just pondering

They say that mothers run where angels fear to trod. My role here is certainly not mother. So I sometimes wonder what kind of a fool I am.

It’s fun to watch our community take shape and personality. When you slap together a group of random people, from random places, with random experiences, the community that evolves is very individual. The first week, you see faces and hear names and associate people with the color or their sweater or glasses they wear. But time and conversation reveals history. And you realize that people aren’t products of the moment, but came from somewhere. And you learn their stories.

Last Wednesday evening I drove back from town with Evelyn, listening to her story. To her dreams and ideas and dramas and opinions. I find myself suddenly a character in her story. I’m supposed to say something. To come along side. To be involved. But who is equal to answer REAL questions? To give answers that could influence the course of someone’s life? What kind of a fool am I to leap right into the middle and trudge beside someone for a mere three months?

More than once, though, I’ve been amazed at how God is using my own experiences. Even up to the recent heartaches of this past summer. Several of my girls mirror parts of my own story. And I can’t help but remember God’s guidance through those seasons. And when I share pieces of my life with them, I marvel to watch -again- how He wrings purpose out of my experiences.

Love is a funny thing, isn’t it? Where you have no right to enter, it opens doors. When you should tremble to speak it sets you on a soapbox. And where you ought to hesitate, you plunge forward like a fool.