The Lord will hear.......

But know that the Lord has set apart for Himself him who is godly;
The Lord will hear when I call to Him.

Psalm 4:3

I pulled out of the driveway a bit late for church. I was thinking that I might miss the music, and that was okay. Certain days, it's all I want to hear, and other days I would be content to just sit in the silence for awhile. Just to be in church.....

As I sped along the freeway another thought came. What if, instead of doing church, I went and passed out bottled water to the homeless. Went to serve in the foodbank. Went to the rest home and spent the church hour sitting with him. Praying with him. It was a radical thought. That's what made me think it might be a God thought.

Instead, I felt my tires go the familiar groove, the safe way. Into the doors I went, into the safety of the church. It's what I need, I thought. This is how I get ready for the rest of the week. This is what keeps me going all week.

And I was glad I went. But at service's end, I found myself going the back way home. The way that passed the rest home where he was, Curtis, my best friend's Dad. He has wreaked such havoc over the last few years, well, longer than that. And though he provided for the family, he was an absent father.

Now everyone is absent from his life, well just about everyone.

Though the choices that have led to this result at the end of his life have been his, it makes it no less tragic how he has ended up.

As I drove past, I felt God whisper for me to pull in. And He might have said that I should go in the room, too. But I wrestled with that, and put it aside.

What if he's in a grouchy mood, what if he's just gotten his lunch, he stops eating if someone is there.....what if there is a mess all over and soiled clothes piled high in the hamper, like there has been before. The smell reached all the way down the hall. Sometimes he refuses to let the aides pick up his laundry.

I think of him how he looks now. So frail, so weak, a shadow of the man he was before.

I pulled into a space and my swirling thoughts quieted down like snow at the bottom of a snowglobe.

I bowed my head, and prayed for him right there in the parking lot. For his life, for the rest of his life, however much is left. For him to remember what he heard in church all his younger years, he and his sister, still vibrant and full of life at 88. She chose the better path, the path of faith, of life. Of Jesus.

I pray for a miracle before the end.

Then, like that while feather that floated from the sky in Forrest Gump, I realized that a miracle had happened, the anger I had before was gone. It had left like a wisp of smoke and I hadn't realized it before then,  and I know just when it happened.

Be angry, and do not sin.
Meditate within your heart on your bed, and be still. Selah
Offer the sacrifices of righteousness,
And put your trust in the Lord

Psalm 4:4,5

Tomorrow, I will write more.....until then I join with the gratitude community and with the ones who are unwrapping his promises.

Okra reaching for the sky, how my story touched some hearts, and how I made some new friends, completed projects and a clean shop, friends across the miles who text, another chips and salsa timeout yesterday, freedom to gather together in worship one more Sunday, a new friend for my brother, my nieces Mom who takes Lauryn everywhere with her and doesn't leave her behind, and facebook for keeping in touch. #933-943