How serious was He when God said,
“If you are faithful in the little things . . .”?
I painted my mother’s toenails today,” Arla said. “Such a small thing. A few minutes of my time. A few cents’ worth of polish. Mom responded as if I’d given her the world. Why do I always assume that what she needs from me is a large display of my love?”
Warren had run out of ideas for connecting with his aging father. His father’s interests had paled; his energy level barely registered. Warren sometimes leaned close to make sure his father was still breathing.
“Napping with my eyes open,” his dad would say.
“Let’s watch your favorite TV show.”
“Nah. I’ve seen all the episodes.”
Warren reached for the remote. “But you have a stronger tolerance for reruns than anyone I know, Dad. Let’s check out—”
“I said I wasn’t interested.”
Day after day, the silence between them stretched longer. Then, one day, Warren brought his father a small package.
“What’s that?”
“Headphones and an mp3 player, Dad.”
“What for?”
“I downloaded a bunch of music I thought you might like.”
“Not that head-banging stuff you listen to, is it?”
Warren sighed. “Dad, I’m a worship pastor. It’s praise music.”
“You know very well what I mean.”
The son adjusted the lightweight headphones for his father. “See what you think.”
Warren’s father listened for a moment. “This is from the forties and fifties.”
“I know, Dad.”
A tear trickled down the old man’s cheek as he said, “Would you turn it up a little?”
Sandie and her mother shared fewer and fewer common interests as her mother’s medical condition deteriorated. But they’d always enjoyed watching romantic comedy movies.
“After my mom came to live with me,” Sandie said, “one Saturday afternoon we were watching TV together. It was a really terrible ‘comedy’ movie. Just awful. But in one scene, a hearse slammed on the brakes at a stop sign and the coffin in the back flew out the rear door into the street—and then the hearse drove on without it.
“My mom turned to me and said, ‘Now that’s what I call a bad day.’
“We had a good laugh about it. So many cares drifted away on that laughter.”
Sandie hesitated before telling me, “When I was in the limo behind the hearse for my mom’s funeral, we had to brake suddenly. I was instantly taken back to that moment with my mom, and I started to laugh.
“Pretty soon I was doubled over, much to my brother’s horror. I tried to explain, but I was laughing so hard that I couldn’t.
“I had to sit in the limo for twenty minutes before I could get out. Everyone thought it was because I was so grief-stricken, which, of course, I was. But I knew my mom would have been laughing with me if she’d been there. God gave me a gift that day—a small but meaningful memory of my mother’s sense of humor.”
Sometimes as our parents age, we’re overwhelmed by unkeepable promises, seemingly unmendable fences, and concerns for their unspeakable pain. We’re weighed down by untenable problems, forced to make uncomfortable decisions, troubled by unanswered—or so we think—prayers.
But in the middle of all of it, our spirits are lifted by unquenchable hope, unfathomable peace, unending joy that is promised to us from a God of limitless understanding.
“Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit,” Psalm 147:5 (NIV).
“How great is our Lord! His power is absolute! His understanding is beyond comprehension!” (NLT).
“Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite” (KJV).
We’re encouraged, too, by the smallest grace. The hummingbirds outside our parents’ window. The softness of our mother’s hands. Our father’s almost indistinguishable but ocean-deep voice when he prays. The kindness of the medical staff. A cold drink. A warm blanket. A child’s hug.
Training ourselves to watch for the small graces that our parents might find uplifting can be an adventure. Graces don’t always hide out in the open. And our parents’ definitions of a joy-producer may change over time from a gourmet meal to a fresh pillowcase, from a steady stream of music to solid blocks of silence, from a large bouquet of flower-shop flowers to a single stem of Queen Anne’s lace.
Judy said, “In 1988 when I was dealing with severe health issues, I had to move home with my parents at the age of thirty-eight. My dad made me his project for the year—determined I would be able to return to work. One of his challenges was for me to walk with him to the end of the block. Oh, how we celebrated when I finally achieved this goal!
“Fast forward all these years. My dad had a stroke and suffers from dementia. When I go back home for a visit, we walk that same block. This time I’m the one encouraging him to reach the corner. Each time we walk our block, I thank the Lord for how He’s brought us full circle and that I have the opportunity to give back to my dad in a small, yet meaningful way.”
My sisters and I used to sing in an inspirational trio for women’s events and mother/daughter banquets. Mom and Dad good-naturedly fought over which one of them was the most supportive. When all three of us were together in Mom’s room during her final months on earth, she’d often ask for us to sing to her. We were more than happy to comply. Such a small thing.
We’d sing all her favorite hymns and praise songs, until we’d grown hoarse or had accumulated too large of a crowd in the hall outside Mom’s door in the hospice facility, the staff among them.
On what we eventually knew was her final weekend, we swabbed her dry lips and cooled her fevered forehead and held her hands. From time to time, we’d break into song—something fitting for the atmosphere that already had begun to feel celestial.
Mom could answer with one-word whispers when we talked to her, then slip into a sleeplike state for a few minutes or a few hours.
When she seemed especially restless at one point, one of us asked if she wanted us to sing another song.
“No,” she whispered. And then a longer stretch of words. “I have to do this myself.”
She and Jesus were apparently still in conversation about whether or not she could finally go Home.
The small gift we gave her then was silence. Sitting in her presence, assuring her that we were there, but allowing her the dignity of making her own decision about how she would spend her final moments. Lord, may we always be “faithful in the little things” (Luke 16:10 NLT).
“I need a rocket-launcher, Lord,
Against this vile Goliath.”
And God gave David five small stones.
“I need a larger army
Than the thirty thousand, Lord,
To defeat this enemy.”
And God gave Gideon three hundred.
“I need a way to ease my parents’ pain, Lord.”
And God gave
A photograph,
A bottle of fingernail polish,
A song,
A handful of fresh-picked blueberries,
A sun-dried pillowcase.
And God saw that it was good.