The Greatest love?

Diane and I were in our chairs at the beach; she deep into a novel, I half into an afternoon nap, when her phone chimed. It was my Mother. She rarely calls when we’re away…probably still thinks it costs more. Emergency call? “Diane, where is my celery seed? I can’t find it, and I know I had a new jar before the move.”

My Mother is a wonderful person. She has spent all of her life caring for others…literally. She is always looking for ways to provide care to someone. She remembers everyone’s birthdays with cards and gifts. She never misses the big sales at Walgreens where she buys loads of stuff and then gives it all away. But like many in their mid eighties, she tends to be a bit eccentric. She doesn’t like to use dishwashers, but hand washes and reuses thin plastic disposable plates. The HD television we got her never makes it to the HD channels because “I don’t ever get up to those high numbers.” OK.

Everyone agreed that this year was the time to move her and my brother to a retirement community where assistance and meals are readily available. But Mother could not bear the thought, nor physically handle the demands of updating her old place, selling it, and packing and moving to the new home.

Knowing the magnitude of the situation, Diane, my wife and best friend of forty five years, volunteered to oversee…and mostly do…the sorting, throwing away, giving away, packing, moving, and the total updating of Mother’s Eden Park Drive home.  For about three months, this became almost a full time job for Diane. She had to pretty much put her life on hold to deal with all the details involved and the task of keeping Mother satisfied. I could not have done this. I do not have the patience. And now, calls like the “celery seed location” one continue long after the move.

I’m not really sure if Diane did all of this out of her love for my Mother, or her love for me.  I like to think it was for me. Naturally.

I credit a friend and former church staff member, Karen Dean Fry…before she tacked on Fry… for bringing new meaning to this special scripture for me.

“There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”  John 15:13

I had always thought that verse required dying.  But most of us are never put in a situation, nor presented an opportunity to actually die for someone else.  Karen helped me to see that we can lay our lives down…by putting our own needs, our own schedules, our own priorities aside…for our friends, our neighbors, and even strangers for just a while.

It does not have to be for three months like Diane did for my Mother.  It might be for much longer…like when my friend took over the full time care of his brother with down syndrome about ten years ago after their parents’ death.  It might be for a much shorter time…like the teenager I recently saw at the beach who left his friends for thirty minutes or so to push an old lady in a wheelchair…the kind with really large balloon wheels…on a walk up and down the beach.  It might be just putting work aside for a couple of hours when someone in the hospital needs a visit.

I have to admit…it’s not really easy for me.  I get so bogged down in things I am supposed to do, that I often don’t even see those things I could do…to show Christ’s love … if I would just lay my own life down for a bit.

I’m trying to do better…trying to be more aware.  It may seem silly, but I am even trying to practice this. In little ways.  In some ways that I call “mini lay downs”.  For example; ever notice that when you are leaving a restaurant, or a convenience store, there is usually someone headed toward that door.  Do you ever stop to decide “should I continue to hold it, or are they far enough away that I can just let it close and not be a jerk?”  Practice this: If you are in a bit of a hurry…it only really counts if you have somewhere to be soon…hold that door open, even if it’s only an extra ten or fifteen or thirty seconds until that person arrives.  I have had some of the most sincere and lengthy “thank-you’s” from people who were surprised that I would stay and hold that door for them.

There are many other “mini lay downs” that you can think of and practice. I believe that if we practice laying down our lives for small amounts of time, it will be easier when we are given the opportunity to lay them down in a bigger show of love.

Isn’t this the greatest love?  Putting others before ourselves.

Thank you Diane. Thank you Lord, for Diane. And for my Mother.