Holding all of it

It is Saturday morning and I just spent a half hour on the back porch with candles, journal, and "praying as you go" app.  The reading was from 1 Kings 19: and the story of Elijah listening for the still small voice of God.

I sit and feel like God as holding me as I live up in the air with everything swirling around me.  I can see in the back yard the bench on which Audrey placed a plaque that reads "Charles "Chuck" Truex - we miss you every day and the dates of his birth and death.

The dog - my faithful companion just sits beside me.  It is just raining a little. 

I think about my meeting with a half dozen women from Gender Road.  They are calling people in the church during the pandemic and I meet with them to check in. It was a truly blessed time together as women shared from the different parts of their lives.

Everyone has blessings and struggles.  Some struggle with caring for their aged parents, others worry about spouses or children.  Our conversations are  real and authentic.

And I share about living in limbo - not knowing whether to stay and go and not knowing how long I will be with them and just not knowing.

As I sit on the porch and listen in silence I hear the still small voice of God speak to me about love.  How loved I am and how loved I always have been.

I live with so many feelings that just come and go - the grief, the loneliness, the gratitude, the wonder, the gift of community.  There is so much to experience when I finally sit down and listen.

I find myself drawn to the nonagenarians of Gender Road Christian Church - there are a number of people in their nineties. As I consider them, I wonder if God's message to me is - keep going. .  There is so much more to come. 

I may have twenty more years to be with people, my children, my grandchildren.  Twenty more years to be present to the beauty and the holiness and the mystery of Love.

I hold it all.

May the God of VITALITY be with you, filling you with life and love,

bringing you to a place of energy and eagerness,

calling you to happiness and freedom.

May this God also be with you in times of doubt and struggle

and fill you with a passion for what is good and true.

May the blessing of VITALITY be with you.