Reflections and Explorations

I was walking with a young man a few weeks ago as we talked about where he was at.  Our family has known him for a while and we have been through some highs and lows in the knowing.  His own family has had some hard experiences through the years (including divorce and the death of his dad) and now is pretty fragmented and disconnected.  They do not understand him nor do they necessarily appreciate him or his growing faith and the new priorities he is pursuing.  At times they have been less than kind toward him and that has left him feeling rather lost and wondering where he belongs if not with his own family.

As we talked I heard myself talking about the difference between being connected to us and being attached to us.  I was reaffirming our family’s commitment to him and his welcome in our home but I was also setting some boundaries for what that would look like.  I heard myself sharing a bit of my own journey of confusing the difference between being connected and being attached and the price that had been paid in that confusion.

We could be his “touchstone” – a place where he could come and remember that he mattered and was loved.  A place where he could be refreshed and encouraged.  A place where he could measure the things he has been hearing about himself and God and life and in the community of our home discern the truth or deception of those things.  A place he would leave to “go back out there”.

If he tried to make it more than that; if he tried to stay and become attached he would miss out on the best that we could give him. In the trying to take more from us than we could or even should give, he would hinder or even disable completely our capacity to be that connection he so needed.  He would also be missing out on what God had for him beyond us.  Finally, he would end up missing out on the only healthy attachment there is – getting immersed into the presence of God, being one with Christ, and we (he and us) would all suffer dearly for it.

I suggested that God was a jealous God who wanted to spend some intimate time with him in a space of undivided attention – that perhaps the fragmentation of his family was the piece God was using to draw him into his Fatherly embrace; a drawing he would have missed had his family had it all together.

At one point we grew quiet and we simply walked in the silence.  Within me an awakening had been stirred by my own words to him and I realized I had come to understand some things about myself; ways that I had related to others that had taken initial connection and turned it into attachment and in the end (and there were many “ends”) the suffering for all had been great.  Had this young man been able to see inside my heart in those quiet moments he would have seen the healing wound inflicted by God through my own words and the tears that were being shed as I realized what I had done to others and to myself.

I had no sense of deep guilt or wanting to rake myself over the coals.  It was just a deep, cleansing knowing that settled in and completed the alignment with God that he had been administering over the past few months concerning some matters and relationships now lost to me.  I had come full circle and I now understood healthier ways of being in relationship and I knew I could anticipate some good outcomes.

When the conversation picked up again there was a lightness to it bouyed by the gratitude that also began to overflow in each of us – he was thankful for being affirmed and welcomed and assured of his place; I was thankful that I had experienced some healing and growing and because of this, this young man would be spared some tougher days because he was learning the lessons sooner than I had.

Tender mercies at work yet again 🙂

Today, I am sitting in my new office, realizing I haven’t posted anything for a bit. It has been a busy time of waiting. Whoever said waiting was a passive, do nothing activity, missed something in the translation. Waiting is hard work. Waiting has a way of revealing all of your fears, anxieties, ambitions, tendencies and desires to take control and  just get going on something…anything.

The time of waiting can be your friend or your enemy depending on what you allow to take place during that time; what you embrace in the revelations.  The time of waiting can reveal your friends and your enemies. The former are those who encourage you and tell you to hang in there.  They are the ones who show grace as you work through all those fears, anxieties, etc., because they have been there…they know the struggle all too well and they know there is no putting a neat and tidy bow or a time limit on it.  They are not offended when you don’t walk it any better than they did.

The latter are those who urge you to give up, get moving on something else, think you are being passive in a lazy kind of way because you aren’t “pounding the pavement”, can’t wait for you to pull it together so that they don’t have to deal with you in your struggle.  In reality, they themselves don’t want to do the hard work of waiting that they have been drawn into through your experience.

Most of all, the waiting reveals whether or not you really believe you are loved by God, that his favour is upon you, that he delights in you as a father to a child, that he indeed has plans for you and that your life is not just another breath in the universe that has no distinction, uniqueness or special place in his heart.  That what you are waiting for is not about whether you have successes or failures in the process (there have been lots of both); it’s about his faithfulness and love and knowledge of the bigger picture that you can’t even begin to grasp.

Mmmm….

It is that belief that formed in me during the waiting.  It is that belief that kept me going when others stopped waiting with me.  It is that belief that I clung to when I wanted to give up and settle into a quiet, obscure life and just finish my days, having let the dreams go. After all, there is nothing wrong with living a quiet life, being faithful to the daily routines – unless that is not what God has called you to.

I wonder if Abraham had settled into the seeming reality that there would be no heir coming from him; his family line would end at him and that the stars he had stared at one night, and the voice he had heard, were just the product of his ambition and dreams.

I wonder if Jacob settled into never returning to the land of his father, away for so long and now with two wives and twelve sons, and that the angels he had seen ascending and descending were just an amazing dream that he had mistakenly believed was real.

I wonder if Joseph, somewhere along the way, reconciled himself to his slavery, seeing no way out, and lived to make the best of it and that his dreams of something big were just the outcomes of youthful arrogance and prideful embrace of favouritism.

I wonder if after 40 years, Moses had settled into life in the desert with his wife and two sons, perhaps occasionally haunted by the memories of a distant promise that he would be used to deliver a people.

I wonder if David convinced himself that he had misunderstood the words and anointing of Samuel, and settled into being a leader of men on the outside of the nation, thinking the throne had come and gone, because somewhere along the way, he had been found wanting and no longer suitable.

I wonder if Paul, in the quiet years between his initial interactions with the church as a new convert and the time Barnabas came searching for him, ever wondered what that Damascus road encounter had really been all about.

There is a saying today, “Don’t quit 5 minutes before the miracle happens.”

As I sit in my office, I am glad I didn’t give up.  I am glad that when I wanted to quit, God didn’t want to and that he sent encouragement to hang in through so many different ways that I might have missed had I not actually been looking for them, acting on the belief that he was indeed putting something together – I just needed to hang in “five more minutes”.

So now I am doing what I could never have imagined doing yet what brings together everything I have experienced in life and ministry – a gathering of the dispersion of activity and rather than negating any of it, taking it and putting it through the lens of God’s intent and creating a focused beam of light and life that has already begun to have positive, life-changing impact.

Five more minutes…

I am inspired to wait five more minutes in other areas too…

for the restoration of lost relationships

for the turning of hearts not yet clear on God’s presence and love

for that whisper that comes every now and then from a place beyond us all, yet so near and says,

“Thanks for waiting.  I love you.”

In Christian theology a common phrase depicting the present time is “already- not yet”:

We are redeemed but we still await the fullness of our redemption:  “Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption, the redemption of our bodies.”

We having been given everything we need pertaining to godliness yet we echo Paul’s words, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”

We have the spirit within us but we struggle with the deeds of the flesh.

We have the mind of Christ but we are called to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

Sin has been conquered but we have an advocate for when we sin.  And we will sin.

We are caught between something that is as good as done because Christ said, “It is finished” and that same thing at the same time not yet fulfilled. 

This is what happens when you try to understand eternity in the context of time and time in the context of eternity.  They are two related, yet distinct dimensions that influence each other, and I suspect even overlap each other at times. 

In short, deep is the mystery concerning the things of God in which things from His perspective are done, but from ours are still being worked out.  Yet there is enough clear to inspire us to keep moving toward the mystery and the ideals enveloped in it.  And clear is the call to a certain way of being though the effort to be that way seems to be rather unsustainable, and at times even unattainable in this “already-not yet” time.

The reality of this is acutely pressed into us when we consider relationships.  We are called to love one another but how easy it is to draw people into our lives like items off the shelf at the store, caught by something we initially found attractive and useful to us, only to dump them when we grow weary of them or discover they don’t work quite the way we thought they would…or should.

We are called to love one another as the only sustainable, credible witness that Christ indeed has come, yet we tear down and reject brothers and sisters in the faith while washing the feet of strangers thinking we have ministry figured out and they don’t.  And we justify it in all kinds of ways…there are whole books written by esteemed Christian leaders talking about the need to purge and prune our lives of people, “family members” who “aren’t good for us.”

That is the trap of “already-not yet”.  We find in it a loop-hole that we think frees us from the call to love.  The problem is, if we choose that loop-hole, it only reveals our contempt for the call.  We are called to love but in our inability to do so, we justify our walking away because we are, after all, not yet fully redeemed.  We can’t possibly expect, this side of eternity, to get along with everyone; it just doesn’t work that way in this “already-not yet” period.

Rubbish. 

I like what Bonhoeffer wrote:  “There is no dislike, no personal tension, no disunity or strife that cannot be overcome by intercessory prayer.”

And I like what G.K. Chesterton wrote:  “The Christian ideal as not been tried and found wanting.  It has been found difficult and left untried.”

Finally, I like what the writer of the letter to the Hebrews wrote:  “In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”

We like to quote Paul’s words to the Philippians:  “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death”.  But God forbid that He should ever actually ask us to live it – especially with that person.

We are thrilled to be reconciled to God, especially not having to pay the price to make it happen, but we are not so thrilled when He asks us to now do the same with another, perhaps at significant, maybe even the same, cost.  Consider John’s words,”This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for one another.”

 That’s great when it’s convenient and fits our schedule and our friendship (spouse, co-worker, neighbour) profile.  Otherwise, no way! It can’t mean losing my life for that person.  We misuse the phrase, “I died to self and myself almost died” to explain away all kinds of rejecting acts on our part,  and all kinds of border building and boundary protecting that we never designed to make it easier for us to offer ourselves; we designed them only to explain withdrawing ourselves.

How do we reconcile this with God’s work and subsequent call, not to be fulfilled in eternity but now, in this “already-not yet” time?

“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:  that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.”

Some would say all we have to do is proclaim the message of reconciliation, and that being only between God and people.  But words without deeds are empty.  How can we proclaim a message we won’t live?  How can we claim to know reconciliation when we continually count people’s sins against them, stacking them up as our justification for walking away.  Jesus spoke to this when he pictured a man who had been fully reconciled who then turned around and condemned another man.  It did not finish well for that first man.

I’m not saying it’s easy.  I am certainly not saying I have this figured out and I’m living it well.  God knows the daily struggle that goes on in my own heart and how many times I have wanted to walk away.  But I can’t. 

I can’t without also denying what I have been given. 

I can’t without rejecting the call. 

I can’t, because I know how much it hurts to be walked away from, and I just can’t do that to someone. 

I can’t, because the core truth of the gospel is love having gone the distance. 

I can’t, because I know the pain I experience in my relationships includes my own heart being revealed in all of its hardness, defensiveness, self-protection and…need to understand more deeply God’s way of doing things, through those very relationships.  It is nothing less than a sign his love is getting a hold of me and teaching me how to share in His love for others, partly because love is who He is, and partly because the love I learn to live in is the only credible witness that Christ has indeed come.

No, it doesn’t work like this in this world, but it does work like this in the “already-not yet” kingdom of God in our midst.

I was in a conversation the other day with someone.  We were in the process of discerning whether to proceed with a rather major endeavour or postpone.  A lot of work and planning had gone into it to that point, but there were significant hurdles increasingly coming into play, most importantly time constraints on people’s schedules that had not been expected when we had first developed this.  As the conversation progressed, I realized that this could go one of two ways:  we could push through, somehow, and probably leave people feeling ragged, and even a little bruised under the weight of having to live up to something in order to “come through for the team”; or we could postpone and take time to listen to what God might be saying that we hadn’t yet heard.

We chose the latter course, wanting to uphold the honor and dignity of each person who would be impacted.  We agreed that pushing through would ultimately raise the question of competence or commitment, and neither question had a valid place in this scenario.  We each had simply been inundated by claims on our time that we could never have foreseen.

As I processed this conversation and many more that would follow to finalize the decision, it struck me that there are times that no matter what you do, no matter how careful, competent or committed you are, no matter how good it all looks on paper, it will not work.  I have been reading in Proverbs and then Ecclesiastes.  It seems appropriate to read many times that we can have all of our plans but ultimately, the LORD directs our steps, he decides what will happen and when, and he decides what will be successful and what will not. 

We are encouraged to sow our seed in the morning and not be idle in the evening for we do not know which one will bring success or whether both will.  In other words, try things – sometimes those things will work and sometimes they won’t.  Don’t get locked in on one thing and then measure yourself by whether it works or not.

In the world we measure people by what they accomplish.  From God’s perspective, there are no guarantees.  I actually find that really freeing.  It frees me from having to figure out God’s will; from having to figure out that one thing that will work.  It frees me to try things without worrying about whether or not it will succeed; it’s not my competence or commitment that will be in question. 

The real questions are do I trust God enough to try different things regardless of the outcomes, believing He will lead through all kinds of “successes” and “failures” in order to reveal His provision, grace and mercy in abundance. 

Do I trust God enough to believe that I am not called to a life of “accomplishments” but rather to a life of surrender and love, overflowing to the protection of honour and dignity in the lives of those I influence, letting God decide the outcomes.

As 2010 drew to a close, I had a sense that 2011 would be quite the year.  This was more than the usual anticipation and hope and resolution that new years tend to bring.  I sensed a stirring…a shifting of the winds though I couldn’t place it or name it.  I was very open to change.  The last year had been a mixture of some great things but also some very hard things including a significant relationship loss (partly my own fault) that I am still processing…some days are easier than others.  Yet, what I was sensing seemed bigger than even these things, as big as they were to me.

Since then we have had in our home, among a slew of other things:  job loss (for 9 weeks) and job gain; two litters of hamsters (guess that means they were wrong at the pet store); one child came down with shingles; another hit a tree with the car (all occupants were just fine though a little shaken by the “adventure”); and a new unfinished journey (still candidating) into possible new directions in ministry.

Beyond our home, I have talked to so many who are feeling displaced for a variety of different reasons; I have begun journeying with someone who longs to draw nearer to God and with another who is wrestling with God as they work through the long, slow and very painful process of recovery from sexual assault; I have had the deep joy of experiencing some renewed contact with people whom I thought were completely lost to me.

Within me –

I have taken steps of faith I never anticipated I would take…some bold, some quiet…all fruitful.

I have been both restless and at peace…often at the same time. 

I have begun to see a whisper of understanding in me regarding the value of obedience when nothing makes sense;

of the grace and freedom of love when there is no expected return;

the beauty of a strength contained;

and the power of a permeable boundary that makes way for offering and trusts God for protection.

I have sensed caution slowly being transformed to mindfulness and presence to others.

Yes!  Something is definitely in the air.

A few weeks back, through the nudging of the Holy Spirit, I sat down and wrote out what I believed my strengths were.  When I was done, I had two pages of skills, priorities, passions, and values, as well as a section outlining the Germanic and English roots and meaning of my name (my two family lines).  When I was done I was a little taken aback by how much I had written, but also, by the certainty of the truth of what I had written.  What was on the page described me pretty well and it was good.

Then I heard the quiet question, “What stops you from living this in fullness?”

Honestly? Fear.

“Fear of what?”

I pondered…lots raced through my thoughts.  When it came right down to it, I realized I was the one most responsible for the build up of fear within me.  Whenever I get a great idea that I could run with, I begin to think way down the road at all the possible things that could go wrong, or all the resistance I could meet, or discover how redundant my thought was…someone else was way ahead of me already doing it, or I’ll get started and not be able to finish (I don’t like that) and I end up thinking, how can I possibly manage this or make this happen or follow through.  I don’t have position or resources or support.  I can’t take this to where I see it going. 

This was not new.  In fact, a conversation with a friend a few years back began to echo loudly in my head – she was challenging me about getting myself so wrapped up in all the details that I overwhelm myself and derail even good intentions nevermind good actions.  Funny how things come full circle enough times that you finally “get it”.

I also remembered a more recent conversation with another friend who talked with me about the difference between vision and revelation; how in the Christian community we get caught up in big, bold vision and expect leaders to have it, when the scriptures have very little to say about that.  What the scriptures do talk about is revelation and obedience to it.  He encouraged me to think more in terms of being a leader who is obedient to whatever God was showing me.  God needs leaders who are obedient, not who have vision – the vision piece is his. 

Agree.

Then I yielded to another nudge and looked up what it meant to live according to your strengths and the first article I found was the only one I needed.  The author basically said, quit focusing on the how, and focus only on the what, as in, what is the next step?  We have no idea what that one step will lead to, what doors it might open, what conversations it might unfold, what new “revelation” we might have that we could not have had without taking that one step. 

Putting all of this together created a powerful catalyst within me.  I decided in that moment that I would practice as a way of life, taking my eyes off the “how” and focus simply on the “what”. 

In the weeks that have followed I have been amazed at how often fear has raised its head in the face of an opportunity or challenge or uncertainty; how many times I have had to confront that fear by digging in and just taking the next step. 

It’s working.  I was reflecting last night on some of the amazing things God has opened up before me simply because I took that one next step – that step that said no to fear and yes to obedience.  I was amazed at the bold things I have done that I would never have imagined myself doing before but now inspire me.

So, I am hooked, persuaded, convinced that it is for God to lead and for me to just take the next step.

I was talking with a family member the other day, musing about how difficult it is to be totally present to what is in front of us.  We were talking about the need to keep our minds sharp, doing different exercises that bring about new connections in the brain for when other ones become disabled or dead.  The allusion in this conversation was to Alzheimer’s, something we are facing as a family.  Somehow this led to us talking about people in general not being present to what is right before them and I made a comment about how many seem to live in the “world of almost”.  

Something  almost happened to them…or that almost happened and imagine what things would have been like if it had come about…or they almost accomplished something…or almost had an accident.  It seems we have a propensity to lean towards what might have been, or what should be, or what could be instead of facing the world head on – as if what is in front of us isn’t all that interesting or exciting.  We get our adrenaline rushes (and crashes) from the possibilities though few of them ever become reality. 

Or, when reality turns out differently than what we wanted it to be or planned it to be if it hadn’t been for … best articulated when we finish our “almost” with a “but this, or she or he…” , we point to something or someone beyond us as the hurdle that took us down.  It’s not our fault that what could have been, didn’t happen.

I remember distinctly when this all first settled within me.  I was involved in a phone conversation a few months back during which I heard a myriad of excited “almost” statements and it was like the veil was lifted in my own heart and mind as I realized how much I myself was caught in that world.  I don’t know what happens to you when that veil gets lifted; for me, my heart sinks into an unusual though familiar “knowing” and my mind becomes very clear – a crisp dawning of awareness. 

Like a camera lens focused on something off in the distance, what is up close gets blurry when you aren’t really focused on it.  When you are living in the “world of almost” instead of the “actual” it is easy to get excited about the possibilities (they seem so clear) instead of excited about reality.  But again, like the camera lens, if you adjust the objective of your sights and focus on what is in front of you, the willingness to look at things (situations or people) differently turns what was mundane (or difficult or daunting or whatever….) into something less so, and the almost into inconsequential speculation that has little influence or attraction.

I have decided to limit the use of the word “almost” in my vocabulary, and simply speak “what is”.  It has forced me to be more tuned in to what is happening in front of me, and even more so, within me.  It has forced me to speak in objective statements, rather than swimming in ambiguities and speculations.  It has forced me to own what I do and say without making excuses or hoping for something other than the “actual”.

I have lost a chunk of my idealism and become rather pragmatic, even somewhat jaded in this move.  Some of my capacity to dream and believe for things beyond what is, has taken some hard hits over the last year and I am a little less inclined to believe in what clearly isn’t happening; I am not so quick right now to open up to possibilities. 

I know that we live in a world that is not as it should be…as it will be some day.  My belief that it can be more now than what it is if we want it to be has been knocked around by the awareness that many really don’t want it to be more.  We prefer to live in the “world of almost” where we can have the excitement without true engagement, and most certainly without cost – especially to our pride.

Yet, at the same time, my move toward the more pragmatic, to focus on the “what is” may in fact be just what is needed for the ideal to happen.  For until we face reality consistently, we will ever look beyond ourselves to the things or people who we want to believe made the possibilities only “almost” instead of “actual”; never owning that we ourselves laid out the hurdles that took us and others down; never discovering what really could have been even in a world that is not as it should be.

A colleague came into my office today and stared at the posters hanging high up on my wall – motivational posters.  Every now and then I look up at them and they are just what I need to look back down at the task in front of me and dig in with renewed effort.  He then persuaded me to go to a website for demotivation.  We laughed together at some of the “posters” that came up, telling it like it is.  He preferred these over mine he said; he didn’t like being persuaded to move in a particular direction away from what was in his face.  Rather, he preferred naming that reality…calling it what it was…laughing at the inane truth of his circumstances.  From there he could move to make changes.

For example, I have a poster that says, “NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, EVER GIVE UP.”

He showed me a poster that says, “Give Up.  At some point hanging in there makes you look like an even bigger loser.”

I have a poster that says, “It takes courage to push yourself to places that you have never been before…to test your limits…to break through barriers.”

He showed me a poster that says, “Fear.  Until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore, you will not know the terror of being forever lost at sea.”

I have a poster that says, “It’s all about trying.”

He showed me a poster that says, “Humiliation.  The harder you try the dumber you look.”

Mmmm…

I went back to the website after he left and read them all and laughed at a bunch of them – they were a great comedic commentary on some aspects of life.  Some of them I had no use for – they were just downright cynical.  But some of them, as ridiculous as they seemed to me, also soon found their place with me.  Sometimes you do need to give up.  Sometimes you do need to let your fears stop you in your tracks – they might keep you from doing something irrevocably stupid.  Sometimes you need to recognize you are humiliating yourself and stop trying so hard to accomplish what clearly isn’t going to happen.

I won’t add these demotivating posters to my wall.  For the most part, I am helped by words that call me beyond what I can see or presently do.  I tend to pull back to safer territory a little too quickly, wanting to stick with the familiar and with what I know I can do because I’ve done it before.  Sometimes I need that nudge that moves me beyond my comfort zones to where I can discover I have not yet reached the limits of my capacity.

But there are also times during which I tend to bite off more than I can chew, or to believe for things that are the ideal and really should happen but are too far beyond reality right now.   I will remember these posters at those times…when I need my vision or efforts aligned a little closer to the boundaries laid out for me so as to not end up denying reality and being found a fool unnecessarily.

In my last post I wrote of my friend, “aunt” Leora.  The next day after my post, Leora suffered the first of many mini strokes and finally died one week later, early in the morning.  I saw her just twelve hours before, in the hospital.  She still had a sparkle in her eye and the spunky attitude I had always known of her.  But the effects of the strokes were noticeable. Her speech was laboured and at times she found it difficult to enunciate.  She was hungry – the strokes had made it impossible for her to swallow and she didn’t want a feeding tube.  She was weak, her heart in advanced stages of disease and failure.  At times she was a little disoriented but she never lost track of who she was with.  She was also in love with her new groom, Lou, who doted on her with tenderness and at times tears. 

My husband was asked to be one of the pallbearers at her funeral, and we hosted the reception in our home afterward.  A small gathering of a few close friends and family.  In the days since, we have helped Lou figure out what to do with some of Leora’s possessions.  He asked us to take a number of items, citing that Leora had often spoken of me and he was certain she would be glad for me to have them.  It has been a tough journey for this gentle man; he has grieved that he has buried too many people for his liking.  It seems he is called to accompany many through their final days, whether young or old.  It is indeed a difficult role.  I have sought to encourage him to consider that God is with him in all of this, having entrusted him with a precious calling, and that He himself is accompanying Lou, inviting him to know Him in ways beyond his imagination.

Leora’s passing has also been a bit of a coming of age for me.  She was the last to live of many who had taken me in as a child, sometimes for weeks at a time.  I sense in quiet times with God that it is time for me to stand fully on my own, to take my place in a long line of others who had shown me in the way they cared for and walked with me, how to now turn around and do the same.  The baton is being passed and I must take a good hold of it, and run the next leg of the race well as a thank you to God and to those whom God gave to keep me in the race at all.

Mmm…I smile, knowing there is a great cloud of witnesses including Leora, cheering me on until the day when I too pass on the baton and then join them.  I pray that I will have the grace to indeed live well, offer myself generously and with the same love, compassion and respect shown to me.

Are you sitting down?  This was a question a friend asked me the other day over the phone.  My 99 year old friend.  I always called her Aunt Leora even though she isn’t really my aunt.  She and my “uncle” Henry (who died a number of years ago) played a significant role in my early days.  I would often stay with them, sometimes for weeks at a time.  Leora and Henry did that a lot with a lot of kids.  When family wasn’t what it was supposed to be, they filled in the gaps, loving generously, and giving ample space for wounded hearts to experience peace and grace, and to discover the truth of who they were.  Leora has often told me – “I understood you – others didn’t but I did. I loved you like you were my own and would have you as my own anyday.”  My first car was the car she had driven for years but it was really too big for her so I ended up with it (proved to be too big for me, too!)

The pieces of life that were formed in those many times with Aunt Leora and Uncle Henry didn’t all come together until I was much older.  I never forgot this amazing couple even as our paths diverged for a lengthy season.  I aspired to be like them, though I doubt I will ever fill their shoes.  

Now, years later, I have been reunited with Leora.  I have had some wonderful conversations with her.  If she’s four feet tall and 80 pounds, I would be surprised – not too much to her physically.  But measuring her by her spunk…and her faith?  She is a giant.  She still cleans her own apartment, and lives half the year in Florida and the other half 10 minutes away from me.  She used to drive herself to Florida but four years ago she rolled her car.  To hear her tell the story you would think she was on a grand adventure that was no big deal, until she admits how terrified she was while waiting to be rescued from her upside-down position.

She never quite got over that accident.  She sustained some abdominal injuries that get aggravated every now and then.  So when she asked if I was sitting down, my first thought was that she was going to tell me something more serious had developed.  She is 99 after all.  The body gives out eventually. 

Are you sitting down? 

Yes, I’m sitting down. 

Really?

Yes. 

Okay, well here it goes – I got married! 

Initial silence and then I burst out laughing.  Way to go girl!  When?

This summer – August 27.  You approve?  I’m mean, I’m not too old to want somebody to love me and take care of me am I? 

No, you are not too old and any one who loves you should be celebrating this! 

Not everyone is – some are quite upset actually. 

I’m not upset.  I love it.  You do what you love to do and don’t let anyone stop you.  Who is he?

She went on to tell me the rest of the story.  After I got off the phone, I was caught in the wonder and witness of God, and shared the story with my family.  That’s how I want to live my life…full to the end, doing what I love to do regardless of what others think…celebrating life one day at a time with everything I have.  I may not live to 99…whatever the number of the rest of my days, may I live them with the love, generosity, joy and spunk that my friend Aunt Leora has lived hers.