Just Knowing I Can

January 24, 2023

Beloved:
          If I’m quiet on the inside and patient on the outside, I know what to do when the time comes to do it.  I’m talking about the hard things:  hard conversations, hard decisions, steps in a particular direction.  But – and this is a very big but (as a preacher once said in a sermon, sending my kids into giggle fits) – the quiet and the patience are usually excruciating, excruciatingly slow . . . and, also, hidden.  Hidden behind the prayers or the rest or the counsel necessary for the revelation required.
          Patient friends are a godsend, let me tell ya.  Friends who come sit with me and go for walks with me and Birdy.  Friends who drop off soup or invite me out to Sunday lunch.  They tote my stuff and haul away oceans of cardboard, not because I can’t but so I won’t have to think about it.  They are how I make it through these days.
          Who we are to each other is how we all make it through whatever each day brings, amen?  Just knowing I CAN call a friend is enough sometimes, without ever actually calling.  That’s trust.  Knowing they will come if I need them gives me the strength to carry on a little longer.
          There are no words for saying thank-you for this lovingkindness, only prayers of gratitude for their lives and for the faith within and between us.  I am not glad for this season of my life, but I am ever-so-grateful for how loved I am discovering myself to be.  It is carrying me in ways for which I have no words, other than those Paul wrote to his beloved church at Philippi:  Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  I thank my God for every remembrance of you. (1:2-3)

~peace & prayers, 
pastor annette