Forty Lives

On any given day, in any given setting, we can be surrounded by people experiencing life’s greatest joys or most difficult challenges.  Families anticipating the birth of a child or grandchild, weddings, job promotions – these are such blessed times that we are usually overwhelmed with thanksgiving when they occur.  Tough things like divorce, health problems, job loss, or death bring us to our knees in despair or prayer or sometimes both.  For me, it’s much easier to feel the presence of God in both the highs and lows than right in the middle.   And right in the middle is where I am now.

Life is good.  We’re all healthy and happy.  It’s just one of those times when the everyday demands of life are prominent – no great joy or sorrow – just life.  And I find it’s easy to simply coast along, checking things off my list, rather than stopping to really commune with God.  I’m not sure why that’s my nature.  I just know that when I’m driven to my knees in despair or feel an overwhelming need to raise my hands in praise for blessings, my relationship with God is strengthened.  In the middle, it’s more of an effort.

 One of the Methodist traditions that I love is the emphasis on the church calendar.  There are specific seasons associated with distinctive colors that are observed.  Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter are some of these seasons, and Ordinary time falls in between.  I find the term “ordinary” an interesting choice, but it doesn’t mean common or mundane.  Rather it’s more closely related to “ordinal” or “counted” time.  During ordinary time, we’re moving forward.  There’s just no great fanfare associated with it.  And green, a representation of growth, is its color.

 So maybe I am actually moving forward in this ordinary time.  Perhaps the time I do spend with God is strengthening my faith, even though it doesn’t always feel that way.  Could it be that simply my awareness of His presence is helping me grow in a gentle way?  God is there, and if I’m responsive to that, in a spirit of prayer during even the ordinary, there might just be something extraordinary going on after all.

My family participated in a church-wide retreat this past weekend.  It was a wonderful experience.  We were surrounded by beautiful mountains covered with trees changing to colors of auburn, orange, red, and gold.  Gorgeous…

And there was fellowship.  We gathered around a campfire singing, joined in group discussions about faith, and laughed until we almost cried at our Saturday night production – but that would take another complete blog entry to explain.  Our boys had a great time with their friends, too. 

There were unexpected moments of blessing for me at our Sunday morning service among God’s creation.  We listened to a men’s group singing “Be Still, My Soul” – one of my favorite hymns.  We were reminded of the power and wholeness that comes from prayer.  As a church family, we joined in the sacrament of Communion.  And singing with two friends while gazing at a wooden cross on the hilltop where we stood was a priceless spiritual moment for me.

It wasn’t until I returned home that I realized with a tinge of regret that I hadn’t seen the stars.  There’s nothing more beautiful to me than the night sky away from city lights so the stars shine brightly against their black background.  And yet, I forgot to look up. 

But I did look around.  I made a point to talk with people I don’t normally get to spend time with.  Conversations about everything from parenting choices to fashion challenges to God’s grace filled my time there.  For me, this retreat was not really a retreat from the bounds of my everyday life but rather a progression towards relationships.  And while I didn’t see the stars, nothing could shine more brightly than the eyes of these treasured friends – both old and new.

I have loved ones who have decided to give up on having another child.  It was a painful, difficult decision, and they are mourning the loss of that dream.

A friend changed his Facebook status from “married” to “single” yesterday.  I’m saddened for the entire family.  Sometimes things break right in front of our eyes, and we don’t even see it. 

Then an email came last night – a family I love dealing with miscarriage.  My heart aches for them, experiencing a pain I understand.   

It still surprises me how things can change.  Our most profound joys can turn to our deepest sorrows.  The train hits us when we didn’t even know it was oncoming.  This is the nature of life.

But, thankfully, there’s more.  The ebb and flow of life inevitably brings us back to happiness in unexpected moments.  An old song comes to mind, “Hold on, my child.  Joy comes in the morning.  The darkest hour means dawn is just in sight.”  I don’t know when or how it will happen for these loved ones of mine.  Some wounds take years to heal.  But I trust that my prayers are not in vain and that some comfort will come to them now.  And I believe they will somehow find joy in everyday moments along the way.

I planted flowers in memory of my sister-in-law, Jo, last spring.  They were lovely for a season.  Then in the heat of August, they died out.  But a wonderful surprise greeted me this morning.  They bloomed again – beautiful, pure, perfect – a symbol of hope.  “Joy comes in the morning.”

This Sunday, the 10^th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, my church will have a book table set up featuring Forty Lives.  The timing has forced me to dwell on the book’s message in light of the memories of that horrific day.  It’s not so hard to write a story – pure fiction – of a journey from despair to forgiveness.  But to face the reality…that’s something else entirely.

I guess I’ve thrown down the gauntlet to myself.  Am I able to forgive, not just global offenses but those that occur in my own backyard?  Forgive my friend’s ex-husband who cares more about his selfish desires than the well-being of his children?  Forgive the politicians on both sides of the aisle who spew venom at each other?  And somehow forgive the men who in the name of all that is holy committed the most unholy of acts in murdering innocent Americans?

So I will wrestle with this.  And I will sit at that table promoting my book – ultimately a story of hope.  And I will trust that its message is not lost on its author…on this day especially.

I went for a walk at Radnor Lake this morning.  Activities – work, family, church, even this book – had become too much.  I needed to clear my head and listen for God’s leading.

My question:  “What am I to do?”  It’s taken me longer than most to realize I have a limited amount of time and energy.  I wanted to hear in the open air above the gentle drone of crickets a voice telling me where to focus my efforts.  No more spinning wheels – just single-minded drive to pursue the path laid out for me.  But that path is apparently more elusive than the one I trod today.  It probably didn’t help that I only had an hour to spare and that I expected the Almighty to meet me on my terms rather than His.

Giving up, I sat down.  As a butterfly landed on my arm, I realized I was asking the wrong question.  Not “What am I to do?” but “Who am I to be?”  Loving, strong, gentle, kind, resolved – all the things that are so difficult for me to be in the midst of the ordinary pull of activities and to-do lists.  So maybe it’s not about one hour in one day I schedule hoping God will show up.  Maybe I’m to pose the question to myself every minute, every action, every day.  And in this process, perhaps I move towards the right destination, little by little – not by doing, but by being.

We’ve all been on both sides of forgiveness.  It’s a toss-up who benefits more from the act – the one forgiving or the one receiving.  There are limits to my ability to forgive, I’m sure.  Thankfully I have not been tested to the depths others have.  I do hope, however, that I will never take for granted the grace that has been given to me.  Undeserved, overwhelming, beautiful grace…

This blog is my faith journey.  As we go through the twists and turns of life, may the lessons we learn along the way draw us closer to God.  And in this shared experience of reading and writing our stories – afforded by technology but organic in its simplicity – may we each find our own truth along the way.