I'm peeved.
And in a way, I really don't have a right to be.
But I am.
Want to know why?
A sad story and a broken promise.
A few moments ago, my neighbor stopped by. A while back she had given a star shaped votive holder to me and saw it glowing in the window. She needed to talk. The star was her "in."
When she knocked, I was just getting ready to talk to God about the laundry list of needs I know of around me. I have a big recycled piece of post it chart paper (covers 3/5 of my door) scribbled with prayer needs. I was getting to work…down to bid'ness when she rapped her distinctive knock.
So, I crawled up, moved the bag o'cat litter (that I forgot to take to the garbage) away from her line of sight and hopped outside with cocoa mug in hand (the green one that Madi painted). Inside, I was annoyed…I HAD PRAYING TO DO! Geez lady.
She stopped by to ask if she could give me something and then borrow something. I wish she wouldn't give me stuff, but I realize it's her love language, so I've been trying to find quirky things she can use and enjoy in return. She chatted a bit as her little fluffy dustbuster dog pulled towards the bushes. Finally, I saw it.
Her drooped shoulders, tornado swept hair, crumply exterior, and trying-to-be-brave furtive looks. This is a woman who is well acquainted with a bygone era of 5th Avenue wealth and salons who lives modestly – though colorfully – in a North Georgia one room apartment. She usually looks like she's up for a party. Not today. And I'm so thankful God got a hold of my attention – off of myself and on to her – Himself – where it belonged. I asked her why she looked like she had the world on her shoulders.
She told me that she was excited that her youngest was finding a better place to live and that one of the other three girls had stepped in to be a big sister and help her find a new home. I knew that this youngest had allowed a friend to stay with her in a beautiful home and he had eventually squeezed her out with crazy, illegal behavior, and violent friends. (sigh.)
Then she told me that one of her daughters has finally gotten her driver's license…twenty+ years after she was first able and how another daughter's divorce was progressing. (double sigh.)
And then she told me this:
that she and a friend had planned an outing today – something about a funeral, but first needed to wait for someone to pick up a car from the friend's house. It turns out that they were waiting on a woman who's son had just committed suicide. He was young and stunning and left a note for his mom.
He was gay and the church ladies were pissed. So he found a way out.
And now they were really pissed and righteous and telling her where he was headed – to hell (and I'm guessing it was DOUBLE-HELL because he was both gay and committed suicide) and telling her what she could of and should have done.
Church ladies. Ugh.
This is why I've avoided them for years. Perfect on the outside with ears next to God's mouth and ready judgement towards everything that they can't control or understand. Rotting on the inside. I know the type. I've been there.
So afraid that tragedy is going to jump over like a bad and virulent virus so you call something truth that may be a lie and you beat up the broken in the process.
But my friend…she knew. She knows that a tragedy is a tragedy and that the woman just needed to be heard – no platitudes, no verses, no "God only takes his favorites" bullshit that we feed each other out of our own fear of the mystery of God and the maybes in our own life.
My broken friend knew just what to do and just what to say. She sat out on a picnic table in the North Georgia sunshine of late fall and listened. And she wept with the weeping and probably held a hand. My friend kept her promise to be known by love where so many of us break this promise as we make it on Sunday.
We are quick to judge.
Slow to listen.
Slow to love.
We bear the name of Christ as a promise to a broken world that we will participate with him in putting things to right. Or listening on a park bench to a broken and brave friend. Or bringing by extra tissues and tp because Lord knows that family is going to need it with all the company. Instead of raining down blessing and peace, we reign down judgement and jackassary. We are broken. God hems us in. Without him, our lives, and stories, and guts, and tears would be splattered on that park bench too.
And maybe sometimes even with him – they are…splattered.
Let's keep the promise to love, shall we? Can we encourage one another while today is still called today? Are we too freakin' busy "praying" to humbly open the door without a pinched expression and let the knocking world in?
It's time to repent – to do a 180. And we can't do it on our own. Our pride, fear, fixitness, and more gets in the way. We need a God who understands we are dust who still bothered to send his one and only son to die so that we might have life. Or…so that we might have love enough to embrace the pain of a woman who has lost her gay son by his own hand.
I guess now is time to get down to bid'ness and to pray for forgiveness and love-overflowing and pouring out to the world at our door.
Selah.
