Just over a week ago I took a road trip north to the lake country of Indiana. Our extended family has a lake cottage at Webster in Kosciousko County and Sharon's folks live on Koontz Lake in Marshall County.
On a ferociously hot Thursday afternoon I climbed in the Miata, kept the top up and the AC, and headed north. Just north of Indianapolis I stopped for fast food and put the top down. Turned off the AC. And listened to songs like "In the Still of the Night" and Jerry Butler's "For Your Precious Love."
As the air began to cool and the sun disappeared, I found myself thinking of my brother Eric. We were about two years apart in age. Close as two peas in a pod. Thick as thieves. You get the picture. We'd begin most days by strapping on our pretend six-shooters. (These were the days when Roy Rogers and Gene Autry were cowboy heroes to most young boys across the United States.)
On his 5th birthday Eric was being taken to the Hershey chocolate factory on an outing. The road was wet. The car slid. In those days before seatbelts and airbags his head tapped the dashboard and he was killed.
I heard, as my Dad drove me home from school, that Eric had been killed.
I've never gotten over his loss. The hole in my heart has never entirely healed.
So as I was driving north through Grant County, where he is buried in the Jefferson Township Cemetery, I found myself crying. Not heavily. Not enough to make it difficult to drive. But my eyes were wet. My heart ached. My world, you know, has never felt the same since that accident...since I lost him.
There has been a lot of talk lately about Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' "stages of death" (shock, denial, anger, etc.). People are now saying the stages she identifies make it look like some process you go through and then you are finished. You get a little certificate and then go on.
The truth is the work is never done. You never stop missing.
The Bible says the Lord is near to the broken-hearted. I find that a promise that keeps me going down the road...headed north.
Showing posts with label grief. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grief. Show all posts
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Saturday, June 25, 2011
The Sad Heart Says the Journey is Worth It
Every day I am in Bloomington I see evidence that God has me in the right place. Confirmation of the rightness of this setting for ministry is all around me.
And yet, at the same time, the advent of summer has meant the onset of a pretty deep level of grief. There are a variety of factors to that, I think. A bit further down the road from old friends is certainly a part of it. Another part of it has been discovery, the reality, that I can't throw my gear in the back of the Miata and be at either Koontz Lake or Lake Webster in an hour to water ski. We could bounce over and back during the week and on the weekends. Whether or not I was preaching. So the summer confirms the fact that something has changed.
A colleague and fellow pastor named Paulwatched me go through a pretty profound greiving process when I left New Haven, and he told me he didn't think -and I agreed with him- I could survive another "uprooting." I know that is pretty dramatic language. And I know we all go through levels of grief as we pick up and move to the land the Lord is giving us. I suppose in some ways I "attach" too strongly to people and a place. Maybe a product of being a wandering Aramean as a child. Only a few of us have picked up and moved after a pastoral tenure of 14+ years (actually close to 20) so maybe the length multiplies the level of dis-location.
There's not a thing anyone needs to do or say about all of this. And the quiet sadness of the grief doesn't mean for a minute that I am anything but delighted to be in this place and with the blessed people of The Open Door/First UMC.
I thought, though, I would share two things I read in Christian Century while at the Y today. Carol Zaleski talks about the impact Virgil's Aenid had on C.S. Lewis. The Roman epic shaped his understanding of vocation. Aeneas obeys his calling and in Lewis' translation he says he is being led far over "alien foam." He says, "The mind remains unshaken while the vain tears fall." He speaks of Trojan women caught "Twixt miserable longing for the present land/And the far realms that call them by the fates' command."
In a conversation with Tolkien Lewis talked about the adult work of vocation. It's helpful for me to look at the journey as an opportunity to grow up, to grow deeper into Christ, and to understand that sometimes we are "men with a vocation, men on whom a burden is laid."
Dorothy L. Sayers, after reading the Aenid, said, "The effect is one of immense costliness of a vocation combined with a complete conviction that it is worth it.." Zaleski observes that Lewis understood "the poetry of vocation."
Whatever I am feeling is nothing compared to the challenges and tests in the lives of others. It pales to nothing when compared to the challenges before our friend, Stan Buck, or the losses endured by those living in Alabama, the Sudan, or Syria. But I thought it might be something I could share with friends.
In her book The Long Goodbye: A Memoir, Meghan O'Rourke talks about going through her mother's losing battle with cancer. She writes this: "I kept thinking, 'I just want somewhere to put my grief.' I was imaging a vessel for it: a long, shallow, wooden bowl, irregularly shaped. I had the sense that if I could chant, or rend my clothes...I Could, in effect, create that vessle in the world." But there was no ritual and she says "without ritual, the only way to share a loss was to talk about it."
God is good. I am so blessed. The work Jesus has for me among these blessed people is joy. After worship or a conversation or a meeting I sometimes almost dance down the hall! And, yet, there is always the heart.
The sad heart says the journey is worth it! Maybe you understand.
And yet, at the same time, the advent of summer has meant the onset of a pretty deep level of grief. There are a variety of factors to that, I think. A bit further down the road from old friends is certainly a part of it. Another part of it has been discovery, the reality, that I can't throw my gear in the back of the Miata and be at either Koontz Lake or Lake Webster in an hour to water ski. We could bounce over and back during the week and on the weekends. Whether or not I was preaching. So the summer confirms the fact that something has changed.
A colleague and fellow pastor named Paulwatched me go through a pretty profound greiving process when I left New Haven, and he told me he didn't think -and I agreed with him- I could survive another "uprooting." I know that is pretty dramatic language. And I know we all go through levels of grief as we pick up and move to the land the Lord is giving us. I suppose in some ways I "attach" too strongly to people and a place. Maybe a product of being a wandering Aramean as a child. Only a few of us have picked up and moved after a pastoral tenure of 14+ years (actually close to 20) so maybe the length multiplies the level of dis-location.
There's not a thing anyone needs to do or say about all of this. And the quiet sadness of the grief doesn't mean for a minute that I am anything but delighted to be in this place and with the blessed people of The Open Door/First UMC.
I thought, though, I would share two things I read in Christian Century while at the Y today. Carol Zaleski talks about the impact Virgil's Aenid had on C.S. Lewis. The Roman epic shaped his understanding of vocation. Aeneas obeys his calling and in Lewis' translation he says he is being led far over "alien foam." He says, "The mind remains unshaken while the vain tears fall." He speaks of Trojan women caught "Twixt miserable longing for the present land/And the far realms that call them by the fates' command."
In a conversation with Tolkien Lewis talked about the adult work of vocation. It's helpful for me to look at the journey as an opportunity to grow up, to grow deeper into Christ, and to understand that sometimes we are "men with a vocation, men on whom a burden is laid."
Dorothy L. Sayers, after reading the Aenid, said, "The effect is one of immense costliness of a vocation combined with a complete conviction that it is worth it.." Zaleski observes that Lewis understood "the poetry of vocation."
Whatever I am feeling is nothing compared to the challenges and tests in the lives of others. It pales to nothing when compared to the challenges before our friend, Stan Buck, or the losses endured by those living in Alabama, the Sudan, or Syria. But I thought it might be something I could share with friends.
In her book The Long Goodbye: A Memoir, Meghan O'Rourke talks about going through her mother's losing battle with cancer. She writes this: "I kept thinking, 'I just want somewhere to put my grief.' I was imaging a vessel for it: a long, shallow, wooden bowl, irregularly shaped. I had the sense that if I could chant, or rend my clothes...I Could, in effect, create that vessle in the world." But there was no ritual and she says "without ritual, the only way to share a loss was to talk about it."
God is good. I am so blessed. The work Jesus has for me among these blessed people is joy. After worship or a conversation or a meeting I sometimes almost dance down the hall! And, yet, there is always the heart.
The sad heart says the journey is worth it! Maybe you understand.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Reclaiming Holy Ground.
Our extended family has had a cottage at Lake Webster for more than 70 years. I have memories of going to the beach there, on the grounds of the United Methodist camp site known as Epworth Forest, as a young boy. I learned how to row a boat at Lake Webster. I learned how to catch bluegill (and one spectacular bass) at Lake Webster. I remember spending evenings on the sternwheeler -the Dixie- that would circle the lake picking up passengers.
Since we were missionaries we moved all around the world, it seemed. We seemed to always be on the go. But we would always come back to the cottage at Lake Webster. Then, I grew up (okay...maybe I didn't grow up but I got to the point in life where people expect you to have a job!) and our family moved around. As the family of a United Methodist pastor does. But we always came back to the cottage at Lake Webster.
Ten years ago this past spring my Mom died of pancreatic cancer. Since then I haven't enjoyed going to Lake Webster because the cottage reminds me of her absence.
Now, though, our two granddaughters have decided they love going to Lake Webster. We've just spend three days with them. Ella walked with me on the pier, last night, after a sunset trip around the lake on the ski boat. Both Grandpa and her Mommy went skiing. Ella said to me, "I have had so much fun at the cottage!"
So now the cottage is a good place to go, for me. The girls and their presence have reclaimed this holy ground for me. Their love fills the place. My Mom's picture is still on the door of the fridge. I still sometimes stop, as I swing in the hammock in the front yard, and say, "Oh, Mom..." Bryan, our oldest son, reminded me today as we swam down at the beach how my Mom would wear a rubber swimming cap and swim laps back and forth across the swimming area.
I miss my Mom. But Ella and Olivia have reclaimed this holy ground for me. They have blessed it. They have sanctified it with their gracious -and sometimes very loud!- presence.
Since we were missionaries we moved all around the world, it seemed. We seemed to always be on the go. But we would always come back to the cottage at Lake Webster. Then, I grew up (okay...maybe I didn't grow up but I got to the point in life where people expect you to have a job!) and our family moved around. As the family of a United Methodist pastor does. But we always came back to the cottage at Lake Webster.
Ten years ago this past spring my Mom died of pancreatic cancer. Since then I haven't enjoyed going to Lake Webster because the cottage reminds me of her absence.
Now, though, our two granddaughters have decided they love going to Lake Webster. We've just spend three days with them. Ella walked with me on the pier, last night, after a sunset trip around the lake on the ski boat. Both Grandpa and her Mommy went skiing. Ella said to me, "I have had so much fun at the cottage!"
So now the cottage is a good place to go, for me. The girls and their presence have reclaimed this holy ground for me. Their love fills the place. My Mom's picture is still on the door of the fridge. I still sometimes stop, as I swing in the hammock in the front yard, and say, "Oh, Mom..." Bryan, our oldest son, reminded me today as we swam down at the beach how my Mom would wear a rubber swimming cap and swim laps back and forth across the swimming area.
I miss my Mom. But Ella and Olivia have reclaimed this holy ground for me. They have blessed it. They have sanctified it with their gracious -and sometimes very loud!- presence.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Lights in the Night.
Thursday evening we headed east on the toll road. One of the odd things about my life is that unless I spend time with our two granddaughters, I don't get a day off. So although we had seen the kids over Thanksgiving, we were headed towards Columbus, Ohio.
The sky was thick with dark clouds. The sunlight slipped sideways out of the world. I was sitting, doing some work, reading the paper, and thinking...as Sharon drove.
We took the toll road into Ohio, and then headed south on state highway #49. You miss Fort Wayne but the highway has twists and turns. Takes you through one small town after the other.
I was surprised to find myself delighted by the Christmas tree lights in the yards...and in the homes along the way. The night was very dark. The world was cold. And we would drive by these houses where the Christmas lights -especially the trees decorated with all white lights- seemed to be calling us all inside. Promising warmth. Home. Someplace where we could be ourselves.
A CD of Christmas music -by the Christian rock band 3rd Day- was playing. The lights... the homes...the music...all combined to produce all sorts of feelings and memories.
I found myself thinking of our church's work, right now, to become even more welcoming. To strangers and guests. So that people who are hungry for God, for truth, for grace, will feel like they are home when they walk through our doors. I thought about churches that are like those houses with no lights hung by the windows...churches that look cold and dark and lifeless. And I thought about how churches -and individuals- sends messages out to the world that their hearts are open.
And I thought about times when our family...is together. What it feels like to have everyone under the same roof. Sometimes there are tensions...challenges...but almost always it is so very good!
I thought about the Christmas in Belguim, when I was a boy, and my folks were thinking of adopting a young Belgian child. A boy. He came to the house for a visit. I can't remember his name or face. But for whatever reason my parents chose not to take that step.
I thought about my Mom. Sometimes, you know, there are moments when you miss someone so much you think your heart will burst. I was thinking about my Mom...who was wonderful and strange and passionate and distracted and always late and full of love for God. Then, as we stopped at a stoplight in a small Ohio town, I looked over at a store window. The owner had hung four old stockings in the window as a part of a Christmas decoration. One of the stockings
-a red one- happened to have the name Anita inscribed in large script. My Mom's name was Anita. I smiled. The light turned green and we began moving south, again.
The lights along the way make the darkness more than bearable, don't they?
Interesting how Jesus, John explains, was light coming into the darkness. And the darkness has not overcome it.
The sky was thick with dark clouds. The sunlight slipped sideways out of the world. I was sitting, doing some work, reading the paper, and thinking...as Sharon drove.
We took the toll road into Ohio, and then headed south on state highway #49. You miss Fort Wayne but the highway has twists and turns. Takes you through one small town after the other.
I was surprised to find myself delighted by the Christmas tree lights in the yards...and in the homes along the way. The night was very dark. The world was cold. And we would drive by these houses where the Christmas lights -especially the trees decorated with all white lights- seemed to be calling us all inside. Promising warmth. Home. Someplace where we could be ourselves.
A CD of Christmas music -by the Christian rock band 3rd Day- was playing. The lights... the homes...the music...all combined to produce all sorts of feelings and memories.
I found myself thinking of our church's work, right now, to become even more welcoming. To strangers and guests. So that people who are hungry for God, for truth, for grace, will feel like they are home when they walk through our doors. I thought about churches that are like those houses with no lights hung by the windows...churches that look cold and dark and lifeless. And I thought about how churches -and individuals- sends messages out to the world that their hearts are open.
And I thought about times when our family...is together. What it feels like to have everyone under the same roof. Sometimes there are tensions...challenges...but almost always it is so very good!
I thought about the Christmas in Belguim, when I was a boy, and my folks were thinking of adopting a young Belgian child. A boy. He came to the house for a visit. I can't remember his name or face. But for whatever reason my parents chose not to take that step.
I thought about my Mom. Sometimes, you know, there are moments when you miss someone so much you think your heart will burst. I was thinking about my Mom...who was wonderful and strange and passionate and distracted and always late and full of love for God. Then, as we stopped at a stoplight in a small Ohio town, I looked over at a store window. The owner had hung four old stockings in the window as a part of a Christmas decoration. One of the stockings
-a red one- happened to have the name Anita inscribed in large script. My Mom's name was Anita. I smiled. The light turned green and we began moving south, again.
The lights along the way make the darkness more than bearable, don't they?
Interesting how Jesus, John explains, was light coming into the darkness. And the darkness has not overcome it.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Rivers of Joy and Creeks of Sadness.
Overwhelming joy. Joy that, like some river which refuses to be contained, insists on spilling over and covering everything in sight.
That's sort of what life was like around our church this past weekend: overwhelming joy.
Things got started on Thursday afternoon and evening. We're adjacent to a public elementary school. Our congregation cares about those kids and their families. We do things like sponsoring the school's back-to-school cook out. We grill and serve the food...help direct foot traffic.
The students were having their Christmas/ holiday program in our church gymnasium/multi-purpose room Thursday night. We offer the school our facility. There's no cost. It is a great place for the program...the school doesn't have anything like it. In the afternoon the teachers walked them over to the gym...with its lighted Christmas tree and lights running the length of the stage. It was cool! Then, Thursday night nearly 1,000 students, parents and relatives filled our Trinity Life Center. Oh, man...
The flood of joy continued Saturday morning as we hosted "evaluation day" for our Upward Basketball program. It was a snowy, cold morning. Cars pulled up from 8:30 to 2:30, parents and their children came into the TLC, and you should have seen their faces! The kids could hear basketballs bouncing off the hardwood floor, and their faces lit up. Scores of volunteers from the church -men and women- were working with the kids. Last year we had about 140 children in the league...so far we have 287 signed up! In our first year of Upward Cheerleading we have more than 55 girls already registered. There was joy...and tons of sweaty little kids...everywhere you looked.
There was worship Saturday night and Sunday morning. All the services are places where the living Christ shows up, but Saturday night something special was going on. People were worshipping...the room was warm... the lights were beautiful. It was just right...
The river of joy continued into Sunday night as the children of Trinity put on their Christmas pageant in the TLC. They were awesome...parents and grandparents were nearly coming out of their chairs with pride and delight as the children sang their songs...delivered their lines.
It was almost too much! Sort of the way, when the family would get together, my Grandpa Owen would keep delivering more food to the table... long after you had eaten more than enough. So much joy...it left me beaming and almost exhausted.
And then there is the other side of life. I did something to my right hand late last summer while skiing at Hamilton Lake. The thing has gotten worse through the fall. Tingling and numbness...becoming more pronounced. So my family physician sent me to a hand specialist. During the morning's appointment (the hand will be as good as new after some minor surgery in January) the nurse asked for my medical history...my family history. I sat there answering her questions and suddenly I felt like weeping. Somehow that conversation tapped into an underground creek of sadness. Usually, I do pretty well getting along without the people I have loved who have gone to God's house. But sometimes I miss them... I really miss them. I studied the ceiling tiles, took a deep breath, and looked away from the nurse.
I regard it all as a gift from God. The rivers of joy and the creeks of sadness: I regard it all as a gift from God.
That's sort of what life was like around our church this past weekend: overwhelming joy.
Things got started on Thursday afternoon and evening. We're adjacent to a public elementary school. Our congregation cares about those kids and their families. We do things like sponsoring the school's back-to-school cook out. We grill and serve the food...help direct foot traffic.
The students were having their Christmas/ holiday program in our church gymnasium/multi-purpose room Thursday night. We offer the school our facility. There's no cost. It is a great place for the program...the school doesn't have anything like it. In the afternoon the teachers walked them over to the gym...with its lighted Christmas tree and lights running the length of the stage. It was cool! Then, Thursday night nearly 1,000 students, parents and relatives filled our Trinity Life Center. Oh, man...
The flood of joy continued Saturday morning as we hosted "evaluation day" for our Upward Basketball program. It was a snowy, cold morning. Cars pulled up from 8:30 to 2:30, parents and their children came into the TLC, and you should have seen their faces! The kids could hear basketballs bouncing off the hardwood floor, and their faces lit up. Scores of volunteers from the church -men and women- were working with the kids. Last year we had about 140 children in the league...so far we have 287 signed up! In our first year of Upward Cheerleading we have more than 55 girls already registered. There was joy...and tons of sweaty little kids...everywhere you looked.
There was worship Saturday night and Sunday morning. All the services are places where the living Christ shows up, but Saturday night something special was going on. People were worshipping...the room was warm... the lights were beautiful. It was just right...
The river of joy continued into Sunday night as the children of Trinity put on their Christmas pageant in the TLC. They were awesome...parents and grandparents were nearly coming out of their chairs with pride and delight as the children sang their songs...delivered their lines.
It was almost too much! Sort of the way, when the family would get together, my Grandpa Owen would keep delivering more food to the table... long after you had eaten more than enough. So much joy...it left me beaming and almost exhausted.
And then there is the other side of life. I did something to my right hand late last summer while skiing at Hamilton Lake. The thing has gotten worse through the fall. Tingling and numbness...becoming more pronounced. So my family physician sent me to a hand specialist. During the morning's appointment (the hand will be as good as new after some minor surgery in January) the nurse asked for my medical history...my family history. I sat there answering her questions and suddenly I felt like weeping. Somehow that conversation tapped into an underground creek of sadness. Usually, I do pretty well getting along without the people I have loved who have gone to God's house. But sometimes I miss them... I really miss them. I studied the ceiling tiles, took a deep breath, and looked away from the nurse.
I regard it all as a gift from God. The rivers of joy and the creeks of sadness: I regard it all as a gift from God.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Tracing the Source of Tears.
People come into our lives. People leave our lives.
I learned this at an early age. As missionaries our family moved around a lot. I went through first grade in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Second and third grade were in Brussels, Belguim. Fourth and fifth grade were in a public school off 16th street/Emerson on the east side of Indianapolis. I remember, the Friday afternoon before Easter break, saying goodbye to my classmates. Walking my "girl friend" to the corner. We had all been handed a bag of popcorn by our teacher as a "spring break" treat. I handed my bag of popcorn to the girl. She walked straight at the light and I turned right. So I finished 5th grade in Nome, Alaska. And that is where I stayed until the summer before my sophomore year in high school. Then, it was south to the Midwest...to Walkerton, Indiana. The last three years of high school were there.
People come and people go.
There have been other losses. My Dad died on the mission field, in Africa. Before I was four year's old. My brother, Eric, was killed in a car accident on his 5th birthday when I was off at 1st grade. More drama and loss than you'd expect to find in a life so young, right?
So Wednesday evening of this past week I am meeting with lay leaders. They ask me how I am doing...how the church is doing. I tell them. I also tell them I am going -in just a few minutes- to be presenting a Bible to a young boy named Taylor. Other children will get their Bibles on Sunday morning later in October, but I'll be walking over into the church gym in a few minutes and handing Taylor his Bible.
A friend asks, "Are you giving him his Bible tonight because he is moving away with his Dad?"
Suddenly, I can't speak. My eyes fill with tears. I nod. Taylor is a great young young man. He refers to me as "Sermon Mark." Just a few weeks ago he led our 9:15 congregation in the Lord's Prayer. The tears are a puzzle... I wipe them away and go present the Bible. It is a good moment. I tell Taylor God is good and God is going to give him a whole group of new friends. "I know it!" he says in a matter-of-fact way.
I walk out the door. Express to a friend my puzzlement over my tears. She says, "Well, you've had a lot of people walk out of your life. Those losses build up and you don't want to see someone else you love leave."
In worship today I tell the story of Taylor...the Bible...my tears. After our last service of the morning the sanctuary is nearly empty. Children are playing in the worship area. Adults are chatting. Tech people are shutting down the computers and sound system.
A friend named Chris comes up to me. We hug and watch his young grandson crawl around the communion rail. "I think I know what your tears were about," he says. I wait. "You were crying for yourself. You remembered the young boy who moved so much...all the times you had to adjust...and you know the tough work ahead of Taylor."
"Never occurred to me," I think to myself. Really...never thought of that. We stand there quietly. "The truth is," he adds, "many of the tears we cry we cry for ourselves." I don't know quite to say...but it sure feels like Jesus has tip-toed up behind me, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, "I think I know what those tears were about."
In Psalm 34 the psalmist says (:18, TNIV), "The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Funny how God shows up, sometimes, when the sanctuary has emptied out. And you are nearly alone...but not quite. A friend is standing there...beside you.
I learned this at an early age. As missionaries our family moved around a lot. I went through first grade in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Second and third grade were in Brussels, Belguim. Fourth and fifth grade were in a public school off 16th street/Emerson on the east side of Indianapolis. I remember, the Friday afternoon before Easter break, saying goodbye to my classmates. Walking my "girl friend" to the corner. We had all been handed a bag of popcorn by our teacher as a "spring break" treat. I handed my bag of popcorn to the girl. She walked straight at the light and I turned right. So I finished 5th grade in Nome, Alaska. And that is where I stayed until the summer before my sophomore year in high school. Then, it was south to the Midwest...to Walkerton, Indiana. The last three years of high school were there.
People come and people go.
There have been other losses. My Dad died on the mission field, in Africa. Before I was four year's old. My brother, Eric, was killed in a car accident on his 5th birthday when I was off at 1st grade. More drama and loss than you'd expect to find in a life so young, right?
So Wednesday evening of this past week I am meeting with lay leaders. They ask me how I am doing...how the church is doing. I tell them. I also tell them I am going -in just a few minutes- to be presenting a Bible to a young boy named Taylor. Other children will get their Bibles on Sunday morning later in October, but I'll be walking over into the church gym in a few minutes and handing Taylor his Bible.
A friend asks, "Are you giving him his Bible tonight because he is moving away with his Dad?"
Suddenly, I can't speak. My eyes fill with tears. I nod. Taylor is a great young young man. He refers to me as "Sermon Mark." Just a few weeks ago he led our 9:15 congregation in the Lord's Prayer. The tears are a puzzle... I wipe them away and go present the Bible. It is a good moment. I tell Taylor God is good and God is going to give him a whole group of new friends. "I know it!" he says in a matter-of-fact way.
I walk out the door. Express to a friend my puzzlement over my tears. She says, "Well, you've had a lot of people walk out of your life. Those losses build up and you don't want to see someone else you love leave."
In worship today I tell the story of Taylor...the Bible...my tears. After our last service of the morning the sanctuary is nearly empty. Children are playing in the worship area. Adults are chatting. Tech people are shutting down the computers and sound system.
A friend named Chris comes up to me. We hug and watch his young grandson crawl around the communion rail. "I think I know what your tears were about," he says. I wait. "You were crying for yourself. You remembered the young boy who moved so much...all the times you had to adjust...and you know the tough work ahead of Taylor."
"Never occurred to me," I think to myself. Really...never thought of that. We stand there quietly. "The truth is," he adds, "many of the tears we cry we cry for ourselves." I don't know quite to say...but it sure feels like Jesus has tip-toed up behind me, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, "I think I know what those tears were about."
In Psalm 34 the psalmist says (:18, TNIV), "The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Funny how God shows up, sometimes, when the sanctuary has emptied out. And you are nearly alone...but not quite. A friend is standing there...beside you.
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