“Are you guys seriously going to be hungry for food in two hours?”, I asked as we finished up our afternoon ice cream. Thankfully they all said no. But they would be hungry by the end of chapel. So the 5:30 mealtime was moved to 9:30. We’d stopped by Country Market after church and picked up food for lunch and supper. For supper we were supposed to have meatballs and rice. No one thought to get any sauce.

Prior to that we were at a pastor’s goodbye party. One of the pastors who has been around here for over ten years took a call to Oklahoma. The parking lot and church were packed. I knew we likely wouldn’t get a chance to talk so I wrote a card. I do get emotional with these sorts of things. Leaving a church is very hard, at least when you were loved and you loved in return.

“Today is the 25th anniversary of Dad and I meeting.” I’d brought it up a couple of times leading up to the day. And those two or three times Dad made the same joke, “And rather than celebrating, Mom’s going to spend the day curled up in a ball, crying over the fact she ever met me.” Sigh. And I responded the same way every time, half-amused yet shaking my head at the pitiful sight, “I’ve already done that”, just to be clear.

25 years is a long time to know a person, and no I wasn’t crying about it. I was actually coming out of a haze, where once again I was sure that I could do no, be no, see no more. Every so often my mind reverts to its original state, and I catch a glimpse of who I’d be if it weren’t for forgiveness or loving, if it weren’t for a God who puts the sorrows and pasts of his children behind him.

I see who I would’ve been if it weren’t for him, and it is not a pretty sight. The basements, the alleys, the colleges that would’ve set me on a completely different path. And though I cannot say for sure, I am fairly certain, that the hardest and most difficult relationship problems we have had would very likely not have been there had he been joined to a different person. I can say for us both that it is true of the good things.