Last night, out of the blue, I received a phone call from the daughter of my best friend who died in a traffic accident a year and a half ago. Because my friend and I lived on opposite coasts, we exchanged pictures but rarely saw each other’s children. So even though her daughter is my daughter’s age and they attended the same college, I really didn’t know her or her younger brother. But now here she was, smack in the middle of an April evening, telling me her plans and her brother’s whereabouts, as openly as if we’d talked many times before. Though we touched briefly on how hard it is to cope with the sudden death of someone we love, we talked more about the present and the future than the past. We promised to keep in touch.
After I hung up, I thought about our conversation. I thought about how unexpectedly this young woman had come into my life on an otherwise ordinary day. I thought about how my maternal feelings had kicked in when I talked with her, how similar our conversation was to phone conversations with my own adult children. I thought about how her speech cadences had reminded me of her mother’s. I thought about how I felt blessed in the same way I used to when I got off the phone with her mother. It wasn’t the same as talking with her mother, but it was the next best thing. It was grounding. It was healing. It was a gift.
The siberian squill have come out now and they are everywhere, carpeting the woods, creeping out onto lawns, creating a vast blue carpet the same deep hue as the April sky. Although I've lived here long enough to expect them, every spring when they emerge I'm astonished again by their beauty. I suppose a scientist would say that the squill have their own reasons for covering my woods and lawn in such glorious color, and no doubt that's true. But I think they're also a sign of God's surprising extravagance, otherwise known as grace.
After I hung up, I thought about our conversation. I thought about how unexpectedly this young woman had come into my life on an otherwise ordinary day. I thought about how my maternal feelings had kicked in when I talked with her, how similar our conversation was to phone conversations with my own adult children. I thought about how her speech cadences had reminded me of her mother’s. I thought about how I felt blessed in the same way I used to when I got off the phone with her mother. It wasn’t the same as talking with her mother, but it was the next best thing. It was grounding. It was healing. It was a gift.
The siberian squill have come out now and they are everywhere, carpeting the woods, creeping out onto lawns, creating a vast blue carpet the same deep hue as the April sky. Although I've lived here long enough to expect them, every spring when they emerge I'm astonished again by their beauty. I suppose a scientist would say that the squill have their own reasons for covering my woods and lawn in such glorious color, and no doubt that's true. But I think they're also a sign of God's surprising extravagance, otherwise known as grace.
In spring it seems especially easy to perceive these signs of grace in our lives. But grace comes in all seasons, and assumes many guises. What's characteristic is that grace always surprises us. It reminds us that life is a mystery. Encountering grace leaves us knowing that, in some small way, we have been made whole again. We know for certain we have been blessed.
No comments:
Post a Comment