Monday Musing - The Gathering Place

This blog is written in honor of a beloved, affectionate, and loyal woman who was kept in God's grace until the very end. Grandma, we love you.

My Beloved Grandma, 

I'm reflecting over the past couple of days, and joy and sadness of your passing. What a legacy you have written in the lives of your children, grandchildren and great grandchildren - all of whom were so incredibly dear to your heart. We all knew and felt your love for us. 

Your house was where family would come together. From down the street, across the state and across the country, we gathered. It is where we opened presents at Christmas, stuff ourselves with turkey on Thanksgiving and met together for no particular reason other than wanting to be together. Your home and wherever you went was our family's gathering place. 

My childhood is speckled with fond memories with my cousins around the gathering place. Here are some, just to name a few:

- learning new card games together

- watching old movies at night

- your chirping bird in the kitchen

- the basement full of toys

- parties at the park for everyone's birthday

- cleaning the Ravenna Bank together

- your baked goods (yummmm)

- white elephant gifts and soup each Christmas

- having church together in your home

- your cards you hand wrote and sent mail

- your bed full of stuffed animals

You were so affectionate, kind and generous towards me, always. The sparkle in your eyes when our family would visit and your generous smile are the two things I will treasure. Thank you for always requesting hugs. My life was forever changed because you were in it and my life is different now that you are with the Lord. I rejoice for you! I'll never forget the day you told me Jesus is your best friend and you could not imagine a day without Him. The reason the gathering place was so wonderful, was because you were there. I miss you and look forward to the day we can sing psalms together again.

Your Beloved Granddaughter,

Britney Sue Hagsten

“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”

Psalm 116:15 ESV

Monday Musing - Sharing Mom's Banana Bread

A couple of days ago I made a batch of zucchini banana bread in hopes of not letting ripe bananas and zucchini go to waste. This morning I sat down with a cup of coffee to savor every bite. I enjoyed the texture, smell, and taste... with a sip of hot coffee between every mouthful.(Message me for the recipe!)

As I was eating I had a flashback memory to the kitchen counter of my childhood home in Nebraska. My mom was pulling, what I would call, "the world's best banana bread" out of the oven. You see, when my mom made banana bread, the smells traveled to every inch of our house, inviting the whole family to the table. It was always best right out of the oven and made for a great gathering moment for us all to savor. My mom had a way of making bread that was firm and crispy on the outside and soft, butter melting on the inside. I have not come across a piece of banana bread that remotely compares.

Flash forward. I looked up from the table to see my baby Lily, nawing on her grapes and tapping her foot from the bumbo. Warm tears were a welcomed old friend as I have often pondered what it would be like for Lily to have the chance to meet, be held by, and experience my mom's banana bread in her kitchen. Another moment of gratitude and loss was so thick I was breathing in wet tears.

I thanked God for the glimpse of hospitality and adventure my mom showed me. These moments are always best shared with others and especially those of your family. As I learn more about friendship and being a mom/wife, one conclusion that I have come to is that our family is a unite. We will share in life's "messy" together.

I look forward to sharing coffee, toys, and banana bread with the community we find ourselves in now and in Bulgaria. Together we walk in the saving grace of our humble King Jesus.

Together. United. One mind in Christ. Sharing this belief-

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.(Philippians 2:1-2;5-8)

- Britney Sue Hagsten

Thoughts on Grandpas

When you're eight years old, your grandpa is your hero.

I know not all of you have or had a grandfather worthy of that title, and for that I'm sorry. Fatherlessness (and grand-fatherlessness) is a huge problem, in part because it clouds our view of our heavenly Father. But for those of us who have been blessed with healthy families, a grandfather in the eyes of a grandson is a legend.

His legendary status was solidified for me one fateful summer afternoon that he took me fishing. Our family owns a cabin on a secluded Canadian lake, and it was a perfect day for some lake trout. That said, I--being eight--was not particularly interested in catching fish but rather jumping from rock to rock.

I don't remember how I slipped, only that I did. I was standing on a small rock ledge next to the water. I probably wasn't paying attention and walked right off the edge, because I didn't hit my head or scrape my back. It was one second on dry land and the next... swallowed up.

The interesting thing is that as quickly as it happened, it also UNhappened. Before I even realized how I fell or that I fell, I was standing on dry ground--dripping and spluttering. My grandpa had somehow teleported (in my eyes) the 30 or 40 feet distance separating us to pull me out of the ice cold water and set me back to standing on the rock. I couldn't have weighed more than 100 pounds at the time, but it made a huge impression on me: my grandpa is a legend.

A few weeks ago, my grandpa, Walt Hagsten, passed away at the age of 94. At that age it's not really about a cause of death anymore, but he had choked on a piece of food, developed pneumonia, and died. All this only a week or two before I was scheduled to leave Florida and visit Minnesota, his home. 

Even though you come to expect these things when a person is nearing their triple digit birthday, death is still a shock. A friend who happens to be more familiar with death than I described it as an absence. The person who died is no longer here, and they aren't coming back. You learn to live life without them.

Somewhat morbidly, I've thought more about death since becoming a parent than any other time in my life put together. I will not always be here to take care of this little human whom my wife brought into the world. Neither will this human always be here for me to enjoy, play with, watch grow up, walk down the aisle, have children of her own. It's distressing and feels broken, somehow. My grandpa was supposed to see another great-grandbaby. I am supposed to have grandchildren to enjoy, someday. (But what if!?) Death is not supposed to happen. It's like an unexpected inconvenience that somehow teleports you into another dimension, away from everyone you love, and you from them. "Surprise! Your vehicle, your body, has broken down. Now say goodbye to everything and everyone you've ever known."

But it really isn't. 

For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." - 1 Corinthians 15

God's promise to us is that he will swallow up death forever, that he will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth (Isaiah 25:8).

Death is not the end.

My grandpa, who pulled me out of a lake 20-some years ago, also has a heavenly Father who has and will pull HIM up out of the grave. One handed. Without breaking a sweat. And this heavenly Father will then swallow up the swallower--death itself. And there'll be no more mourning or crying or pain. Somehow God wipes it all away. Death isn't the end. I'm not saying that it doesn't or shouldn't hurt anymore. But knowing that even death is not exempt from "this too shall pass" kind of makes it a little easier to swallow.

The fact that not everyone will get to experience this resurrection is deeply troubling to me, and part of the reason we're going to Bulgaria. There are people there who don't know Jesus. There are also people who have heard of Jesus but don't know him--they think he came to die in order to help them be a better person (not so, by the way). They need to hear this good news, too. They need to know that death needn't be the end for them either. 

So we go, because we have work to do while we are here. And someday, we too will pass. 

But death is not the end.