Good morning…

At the middle school choral concert last week, I noticed I was aging. One of the songs performed was “When I’m 64” by the Beatles. The song begins, “When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now…” The chorus questions, “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty-four?” And the final stanza includes the phrase “…grandchildren on your knee…” Up until last week, I thought this song was about old age. Waking on the day after my fifty-third birthday, sixty-four seems like middle age to me!

Of all the amazing birthday gifts I received yesterday, one gift brought tears to my eyes. I was sitting at breakfast with a forever friend I have known for over twenty years. We share our spring birthday season, and we share a long, nourishing meal most every month at our favorite cafe. I certainly still need her, her soul certainly still feeds me, even though she’s sixty-six! My friend has walked up peaks and down valleys with me through many life seasons, and our dependable heart to heart talks have been a lifeline for me, God’s-voice-with-skin-on many a day.

She and many of you know that the life I live now was born out of deep loss. Nearly thirteen years ago, when God spoke clearly and called my husband back to minister as chaplain of the Lovett School, I was forced to give up the life of my dreams. Nestled near family in the rolling hills of Pennsylvania, I loved walking with our preschoolers to and from the school and the market, the post office and the town park, our church and my husband’s college chaplain office. That tiny village taught me to live up close, loving and being loved deeply by sister-like friends, whose kids were like my kids and my kids were like theirs. The life of my childhood dreams ended when we packed up our family of six and moved to the big, bustling city of Atlanta, Georgia.

Back then, I could not understand why God would choose complex over simple, fast-paced over slow-savoring, foreign over familiar. My deepest, darkest depression happened during the two year period following our move. Out of sheer obedience, I allowed myself to be pruned back to only the place where my branch met God’s vine. I felt like a bare, exposed nub, severed and in pain.

Almost thirteen years ago, the life of my dreams ended and the life of God’s dream for me slowly began to grow. I cried yesterday when I unwrapped a mug from my friend bearing a landscape of snowy hills, country homes, and frolicking families, a quaint picture of the small town living I loved and I lost. As I drink my morning coffee, her gift encourages me to stay connected to the root system beneath the full life I now live. At my birthday breakfast, I shared that the for the very first time since our move, this week I am starting to understand God’s choice from way back then. The LORD sensed the anguish this community would feel, and God knew He needed an obedient, early morning listener to write about loving and being loved deeply when our pruned back branch clinging to God’s vine feels bare and exposed, severed and in pain.

My prayer is that the life of God’s dream for you slowly begins to grow.

Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot–
yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root.
And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on him–
the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and might,
the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
He will delight in obeying the Lord.
He will not judge by appearance
nor make a decision based on hearsay.
He will give justice to the poor
and make fair decisions for the exploited.
The earth will shake at the force of his word,
and one breath from his mouth will destroy the wicked.
He will wear righteousness like a belt
and truth like an undergarment, Isaiah 11:1-5 (NLT),

Sue