What really matters.

 I had a really awesome day today.  While I feel somewhat guilty saying that - because Kim had a fairly crappy day today Ataxia-wise - mine was awesome.  I spent the morning with my friend Ady. Ady and I meet every couple of weeks on a Saturday or Sunday morning and just talk life.  We entered into this as a “mentoring” relationship but in all truthfulness I’m fairly certain that I get much more out of the relationship than she does.  We talk life and struggles and how we see God working and how we don’t see God working and get frustrated or angry or confused and then come back a few weeks later with beautiful insight and new found faith and hope.

  Today what stuck with me was our conversation about the work and action of God, the Holy Spirit and Jesus himself in the here and now.  I shared how I just don’t get people who hang their hat on the whole, “my hope is in heaven where there will be no more pain and no more tears” line.  Don’t get me wrong, I believe that life after this one will be amazing living in the presence of Christ himself where there won’t be all this BS that we have to put up with here, but I’m sorry, I LIVE IN THIS WORLD - NOT THAT ONE.  While it’s a beautiful thing to look forward to in the future, I need the kingdom of God that’s at work right here and right now and I truly believe it exists and is very, very real.  If I didn’t I couldn’t do this whole pastoring song and dance.

  I shared with Ady that one of the main reasons I went into ministry was because I couldn’t take all the churchy platitudes that give wonderful lip service to the saving power of God but you never hear about the real-life work and presence of God in the here and now.  Or just have nice neat and tidy answers for everything under the sun. I can’t deal with that - and I know lots of people who haven’t yet experienced the real-life presence of Jesus who can’t deal with it either.  Sorry, but my feet are firmly planted in the present-day here and now of this microwave world that wants everything now and needs to see to believe (yet yearns for the mystery and mystical as well).  Promises of the future and scripture-quoting don’t cut it and truthfully can really piss me off sometimes.

  I’m so grateful that I was gifted a faith that has really never doubted the existence of God.  That’s always been a given for me.  But while I always knew God was real and God was there, I didn’t always see evidence of his existence or even God’s presence, and I definitely didn’t always understand or even agree with the way he chose to go about things, the circumstances God allowed to happen, the people God allowed to return to him much earlier than I would have chosen.  This gift has strengthened me to move forward in faith when I had no logical or rational reason to do so.  (Thank you Jesus that you don’t work by logic or rationality either!)

  This takes me to the second part of my day (after returning from my time with Ady and spending most of the afternoon in leisurely reading) my friends Dave and Karen came and picked me and my two pans of brownies up and we went to the Four Winds Coffee Shop where we served a dinner of chili, salad, chips and a brownie to 50+ college students who came to pick up a free meal, this week prepared and handed out by our small group.  Dave and Karen then took me out for an early birthday dinner and we continued my discussion from this morning recounting the ways we have witnessed the kingdom of God at work in THIS world and experienced and grace and peace of his presence in numerous difficult times and through the loss of amazing people (Steve Gammill, one of many).  We have a long history together and our friendship is one that has spanned over thirty years.  We’ve grown in Christ together through Bible study groups sharing losses and struggles helping each other, growing in knowledge and trying to figure out how to live this life that God desires for us (and sometimes failing miserably).  We’ve each been on both the receiving end and the giving end throughout our friendship and it’s a beautiful dance of seeing God work in and through and amidst all we’ve lived both independently and together in community.  I don’t know what I would do without their love and friendship.  We all realize how rare it is, this kind of intimacy and interdependent friendship that comes from journeying together.  It’s a precious gift.

  Days like today help me to make it through days and sometimes weeks of life that can be hard, more alone than together, and full of more giving than receiving. Days like today get me re-centered and I’m reminded that “it’s not about me,” and that’s ok and as it should be.  Days like today help me remember that God really does know what he’s doing and that I can trust him - particularly when I can’t see or don’t understand what’s going on or what’s next.  Days like today give me hope, like the little leaves of the grape hyacinths pushing their way up through the rocky, hard dirt next the the driveway that should in no way have survived in the nutrient and moisture-lacking clay they are planted in.  That kind of hope and tenacity and resilience are what days like today give me.  

  Thank you God for sending me these people.  People I can be who I am with.  People who can be who they are with me.  People who point me to You and remind me that life is so much more than one day and yet all about one day.  Tomorrow will probably be different and possibly more difficult or challenging, but today I am thankful and seeing Your face, Lord.  I’ll take it. 

  Thanks for reading.  ~Sally