The Rest of the Story?

I must be slipping (probably am) into the abyss of vagueness. What I intended to be a creative way of ending yesterday's post obviously left some of you "hanging." I had a couple of comments about it on Facebook and one or two here. So...

We walked into the burger joint on Sunday (a thousand miles from home) -- me with Cathy's burrito and Cathy with Chickie. About two steps in the door I looked up to see our old friends David and Martha standing there with their kids who live here. Talk about an "Ah-ha Moment!"

David and Martha were here for the same reason as us -- time with grandchildren and were literally on their way out of town back home, but we had 15 or 20 minutes of rushed conversation with a certain need for more (later, by phone I hope).

Now for so many of you who couldn't know -- June 8th marked my 23rd anniversary as pastor in Yuma. When we came here, David was the chairman of the pastor search committee who recommended me to the church. It all started there.

About ten years ago, when I was going through the most painful time of my pastoral ministry, they were two key people who encouraged us. They listened to our heartache. They supported us and, when necessary, defended us.

Our brief contact made me aware that they are going through their own "dark night of the soul." By God's grace we want to do our best to support them -- even at a distance.

David and I found common ground in our friendship many years ago. We both discovered that the friendship we have was very "low-demand." We don't need to see each other that often. We both have plenty of other friends. But we both discovered that, no matter how spread out we get by miles or months...

...we can easily pick up where we left off.

I plan to call him soon.