Thursday, November 2, 2006

Dearest God,

Tonight I got to visit with people I haven't seen for a long time. I had been asked to be the guest speaker for Faith in Action, an 11 year old ministry begun with a $25,000 grant from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

I was the pastor charged with expanding an existing health care ministry at our church. Several volunteers had been helping needy persons with transportation, respite care, minor home repair, light housekeeping, and correspondence. With the help of two very talented health care professionals, we took the ministry to greater heights by applying and receiving the foundation grant. Through a board of directors that we set up, we hired a full time Parish Nurse. Sixty five volunteers later, the group is still going strong serving the greater Hendricks County area.

As I stood to speak I looked out over the crowd of 80 plus people. Here were people from many churches and social agencies. I had served with several of them, on the board of FIA, the chaplaincy board at Hendricks Regional Health Hospital and in my church. They are wonderful people.

One woman was introduced to me. Joyce has been a recipient of FIA care for more than four years. Suffering with a mental health illness she told me that FIA had changed her life. She had finally linked up with people who loved her, supported and cared for her. A broad smile spread across her face as she talked of hope and love.

I reconnected with people before, during and after the program. I had said in my speech that the only time I get to see some people is during deaths and dinners. People laughed. They knew what I meant.

I am amazed at the ways that God brings people into our lives. Some stay just for a brief moment. Some a little longer. Some stay for a life time. But each one is there for a reason. Perhaps they need something from us or we need them. Maybe we come together for a cause to help a third party. This weaving of lives is such a sweet story of God's hand at work in my life.

On my next Sabbath Day ( I have failed to take monthly Sabbath Days as I had promised, I am working on this commitment) I may focus on people whose lives have touched mine. Those who brought great gifts and others who brought me my greatest challenges. For I have learned that we are part and parcel of one another. Those who have brought me pain have at times lead me down the path to God where I had longed to go and for one reason or another had failed to get there on my own. These people are precious to me as I look back at my life's journey.

I am filled with gratitude for those who have played major roles in my life. They may or may not know what they gave me or what I received from them. (I may have received something different than what they gave me) But whatever I got out of my relationships to this great number of people, I recognize that I have been given shape by them. God has worked his wonders through their lives and my life is different because of them.

We are not alone. When I look into the mirror, I see this person or that one, persons who aided God in my molding. I have this mannerism or that gesture from a family member, a friend, even a stranger. I smile a particular way or use certain phrases because I learned it from someone else. I pray or live my faith because a person taught me how by modeling what they believe. I am a product of those who invested in me, whether they knew it or not. From good or evil that others intended, God has used their lives to make my life unique, a relationship with God evolving from experiences, feelings, events, many that have long been forgotten.

I am who I am because God has sent a flock of people to my door telling me in one way or another about God.

Thank you for those people
who have etched their names
onto my heart and soul.
For those whom I have loved
and who have loved me,
I am in your service in gratitude.
To those who intended harm,
I have learned from them;
they have lead me to God.
I have not been on a solitary journey.
My life's path has taken me
to the doorstep of many people
and I have received their gifts,
good or bad,
and God,
well,
God has shaped or reshaped
those offerings
for my good.
And I am eternally grateful.

Love always, Andrea