The Impact of an Ordinary Life

Do you ever feel like your soul has been rung out? We all have. That is the way I feel. The past three weeks have been a whirlwind physically, spiritually, and emotionally. I am broken and sad of heart but not in a bad way, in a good way. None of us get a pass from pain and death. To be human is to hurt. However, I am so thankful that God has given us habits, practices, graces, rituals, or whatever you want to call them, so that when dark things happen, rather than just falling apart, by God's grace we can hurt redemptively. Does that make sense? 

I am still blown away by all the people that were at my mom's funeral. It really did heal my heart to see people I haven't seen in thirty-five years and family I haven't seen for a while, and just a whole host of folk who showed up to honor my mother and tell me in small ways how she had impacted their lives. I am blown away by all the people (staff, elders, community group, and friends) who have picked up the slack for me while I have been distracted with my mothers health, really since the first of the year. It has been a huge blessing to my family, and to me, to literally have a tidal wave of affection showed to us because of my mom. So, I feel like I need to take off my shoes as I write this. That I am on holy ground to be in a community such as this that has shown deep care and concern for us in this hard time. 

 

As I said at Mom's funeral yesterday, the huge impact of her life was always in the mundane. All the comments to me about my mom were "individual." They were person specific. Mom did no great church ministry. She didn't need to. She didn't need a program for holiness and being a blessing. Mom was a blessing within the structures of her place and the regular rhythms of her life. And she enjoyed being a blessing. And because of that, many of us are in a lot better place than we might have been. My mother's quiet faithfulness to Jesus will continue to live on in my children and my children's children. 

 

Hope to see you Sunday as, through thick and thin, we worship the One who redeems all of our pain and suffering!

 

James M. Holland