Famous Last Words

by Cynthia Ruchti

Two recent news items caught my attention this week. No, not that. Not that one either. I heard about a woman whose cancer returned with a vengeance and is creating video moments to share her heart and key life lessons with her young daughters if the current protocol of treatment is unsuccessful. I also heard about a very well-known music artist whose only hope for retaining her voice and singing career is to go silent for however long it takes for her vocal cords to heal.

In both cases, the concern is that their voices will be silenced.

Our message can't be completely silenced, even if our voice is stilled. It lives on in the things and people we loved. It keeps speaking through what we preserve, what we cherish, how we lived, what we wrote.

Most writers have considered--at least for a moment--the question, "What if this is the last book I'll ever write? Have I said enough? Have I said it well enough? Is this a story that makes a difference?"

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WORDS AND CHANGE

By Cynthia Ruchti


It wasn't until the third or fourth complaint that I stopped myself mid-sentence. I'd whined about the list of tasks keeping me from what I really wanted to do. I'd whined about how difficult it was to pack lightly for a business trip that long, and in a climate that hot. I started to whine about how busy I'd be from morning until night with responsibilities, activities, and oppor-- Opportu--

I couldn't finish the word opportunities without heavy but welcome conviction settling on me, snuffing the fire of complaints, dousing remaining ashes to make sure the flames were most sincerely dead.

The night before, I'd lingered over some of my favorite passages in Jeremiah. Among the verses I'd highlighted were these from The Message:

"Use words truly and well. Don't stoop to cheap whining. Then, but only then, you'll speak for me," Jeremiah 15:19 MSG.  

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TUNE MY HEART

by Cynthia Ruchti

A wise person once said that the most important time in a worship service is before you enter the building. His point is that our preparation for worship (or lack of it) will make an enormous difference in how our worship is presented and received.

"Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing"--a much-loved hymn by Robert Robinson--feeds our understanding of what that might look like when its lyrics plead, "Tune my heart to sing Thy grace." Tune my heart before I sing, so I can sing, and so when I sing it blesses the heart of God.

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THE RARE WELL DONE

by Cynthia Ruchti

It's the contest season. From small local contests to large, nationally recognized awards, it's the season for mailing in entries and entry fees, for waiting to hear about finalists, and waiting longer to find out if the book resonated with the judging committees.

The Blur of Awards

Philosophies for the shoulds or should nots of contests abound.There are obvious

marketing benefits for an author's career or an aspiring author's journey forward, if nothing more than evidence that it isn't only Mom who sees value in the story.

We know dangers lurk in contests, too. Comparisons, out of control competitiveness, self-aggrandizement, caring more about the contest results than the content of the story.

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APPLAUDING THROUGH OUR TEARS

It's an awkward moment in many churches around the world today. Pastors will pause at some point in the service and say, "Could we have all the mothers in our congregation stand? We'd like to recognize all the moms who--"

He'll catch a look from his wife in the front row and alter what he was about to say. "Let's have all the women stand. That's right. All you ladies, stand to your feet. We'd like to honor you on this Mother's Day with our applause and a lovely potted plant as a token of our appreciation for...for...moms." His wife stares at him again. But it's too late now.

Photo Credit:  Flowers Quata (potted Hydrangeas)

It's a day of celebration. Family dinners. Phone calls from across the country. Cards. Gifts. Poems written by little children with wild imaginations and few spelling skills. Hugs and flowers and...

Incredible, indescribable pain.

Within that congregation are the women who've never heard a child call them "Mom." Women who miscarried two weeks ago. A woman whose son would be a teen now, but he died a stillborn. Moms whose children tore out of the house years ago with a curse and a vow never to return. Women who wanted children but whose medical records note the date of their hysterectomy.

Women with sons serving in the military, in harm's way 24/7. Women with children who won't look them in the eye or who can't. Moms wracked by guilt. Moms whose children were ripped from their arms by the courts and their own bad decisions.

"Weep with those who weep," the Bible tells us in Romans 12:15. "Mourn with those who mourn." Those of us whose children and grandchildren are alive, with us, overtly loving and caring, feel a pang inside thinking about those for whom Mother's Day is a reminder of pain and loss. It tempers our own celebration.

That dizzying pendulum swing of emotions--happy for me, sad for you; or happy for you, sad for me--hits us when we win the award and our best friend doesn't even final, when we receive a book contract and our critique partner doesn't, when a husband gets a transplant in time but someone had to die for that to happen.

It rattles us when we're undergoing fertility treatments and the neighbor's fifteen year old daughter is the one whose pregnancy test reads positive. Or we're forced to sell our dream house and it becomes an answer for another family. Or the scholarship we needed desperately is awarded to someone who needs it more.

"Rejoice with those who rejoice." That's the first half of Romans 12:15. Before the Apostle Paul urged us to weep with those who weep, he encouraged us to rejoice with those who rejoice. Moved by the Spirit of God to write those easy-to-memorize words, Paul started with the instruction that we rejoice with those who rejoice. As if we needed to be told.

Maybe we do. On days like Mother's Day.


AUTHOR'S QUESTION: How do you find the courage to rejoice when you feel like weeping, or the compassion to weep when you feel like rejoicing? I'd like to hear your stories.


Author and speaker Cynthia Ruchti has moms and babies on her mind these days with the recent release of her novel, When the Morning Glory Blooms, which traces the paths of three women in three eras of time, all dealing with some aspect of the aftereffects on unwed pregnancies. Desperate for hope, each of the women is sure it won't come in time. You can read more about this and Cynthia's other books at www.cynthiaruchti.com or www.facebook.com/cynthiaruchtireaderpage.

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