Category: Uncategorized

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My World View

jinnyhenson

Well, where have I been? Please forgive my hiatus. I have been writing more than ever but not on Word Press. John and I finished the manuscript for the book,  Maggie Lee for Good this past week. We both work full time and so through many early mornings and a few late nights, we have created a manuscript.

As I have recounted the months after July 12, 2009, I know what a remarkable story has emerged from our nightmare.  Like travelers on an electric sidewalk whose inertia there’s no fighting against, we have been been carried in to a foreign land of loss. Now that we’re dumped off we can either learn to eat weird food and speak the language or clam up in our devastation and languish.

I would far rather read than write a tale like this. I still hate that I have this story to tell and wish I had a tricked-out DeLorean and some crazy-haired professor to take me back in time. Back before I knew what it was like to lose a child and even before I knew what lead to the tragedy.

I don’t have the chance to return, but I do have today. And here’s a glimpse of mine:

My morning evaporated. I knew when I was stuck in carpool drop-off choking down a breakfast bar and Mother Teresa quote book simultaneously that I had already lost the battle. Even waking at 5 a.m. wasn’t enough time for me to pray and slog through my pre-work punch-list.

My day unraveled and left me feeling like an empty can of silly string. It was so serious that after the whistle blew, I was compelled to ride my bike.  The beautiful day through which I had been sleep running begged to be appreciated.

Jack dutifully pumped my tires, reconnected the basket and dusted off my helmet for our adventure. Now that Jack is 13 years of age I can only wonder how much longer he will be game to be seen with me and my rolling basket of chihuahua.

This beautiful sight struck me; the pure joy of my stomach ache day. This was my world view today. What did yours look like?

Maggie Lee for Good, Uncategorized

2011 MLFG Events!

jinnyhenson

Besides Betsy in Tifton, St. Madeleine Sophie School in Bellevue, Washington, Jessie’s MLFG Costume Fun Run in Fayetteville, NC and Preferred Imaging Monster Garage Sale in Dallas, there are a lot of wonderful Shreveport / Bossier MLFG Events. We are really excited about Shreveport Mayor Cedric Glover officially proclaiming  October 29th “Maggie Lee for Good Day,” and encouraging the citizens of Shreveport to take part and do one good deed for someone in need.

Events:

-Cosse-Silmon Orthodontics Food Drive to benefit HUB Ministries.230 Carroll St. 71105

-Caddo Middle Magnet- Coat and shoe Drive, T-Shirt Sale to benefit the American Heart Association (on going) -7635 Cornelius Lane 71106

Oct. 25th Tuesday-St. Mark’s Cathedral School Memorial Prayer Opportunity 11:30am

-Mayor Glover’s Proclamation- 3pm City Council Meeting 505 Travis St, 71101

Oct. 26th Wednesday -Caddo Middle Magnet Happy Bellies sale for American Heart Association

Oct 27th Thursday – First Baptist Church School Choir Concert at Spring Lake Nursing Home 10am 8622 Line Ave 71106

Oct. 28th Friday-Byrd Astra Club’s MLFG Lighthouse Kid Celebration 4pm- Highland Center 520 Olive St., 71104(under large sanctuary)

Oct 29th Saturday- Veteran’s Transitional Housing Painting & Community Renewal Friendship House Yard Spruce Up-9am-12pm, 2204 Creswell 71104

Jack’s Monster Dodge Ball Party Highland Center Gym 3 pm 520 Olive St 71104

Maggie Lee for Good Celebration; Highland Center 4pm- Come have a cupcake and celebrate with us!

Thank you for making this the most far-reaching and impactful October 29th yet!

Christian Faith, Loss, Overcoming loss, Uncategorized

Why? God Understands Your Suffering or Why God Understands Your Suffering

jinnyhenson

My friend, Robin, is on my mind and heart today as she attends the funeral of her husband, Kevin. They have two children; Harold and Henry. Harold was one of Maggie Lee’s favorite little people at school. The feeling was mutual as Harold bestowed the highest honor upon Maggie Lee posthumously: naming his cat after her.

There are no words to say at times like these, really. Nor will there be for a long, long time. There is, however, hope to be found in the wisdom of those who have walked the unenviable path of loss, a road we will all journey on sooner or later.

I found comfort in the faith and wisdom of Jerry Sittser in his book, A Grace Disguised. In those pages are his honest wrestling with God over losing his wife, mother and child in one car accident.  Here are his thoughts on God’s suffering;

“The Incarnation means that God came into the world as a vulnerable human being. God was born to a woman, Mary. He was given a name, Jesus. He learned to walk and talk, swing a hammer and wash dishes. God embraced human experience and lived with all of the ambiguities and struggles that characterize life on earth. In the end he became a victim of injustice and hatred, suffered horribly on the cross, and died an ignominious death. The sovereign God came in Jesus Christ  to suffer with us and suffer for us. He descended deeper into the pit than we will ever know. His sovereignty did not protect him from loss. If anything, it led him to suffer loss for our sake. God is therefore not some distant being who controls the world by a mysterious power. God came all the way to us and lived among us.

The God I know has experienced pain and therefore understands my pain. In Jesus I have felt God’s tears, trembled before his death on the cross and witnessed the redemptive power of suffering. The Incarnation means that God cares so much that he chose to become human and suffer loss, though he never had to. I have grieved long and hard and intensely. But I have found comfort knowing that the sovereign God, who is in control of everything, is the same God who has experienced the pain I live with every day. No matter how deep the pit into which I descend, I keep finding God there. “

Maggie Lee for Good, Uncategorized

A Maggie Lee For Good Gingerbread Tale by Elizabeth Enochs

jinnyhenson

Last year, a friend of mine who is an organizer of the annual Gingerbread
House gala asked if I could get a group of CMM kids to build a gingerbread
house for their annual fundraiser. Agnes asked a few close friends who she
deemed to be both caring and creative: Madelyn Greenleaf, Chandler Williams
and Isabelle Watkins.

The theme was “Angels Among Us”. Agnes & I and the other girls discussed
Maggie Lee Henson as an angel among us and  how we might honor her legacy
“ML4G” and her family’s work to convert their loss and grief into “doing
good” to enrich the lives of other children. And that is how we came up with
the gingerbread house that is a church adorned with angel wings, graced by
Maggie Lee’s angelic image watching over us from above. The cross symbolizes
the church, but also Maggie Lee’s faith and that of her family and friends,
who have drawn strength and hope from their faith in coping with their
unthinkable loss and accepting that Maggie Lee was needed more elsewhere.
The wings and feathers symbolize an angel and how even in tragedy, we can
take light and rise above what would otherwise destroy us (grief, sorrow,
loss). The church is decorated in a happy way because everyone who knew
Maggie Lee talked about her light, her laugh and her happy spirit. And so we
felt in spite of the sadness surrounding her premature death, the overall
feeling of the gingerbread house should reflect the spirit of a happy child,
as that is how she would want to be remembered and memorialized.

One of these girls, Madelyn Greenleaf, was a very close friend of Maggie
Lee’s and her family’s, while the others really came to know Maggie Lee and
what she symbolized after her death, through the work of her family and many
friends and members of the community who were so determined to make sure
Maggie Lee had not died in vain. All of them continue to wear their Maggie
Lee for Good t-shirts at school (CMM designated a MG4G Day), at Camp Ozark,
and around town to promote awareness and honor her memory and her legacy.

Uncategorized

It’s Been a Year

jinnyhenson

 It’s been a year since the beginning of Church for The Highlands’ First public worship service. There are so many things I love about our church and those who give their time, energy and passion to serve those in The Highland Neighborhood.

Someone asked me to define our church this weekend and the best definition would be missional. Our mission is to be the hands nad feet of Jesus to our neighbors here.

Kandy Flint brought a great sign for our children’s area that says, “Christ has no hands but ours.” That is a great reminder of the challenge we have as believers to bless the world around us with God’s amazing grace.

We are a diverse congregation.  People of different backgrounds, colors, political persuasions and perspectives make up our church.  Everyone is truly welcome and I love that. It’s what I think Heaven will be like.

We are festive and celebratory.  Not just every church participates in the Mardi Gras Parade, but our krewe did.  It was a day I will never forget. It is obvious that we have a serious mission but we also have a total blast in the process.

It seems impossible that we have done CFTH for a year. It has flown. I glance back with great gratitude for all I have seen God do and forward with deep anticipation for what will happen in the years to come.

Uncategorized

Two Years Ago

jinnyhenson

This August 2nd marks the  two-year anniversary of life without Maggie Lee.  The Shreveport Times ran a piece about a few of the amazing things which have happened because of Maggie Lee for Good. http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20110731/OPINION0106/107310326/Jinny-Henson-Two-years-later-kindness-generosity-continue-blooming-from-tragedy

While I would give anything to have her back, and hear that that feeling subsides little as the years go by, I know that we will always be a table with three legs.  As time goes by, you learn to put the heavy stuff on one corner and just where to place the chairs in case things topple, but these gymnastics only serve to remind you of what you lost.

Then again, at least I have  a three-legged table while some people have no table at all. I am vastly aware of what I have left. August 2nd marks the one year anniversary of 6 Shreveport teenagers drowned while swimming, one mother losing three children on the same day. That is a pain I cannot fathom.

As we begin our third year of life without Maggie Lee, I have to be thankful  for God’s sustaining grace, a loving family and the most unshakable friends in the world.

 

Christian Faith, Overcoming loss, Uncategorized

Where Have YOU Been?

jinnyhenson

I violated the Cardinal Rule of Web log posting: be present. Please forgive me for going dark.

The last post I wrote about our dear friend, Jay. From there we had Father’s Day and Vacation and our 17th Wedding Anniversary (can I get a WOO-HOO?) I could’ve posted about my incredble father, the great dad and husband John has been and how even the tame Hogwart’s Ride in Universal Orlando nearly made me vomit. Oh…so many ways to go there.

Sprinkled in-between those events were some really awful happenings: the discovery of a brain tumor one of my friend’s 4-year-old daughter (surgery is this Wednesday,) my newly-widowed friend, Aprile’s loss of her Father, and the diagnosis of cancer in two parents of other dear friends. It’s as if the tragedy fairy has been hopped up on Mountain Dew, wielding her two by four with a vengeance, happily head-smacking unsuspecting friends with life-altering circumstances. It’s been terrible.

Now today, two years removed from my own worst nightmare, I see from spectator’s perspective how faith in God and His ultimate resolution is the secret sustaining my bludgeoned friends. I see something larger than mere determination pulling them through the worst of times because humanly speaking they should not be prone at this point. What is there is more than optimism, good will or wishful thinking; it is acceptance of their portion of pain with a deep confidence that things will somehow work out.

As comfortable as we can make it, as beautiful as it can be and as perfect fleeting moments of our lives certainly are, I have crawled inside and worn this truth: this world is not my home. It does not mean that we stop living when hit by that two by four, no, I still have to live my life and make the most of my days, but at the end of the day, at the end of this life, no measure of what I have accrued, built or collected, (including a pain-free life) is important. “The best is indeed, Elizabeth Browning, yet to be.”

friendship, Overcoming loss, Uncategorized

Just Don’t LOOK at it, Betsy!

jinnyhenson

Freshman year at Baylor, my roommate, Betsy and I partied like it was 1999. While some college co-eds celebrated their new-found freedom binge-drinking at George’s, we overdid it at the bar… the cheesecake bar. You could even get cheesecake at Collins Dorm for breakfast. Oh, yeah.

Juxtaposed against the soft serve ice cream machine was the pressure to be Barbie thin. Darn those gorgeous Dallas girls. This drive to be beautiful was enough to make you want to eat a chicken-fried steak.

By November, Betsy was fed up. Staring headlong into the two foot by three foot dorm room mirror, she started flapping the turkey gobbler of her underarm and declared, “Aughhhh! Look at this. I cannot stand this anymore!”

Seeing as though I still had a good dress size on her, I gave her this advice; “Betsy, just don’t LOOK at it!”

“What do you mean don’t LOOK at it?” She asked.

Plainly I answered, “If you don’t look in the mirror, it won’t bother you.” With that, I motioned dramatically to the bottom half of my pear-shape and we burst into laughter.

Breath caught and eyebrow raised, she said, “Seriously, Jin, I can’t stand this anymore.”

Luckily for her, Betsy continued to look in the mirror, observe when she had put on a few pounds and quickly shed them before her Levi’s were too tight to wear to Melody Ranch on Thursday Nights.  That is why today, after baring triplets, she looks better than she did when she was 18 while I by and large remain unbothered. I’ve found that sometimes looking away isn’t the greatest strategy.

When loss finds its’ uninvited way under your roof, whether in the form of divorce, illness, natural disaster, job loss or in our case, a child’s death, there is no avoiding it.  At once you are faced with accepting your powerlessness to change your circumstances.  There is no ignoring the extra place at the dinner table, the daunting task of single parenthood or the bill collector’s harassment. Without a straightforward assessment of the situation, moving forward will be virtually impossible.

Then again, perhaps there is wisdom in selective visioning. I continue to be impacted by the reality that what I focus upon grows. My friend, Karen, told me about how she started every morning during the first year of being divorced thanking God for three things. Many mornings when gratitude was too difficult to muster, she repeated the memorized script; “Thank you, God for my kids, my job and my health.” Though she was devastated, this daily discipline started her off in the right frame of mind.  

I do not think that time heals all wounds but it does allow you to learn how to navigate your new life, unwanted as it may be, and realize if you so choose what you still have left.  Sometimes the greatest view one can have is away from the mirror of personal loss to the open window of gratitude.

Uncategorized

To All you Mothers

jinnyhenson

With the kids in bed, the cards long-since opened and the spoiling replaced by laundry hurriedly done before tomorrow when we hop on the hamster wheel and do it all again, I wanted to write you a note.

I saw you in Jackson, Mississippi at The Batson children’s Hospital ICU with your 8-year old granddaughter who looked four because she was so contracted. You worked full-time and came to stay with her at night to relieve your daughter.

I caught you at Target putting back those flip-flops because there were already too many things your kids needed in the cart and you figured you could get them next time.

I noticed your sweetness as you took the time to welcome the new child in class and made sure he had a friend to sit with at lunch.

I witnessed your long journey from The Brookshire’s parking lot because your toddler wanted to walk and you took the time to let her do so.

I marveled at the way your teenager gave you a knowing glance and you both erupted in laughter even though you wanted to throttle each other.

I know that there is nothing you would not do for your child. And that is your gift this Mother’s Day- the satisfaction that you’ve done the most important job ever extremely well.

I know. I’ve seen you.