Wii, wii, wii all the way home...

My mom is selling her house and moving to a retirement community. Since I've been off work I've been able to help her with procuring a realtor, looking over paperwork and searching for a new place. It's been fun and made me aware of a world I'd never paid much attention to.

Now I know about selective versus all-inclusive dining plans, the difference between retirement, assisted living, long term and memory care units...

It's almost like sending Mom to college. Picking the dorm and hoping that her floor plan's available, choosing the meal plan and anxious about her making friends. At least she doesn't have to declare a major!

The last place we visited had over 100 clubs, a lap pool, gym, dog park...the list of amenities was quite lengthy--if you live that long. There was even a dedicated wii room where they hold bowling tournaments with their sister communities throughout the US. Way to be high-tech!

The retirement communities sell their concept by promising "no more worries."  One call does it all! Feeling ill? Just shuffle down to the onsite doctor, even in your slippers! Leaky faucet? Onsite maintenance at the pull of a cord. Move in to their place and everything will be taken care of.

Gee, that sounds like God's promise...

By the end of the virtual tour I wished there were a place like that for all of us. The good news? There is!

1 Peter 5:10 (ESV) 

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

John 14:1-3 (NIV)
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am."

The Parable of the Leaf

Parables are usually fictitious, but this one is true: 


My husband and I were driving home from the hospital where we had been visiting his mother who had broken her hip. It was a rainy March day and suddenly (although leaves shouldn't be falling since it was spring--not fall!) a green tree leaf fell on the windshield and became stuck under the wiper-blade. With every swish of the blade, the leaf blurred the gentle rain on my windshield, thus obstructing my vision. This was a bad thing since I was the one driving.
"I can't see with that leaf," I complained.
"It will blow off in a second," my husband assured.
Seconds later the leaf was still firmly attached to the middle of the blade--and still blurring my view of the road. Fortunately this four-lane suburban street was not the freeway.
"I still can't see," I whined to my husband, who had already seemed to forget about the situation.
"Well, stop your windshield wipers. See if that helps."
"I already did," I said with a frustrated tone that inferred do you really think I'm that stupid not to have tired that already? 
I tried it again, anyway. It didn't work.
"That didn't work," I informed him of the obvious.
"Well, turn up the speed!"
Now I could tell he was getting irritated with the whole thing.
I sped up the wipers as directed, and that made the blurring twice as bad. 
I knew my husband could see what had happened, but he seemed to ignore the situation, as though it would solve itself. This infuriated me even more. Obviously he didn't understand the direness of the situation.
"Don't you understand? I can't see to drive!" I exclaimed with more alarm in my voice than before. "Do you think I should pull over somewhere?"
"Yes. Turn at the next side street as soon as you can and I'll get rid of it."
Now that sounded more like my knight in shining armor I married 35 years ago! Confident that the problem would be solved, we looked ahead for a place to turn, then I checked the mirrors to make sure it was safe to change lanes. When we looked up, to our surprise the leaf had vanished.
"It's gone," I said, feeling a strange wistfulness.
"I know," my husband said with the same wistful tone in his voice. "I didn't get to see it fly off."
"Me either."
There was a moment of sad silence between us as I drove on, my view of the road crystal clear now.
He asked, "Do you think if we turned around, we could find it somewhere in the road?" 
I knew he was half-kidding, but I answered him anyway, "No, it's gone for good."


Psalm 90:10-12 The best of (our days) is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away...Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

2 Samuel 12:23 (King David speaking of his son who died) "...I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.” 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The word "parable" comes from the Greek παραβολή (parabolē), meaning "comparison, illustration, analogy". Later it came to mean a fictitious narrative, generally referring to something that might naturally occur, by which spiritual and moral matters would be conveyed. Parables were central to Jesus' teaching method.