Heart Quake
(CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
February 9th, 1969, a little girl’s heart was broken when her daddy climbed out of a window and left her and her sister and their mother in the middle of the night. My memories of that time are a little foggy because I was so young, but I think it was the days after that I recall even more. The song “Daddy’s Home” played on the radio about the same time every evening, and I remember always waiting at the living room window to hear my dad pull up in his loud, rumbling car. Maybe the song only played at exactly the same time once, but it feels like every time because of how the memory is cemented into my mind.
Fast forward to February 9th, 1971, at 6:01 AM Pacific Standard Time. Our new apartment was in Sylmar, California, and just blocks from the San Fernando fault line. The earthquake registered 6.6 on the Richter Scale, and the shaking woke me up when it knocked a chest of drawers over and slammed it into our bedroom floor. I jumped down from my top bunk and ran to the kitchen yelling, “Mommy, Mommy, there’s a monster shaking the house!” Hmm, maybe my mom and step dad babysat us with a few too many Godzilla movies. 😁 Anyway, she told me it was an earthquake and that I should pray. Then she ran barefooted across broken dishes to get my sister out of her bed and put both of us in her room under lots of blankets. It was one of her most motherly moments.
Through the years, there have been other events on February 9th that seemed to make me wary of the day every year. Not every year, of course, but enough to keep me a bit on edge at this time each year. Today, though, it was the exact opposite. First, I was able to get outside in the sunshine for the first time in 2 weeks. Then I got some time to visit with my sister over the phone. And, best of all, I got news from my friend that her husband’s cancer was only on the tongue and not in the throat as they suspected, and the doctor even came out of surgery smiling. So, this year flipped the script and brought some really good events to this date.
The heart can quake or shake for a million reasons, and often those quakes leave cracks that don’t go away easily. But those who follow and serve The Lord know how the Balm of Gilead (a healing medicine) can calm the shaking and even repair some cracks. Jesus, not only our Healer but also our Comforter says this in John 14:15-18 KJV…
[15] If ye love me, keep my commandments. [16] And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; [17] even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. [18] I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
https://bible.com/bible/1/jhn.14.15-18.KJV
As we continue through this heart and love month, remember that there is a God who is not “somewhere OUT THERE” but is actually near to us whenever we seek Him. He desires to share His love with us so much that He provided His own blood to cleanse us, so we could come boldly into His presence to get what we need. If you are a reader who has never received salvation, just speak out to Him with a pure heart and tell Him you want to try things His way because you’ve heard it can be much better. Tell Him the truth about everything, and then bring Him your brokenness. Watch Him work and bring you love beyond words and peace beyond understanding. 🛐🕊️☦️
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Happy Birthday, Grandma!
One of the blessings of being the first born is also getting to be the first grandchild. One of my favorite stories from childhood is when my mom, who was living in Ohio, called up my grandmother (her mother) to wish her a happy birthday. It was also the day of my birth, but Grandma did not know it yet, so Mom said, “Happy Birthday, Grandma!”
Of course, Grandma began her usual thanks for the wishes when the new term hit her. “Wait… Grandma?”
And thus began the plans to transport me back to Southern California and all the family members who had new titles like grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, etc. When life became more difficult not many years later, I believe the special position as the “first” everything, and all the spoiling that came with it in my formative years, gave me a balance that made the hard times easier to survive. And they made me a better big sister who could take control and take care as needed. Not perfect, mind you, as I was still a child, but I think I was a little more attentive to my baby sister.
I still have fond memories of shared birthday gatherings when there would be a cake with both names, or a big and little cake when we each got our own. I loved sharing my birthday with my grandmother, and it never felt the same after she left this world. But I will always have that sweet story of the phone call “reveal” to my newly ordained Grandma. 😁
Here’s one of those memories from a Polaroid I shared to my Flickr feed, though I’m sorry I cannot seem to control the sizes from Flickr pages to this blog…
Thank you for joining me on this trip down memory lane. And if you have a grandmother who needs a pretty card for her birthday, feel free to download and use the card above. You can add a name in multiple photo editing apps, but I recommend Photo Studio Pro the most.
And one last thing; I learned today that there is a scientific group doing studies on mother’s milk that shows how different needs of a baby create different chemical components within the milk. It’s a different composition for boys than girls, it changes for sick babies, and first-time mothers have more cortisol in their milk which causes first-born babies to be more alert, attentive, and anxious. It’s almost like some Intelligent Being designed things to work in certain ways that benefit the human race, huh? 🤩 Read a summary of more highlights from this amazing study by Katie Hinder, an evolutionary anthropologist, on X (you’ll need to log in) at https://x.com/i/status/2016990657450299837 and prepare to be amazed. (If you don’t have an X/Twitter account, maybe look up the scientist by name. It’s a lot of fascinating study.)
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From Whence Came the Poet
On this day (Jan 15) in 2022, we officially said goodbye to the father of many. My sibling family is a large one consisting of both sisters and brothers. Some are half-siblings, step-siblings, and adopted siblings, but they are all mine. The sister I was raised with has her own special place in my heart and life, but I carry each of my siblings in pockets of my heart—and often to God’s throne in prayer.
You see, I am the first born to this man who was wild yet called. His life was a wrestling match of soul and spirit with a God who never gave up on him. He ran from God geographically (though that’s not truly possible), and he ran emotionally, but he always came back. Whether it was a grenade in the face when his tunnel rat duties got him too close to the enemy in Vietnam, or a moment when lyrics or poetry came pouring out of him to remind him that God still loved and pursued him, something was always pulling him back to a place to consider God again.
He left my mom and sister and I just after I turned 5 years old. My mom kept all his pictures and told me stories of things like his interview with Jerry Dunphy after the incident in Vietnam. She said he was in a hospital bed and told the reporter that he prayed for God to give him his eyesight back, so he could see his girls. My favorite picture was the one with guys from his Brave Lions group that showed my name tattooed on his arm. And, yes, I wrote a song about that tattoo.
The years after that were scattered and chaotic. He had multiple marriages and other children. I struggled with my mom’s emotional and spiritual issues. But something always made this little girl long for her daddy. One winter, as a teenager, I ran away and found him in Kansas. I didn’t stay long, and I’ll share that story in another post, but it wasn’t time for us to be a permanent family yet. During that short time, though, I got to see his poetic, musical, and artistic sides. I was only gifted the ability to write poetry and sing. I’ve tried to learn an instrument, but it just never settled with me, and drawing without the help of technology never came naturally. But I love that I can see him as the DNA source of my love for words.
Somehow, that thing of finding himself oft pursued by The Lord also came to me. In my case, I was looking for deeper meaning more than a good time party, but it still filled my life with a mix of dead-ends and a few major moments with God before I willingly gave my life to Him.
As I’ve met and gotten to know my siblings, I’ve found similar stories in their life journeys. Some have finally let God catch up to them, and some are still looking for other answers. But I still call our journeys Grace by DNA because it seems we all took pieces from our shared father’s journey and made them part of our own journeys. I’ll be gathering those journey stories into a book I started back in 2020, but I’ll tell you bits and pieces here in this blog.
While writing this post, I searched and searched for the tattoo song, but I cannot find it right now, so I guess it’s not time to share it. The gist is a comparison of my father’s tattoo with the carved names in the midst of God’s palm, and it’s called Daddy Can Never Forget Me. It talks about how even if he tried to have it removed, the scar would always remind him of me, and then it talks about the nail scars in Jesus’ hands. I sent the lyrics to my dad at one point, along with a letter reminding him that God could never forget him either. He said it made him cry, and I hope it planted a seed that helped to bring him back to The Lord in his last years.
We did have some periods of distance between us through the years, just as I had times where I was distant from my Heavenly Father. But, thankfully, Dad and I didn’t give up on each other. And God never gave up on either of us as He led us to an eventual reconciliation before Dad left this world in 2021.
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