December 11: Remembering Hospice & Amy Grant's Averageness

I thought I could wake up today and just have a quiet day--reflective but peaceful.  I thought I could "do life" today without feeling it.  I thought I could write about redemption--I have had great things pressing in on my heart that I wanted to share--and that somehow the hard memories wouldn't still prick.  God had more for me as I began to type....  

Four years ago on this day, Dean and I were in the car in Houston, TX, racing to get to hospice before my father would heave his last labored breath.

We had made the decision to return to the house the night before as the hospice room was cramped and all spaces for sitting or lying were occupied.  And really, we had no idea how long he would last in his final hours....  I felt very peaceful in knowing that if God wanted me with Dad at the final moment, He would make a way for that to happen.  It was okay to go back to the house.

We woke the next morning, got dressed and in the car, stopped at a drive-thru on the way for some breakfast and got on the interstate to make the 30 minute drive over to the hospice.  Can I just say right now that the word, "hospice," meant absolutely nothing to me before my father died?  I think I thought it was like a nursing home or some other kind of long-term care facility.  Hospice is a place to go for the opposite of long-term care.  It is a place for the dying.  If anyone ever mentions to you that their loved one has gone to "hospice," you can know this is a very weighted statement.  The men and women who choose a career in hospice must have intravenous Jesus.  I do not see it any other way.  It is their labor to ease worn-out humans and their families into death.  Every day.

With twenty minutes still left in the car ride to get there that morning, I began getting texts from my sister:  "Hurry."

Thinking about it now turns my stomach.  This was it.  The end.  The peace I'd felt the night before about returning home had turned into anxiety and adrenalin.  We hurried.  We broke the speed limit.  We flew into the hospice center.  

I got another text as we entered the elevator:  "Run."

We ran.  We entered the room.  Everyone was there surrounding the hospital bed.  My sister, Amber, who had been sitting beside him, jumped up to give me her space next to his torso and right hand.  I laid my hand and arm on his chest.  It rose...and fell.  It rose...and fell.  It rose...and fell.  And then rested.  It was very quiet.  He had waited for me.  God had waited for me.  Three breaths.    

I have never known such a distinction between the spirit and the flesh.  To witness the breath go out of the man who helped conceive of my existence was...painful...devastating...surreal...holy...a privilege...wider than words can approach.

So every December 11, especially in the morning, I will remember.  I wonder if it ever won't make me cry....

I think a lot about that day and where I am now, compared to where I was then.  As a believer in the Word of God, I know that God is sovereign.  I know He sees everything--not just a piece of things.  I know that my heart breaking makes His break.  And I know that He redeems.  

This is something else I know:  that four years ago, there would've been no conceivable ability within me to have started my own blog.  It's taken four years of baby steps in my writing to be able to say, "I think I'll try this."  I want to do this.  I feel like God is saying it's time--for me.  And for me to be okay with it not being wildly successful or a measure of my ability to perform or needing it to evolve in a particular fashion or timeframe.  To just start it because this is where God has led me.  And that's all.  

Last Christmas, my family was talking and a story got retold in which my step-dad, Larry, had made a comment to my sister, Bri, years ago that he didn't think Amy Grant was a very good singer.  He said this out of a place of valuing especially gifted singing voices.  Well, hell hath no fury like Amy Grant scorned in front of the Beckham sisters.  Apparently, Larry had yet to understand that Amy Grant, to all of us--in the 80s, 90s and beyond--could do no wrong.  She was the queen of our world.  Her Godly messages and songs were our lifeblood.  Our lifeblood, I say!!  I used to sing, "Angels Watching Over Me," like it was true for my life--like angels were in the room!  And the truth is, in the middle of a sometimes chaotic and unstable home life as a child along for the ride on a dissolving marriage tilt-a-whirl, Amy's music kind of saved me.  God used her music to protect my heart, bring peace to my unsure spirit and draw me closer to Christ.  My sisters felt the same way.  

Therefore, no one says NOTHIN' 'bout Amy Grant, especially not our new step-dad, who we really weren't that sure about anyway.

As this story was retold last Christmas, Larry actually apologized to Bri for having said something so controversial all those years ago--he hadn't realized the weight of his offense.  We all laughed it off and assured him there was no harm done.  

But God placed that story within me and let it rest on me in the weeks that would follow.  I began to think, "Larry is actually right.  Amy Grant is not an amazing singer."  She's not.  If Amy Grant went on American Idol or The Voice today as her 18-year old self and asked for a music contract, she wouldn't get it.  She has a good voice, but it's pretty average.  

What's not average about Amy Grant is what God has done with her music career as a result of her making available the gifts which He purposed for her.

How many people in the WORLD out there can "ditto" my same exact story of loving Queen Amy?  How many people has God blessed because of who He made her to be and how she has offered that up to the world around her with her good, pretty average voice??

And so what God began to press into my heart was, "Lesli, you don't have to be the absolute best writer.  In fact, you aren't.  But you have a voice and a story and because I gave you those things, I can use them however I want.  You just need to believe that I can do that and remove your own self-measuring and pride and fear of failure (the list goes on...) long enough to allow me."  

And almost a year later, I have stepped out into a bigger place because I finally believe that.  Sometimes it just takes a long time for us to believe God is enough.

The question I am asking is this:  If my father had not died four years ago, would I still be in my small place of not believing and allowing my self-measuring to dictate my actions?  Or would God have found another way to bring me out of that and into a bigger place of belief in Him?  And if so, what would that have been?  

God is sovereign.  God redeems.  Do I wish my father was still embraceable this side of Heaven?  I do.  Do I doubt God's love for me or His precise plan for me or His ability to use the hardest places in my life for His good and His glory?  I do not.  

Singing, "How I've proved him, o'er and o'er.  Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus.  Oh, for grace to trust Him more...."