Please pardon the delay in sending this journal entry to you, with all the English 101 errors you may find. While my intent was that you would receive this before Valentine’s Day, I think the message is just as relevant, if not more so, this week. I started writing this edition the day after the last journal was released at the end of January, but as you will read below, life has a way of putting us where we need to be… that doesn’t really comply with our plans. So, this edition comes to you from the Dominican Republic, Advent Health-Winter Park, and Westminster Winter Park, quite delayed and without my typical editor assistance. 

This is Valentine’s week…the week we celebrate love. Hallmark movies and Russell Stover’s candies focus on romantic love for February 14th, but as I have been repeatedly reminded by life’s events, this week is a reminder to celebrate  ‘love’ on any day.

Just last week, when I was with my sister’s, celebrating Mom’s 88th birthday, Mom shared with me how she remembered Grandmother Morgan telling her that “you shouldn’t use the word ‘love’ when you talk about things, like…a piece of clothing or a special dessert. You can only say you ‘love’ a person or another living creature, like your dog or cat.”  I don’t remember how Mom and I started this conversation about ‘love’, but it started me thinking about I use of the word ‘love’… incorrectly according to Grandmother Morgan… likely every single day.  “I love that idea!”  “I’d love to go with you for a walk.” “Don’t you love the way those banana zucchini muffins turned out.” “I love my job.” “I love my home.” “I love yoga.”  And on and on. We use the word ‘love’ frequently and in many different contexts here in the US. Can you relate?  But based on Grandmother Morgan’s definition, I started to mentally make a list of who I love…and why. This pondering reminded me of a popular portion of scripture that you likely have heard read at a wedding:

1 Corinthians 13: 4-8, 13  

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. ⁸ Love never fails… ¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

When I went through my list, sure enough, many reasons I feel loved by others is based on what they have done to bless me; their kindness, patience, well-meaning support, optimism, lack of antagonism, empathy, faithfulness/steadfastness, and acceptance. Based on my list, I reflected on myself and asked if I consistently love others based on these very same attributes. The answer is that I often fail at this beautiful definition of God’s love.  I quickly became convicted… I can get frustrated easily, I can tend to hold on to hurts, I get easily angered while driving in traffic…and so on.  My looking in the mirror is painful.

Here is a personal example of something that happened as I was literally writing this part of the journal entry. It was February 11^th and I was sitting on the balcony of one of the lodges at Young Life’s Dominican Republic’s camp, named Pico Escondido, typing this blog on my computer, blissfully appreciating the view overlooking the valley of the camp, enjoying the cool breeze and bright sunshine.  This lovely spot was outside of the private en suite room where Bruce and I were fortunately placed as we took part in leadership, action team meetings and a celebration for Bruce’s Latin American and Caribbean region (LAC).  I say fortunately because most of the conference attendees were assigned a twin bunkbed in a room with at least five other people sharing a communal bathroom. I was literally typing away when Bruce came rushing out of our room to tell me (and he was quite out of breath, because of climbing up all the dozens of steps to reach our lodge) that we needed to quickly pack all our things and be ready to move to a different room on the other side of the camp.  The request came to make our room available to someone who had just tested positive for COVID-19 and needed to be isolated from the rest of camp. The first response that came to my mind was unfortunately not…”Oh, poor Paul. I am so sorry that he tested positive for COVID and now needs to change all his travel plans. Or “How unfortunate that he’ll have to sit by himself all alone in that room for days before he is allowed out and to travel home.” Or “I am so happy to be the ones to give up the private space and join another room so he can rest and get well.” 

Ohhhhh, nooooo… there was indeed grumbling in my spirit and showing on my face. The first thoughts going through my head, in about five seconds were, “What a pain to have to pack up all my stuff and stagger/’schlep’ it all down the dozens of winding steps, across a sport playing field/pitch and up another dozens sets of steps, to a new room on the other side the mountain!” “I was really enjoying the quiet privacy of our room and bath.”  “I don’t want to try to sleep while hearing others snoring and dealing with having to wait on other people to use a dirty bathroom.”  About this time in my thoughts, I paused, took a deep breath, and had to laugh at myself…”Oh, yes, Lord, I get it!   I see what you’re doing. I was just literally typing the related scripture about your kind of love and you delivered a great learning lesson to me… right between the eyes.”  Then I remembered the scripture thoughts ‘love is patient and kind, love isn’t angry, love trusts, love is not arrogant or rude, love does not keep a count of wrongs” I then asked myself, “How would I want to be treated if I were in Paul’s situation?“  “What do I need to do to be loving as God would want me to be.” I needed to let my frustration and selfishness go, and be gracious.” 

https://youtu.be/uuJ8mN0QWHc

So, I took a deep breath and began to pack up our things as quickly as possible. While I couldn’t completely turn off my problem solving/’how can I make this not so bad’ mindset, I asked Bruce if there was anyone who could help us carry our things down the side of the mountain we were on and up the other side. Being as sweet as Bruce is, I think he likely turned his head away from me when he rolled his eyes.  (BTW, Bruce still sported a nice 3 inch-long-bruise on his hip after gallantly carrying my bags up the mountain just 30 hours before. Talk about patience and kindness…however, you need to know that my 50 lb. checked bag contained 10 lbs. of Young Life Nicaraguan coffee, some of Bruce’s shoes and clothes for the rest of the week and two large wool blankets that we had stored at our home for the past two years that belonged to ministry country leaders from Columbia… so it wasn’t full of all my stuff.)

As we rolled our luggage out to the front of our lodge (Make a note North Americans…the wheels on our great travel bags are of little use on a multitude of rocky steps or on gravel roads) blessedly, standing there to meet us was Isa, a young lady from the local ministry team and she graciously offered her car to drive us down the one side of the mountain that we were on and on up to other side to our new room. And guess what? When we got up and over to our new room it was even more comfortable that our original one.  So, why do I always underestimate God goodness toward me when He calls me to do something loving for someone else?  If God is who He is, and his greatest commands are for us to love Him, put Him first (before all the other ‘things’ that I love), to love others as I love myself… so that He will provide for me all that I need?…Then why can’t I just expect the best and give myself joyfully to His pathway? 

As God would have it, I received another lesson of love the next morning, in our final hours at the Young Life conference. It was Sunday morning and Bruce and I joined a scheduled ‘walk’ up to a neighboring waterfall for a time of worship and a meditation. A group of about a dozen of us “Gringos and Latinos” were eager to take off to enjoy the fascinating mountainside on our way up to a waterfall.  Well, let me tell you, my dear sister in the faith, Diane Slaughter, who wrote a message after reading the prior journal entry, ‘Epilogue: Nature’, posted several weeks ago. It turned out to be a hike not a walk.  In case you didn’t read Diane’s comments, she shared a reply about not being able to fully appreciate seeing God in nature due to having to focus on the slippery roots, rock hazards, and bug bites that got in her way. Well Diane, here is a photo of my knee for you that shows how much I can commiserate with your past struggles to experience God in nature.  Well, despite the skinned knee from a minor fall during the hike (that was fortunately minimized by the quick reflexes of Fredrico, who was hiking to the waterfalls wearing flip-flops while carrying a guitar on his back…what was my problem!) and a few bug bites on my legs, the journey was a worth the experience. 

When we arrived at our destination it was beautiful; to hear the roar of the falls, to see the smiles on the faces of those who plunged or waded into the water, to sing a favorite worship song and to listen to the scripture message from the LAC leader, Hollman Mendoza from Nicaragua. We sang in Spanish and in English the praise song, ‘Open the Eyes of My Heart’,

https://youtu.be/iwqpKD-qBt4      and then Hollman began to speak by commenting on the beauty of where we were gathered. This introduction made me smile, as you and I had just walked that Nature blog parallel path together a few weeks ago. What was most astounding to me, was that Hollman went on the read the following scripture verses:

The Gospel of John 15: 

⁹ “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. ¹² My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

As God’s timing would have it, I had just started writing about these verses just before we had to move rooms at camp.  So, my ears tuned into what Hollman and the Holy Spirit wanted to share with us. God loves us so much and calls us to ‘remain’ or ‘abide’ in His love by keeping His Commandments.   God wants us to love to be/abide/remain with Him, as well as walk along side of and to support each other. I realized that I had experienced what this love looked like everywhere I turned while there at Pico Escondido; with Fredrico laid down his own safety by scooping me up (flip-flops, guitar and all) from the slippery river rocks to avoid any further injuries, when Bruce showed me love by carrying my bags up the side of the mountain and not complaining about the bruise he received in the process, when Isa offered her time and the car ride with all of our luggage to a new room across the camp, and through numerous friends from across Latin America and the Caribbean who offered their support and shared in-person tears with us in our grief over losing Will.  

As God is my heavenly Father, and as a Christian, I can’t help but feel humbled by how God willingly let His only son come down to earth to undergo a lot of pain, rejection and death so that He could prove how much He loved me and wants me to be in a relationship with Him for eternity. What has become so relatable for me in the past three years is that fact that as soon as Will was diagnosed with cancer, I knew that I would given any and everything…even my own life… so that our son Will could live.  Will and I talked about this offer at least twice in his 18 month journey and he knew/knows how much I desperately love him.  I wanted to lay down my life for Will and I didn’t let him leave this earth willingly. This fact reminds me of the quote that I received from Jacksonville friend Liz Adams just after Will passed away and is one that I shared in its entirety on Will’s Caringbridge, “Grief is just love with nowhere to go.” I read a quote that echoed this same thought in a devotional book I was given for Christmas by my Sarasota friend Pam Morris. The book contains devotions accompanied by excerpts from ‘The Hiding Place’ written by Holocaust survivor, Corrie Ten Boom. The author shares a quote from her father regarding love and pain. Her Dad explains to Corrie how when love is blocked there is pain. I am sure you may have your own examples of where you have felt this kind of pain… of love lost or love not returned.

I have found that writing about Will’s passing and seeing God at work around me has helped me remain in God’s love and it has helped reduced the pain of my blocked love for Will and my Dad.  I find talking about Will’s and Dad’s lives, while feeling free to laugh or cry, has helped me to manage through the pain. Many thanks to all of you who have patiently listened to me share my grief, as this has helped me process our loss. ‘Thank you’ when you have withheld offering me advice or suggestions on how to “get over” Will’s passing.  Another way I want to remove the blocked love I have for Will, is to seek ways to educate young doctors in the importance of their personal overall health, and help graduate medical education programs make essential changes to better ensure the total wellbeing of future doctors.  I have wondered, “How else does God want me to use my abilities to advance the wellbeing of not only myself but others in my own town and around the globe?” 

One answer from this prayer has come rather quickly.  While trying to wrap up the writing of this entry. In the past three weeks I have had two opportunities and the responsibility to take my mom, Jean Gilliland for Emergency Room visits that were followed by hospital admissions.. Some of you may remember that we lost Dad just one year ago to the week that Mom was initially hospitalized.  With losing Dad, we have gone through a huge transition to no only part with him, but to get Mom moved to a continuous care community, manage the distribution of his estat and get their big house sold. Mom’s first hospitalization happened just hours before I left for the Dominican Republic Young Life trip and the second visit happened a day after I returned.  I was shuttling between Sarasota, Winter Park-for a quick check-in visit and then up to the Jacksonville area, for guess what? …..yes, of course, for a periodic colonoscopy procedure!!!! Given our family history of colon cancer, I didn’t dare miss that appointment.  Since Will’s last hospital admission in July of 2020 for his second colon surgery, I hadn’t spent any time in a hospital. So, I can’t tell you the number of flash back moments I had this past month that brought back losing first Will and then Dad. Things like; hearing my own footsteps as I walked by myself down a brightly light and sterile hospital hallway, or when the irritating sound of the machines that monitored vitals or pumped IV drips would go off (they would bring me quickly to my feet, to turn the —— thing off  because Will taught me when to and how to do so… much to his nurse’s chagrin), or when a nurse or phlebotomist would come to collect blood samples as soon as the patient slip off to sleep, or the stirring of my gut when the transport personnel would come to take Will, Mom or me for the next test, or when the doctor would come in with long-awaited results to share, or when we would wait hours for the discharge paperwork to be processed containing pages of medications, potential complications and instructions to adhere to, or when I sat in my car in the pharmacy drive-through pick-up line… four cars deep, or when I got home feeling so disorientated because the rest of the world just kept moving rapidly along while I was still stuck in the hospital setting time-warp mode, or when I struggled to find food that Will, Dad, and now Mom could eat to meet their specific dietary needs/restrictions/taste buds. I quickly realized that these flashback moments were not only perfect times to be fearful, anxious, frustrated, confused, and ‘hangry’. They were perfect times to be patient, kind, appreciative, peaceful, thoughtful, helpful, organized, and even humorous. Perfect times to lay down my life for my loved one.

So, even though this journal reflection is reaching you more than a week late, God used the past weeks to show me that the timing was perfect. Time to reflect on His true meaning of ‘love’, to remind all of us that He loves us, and to show us how to love one another… like we are to love ourselves. Given this past week’s news of war, we truly have a globe changing opportunity right in front of us. Please join me in continuing to pray and do our best to listen to God for His leading in how best to love one another… until we meet again.

https://youtu.be/t-29WLQ3trA