November 30th is Doni’s birthday. The truth is, a birthday is a hard day to get through after you lose someone because it was a day that you once had the opportunity to celebrate them. Now the injustice of life stolen so soon really looms the closest. You realize how cruel death is just by celebrating birth.
I was thinking yesterday, though I had already blogged so transparently earlier in the week, that I wanted to celebrate my mother in law’s life nonetheless. Much of her married life was spent raising children. Then she was ill with Lyme Disease and Pancreatitis. In the middle of fighting for prodigal children, fighting for the livelihood of her husband’s church in the midst of a politically correct split, then for as long as I’ve known her, fighting for her own life, she was pretty low profile. I think she liked it that way. Of course, I remember her showing up at the church nearly every Tuesday and Friday morning to coordinate and run a food pantry, love on stinky, lost, and broken people. In her time spent bed bound, I remember her watching every you-tube video she could gather on what Mary Beth Chapman was doing in her adoption ministry, what Heidi Baker was accomplishing in Mozambique, and how Natalie Grant was seeing souls changed through her music and ministry. She loved a good testimony. She loved. She loved. She loved.
Now, so did my father-in-law, Wolf. He was the face of a ministry that was truly making an impact for the homeless in Tuolumne County, a revolutionary in terms of his courage to step outside of a trending movement and fight for truth. He was a published author. He stood on years of outreach, attending conferences with popular bishops and spokespersons, and became a sought after speaker in his own community. Sometimes it really saddens me that he and Doni had to share a memorial. Trust me, Doni doesn’t care. You could not convince her to attend to her own needs if another was in need first. But the service was disappointing for me, for her sake. The pastors and bishops that spoke had little connection with Doni, but had formed deep relationship with Wolf over the years. Kind things were said about her, but for those who didn't know her, nothing new was made known.
I know my blog doesn’t have an enormous amount of traffic, not as much as a newspaper. But I wanted to write a real obituary for her, something that she deserved. I want to say some of the things that should have been said at her funeral, but got overshadowed by the things her husband had accomplished. That’s fine, Wolf deserved it. He was an amazing man, and lover of God. It just isn’t fair for two people to share one funeral, that's all there is to it. Here are things that I felt should have been said.
Doni loved to know what God was doing in other people’s lives. She responded to hope like no one else I had ever known, and never gave up on what others were contending for. She fed off the accomplishments of missionaries who had seen deaf ears open, blind eyes see, and hungry bellies full only by His provision. She gave herself less credit when those who came to the food pantry for extra cans in the pantry left with a surplus of food, new hope and perspective for who God wanted to be in their life. She was an exuberant, life giving audience to have. She could laugh away cares. She could talk her way out of her own pain, convincing everyone that the attack on her life was really about all that God had promised Wolf, to compromise his ministry and platform. It was hard to talk her into fighting for herself because she could not get over the call on her life to serve, to stay low, and fight at the roots. If I could go back, I wouldn’t laugh with her anymore about that. I would tell her how beautiful her dreams were, and I would tell her that she was worth a healing from God-not just everyone, but her, as she seemed to believe. I would see her as a main player, not as a sidelines sitter, as she always lead me to believe about herself. I would think of her as an administrator, as someone flowing with freedom from heaven to pour out on the bound, who prophesied naturally, a healer, and someone with supernatural faith. I didn’t see it then because she spent so much time showing me what others were doing-by the way, she may have seen a deaf ear healed, food multiplying in the food pantry, and demons manifesting at her window and fleeing in the name of Jesus-but what she was seeing was a smidgen of what she wanted to see in her lifetime.
She dreamed, she dreamed, and she dreamed some more. She was going to sit in the dirt in Mozambique. She was going to serve at Maria’s House of Hope in China. Though she was housebound for much of the time I knew her, she never let her struggles limit what she hoped she could do in her lifetime, the things she dreamed about. It may have limited her immediate ministry, but God always provided the means for that to continue. At home coping with her limitations, she imagined life getting bigger and better. And at the heart of her life getting bigger and better, and closer to her long standing vision, she still hoped to be serving. Just in a third world country this time.
I wish I would have questioned her when she told me she couldn’t write or draw or speak to a congregation. I wish I would have rolled my eyes when she told me her main vision for life was to see her husband and children succeed. I wish I could shake her and tell her how special she was, that all she was doing really mattered. It mattered to me. When I think back to her funeral, it was the culmination of all she had told all of us about herself for so many years- I am in the background, I belong there, I am a servant, and I want to be the least of all. The community might not have seen her very often. She didn’t go to church for months at a time because of her issues. But she did serve, and she did love- I see much of the fruit in the hearts of my children, in how much I miss her just because she was always there, always available to encourage me. In the kingdom of God, that is the most honorable job to have. After I got home from the funeral, I got up the courage to read her notes on face book afresh. I read her “about me” and thought, “that’s so her. No one said that!” This is who she is to me. Not someone who finished the race in second place behind her impactful husband, but someone with an incredible heart to serve, love, and get as low as she could to meet others where they were at. These were her words:
“I am a lover of souls. Someone who has been saved by grace. A daughter of the most high King, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a teacher, and a servant of the poor.
I am an adopted daughter of the most high King. I love my Savior Jesus Christ, my husband, my four children, my daughter-in-law, my son-in-law and my grandson and granddaughter. I love the church where my husband and I have served for 21 years. I am passionately in love with the poor.”
Followed by her favorite quotes, authored by Heidi Baker and Mother Theresa.
I love her, and I miss her. If she were here I would tell her all that and more. That just by serving me and my children, she left a legacy. I want to love my family with all that I am capable of, and more. I want to live an abandoned life to God. I want to serve low. The difference is, I want to serve myself once in awhile. I want to recognize early that a life of servant hood is of great value and a lasting inheritance- I know that now because of her. I want to value myself enough to let others fight for me if I need it, and let God save me if I get so low I can’t come back on my own. I wish I could see her one last time and tell her how much she meant to me- how much I loved her heart, her laugh, and her crazy dreams. I am not one of her children, but have spent countless hours with her, lived with her for months at a time, then again for weeks at winter’s worst. I know her, and if you didn’t, it’s simple.
“Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, "Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all." Mark 9:35
She would have never asked for it, or desired it for herself by any means, but in my books she’s the first. I love her so much, Happy Birthday to an amazing woman of God.
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