Today is the perfect day for a little drive about to clear my head. There are so many beautiful places located within a two hour radius. Today is a wonderful day to bug out and drive. Autumn in the high desert is a kaleidoscope of color this time of year and a major tourist attraction. Our version of the colors of New York. The Eastern Sierra Nevada’s are the prettiest mountains anywhere around. Just look at the picture taking in Minden, Nevada. It’s even prettier than that.
I have a friend that needs to come along. She’s a New Yorker that I met in early summer. I’ve never met anyone like her before and probably won’t ever meet anyone like her again. She became the first brick in the foundation for our Women’s Bible Study. She would tell you that she isn’t the reason our Bible study continues to grow. We all know differently. This woman could move mountains before breakfast. She’s all the things admirable. Wise, calm, witty, intelligent, a beautiful woman inside and out. A real no-nonsense kind of woman. The kind you want for a sister.
She needs our love and support in a big way. She’s loosing her sight. Suffering from a progressive disease, this isn’t improving by the day.
Macular degeneration is a horrific disease. It attacked both my parents. It has blinded my God Mother. It can happen to anyone. It’s genetic and final. The outcome is blindness. It can happen overnight. How scary is that? My Gal-Pal is slowly going blind from this disease.
She would love to see the colors of the changing trees of her hometown New York. Well, we have some pretty amazing trees around here. It’s not New York, but, the Cottonwoods and Aspens are also pretty spectacular.
Thinking back to last Thursday, I realized I haven’t shared about the most perfect day with women that have come to mean the world to me. She was there, running the show.
Early in the summer, my life wasn’t all roses and lollipops. There were many truths that had come to light as I forged a new path in my life. Taking a mountain walk in the early summer can be treacherous. With unexpected rainstorms, one often needs to take shelter and wait for them to pass. Life is a lot like that, too. If you’ve created the storm, you need to wait out the rain of your own making. Such was the situation in which I found myself on a certain Thursday that now seems so long ago. Some days it seems I’m just a master at raining on my own parade. Oy Vey.
On that early summer day, God had given me three reasons to leave the church I’d attended for over one year. Three “in my face reasons” that couldn’t be denied. On that certain Thursday morning, I’d woken to a sadness so deep it brought me to tears. My heart longed for friends. Not just a random friend here or there, but a network of true friends. The kind that don’t blow away with the first little disagreement. Friends in Christ.
The first idea that came to mind was to find yet another Bible Study to join. One in another part of time with different participants. I’d just start looking around town and see what was available. I knew where I’d start. A little church on Farm District Road. A real street name in a town that also has In-Town Park and Out-of-Town Park.
With that decision made and with great haste, I jumped in the Barbie-Mobile and drove there. If there were a building more tightly closed and locked, I’ve never been to one. The barren parking lot of the little church sat empty telling me to leave. I felt abandoned and alone.
I decided I’d go buy some flowers at Lowe’s and return home to tend the gardens at Winterpast.
Feeling pretty low as I drove, a vision of the warm and welcoming people of another church across town flashed through my mind. I had met them my right before my first Thanksgiving as a widow in my new town. They were collecting food for hungry families. I’d go there. They wouldn’t be closed. They couldn’t be. Although they might be, my heart said “Drive there, Woman!”
In that moment, Jesus truly took the wheel.
At 9:58, I walked into the very room where my group of friends sat. About 14 of the sweetest women of faith. Welcoming. Smiling. Ready to study the Bible. Waiting on ME, the woman they had yet to meet.
At each place, there was a paper that said the following…..
friend
/frend/ noun
someone who gives you freedom to be yourself;
one of the nicest things you can have;
the best thing you can be.
Last Thursday, we celebrated the 1-Year-Anniversary of our Bible study group. They listened as I shared all the details of my resignation after celebrating my happiness at returning to work only two months earlier. I hadn’t realized the disappointment and feelings of failure that were there for a true friend to see. They prayed for my broken heart while I cried, surrounded by true and complete love. The room was full of angels that morning. Both earth angels and the Holy Spirit. What a morning. What a beautiful group of friends God gave me on a morning I cried out to ask him for nothing more.
Yes.
I think I need to call my sweet friend. She mentioned she’d love to see fall colors again. Me too. We both need to seize this moment in time when the leaves are a brilliant orange, red, yellow, and bronze. In life you never know when our eyesight might fail or be gone all together. Storms can come at any time in life. We need to be ready for them.
Whatever you do today, be ready for Jesus to take the wheel. It just might be that you find treasures more wonderful than gold. The first step is getting in the car to go looking.
More tomorrow.