I
have memories of my own personal successes and failures. Lots of them. They bubble up in my daily experience and in
my nighttime dreams. This morning I
awoke mid dream, where I was a young mother who was in a strange city on
Christmas Eve, realizing I did not have gifts for my children’s Christmas
morning, so I found a pseudo-Toys R Us store that I kept open until midnight as
I shopped, with one child on my hip and another toddling under foot. My nephew Joseph was the store clerk, and
very amenable despite the late hour, I might add. I’ve been exhausted all
day. The memory of that phase of my
life, mixed with other odd dreamlike scenes and interchanges made waking up a
shock and a relief.
My most
solid memories are often infused with messages of a divine nature. I am usually unaware of the spiritual
significance until well after the experience. Sometimes, I fear, I never stop long enough to find such messages. Lord, forgive me. Maybe if I paused to reflect and learn, I
would not have to be given lessons over and over again.
Our
repeated experiences are not always chances for us to own lessons we have not
yet learned. Sometimes we are given the
opportunity to remember past successes, or past blessings. When blessings recur it is an opportunity to
offer thanks for the goodness that weaves like holy threads through the fabric
of our lives. Yay for God and His repeated blessings!
I
have lately been thinking of my family and their life experiences. I’ve been
thinking, in particular, about the faith necessary to take risks, and the value
of remembered success as my most treasured humans have moved forward in
faith. If confidence is remembered
success, then for my family, I have seen evidence of confidence being placed in
the hands of their Lord, who happens to also be my Lord, coupled with
confidence in themselves and those around them.
My
David has run for public office, and won. He has also run and lost. He has been nominated and received
appointments, and nominated and not received appointments. Through all of it, fittingly, he has retained the title of Honorable. He is willing
to risk for worthy causes.
Our
son John left a steady job, where he was successful, to help his friend Travis start
an events company called The Color Run. There were no guarantees, and it took a lot of faith and hard work and
profound personal investment not only from him but from his wife and
children.
Our
daughter Sarah started medical school pregnant, and finished medical school
pregnant, pushing through an extremely difficult and sometimes oppressive
residency program. In her most
vulnerable moments she took her little clan to Kansas City for four years. Her
husband, Dave, brought the two little ones to the hospital, sometimes at 2 am,
waiting in the lobby sometimes for hours because their mamma ached to see her
kids. All this for five minutes of
interaction.
The
night before our Kate left to start an 18 month church mission to Hong Kong, we
were both so sick we had to sit up all night with coughing fits. We sat in the same room through the dark night. I remember looking into the shadows over at her on the couch, curled into a down comforter, her tears falling on the pillow propped beside her head. I too wept, thinking of this
girl, whose tender heart and natural introversion made it an almost
unbelievable prospect to leave the safety of home to travel halfway around the
world, preaching a Christian religion to non-believers, and not return home for a year and a half. Right now, ten years later, she stands at the
water’s edge, so to speak, asking the Lord to lead her through unknown waters.
And
I remember sobbing in the driveway as our Annie and her little family drove
off to live in Spokane…this girl who loves home more than life itself. All
these people, of my heart and my blood, went forward in faith, not knowing
until their feet were wet if they would be successful in the journey.
The
prophet Joshua stood at the water’s edge once.
Forty years after Moses raised his arms and parted the waters of the Red Sea, allowing the Jews to pass over to freedom. Though they personally walked through a
miracle, they soon forgot their God, and were required to wander in the
wilderness one full generation, until their children, now grown, stood at the
edge of the River Jordan. These waters
were not parted exactly as they had been for Moses. But the people remembered the tale, and when
Joshua told them to enter the water with their sacred Arc of the Covenant
balanced on their shoulders, it was
faith that led them forward. The miracle
only came after they got their feet wet.
My
HOPE this day is to remember that sometimes the waters part before we make our
move. But sometimes we need to listen
with holy ears, carry the weight of our faith on our weary shoulders, and walk
into the waters. Then let us watch the arm of God reveal itself.
