Update 5/10/10 Day 182

Dear friends,

The guys across the street are putting a new roof on my neighbor’s house. I was watching them for a while through my blinds when one of them began to slip, and my heart went into my chest. It’s dangerous work, getting up on those high places and tearing down the old, worn out shingles. Especially when the wind is blowing. Thankfully the young fellow caught himself, but it took a while for my adrenaline to slow up. I know, I know. You hear an analogy coming. If it makes you feel any better, I drive myself crazy with analogies all the time. But the world is full of them, one story giving meaning to another.

Anyway, as I thought about the work of tearing off a rotted roof, I considered my own quest to “be transformed, by the renewing of my mind”. I must admit, I’ve got some crummy mindsets that have to go so I can have the maximum freedom the Great One wants for me. But it’s dangerous business, getting up there where fear, envy, pride and a host of other decaying shingles threaten to turn the inside real ugly. Trying to change ourselves is just another “self help program” destined to break down. But when we let God really get down to the wood, under the shingles, and rip out the old stuff before putting on the new, we can find enduring change. And He will not let our foot slip. Because he’s all about building a healthy human being, the way we were originally meant to be. That’s it. No deep, theological stuff, just something I noticed when the guy almost fell off the roof. I’m gladder than all get out that he didn’t. I’ve seen enough broken bones to last a lifetime.

Before you know it, it will be November and this blog will be history. The first half went by like a shot. (Except for February, the interminable month). The drama has definitely died down, but the inside job the Great One is doing in my life and the lives of everyone touched by this accident continues. At some point before we close up shop, there will be a gathering of all the folks involved in this sojourn, from the first responders, to hospital friends, to family, to DFG, and most of all, to this blog community. I owe you all more than the world, but cake and coffee and a little time together can at least be a token of my gratitude. At the end of summer we’ll get the ball rolling on something.

Summer approacheth. (Although you would never know it today!) My crabapple tree is all green now. Balls and bats are making their appearances about the house. June is bearing down, with the multitude of school events and tests that come with that territory. I am actually grateful to have the struggles of lots of homework and a tricky schedule. The alternative that could have been is pretty grim. But in my mind still are those people at Sunnyview, dogging it out with brain injuries and orthopedic disasters. They live in my prayers, and I pray I will never, ever forget them. As the Great One shows me how, I plan to use the troubles of the past 6 months to bring the little light I have into someone else’s darkness. Stephen was invited to go to drug court, to talk to the folks who have or may potentially get behind the wheel of a car under the influence. I have been encouraged by many folks to write a book about all of this. I’ll be working with Ed Frank and some of the other dedicated advocacy people to communicate what drunk driving can do. Number 1, I want to be there for my family, in particular my precious daughter, to walk beside them as they climb the invisible mountains still before them.

The One and Only will keep working on our roofs all of our lives (and every other part of us too). But He absolutely loves us as we are. Too much to leave us there. Here’s a great C.S. Lewis quote for the road:

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

He’s not tearing out the old to hurt us. He wants to make a palace out of a shack. The process can be painful. It can take the form of a multitude of troubles, from an illness, to a job loss, to a devastating car accident. The raw material God uses is up to Him. But His chief end always has been to bring us out of the soul’s ghetto to the free, open spaces of a friendship with Jesus. That’s the life that’s truly life.

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann