I write this post from a familiar-looking Starbucks in a strange place, Canton, Georgia just north of Atlanta. I am here on this hot, hot summer day so I can be with my cousin Terri before she dies from cancer. She's 53 years old and this just isn't fair. But Terri is lucky in one regard -- she is surrounded by people who love her, including me.
I had a similar experience during my period of illness this Spring. People are still coming up to me saying things like, "We were praying for you at church." Perfect strangers lifting up prayers for me, in addition to the thousands of others from people I do know. I was on prayer lists in the Congo, in China, in Canada, and from coast to coast in the USA. A friend commented that if one prayer was a pin-hole of light from heaven, I had a spotlight shining on me.
In fact I believe with all my heart that it was the power of prayer that saved me. I had been all but written off when someone pulled together an impromptu prayer service for me at church on a Saturday afternoon. That is exactly when I turned the corner. And I don't think it was an accident. Remember in "It's a Wonderful Life" when all the prayers came together for George and it caused the angel Clarence to be sent down to help. That is what it felt like for me, like I was George Bailey but one hundred angels were sent to me, perhaps more.
What it all boils down to really is love. It was love that motivated the prayers that were sent up for me. It was love that called me down here to Atlanta to be with Terri. It is all about love.
We all want and need love. We are designed that way. We are created in the love of God and our heart's desire to love and to be loved. It is as natural as the air we breathe. But we can get ourselves into trouble when we try to dictate what that love should look like.
I did that. I had longed and longed for the one special man who would love and support me through thick and thin. I have been in serious, forever-looking relationships before but it was never right. I was often disappointed, feeling like I had given far more than I have received. So I go on. I followed my heart from place to place, vocation to calling, whatever. And I did it alone. Or at least on my own. Yet that desire was still there, burning inside me. I wanted "him" and I prayed and prayed for him to come along. Waiting to exhale, to borrow from the movies.
I learned when I was sick that I am surrounded by more love than I ever realized. I have friends, colleagues, classmates, supervisors, neighbors, parishioners, family... you name it... that loved me. And their love surrounded me like a fluffy blanket on a cold day. It didn't look like I thought it would look. It didn't come in the package I thought it would look like. But it was there. And it lifted and carried and sustained me in ways I could never imagine.
So now, after a few months of recovery, I still wish I had that special partner to lean on in times like this or just to laugh with after a crazy day. But to me honest I don't yearn for it like before. It doesn't seem as necessary for my completion or happiness or life fulfillment. I'm fine just as I am and I am loved. I have more love in my life than most, or so it seems. Who cares what color, shape or size that love is? Love is love, no matter what.
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