The family is shrinking these days; we came back with only our youngest two of six; the two who were born and baptized in this place; they tower over me now.
I wonder if they have a sense of coming home in their bones, like I do:
“The very spot where grew the bread that formed my bones, I see. How strange, old field, on thee to tread, and feel I’m part of thee.” Abraham Lincoln
but mostly they are thinking “who are all these people that know my name and keep talking about me as if I were just a baby yesterday?”
This is where it all started, for them
Where they were fearfully wonderfully made
nourished by Indiana harvest,
carried helpless to the the font and bathed in the Word
called by name and welcomed into the Family
These two boys would move three times, live in three more states before they graduated high school.
And yet they would hear these same words, this same gospel
spoken over them and to them in each place.
God’s faithfulness holds.
and today, they are still standing in it
back here, where it all started.
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I see us, fresh out of seminary
when it was still weird to hear him called “Pastor Cook.”
with no idea how much we didnt know
scanning the playground while talking, counting children,
hoping they wouldn’t break anything or knock anyone over
I see my boys in their small bodies running laps around the parsonage
and my little girls playing volleyball, swinging on monkey bars, hosting sleepovers
it is good to visit where others remember that, too, and marvel with me at how they all have grown
I didnt know how quickly we would all grow, how many paths would part
and how much everything would get rearranged
I can still feel the feel of my face in the carpet
on a weekday alone in the sanctuary, sobbing over her seizures
I didn't know God would heal her (eventually) and take care of us so specifically along the way, through His people
and that time our dog got into the school and my face burned with embarrassment
as it would every time my mask of “I have it together” slipped
which turned out to be often.
(i wish i had let it slip sooner and more completely
I was trying to act like such a big girl;
with the grace of God around above under and before me
I didn't know how safe I really was.)
and really, I didn’t know
how to serve well without playing God
how to accept my own limits
how to love well and receive well
and I didn’t know what to do with the hard parts,
the rifts and the wounds
and now God has now healed many of them
May He keep going, and heal all the rest. (I think He will.)
the best part is; God knew
all the things I didn’t know
and He took our stumbling efforts and added His touch
and He worked for good even when it felt bad
and I can see that a little better now
and this week He let me see my husband as just one pastor in a long train
and the church as she has been there,
solid, imperfect, alive,
roots planted by the River of Life for 185 years
and the grace of God before and above and around and after
the Word of God as the lifeblood flowing through.
And even as I have a sense of our family shrinking
as we launch children left and right;
it is true at the same time that our family is enormous,
and growing.
“How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of Hosts!” Ps 84:1
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