Kindra's Blog

When you say "au revoir" in French, it literally translates to "till seeing again".

On June 21st, 2016, we bid our beloved mother au revoir.  Dad lost his wife and friend of over thirty years, and the world lost one incredible lady.

Mom's earthly body drew its last breath, as her heavenly being took true flight for the first time.  She was soaring.  Free from cancer.  Free from pain.  Free of time, and all the troubles that we face in its entrapment here on earth.

And frankly, as I stood beside her bed that afternoon and saw what remained of the mother that had raised me, loved me, and faithfully been there for me for twenty-five years...I envied her.  I'm a coward - I wished that I could have gone first.  I didn't want to face life without her; couldn't imagine how we were going to find a new normal.

I wept.  For me.  For Dad.  I wept for my brother Glen, who lost the mother who adored and spoiled him.  For my little sisters, who's futures have radically shifted.  For the grandchildren that are yet to be born, who will never know their grandma.  For my family, as we lost a pillar and beacon, holding us up, and pointing us ever closer to Christ.  We wept, and we grieved deeply.

Yet for Mom, I never shed a tear.  My heart aches for us - for Mom, it rejoices.  God answered our prayers for her to be rid of the cancer that ravaged her body by calling her home.

No more chemo.  No radiation.  No nasty needle sticks, or being sick.  She's through with doctors and prescriptions.  Her restless nights are over.

Mom is finally cancer-free.

She is enjoying the greatest freedom that the world can ever know.

And I have faith that not only will I get to see her again; we will spend eternity together, singing hallelujah to the Lamb.

Mom,

A mere "Thank you" cannot begin to do justice to the gratitude that I feel for the role that you have had in my life.  World's Greatest Mom is a title that  could easily have been yours, yet it wouldn't be good enough for you.  You were a mother, yet you were so much more.

I wish you could have heard some of the words that we heard echoed over and over again at the viewing and funeral.  About how kind you were.  How generous.  How many lives you touched in the short time that we were so incredibly blessed to have you here with us.  

Today makes two weeks since that heart-wrenching day that marked the beginning of this new chapter in our lives.  Fourteen long days in which I never fail to look for you, or have to stop myself from asking where you are at some point in the day.   

Words aren't enough, but since they are all that I have left to give you, here goes-

Thank you.

For loving me and raising me.  For punishing me, for spanking me, and for crying with me.  For laughing with, and even for laughing at me (no, I'm not going to forget you laughing while I panicked about a needle - you laughed then, and you laughed every time that I reminded you about it).  You taught me about cooking and cleaning, birds and gardening, friendships and boys.  You showed me Jesus.  Demonstrated how to walk in His steps.

You helped me make a decision that gave us a promise that no matter what happened here on earth, we could always hold on to the hope of eternal life.

And for that, and so many other things, I am forever indebted to you.

I miss you, Mom.

I still love you the most-est of all the most-est.

 -Kindra

The Pruned Branch

It is the branch that bears the fruit,
That feels the knife;
To prune it for a larger growth,
A fuller life,

Though every budding twig be lopped, 
And every grace
Of swaying tendril, springing leaf
Be lost a space.

O thou, whose life of joy seems reft,
Of beauty shorn,
Whose aspirations lie in dust,
All bruised and torn,

Rejoice, though each desire, each dream,
Each hope of thine,
Shall fall and fade; it is the hand
Of love divine

That holds the knife, that cuts and breaks
With tenderest touch,
That thou, whose life has borne some fruit
May now bear much.

-Annie Johnson Flint

"Rejoice, though each desire, each dream, each hope of thine...fall and fade."

I'm trying to change the way I view the dissolving of my hopes and dreams - to see the stinging for what it really is...God at work in my life.  He's pruning out the things that He, Who sees the whole story, knows to be less than His best.

Go watch this clip, and when you're done laughing, come back here.

That's me.  I am that fat little alligator, struggling (and royally failing) to grasp those things that look so good to me.  My hopes and dreams aren't bad, per se, but maybe I just can't see the backside of what looks so perfect from my viewpoint.

Bondye konnen.  God knows.

Anyone who has come home from the foreign mission field knows and understands when I say that coming home is an adjustment.

Life has its up and downs, and some days it feels like my head is underwater and I am drowning.

God, however, does not fluctuate with my moods and feelings.  He's unchanging.  He. Is. Always. Good.

And I'm a branch in His care - the pruning may not feel pleasant, but I can trust the One holding the trimmers.  Because He's creating not just a beautiful work of art, but one that bears fruit as well.

I think I must be very thickheaded.  It seems like I am constantly re-fighting this same battle...to give up and let go.  It's almost like I finally give up one dream, only to turn and begin to build another...only to find myself fighting and not wanting to give it up just a few months later.  And it is a cycle that just keeps going.  You would think that at some point I'd learn...but apparently, since I'm still sitting here in class, and still blogging about it, I haven't yet.

Praise God he still has patience with me.

Mom started a new, stronger chemo about four weeks ago.  She has to go up to Jackson to get it IV every Wednesday.  I think she'll be glad when her six-week course is up in about two weeks.  She doesn't feel very good since she's on it, always tired, achy, and feeling like she has a flu.

Em, Steph, and I spent last weekend up in PA at Charity's missions conference.  Whit and I had talked about going together ever since we came home, and she and six of her siblings drove over and met us there.  It was so wonderful to see her again, and get a chance to meet some new faces from her family, plus see a few that I had met previously.  We had a blast making, and catching up with, other Haiti connections too.  Kate, David, Marcile, Grandpa, Glenden....we all grabbed the chance to sit down around a table together and share a meal together, and it was SO nice to be able to get glimpses into one other's lives.

I even got to meet the legendary Mis Anna Joy (the Haitians always say her name with something akin to reverence in their tone) that I have heard mentioned so many times in the last two years.  I could have listened to her and Grandpa swap stories all night long.  Her tale of the Boggle game falling out of the window had us laughing so hard we were gasping for air.

Winter storm Olympia decided to crash the party, pushing our plans to drive home on Monday off until Tuesday.  Whit and her siblings were planning to drive down to Tennessee with us for a short visit, so they managed to shift their plans around a bit to still come.

We had a good trip.  Missions conference was excellent.  I cried, amen'd, sang, cheered....was deeply moved, and painfully convicted.  Made new friends, and got to reconnect with old ones....it was especially nice to have the chance to meet some of my ex-coworkers' family members; after you've heard so much about some of them, you almost feel like you know them before you even meet them.

Our extra day there gave us girls (we had picked up one of our cousins from North Carolina on the way up) a chance to just relax together without worrying about getting the laundry washed, the dishes done, or the house cleaned and food made.  And I hadn't seen any snow worth counting in...over two years.  So that was fun.  Word of advice - it's not just a joke, what they say about yellow snow....keep your distance.

Tuesday we drove home (the speeds MAY have been increasing as we got close), and got to have a late lunch with Kayla's parents when we dropped her off.  Tim and Wilma, thanks again for taking the time to meet us, and for the food - that hour was a highlight of the trip for me (and not because of the food...although it WAS good). :o)

Whit's family somehow managed to work things out to get to spend Wednesday with us (for which I am everlastingly grateful), so we drove down to Shiloh and toured the battlegrounds there for a good part of the day.  It was also Donna's birthday (Happy Birthday again, Deen!), so we had cake and ice cream later that night and introduced the Smiths to our way of singing Happy Birthday and, if their facial expressions were any indication, they were...impressed.

Wednesday morning brought hugs and tears as we said goodbye.  Whit, you cannot possibly know how much it meant to me to have you come.  And to your family, for helping make it happen, THANK YOU.

Today is a lazy Sunday afternoon, with the most excitement that I've seen so far being the kids with their jello at lunch.  Glen's are still around at the moment, but I think they plan to head back out to Montana sometime this week.

I read this quote in my devotional the other day, and it made me pause and ponder for a while, so I think I'll close with it;

"Let us sing Hallelujah by anticipation."

-C.H. Spurgeon

Have a good week, and God bless!

-Kindra

I feel like I'm leaving home to go home.  Leaving the land that's stolen my heart to go to the land of my birth.

Peering through a curtain of tears at a future that seems very unknown.

And then my brain reminds my heart that I was feeling much this way two years ago.  Only then I was on the flip
-side of this equation.

Going to a land that was not mine, with people I had never met, and a language I could neither speak nor understand, to do work I was completely unqualified for.
And my heart hears the reassuring whisper that my God, who was with me through every minute and second of the last two years, isn't being left behind in Haiti.



See, I have only one certainty about my future right now.  And that's that God will never leave me or forsake me.  That the Jesus that pleaded with his father on our behalf in John seventeen is still interceding for me.

I have a promise that if I pass through the waters, He WILL be with me.  That the rivers will not overflow me, that the fires I face will not burn me, and flames shall not kindle upon me.



And I cling to that knowledge as if it is a lifesaving rope thrown to me as I'm drowning.

Drowning in a sea of memories....so many memories.



Catching my first baby.  Stitching my first wound.  The week that I discovered that I could actually talk to someone and they understood me and I them - I sorta kinda exploded. :o) Delivering my friend's first little boy.  Catching one of my friends' eye as something tickled my funny bone, realizing that they were doing the same thing, and feeling that connection across all the barriers and differences between us.  Having my breathe squeezed out of me by Aline, one of my Haitian "mothers".  Getting a kiss from the incredibly cute little fellow that I just finished bandaging after he took a tumble.  Hearing the dreaded knock at two in the morning and draaaagging my body out of bed to go find out what emergency we were going to be facing.  My cherished depot roof devotional time.  The crazy conversations to be had on our late nights at the clinic as we waited on some balky baby to make an appearance.  My co-workers/second-family.



Good memories.  Some not-so-good memories.

But all a part of the life that I've lived since I became a part of the team here in Aleg.  A time in my life to which I am now in the process of bidding farewell.

I'm not even bothering to try to sort out the emotions about that right now.

I'm going home.  To stay.


SUCH an odd thought.

I'm gonna get to hug my mom and my dad, and kiss my little sisters.  Be there when my latest nephew makes his arrival in March.  Play with my dog.  Celebrate spring in Tennessee (something worth celebrating, trust me).  Sleep through the night.  Have dinner conversations that do not revolve around maggots, laboring women, or someone else's bowel habits.

I think that at this point, I am too numb and tired to even feel, after all of the feeling that I've done over the last few weeks.

I am sitting in my seat, somewhere above the Caribbean; somewhere between these two worlds that mean so much to me.  Gone from home, but not yet really home.  Sipping my cranberry apple concentrate, and allowing my fogged brain to attempt to ponder life.

I told Mali last night, as I sat on the floor in my room with tears running down my face, that I don't even have a heart anymore.  As so many of our friends came to see Whit and I before we left, I stood and watched them walk away and felt a small part of my heart break loose and leave with each one, until I was sure there must be nothing left to break.

It is not a painless process, this heartbreaking.  It hurts until you think you cannot hurt anymore, and then it only gets worse.  And I wonder how Jesus' heart must have ached as he bid adieu to His father before descending to spend those forty years here on earth, then again when telling his disciples goodbye before He ascended back to heaven.



And then my mind drifts to another Home, to which I've not yet arrived.  To the journey, that we're all on.  How for some of us, that journey may not be the length we had envisioned, or in the company we had planned.  It may not follow the path that we wish.  In fact, the path we are on may not look like much of a path at all, as we trek up the steep and stony way.  But, if you are following God's calling in your life, you'll be able to look closely and see your Savior's footprints from where He's gone before you.

I don't know yet what the next step will be in my life.  To be honest, I've been allowing myself to stress out about it a bit the last while.

And that was very wrong of me.



I was praying the other morning, and begging for answers to my questions about what's coming next, and I felt God remind me that He HAS shown me my next step.  It's to go home to be with my family right now.  To serve Him to the very utmost of my ability, in whatever place He puts me.  And when the time comes for me to take another step in my life, He will make it clear to me which route to take.



So, as a good friend of mine reminded me to do the other day, until God opens the next door for me, I will praise Him in the hallway.



Because He alone is worthy.