was either landscaping the yard or remodeling part of the old home he inherited from his father. I wonder how much God was rearranging inside of Phillip as he worked tirelessly to improve his physical surroundings.

Our time in NJ was also a season of pain and joy and perseverance. In our five years there, our church experienced much spiritual turmoil. We had two pastors who quit under stressful circumstances, one whose wife died during his interim service to us, and as we were leaving, a new pastor was just beginning. Meanwhile, Mark (my husband) was on staff and doing all he could to manage all the transition and pain and chaos. He found himself struggling with who he was and what his calling was. Phillip proved to be a faithful friend to Mark. I know that Phillip's voice of courage drew Mark closer to Jesus. He also provided a few good belly laughs along the way. God sure did gift that man with a unique way of lifting others' spirits around him.

Not long after we moved to Wisconsin from NJ, God moved the Hillery's to VA to purchase and operate their own farm. I regret that I never got to see Phillip in this setting, but I imagine he was in his element. His home-going is bittersweet. It is painful for me to think of Ginger and Thomas and Patrick and Maggie and Rose and Nora on the farm without him, but I know God is surrounding them with people who love them and providing everything they need. I rejoice that our good friend, Phillip, is no longer in pain and is worshipping Jesus day and night, as we all long to one day do. I am grateful for the time on this earth that He allowed our paths to cross.

Surviving vs. Thriving

For eight years I have lived daily with a skin condition for which no medical professional seemed to be able to find a cause or a cure for. It affected everything, from what I wore to my sex life to how I felt about myself. After thousands of dollars in doctor bills and untold number of ointments, creams, oral medications, natural remedies, diet modifications, light therapy… I gave up. I told myself, “You can’t afford to keep spending time and money on something that just will not go away, so just learn to live with it.” So, I did. I went through life in constant pain, just learning to accept it as a part of who I was.
Somehow, throughout this time, I managed to do a fairly good job at raising two boys, working on my marriage, growing in my walk with God, going through a couple rounds of intense personal counseling, purchasing our first home, earning a second master’s degree, moving my family from New Jersey to Wisconsin, growing closer to some pretty amazing friends, teaching students with learning disabilities, starting my own growing private practice, and completing the required 3,000 counseling hours towards my professional counseling license. WOW. How did I do all that? I have no idea. I just know I did it all while living in constant pain.
Recently, the skin condition took a turn for the worse and turned into a bacterial infection. I had no choice but to subject myself to the medical professionals AGAIN. The first available appointment was with a doctor I had not seen before at our clinic. She hurried into the room on a typically busy morning at the clinic. I assumed we’d have a brief conversation, she’d write a prescription to clear up the infection, and I would have a couple days of relief before all was back to normal with a new flare up. When I casually told her I’d been dealing with this problem for EIGHT years, she looked dumbfounded. I could sense her blocking out everything else going on outside the doors of our little exam room and zeroing in on me. She looked concerned. She asked a lot of questions. I tearfully told her the whole story. She very sensitively examined every affected area of my body. And out of nowhere came an idea of where she thought this might be coming from that immediately made sense to me. It looked to her like my skin was having an allergic reaction to certain types of elastic in my clothing. In eight years, not one medical professional actually took the time to help me figure out the cause. All I heard were lectures on caring for sensitive skin, not scratching or touching when irritated, and not to use certain medications for too long as they could be hazardous to my health. She gave me doctor’s orders to go braless for awhile, and avoid wearing anything that would require elastic or rubber of any kind to touch my skin. That took some doing, but I gladly obeyed. She did write a prescription to help clear up the infection, and within 24 hours, it was gone.
Over the next several days, I thoroughly enjoyed my braless state and wearing bulky sweaters and sweatshirts in the middle of the Wisconsin winter. And less than 48 hours later, I woke up feeling….normal? “Is this what normal feels like?” I forgot what it felt like to not be itching or in pain ANYWHERE. For the first time in eight years, I felt good.
I went to work and found I had a much larger percentage of my heart, mind and body engaged in what I was doing. I had so much more energy to put into the things before me. At home, I was less irritable with my kids. I was into my husband And I started tacking long overdue projects around the house.
My only frustration was this: why didn’t I think of that? Why hadn’t it occurred to me that what I was wearing was causing the problem ? I had to rest with this thought: Sometimes when you’re in the muck of a mess, it’s hard to see clearly. You go into survival mode, and survive I did! What seemed like common sense was so far away from me, because I was so focused on surviving that it never occurred to me that thriving was a very real possibility. Sometimes it takes an objective pair of eyes (and a professional who is dialed in and cares) to see clearly.
I feel like I have my life back….like the possibilities are endless. When I think of what I accomplished in 8 years while operating at less than 60% capacity, I am excited to see what will unfold in the months and years ahead as I get used to the idea of operating at 100% capacity. Watch out, world! Here I come!

Winter

Winter is taking a tremendous toll on me this year.  The temperatures have been so ridiculously low and my attitude has not been even close to grateful.  The contrast between Florida at Christmas and Wisconsin in January are too great...maybe we won't do that again anytime soon.  

So, I was driving up to Portage today for a training thing at church through another dumping of snow and I was asking God about winter.  "God, why do we need winter, anyway?"  And I turned my radio off and just made a sincere effort to tune in and listen to Him.  Here's what my heart was struck with, and I think I'll take this as His answer:

"The snow keeps coming, doesn't it?  It's steady, like God is.  It makes everything clean.  You may not see it clearly, but the winter has it's purpose, given by God.  He knows the balance of nature and what the earth needs and what we need.  If life was always sunshine and beaches and green grass, we'd be so bored with GOOD it would be ridiculous.  Winter is a good time to take stock and step back and listen. "  

Its almost like God was saying, "Trust Me, I do happen to know what I'm doing up here.  As steady and relentless as the winter is, so is My love for you."  I just soaked that in.  And rested in the "wintri-ness" of things right now.  

It's been too long!

Wow...I hate that I've let this go as I really valued the time I took on here to sort things out that God was doing and hear back from some of you. This has been a busy season with finishing up counseling hours, etc.... but mostly I've felt free and in this space in my walk with God where I've been purely experiencing Him more than writing about it. It seems like I've spent to much time in counseling and training and introspection...I think I sort of pushed away from needing that for awhile. By doing that, I don't want to communicate to my friends that I don't need them! I love connecting at a heart level with those of you who read this.

We had a snow day today and I actually had time to do Christmas cards and even make a blanket. You guys know I dont' make stuff, so this was huge! It was fun to let my creative side come out. I'm not doing much in the way of gifts for Christmas, but I spent about $100 at Joanne's Fabric's 50% off sale and have enough polar fleece to make "tie blankets" for my mom, ken and josh, my 2 neices and 4 nephews! Very fun! I even managed to make a couple of scarves with the scrap material.

We probably have 2 feet of snow on the ground or more and are expecting another 8-10 inches tomorrow. I just hope it stops snowing long enough for our plane to take off to FL on Tuesday! I can't wait to have a reprieve from the frozen tundra, as beautiful as it is.

My heart...I have never felt more fully alive. It's hard to explain. Things I used to struggle with are SO in the past. I don't even have to fight away the thoughts that used to plague me. It has taken awhile to get used to living in this new reality....unsure of it at first, but what freedom! The possibilities are endless! God is asking more of me and it doesn't feel like a burden, but a privilege. We've moved to a church about 30 minutes away, (www.portagechurch.org) and love it. God orchestrated this and called us to moved to a place with a lot of needy people and I am all in! I love what He is doing there so freely in people's lives. The boys love it and that makes my heart smile. Mark is there sometimes, but is happily trotting about the WI countryside doing what he does most days.



Bye for now....

summer not lazy

such a non-stop summer so far...mark has had one mission team after another in. Great stuff happening there, but many 12-14 hour days for him. i'm teaching summer school 3 mornings a week with 3 elementary-aged autistic/mentally handicapped boys. josh has been coming with and loving it....really enjoying the experience w/ him. ken has had baseball 2 mornings a week, football camp all of this next week, and a class at the middle school to help get adjusted to middle school life. july is millman birthday month, so we've been partying hard on the off-time...took ken to a brewer's game friday w/ one of his buddies and then josh, ken and i went up to osh kosh for "lifest" yesterday...probably too much in one weekend, but we made some good memories and worshipped GOD while we were at it.

Retreat

We had our CBA Women's Retreat on Friday and Saturday of this week. It was good to get away from the endless packing for a few hours and connect with God. I was especially struck by taking in Psalm 103...realizing that the love He has for us is higher than the heavens are from the earth. I laid on a bench and looked at the sky and tried to imagine how big that is...too much for me to take in. I'm still working on it....

newness

the newness of being free and not shackled feels so strange. freedom is a good thing, one would think. but it feels weird...kind of like it felt when i got my arm cast off when i was 7. SO nice to not itch anymore and have that smelly thing on, but my free arm had to catch up with the feeling of being a few pounds lighter and able to move. it had me feeling light-headed at first and not sure how to walk around in that new-found freedom. so, I keep pinching myself and realizing there are empty holes to fill in now...holes I used to fill with crappy, bad, not-good-for me or God-honoring thoughts. the tendency is to lean towards the familiar and go wade around in the muck again. i haven't felt the need to fight it until last week. it was a fight, but i didn't hang out in the swamp too long. i looked around me and thought, "this isn't who i am" and just left. sigh.

Lord, help me fill in the holes with good things...with You. i want more and more of You, because it's only you who truly satisfies. thanks for setting me free....now turn me loose to set my little part of the world on fire for you. it's all i've ever wanted.