Welcome back! Oh, wait a minute, ‘tis I who’s been out of touch since mid-July – yikes!
My schedule has undergone a pretty drastic change since business has picked up at my house. Daughter Weslee and three boys now live with me. But my house is WAY too big for just me so that part is working out just fine. Wes and Chris are going through a divorce; they are both doing a hard thing well. In His perfect world, I doubt God intended for there to be divorce, nor in our imperfect world did Wes, Chris, his family, or ours intend it. But under the circumstances, it may well be the best thing for all long-term. It is not mine to approve, disapprove, or judge. It is what it is and we are looking forward not back while making the best of Plan B. (This is not our first experience with Plan B.)
Carolyn, clearly one of the best student ministers First Baptist Church downtown ever had, our forty-year friend, was also mother to Weslee’s best friend, and hubby to Wayne, who at that time traveled nearly every week in his also full-time employment. One day she blew in tardy -- and suffice it to say a bit disheveled -- to a meeting at work proclaiming “what our house needs is a WIFE!” Of course, the meeting went into immediate recess for a good laugh while Carolyn unloaded and regrouped. “Wife” is my new role at our house and three months into it, I’m getting the hang of only some of it. I have a greater appreciation for working mothers, single moms, anyone whose domestic responsibilities include keeping the home fires burning, especially when there are children.
The boys -- ages 12, 9, and 7 -- are great. They are doing admirably well adjusting to their new normal -- larger schools, a different church, learning new friends, split family relationships, Papa, greater cultural diversity, etc. Having several months of “warning” they were coming, I was able to re-purpose some of the house to accommodate them and it is working out fine. The guys inhabit the Boys Basement Barracks with more living space than they’ve had before; Wes and I are on the main floor. My designated space is a small bedroom within view but with just enough distance from the ebb and flow of activity to provide occasionally required respite. I love my cozy quarters. Apparently so does everyone else because nearly every night some or all of us end up in there visiting or watching TV. It’s great!
Looking back trying to put things in perspective, it appears that all this seems to be yet more manifestations of God at work -- not causing stuff like Wes’ divorce or Honey’s death, but God knowing what was ahead and laying some groundwork even when we didn’t see it going on. Things like this house -- as new empty-nesters in 1997, Honey and I didn’t need a house this size with a full basement configured as it is. Would Wes and boys have come to live in this house five years ago when Honey was alive? Doubtful. The timing and nature of my continuing employment with Celebrating Grace -- thanks yet again to my ten-year friend Tom -- allows me to be available to the boys before and after school while Wes works full-time at Tennessee Oncology, the major provider of Honey’s last year of cancer treatment. The vitality and convenience of Brentwood UMC less than two miles from our house enables the boys to participate in wonderful children, youth, and music programs and for us to get them there easily. It couldn’t be better. We’re not smart enough to orchestrate all of this -- we had help.
I can’t help but remember the refrain to one of my favorite “new” hymns in the Celebrating Grace Hymnal, the first hymn Honey and I shared in our updates --
We walk by faith and not by sight,
led by God’s pure and holy Light!
Prepare us for the journey, Lord,
and may we know Your power and might,
as we walk by faith and not by sight.
Words – Lloyd Larson © 1998 Beckenhorst Bress, Inc.
And these Elisha Hoffman lines penned 150 years earlier --
Oh, how sweet to walk in the pilgrim way…
Oh, how bright the path grows from day to day…
- Mark