Crossing The Line - To Friendship - To Lifelong Bonds

I learned the hard way very early on in my late husband’s ministry that there sometimes can be a very fine line between a church member and a true friend...

…and I realized then that there are times when that line is NOT to be crossed…

…which goes against the grain of every part of my personality.

But learn it I did.

And with caution in mind, I forged forward into friendships with many of our parishioners, many of which have helped sustain me in the last couple of years. 

One of those friendships is with Tracey.  She was our parsonage committee chairman at our last church the entire time we lived there so I had lots of conversation with her about the moving-in process before we even met in person. 

And I ended up crossing that line with her.  We became friends.

She came to almost all of my kids’ birthday parties.  She was instrumental in Rob’s ministry the entire time we lived there, serving on various committees and such.  She always came over and helped ready the parsonage for our open houses. 

In short, she was there – for her church, for Rob, for me, and for my children.

And when Rob died, she was there. 

I distinctly remember her tearful eyes and her quivering lips as she stood in my parsonage kitchen and said to me then,

“I cannot imagine what you must be feeling.”

And she did whatever she knew my children or I needed.  When the first Mother’s Day arrived after Rob’s death, she was there to make sure my kids had a gift for me.

In short, she was still there.

And now it is my turn.

On Saturday night, August 17, 2013, sometime in the 8 o’clock p.m. hour, I received a phone call from my former church member and my current friend.

Tracey’s 54 year old husband, Kendall, had died suddenly.  Tracey said, “You are the one person I know who knows exactly how I feel right now.”

The rest of our conversations will remain private but suffice it to say, God is using the nightmare of Rob’s sudden death to still minister to one of his church members and to our friend. 

As I sat in the funeral home yesterday and as I watched her in her kitchen in her house moving about and doing things that had to be done and talking with her family and friends and planning what she wants in the service, the memory of her standing in my parsonage kitchen came rushing back to me.  And oh how I wished now that she did not have to know how I felt then.  Because she does.  She told me.  And as I watched her eyes closely yesterday, I so easily recognized and remembered the utter emptiness that was so overly present in those first 24 hours.  It is agonizing.

Grief is horrible.  There are no short cuts to the process.  It is something that has to be lived.  It is something that is different for every person.  It is a nightmare.

 

But I know her.  She is strong.  She will survive.  And she will even thrive again. 

But it will be a while.

Please pray for her during this “while.”

Another thing hit me yesterday as I was sitting in my friend’s kitchen.  A confirmation of sorts.  Something I’m almost afraid to say out loud but I will due to the fact that because of it, I was so much more able to help my friend yesterday.

I believe (at least right now I do) that the open wounds to my heart and mind caused by Rob’s death have finally closed up and healed.  The wounds have left very jagged scars on every part of my being that will garner attention for the rest of my life but the open wounds seem to be closed.  I can even point to a day when it happened but that’s not something I’m willing to share publicly now – if ever.  But it was a moment when it was as if God was breathing new breath into my being.  It was just a moment in time (when ironically, I was surrounded by other people) that it seemed there was nothing else happening other than what was going on between my God and me.

Because of that healing, I could focus on my friend yesterday, not me.

Because of that healing, I could help her with the very beginning process of “binding up her wounds” without reopening mine.

Because of that healing, I could help her feel her pain without feeling mine.

And because of that healing, for this friend - with whom I crossed that line of church member to friendship to lifelong bonding – I could reassure her that healing, in its own time, would come.