Silly ladies

My heart is too full for words. After four days with clergywomen from across the Southeast -- celebrating milestones, walking through the painful early steps and acknowledging the challenges yet ahead-- flooded my heart with memories, hope and determination. One lunch meeting stood above all the high moments. In the course of meeting with sisters across conferences, I learned that a dear friend in the North Georgia Conference -- a daughter in ministry--had been brutally attacked on February 26. By any measure, she is a treasure--a ball of life and a heart as big as the world. She is a walking John 3:16 -- meeting people where they are, welcoming people of all nations and races with the overflowing love of Christ. Hearing the news that she had been attacked was incomprehensible to me. Sisters from yet another conference where we had all known each other arranged the lunch. Our precious friend shared about the attack and its gory details. She shared how help had come and how people across her city had reached out to her. She was realistic about her injuries but kept coming back to the way God had held her in a deep cocoon of peace. The best gift of all was that she was still herself in outlook and attitude and faith. Yes, she is recovering from one of life's most traumatic events. But she was feeling closer than ever to the love of God. I started and ended our lunch in tears that I could not hold back. But, as we were finishing, a young mother with a little boy about 2 years old stopped at our table. The young mother said, "He was fascinated by you because of your laughter. He looked up at me and said, 'Silly ladies!' I looked into that child's eyes and his mother's sweet heart and thought, "Dear friends, if you had any idea of the gruesome nature that was the core of this conversation, you wouldn't think about laughter. You don't seem to realize that you are talking to someone who has been headline news in your city for a horrible crime that was committed against her." And then I smiled at the gift of perspective we had been given. That little boy overheard the nature of our conversation. Obviously, his mother didn't hear any of the content. The content of our conversation would have frightened her. She heard the love -- love for each other based on a long history, the love of God, the gratitude in the midst of tragedy that my beloved friend repeatedly lifted up angle by angle. I was humble to the core of my soul that this amazing friend of mine....this beautiful daughter and servant of God had walked through this crushing experience with God so closely that others observed our sharing as joyful. "Count it nothing but joy" says the writer of James, "when you face trials of any kind...."(James 1:2) This has never been the easiest Bible verse to live. But I have seen a living witness to that joy beyond life's worst. I sat next to her on a booth over lunch this week. I saw first hand a living resurrection. And I will never be the same.