Only Imagine

Thirty years ago, in August of 1984, we moved our family to Harper, Kansas from Oklahoma City.  We had been in OKC for a little over a year while I attended school there.  Before that, we had a disastrous two years at Ardmore, Oklahoma, where I was a youth minister.  Oklahoma City was a time of healing and putting things back together.  We were looking forward to several years there while I pursued a degree.

However, it wasn’t to be.  In earlier 1984, my mother had a series of debilitating strokes that left her in a semi-conscious, almost vegetative state.  She was totally dependent, could not move on her own, could not communicate, and had to be fed via feeding tube.  Dad was not in the best of health, so we decided to move back home to help care for them.

Looking back on all of that, I have to marvel at the things that happened to get us there and while we were there that still have an effect on us to this day.  Either life is full of coincidence, or there is a greater power at work in the lives of people the world over.  There is no other explanation for what happened and why.

I won’t go into detail on any of those things, except to say that friendships we made then are still there today.  Lessons we learned there are with us to this day.  Who we are (and who our kids are) is in large part due to the 16 years we spent there raising our family.  We matured as parents and as participants in the work place.  We developed a better understanding of who God is and what His plan is for us.  We re-connected with the place that I called home for the first 18 years of my life.  And we made memories that only we know, but continue to cherish all these years later.

I was reminded of all of this when I heard via Facebook that a casual friend from there was in the hospital in Wichita about to undergo a serious spine surgery today.  Last evening, I went to visit her.  I hadn’t seen her in over 14 years, and she was not a great friend…but a casual one, and a co-worker in the public safety sector along with me.

We visited for a time and I caught up on her condition and what they would be doing.  We talked just a little about retirement and how she was handling the prospect of major (and somewhat risky) surgery.  And at the end, I prayed with her for the day today.

I may never see her again.  Our paths may never cross again.  But for one hour last evening, we reconnected to something that is quickly becoming all too uncommon nowadays.  We reconnected to the tie that binds people in common purpose and common circumstance.  We reconnected to the recognition of the value and worth of each other in our respective vocations.  And we reconnected in the common value of humanity and the human condition.

I can only imagine (to use lyrics from a popular Christian song) what it will be like in that great re-connection to come where people from all nations, tribes, tongues, and peoples will gather together and re-connect with one-another as we give thanks and praise to the One who made it all possible.