I had a lot of walking, thinking, meditating and praying time while I was gone. One of the things I sought was "What is the message I have for the world? What specifically drives my passion?"
I was taken back to a reality I discovered in my 30's. One day I was flipping through an old family album and came across a picture of myself at 12 years old. It was an out of body experience, observing myself from 3rd person stance, seeing this pathetic little girl. The thought instantly went through my head, "You look like an orphan". Upon further examination, I realized for the first time, I had been orphaned through the death of my mother at 10 years old. She was very very ill for a year before she died and I have realized lately I really lost her when she went to surgery the first time and received the diagnosis of melanoma. From that time, I began my adult life, cutting my own hair, giving my own perms, and by 15 began making my own clothes. I also began taking care of all, I mean all, of my own needs: physically, spiritually, and emotionally.
So all that to say, knowing what it is to lose a parent, I have had this unquenched desire to see families stay intact. I have had a driving passion for people to reconcile. I have had a drive to get people together, love each other, have fun. The "more the merrier" has truly been my theme. Another driver inside is to let people know how amazing, how loving, how intricately involved, is our God. This too is sourced in the time of agonizing over my mother's illness and finally her death.
A lot of you have heard me talk about our house in those days being filled with people: round the clock nurses, my mother's parents and siblings, women from the church. It was a SMALL little house. So the only place to be alone was the one tiny bathroom in the house.
Daily I tucked my little New Testament under my shirt and made a visit to God. I would get on my knees, place the Bible on the toilet seat....not an ornate throne room experience but it became holy ground to me. There I would read scriptures to God....I would read Him His promises to me. I would hold out my two small hands and say, "You promised if I asked for bread you would not give me a stone. Just in case You are confused, God, my mother living is
bread (hold out my left hand) , her dying is a stone (hold out my right hand)." We had constant conversations because no one in the house talked to me about the thing on my heart. They all tried to keep me distracted, keep me happy. I don't blame them. It was all they knew back in 1958 and 59.
The point is "Where else could I go, but to the Lord?" as the old song says. It was me and God in the foxhole and I was sparing nothing. Raw and real gut honest conversations. He entered my struggle. He was there every inch of the way and I know that He cried with me when she died. I want everybody to know God. I want everybody to wrestle with Him, to climb on His lap, to KNOW Him in the fullest most intimate way. He is the best friend in the world.
Did he save my mother from death? No. Was I angry and disappointed? Oh my goodness, you wouldn't want to hear those conversations. But He took it. And He didn't run from my hot anger. I know He wept and His heart was as wrenched as mine.
So I have my "drivers", my inner firehose, defined on at least 2 points. These 2 things have pretty much defined everything. I daydreamed of a large family, Walton style. I had a real relationship with God and wanted it for others. When we first moved to Freetown, Sierra Leone, we were in an upstairs apartment with a balcony. Masses of people passed below on the street. I would weep as they passed by because I wanted every one of them to know God and his Son Jesus. I wanted it so badly, I would literally cry.
I want you to love and be loved. I want you to know God and know Him intimately. I do believe He can tell all of us at any given moment how many hairs are on our sweet heads. Amen and Amen.
