rich living.

i was hanging out at a park yesterday and began talking with this woman who was a shocking forty-seven years old, but looked MAYBE thirty-three. we were just chatting about this and that and then she started talking about how she just got married and i asked if she wanted kids, to which she replied she was actually already a grandmother!

she said she had been married to her first husband for twenty-six years. sensing this woman greatly needed someone to talk to and wasn't wary of personal space or privacy of any sort, i obliged and asked her why she and her ex-husband split. she told me that he thought she was stupid and that she knew he had always cheated on her. but in her hindi culture, you "forget about yourself, and think only of your child. you are no longer - it is only about your child." so she played dumb to the cheating and being treated horribly until her daughter was 18 and moved out.

i thought that was pretty admirable, but also scrambled in my own mind for things that would give me the will to endure such emotional and i'm sure, in turn, physical pain for such an extended period of time.

makes me think of a line in the hillsong united/rich mullins song 'sometimes by step/like incense': "Let Love keep my will upon its knees".

leaving the park, i could think of face after face that i would endure such pains for. and that alone made me feel like i was doing something right. in just my immediate family, there are thirteen people i would do anything for. and i've done a hell of a job of building some quality (for lack of a better word) relationships that i could definitely withstand pain for.

life is rich - full of pain, fear, regret, failure; but brimming with joy, tenacity, hope, and good ole' fashioned follow-through.

my prayer over you today is spoken by one of my favorite poets, gerard kelly:

may you live in the breadth of the breath of God. may you wake to his wide wildness and find your place in his spacious grace.

and then my hope for you is that you intentionally go about finding meaningful people and situations to weave into your heart that are joy-inducing and leave you watery-eyed with the goodness of who God is, and who he'll always be.