On Friday mornings, the kids and I always go to Lady Jane's house. The kids play with toys she's collected over the years, she and I have coffee, and we catch up on her week and kids and grandkids and great grandkids. But I've been wanting to go visit another older friend from our church, and today I picked up Lady Jane (and her toys), and we headed to Ms. Faye's house instead.
After checking with one another that they had their hearing aids IN and both took their coffee black, Ms. Faye and Ms. Lady Jane took off. The kids whispered their games so our friends could hear one another, and I had the highlight of my week. They were born a year apart...1933 and 1934. They were married a year apart, at 18 and 19 years old. Their beloved husbands died one year apart, 67 and 68 years of marriage.
These two women are ALWAYS sweet and always pleasant women in my life, but seeing them speak the same language and understand each other's lives like they did was just RICH. Ben and Nora listened as they told stories of their simple wedding days, of seasons in their lives when their husbands made $1 an hour or were called off to war, of seasons of incredible hardship that they persevered through. They listened with me as these dear women spoke of the deaths of their husbands, and fears that they would never smile again...which seemed quite impossible for me to image as their joy has been such a testimony to me all our friendships long.
They talked about change without complaining, talking about shifts in church music without being bitter, talked about children and dreams and Jesus. Ms. Faye said that every time she can't get a jar open, can't reach something on the top shelf, or can't get something to work, she walks out to her front walk and stands there until one her neighbors walks by or drives by (Ms. Faye is almost completely blind.) "Then I tell them what I need and never ONCE has one of my needs been unmet by the Good Lord."
I felt, sitting on the couch and listening to the two of them share and delight in their new found friendship, like I would never want to complain again. What faithfulness they have lived through and exemplified, and what a testimony to be in pain and alone and almost deaf and almost blind and have almost all your friends and family gone ahead...and to point to His goodness again and again. I am very rich to have such women in my life, and bringing them together today with my littles was the best part of my month.
Make time for the richest things. I LOVE bringing people together!
Sofie and Lily have been at Motion conference this week in Birmingham with 16,000 YOUTH...and I'm praying that the Lord is using it to draw them deeper and more abandoned to Him.
Things at church have truly been picking up...both with lots of new people and wanting to love them well, and also with lots of surgeries and illnesses and prayer needs. I LOVE being a pastor's wife. In many ways, I have been for a very long time. The staff and students at Emmaus in Haiti used to be our people-sheep...and I loved that. I had to work hard to find people when Matt was at WBS, but loved the precious church friends and neighbors the Lord brought.
But having a congregation of clear calling...these are the people to pour out for, to come alongside, to love well and to point to Jesus...that is a sweet gift.
There are hard parts every pastor's wife understands that I didn't as much at Emmaus. When someone is unkind...when someone is disgruntled...when anything and everything can be easily put on the pastor...when spiritual warfare is heavy...when one of the people you are living to die for hurts your husband greatly and you alone see all the behind the scenes...man. I have had to face my own convictions again and again. Am I going to TRULY forgive? Am I going to TRULY love? Am I going to carry this cross, though it bleeds me? Am I going to love HIS way, HIS people? Actually living that OUT has been one of the hardest works of my life, and the most growing.
But getting to cook for and come alongside the hurting, darkest nights? What a sacred privilege. Getting to point to Jesus, what a GIFT full-time job. Getting to walk with people in the babies and the surgeries and the praying and the pains...getting to pray with people in the stuck places, in the quiet places, in the excruciating places...oh man. Getting to stand in the gap alongside brothers and sisters? These have been my favorite narrow paths.
A few weeks ago, I was talking to the Lord on a porch swing at the end of a really sweet week about some "I wish that..." and "I should have..." and "It would have been better ifs".
I was talking to Him, but not really paying attention to Him (ever been there?)...venting to Him but not really listening.
Sweet and firm, He absolutely interrupted me in the beginning of my rant. I sensed His interruption so clearly my foot dropped to the floor stopping the swing.
Just Thank Me for this Good Gift.
My "coulda, shoulda, wouldas" stopped. Yes, Sir.
Thank you for this Good Gift.
And the more I repeated it, the more His suggested prayer reshaped my whole perspective of the week.
This WAS a Good Gift. The Lord gave this to me.
He loves me and gives me good gifts.
It does not have to be perfect, in my definition, to BE a good gift.
The more I thanked Him for His Good Gift of that week and those relationships and those challenges...the more thankful I was. And the more I saw the truth.
Hearing my sweet 90+ year old friends echoing that prayer today reminded me that it wasn't just His suggested prayer : it's how He wants me to LIVE.
They are alone and grieved and their bodies are so frail. And they daily live thanksgiving over His good gifts, and see the hardships and the heartbreaks and the joys of their lives as GOOD Gifts from the Lord.
Being a pastor's wife with many kids in Jackson, Mississippi would not have been my plan at 40. And the more I just thank Him for this good gift...the more it IS.
Whatever you're walking through today...trust Him enough to thank Him for this good gift....it might just begin to genuinely change how you see. (And go have coffee with a friend who is NOTHING like you!)