The linens have been laundered, the props have been put away, the leftovers enjoyed while the Easter tulips spread wide into a poppy-like appearance. Another memorable Lenten season is past, filled with precious memories and lessons still being learned about what happened that week to Jesus and His disciples.
Many have returned to Facebook, sweets, chocolate, texting, reading, or some other favored or favorite item that was given up for forty days as a token of devotion to Jesus during His most difficult of times. Others have modified their dependence on those Lent gifts and decided that since they truly have been lent to them, they are gifts that can be returned to the Giver, a loan no longer necessary after their fast from them.
These are voluntary givings up. We don't give up something that is bad for us or others as a sacrifice. Rather, we give up something that we value, treasure, esteem, something that is necessary for our quality of life.
But what if the thing you've given up is necessary? Such was the case for my dear friend Karen many years ago as she was in the last year of her seven year battle with breast cancer.
She had been a friend since high school and was a bridesmaid in our wedding. Returning to Orlando after her college years, our friendship resumed in the intermittent way that friendships do when your lives are on different paths. Still we loved one another. When a call went out to friends to Karen-sit a morning or afternoon a week so her roommate could continue working and have regular help with her care, I eagerly made arrangements to be there on Thursday afternoons.
Our four daughters were older and the majority of their schoolwork was accomplished in the morning. Independent studies were assigned for the afternoons as I traveled across town to be with Karen. She was under hospice care, so there was a sense of urgency that these were moments to be caught now, time was running out. Several other friends were regulars in her home, two of them nurses, so we had each other to bounce questions off later as we were a quiet presence in the home.
Weak but still able, we were not to hover or tire her with long conversations. Our main job was to be available - to save the walk to the kitchen for something to drink or a lunch to prepare, to field phone calls and visitors, to record changes or visits from nurses. Her hospital bed was set up in their large living room with a beautiful view through an expansive window of the large urban pond across the street. As I quietly watched, often while reading a book or magazine, I learned a lot about living from Karen as she knew she was dying.
From the beginning Karen had decided to fight back and win. "My doctor said only five percent of people who have what I have now make it. Someone has to be that five percent - it may as well be me!" For over five years she had fought the good fight, endured the cures, and often seemed to be winning. Her life would return to a state of normalacy as she continued to endear herself to those who had the privilege of knowing her at work, church, and in the community.
I don't remember now what changed that brought her home full time but we knew she had too many people who loved her for her to be cared for by the loving strangers of hospice. Her family was nearby and her mother was also a frequent Karen-sitter during the eighteen months she was in hospice care. Karen's dear friend Blair, who shared their home, could return to work full time as a healthy handful of friends stepped in to share the responsibilities that Blair had carried mainly for long enough.
Thursday afternoons I would arrive around one o'clock and stay until Blair returned from work. Once in my home I would prepare a quick meal for our large family. After a couple months, I noticed Karen wasn't eating much. Mercifully, it wasn't because of the vomiting side effect of chemo, the chemo had been stopped. Instead, it was because she had lost her appetite. Her will to eat was gone. There was plenty of food in the house. Her mother was a wonderful cook and kept the refrigerator filled with a tasty assortment of home cooked delicacies to be reheated. Already thin, this reluctance to eat was a serious dilemma. What should we do? We could not give in.
The answer came unexpectedly, a solution to a different problem that helped with hers. Could I please prepare a large meal for my family in Karen and Blair's kitchen with enough for them to enjoy a just prepared supper themselves? Of course! What a great solution to my hurried evenings once I got home and what a delight for Blair to have her dinner menu announced by the aromas that greeted her at the door as she arrived home. What we couldn't have anticipated was the effect this simple decision would have on Karen.
"What are you fixing?" she called into the kitchen on that first cooking day. "It smells wonderful!"
A pumpkin pie cooled on the counter as the smell of roasting chickens mingled with its cinnamon and spices scent.. The chopping and preparing of vegetables and fruit added its cadence to the rattling of dishes and pans in the kitchen, a noisy music that had been missing from this lovely home as the convenience of carried in and take away helped make time for more pressing needs.
She beamed as I carried a filled dinner tray for her to enjoy while I packed the rest of the meal for the trip home. Blair was thrilled with a homemade meal prepared in her kitchen and with the fact that Karen had eaten heartily for the first time in weeks. The orchestration of a meal within earshot and the anticipation created by the fragrance of something tasty being cooked made the difference.
I think of this often as I have pondered over the years the dilemma of evangelism that actually works. Too often Christians have separated the reality of what Jesus has done and is doing from the noisy work of concocting the ' meal' that they serve. It's hard to get a whiff of the aroma of something that has been reheated for two minutes in a microwave, no matter how skillfully it has been prepared.
The Christians I know who are most effective at loving people who then are willing to hear them out in matters of faith are the ones who let others in on the process of God's working in their lives. Sometimes there is a lot of cleanup work to be done after all the buying, measuring, cooking, baking, cutting, chopping, cleaning, necessary to make a feast that you look forward to eating. But the aromas released by the process whet the appetites of those who have forgotten to eat what is good for them. The stack of dirty dishes on the counter is merely evidence of the work done to create something memorable.
Will you allow God to let you be the fragrance released to cause someone to hunger after Him? Will you let them see the process that created the almost emptied dishes stacked after a memorable meal? Or will they continue to wonder what the recipe involves for that dish you reheat so quickly and serve?
