{"id":315,"date":"2015-02-11T08:47:04","date_gmt":"2015-02-11T16:47:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/?p=315"},"modified":"2015-02-11T21:10:16","modified_gmt":"2015-02-12T05:10:16","slug":"going-home-when-he-takes-me-by-the-hand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/?p=315","title":{"rendered":"Going Home – When He Takes Me By the Hand"},"content":{"rendered":"

O, That Will Be Glory!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Before I ever arrived in my current home town, God had set up a meeting with an individual who would make a profound difference in my life over the next 17 years. Via a request to the local internet service provider in what was to be our new community, my sons were \u201cintroduced\u201d online to some kids their age; and I became acquainted with one of the mothers over the next several months.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Settling in to our new home, the mom I had \u201cmet\u201d online invited me to a coffee gathering at the home of one of her friends. She believed it would be a good way for me to quickly get acquainted with a number of local women \u2013 and it was! In just a few weeks of Tuesday morning coffee sessions at Delma\u2019s house, I had a solid group of new friends to make my transition to a new state and community smooth and pleasant.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>In her early 70s and bound to a wheelchair, Delma was the least handicapped individual I have ever met. She provided in-home care for bed patients \u2013 a private nursing home \u2013 with the assistance of one or more friends, and had been doing so for many years. Because she could not get into everyone’s homes, this core group of friends all had our gatherings at Delma\u2019s house, including parties for Tupperware, Pampered Chef, and etc. She also hosted the monthly prayer and planning meeting for the local Christian women\u2019s club.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Over time, I learned much of Delma\u2019s history. She had married in her mid 20s, but her husband was killed in a tragic car accident only three months into the honeymoon. She did not know it at the time, but she was pregnant. No one knows for sure whether the grieving had anything to do with it, but Delma gave birth, on what would have been her first wedding anniversary, to a son with Cerebral Palsy. John Hugh never walked or \u201ctalked,\u201d although he had his own special\u00a0way of communicating with his mother and immediate family members. Delma cared tirelessly for John Hugh, and he lived to be 18 years old \u2013 much beyond the medical community\u2019s expectations.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0The ultimate southern hostess<\/span>, caregiving was always a part of Delma\u2019s life. Her grandmother and mother were both quite frail in their later years, and she spent many years caring for them. She took in patients, especially when she could not go out and work at a regular job while she was caring for John Hugh and other relatives at home. In her later years, she also cared for her brother, who went Home to be with Jesus in the early 90s. At that time, her brother\u2019s son invited her to move out West \u2013 and we are so glad she said \u201cyes!\u201d Having spent her whole life in the Southern U.S., moving to a ski resort town less than an hour from the Canadian border was quite the life change! Referring to herself as a \u201cpolar bear,\u201d she loved snow and was well known for her prayers for more of it throughout each winter. Family and friends celebrated her 90th birthday with her last September – at her house, of course!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>From her wheel chair, Delma cooked soups and baked casseroles and bread for friends and neighbors who had little time for cooking in their busy schedules; she always made a zucchini\/cheese casserole for us on Wednesdays so I would have less cooking to do on Bible study night. When the city guys plowed her driveway, they got a loaf of bread; same with the staff in the doctor\u2019s office and the vet clinic. Her \u201ccompany brownies\u201d are famous city-wide! We will take a plate of them to Bible study tonight to commemorate her \u201chomegoing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Delma was many things, including an artist specializing in miniature paintings. We have several of her works, and will always treasure them. And I will never forget her plaster of paris 3D version of Mt. Rushmore! Painting under the name Ann Comer, she had a gift for miniaturizing scenes and characters. I think her smallest painting was only about an inch wide. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Ann<\/a>
Ann Comer – Pacific Coast (First View From Car) 1996<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Delma was a faithful prayer warrior; and even when she could no longer get into a vehicle to come to church, she was at the head of the prayer chain and did calling for special events and gatherings.<\/span><\/p>\n

When I received the call late last night that Delma’s brief stay in the nursing home was over \u2013 she is reunited with her husband and son and mother and grandmother \u2013 my mind roamed through 17 years of memories: loading her and her wheel chair up in our friend Judy\u2019s minivan for marathon yard sale adventures, driving her to Christian women\u2019s club luncheons and to church on Sunday, Chataqua parades and her booth in the park, a six-month \u201ccamping\u201d spot in her front yard when we had sold our home and the new one was not in place yet, watching Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, yard sales in Delma\u2019s yard where we all got together and spent whole weekends visiting and passing our \u201cgood stuff\u201d on to someone else to enjoy, with a pot of \u201ceverything but\u201d soup on the stove (everything but the kitchen sink).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>Last winter, I slipped in to Delma\u2019s every Tuesday and Friday to change from my snowboarding clothes and have a quick bite of lunch before I went to work at 12:30. This winter, I still stopped by Delma\u2019s to change, but there was no welcoming or lunch \u2013 Delma was in the long-term care unit \u2013 and it was SO different to be in her home without her there. The snow left early this winter, but Delma left in God\u2019s perfect time. We look forward to the day when we will see her again!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>We have no doubt that the first words she heard were, \u201cWelcome home, thou good and faithful servant.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Ann<\/a>
Ann Comer – Water – 1996<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

O, That Will Be Glory!\u00a0 Before I ever arrived in my current home town, God had set up a meeting … Continue reading >Going Home – When He Takes Me By the Hand<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21],"tags":[60,10,38],"class_list":["post-315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellany","tag-ann-comer","tag-christian-living","tag-prayer-support"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=315"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":328,"href":"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions\/328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christianmountainliving.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}