Jane Kirkpatrick - Promises of Hope for Difficult Times

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

EUGENE, OREGON

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PROMISES OF HOPE FOR DIFFICULT TIMES

Copyright 2013 by Jane Kirkpatrick

Published by Harvest House Publishers

Eugene, Oregon 97402

www.harvesthousepublishers.com

ISBN 978-0-7369-4994-1 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-0-7369-4996-5 (eBook)

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To Jerry
and to the Caregiver Support Group of
First Presbyterian Church in Bend, Oregon.
All helped me through the difficult times.

With gratitude to Rod Morris, my editor;
the team at Harvest House Publishers;
my agent, Joyce Hart, and those who
shared their stories of care.

T he nineteenth-century poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, wrote, I describe myself as a landscape studied at length and in detailor like a word I am coming to understand. I find nurture from the landscapes of the high desert where I live and at the sea where we vacation and even in the concrete forests of large cities where I often work. I discover things I believe God wants me to consider when I am present in those places and take time to consider Gods Word, if only for a few moments a day.

These words Ive written for you arose from a variety of landscapes while my husband and I experienced changes in health, family constellation, and grief over leaving a place wed carved out of hostile landscape and lived on for more than a quarter century. Many of those transitions were difficult, yet always we found the promise of hope that thrived within the turmoil. This devotional is a result of writing of that hope and the insights gained during those difficult days.

Its my hope that this little book will bring you into a quiet place where Scripture and anothers coming to understand might bring you nurture. You may choose to read the Scripture passage from your Bible and to read verses before and after for more context and to allow time for God to speak to you.

Dont feel you have to read the book straight through or even every day. Select a verse and words and let them invite you to receive the hope placed within. Never hesitate to record when Gods insights bring you back to the wisdom of Scripture. Be encouraged to read, pause, contemplate, and find respite as you let the words bring you understanding and hope for the difficult times youre facing.

Warmly,

Jane Kirkpatrick

J erry and I drove back to the ranch, a place wed lived for twenty-six years. Its a remote acreage along a wild and scenic river, down a serpentine road with dips and curves that become essentially a one-lane dirt road. We lived seven miles from the mailbox and eleven miles from pavement. Because with age came wisdom, we recently left for health reasons and because another winter loomed daunting in our minds.

Going back after six months away, we cried a bit for what had been. Not a sadness really but a remembering. Building a life on Starvation Lane was a grand adventure that shaped us and many others. Neither of us wishes we had not made that trek to dream and build and make a way beside that river. But neither do we regret the move we made to leave it behind. This is a good place to be in ones life: happy for past choices; happy for present ones.

It was those years on that ranch where I learned to trust that if I needed to leave, the road would be passable. Somehow, bills would get paid. Wed recover from accidents we didnt prevent. I learned there to take deep breaths and not to wonder what the future held but to instead cherish what there was.

The futon folded out the night we returned for a visit. It was a fine bed for us. The pellet stove started right up, which was good as the night wore cool, black, and still. Not even coyotes howled. Only the hum of the refrigerator lulled us asleep.

In the morning we reminded each other of what God had done for us in that place and how wed been blessed now with a new home closer to hospitals and services we had greater need for. We closed the gate and sighed.

Were home now, surrounded with memories not meant to hold us hostage but to transform. Even as we age, we can change, make a new way, drive down new roads and find blessings wherever were allowed to bloom. Our journey back reminds us.

O ur words often trip past each other and stumble us on our journey. Since his stroke, my husbands speech comes labored, and he sometimes neglects to put all the words into the sentence. I rush ahead and think I know what Jerrys going to say, but Im often wrong. For someone who lives with words, works with words, this confusion of meaning with someone I care about is frustrating.

My words cannot suffice to my heart, wrote Saint Augustine centuries ago, and its how I feel when misunderstandings cloud the day already filled with challenge.

It is a spiritual discipline to find the right word to set down next to another word in a way that reaches across boundaries and distances, wrote Stephanie Paulsell, who teaches the practice of ministry at Harvard Divinity School. Haunting every word is the presence of the word God spoke to reach out to us. In a culture in which words are flung out not as lifelines but as invective, it is an act of resistance to measure our words against the reconciling work of the Word that gives life and hope.

Today, at least once, I will pause before assuming I know what someone I love means and let the reconciling work of the Word grant life and hope.

I m making up to-do lists: doctor appointments; medication pickup; remember the blood pressure/weight/heart rate list to share with the cardio rehab people.