Monday, October 3, 2016

Finding Agape

Agape is selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love, the highest of the four types of love.

I look out my kitchen window, the afternoon bright with sun, leaves falling, a slight chill in the air. I think back to Phoebe's last Monday six years ago.  I remember that week well, her last days here on earth.  And I want to capture this moment ...because it is sweetly heavy.  Burdened but light at the same time.  I think from seventeen to twenty three ...who might she be?  I think of everyone I love and where in six years they will be.  It's funny to pause and think about time and change.  How life looks over the span of time ...how it moves to something different than what we knew.  Dinner hour changes, because we have.  Kids march on towards adulthood, and I watch, waiting.  Missing her, wanting her to be part of it all.  But I don't beg God anymore, I don't deplete the way I once did.  I grab hold of anything that speaks of the glory she might be in.
Six years of missing is a long time ...too long.  But it won't be forever, because one day...

In the time I've sat down to write, chaos ...the rough and tumble of big family life has thundered back in.  Three different kinds of music are playing, while the piano plays an altogether different tune.  Order is what I always chase, but it's not meant for here, in this home most times. Because life is dynamic and fleeting.   But I want to cling to remembering Phoebe while everyone else pulls at me ....and dinner is needed before heading off again to meetings and activities.

But just before all this electricity ignited my home, my phone jingled ...from my sister.  A reminder, a fence post and invitation to something that will root me in the chaos and see it more like ballet ...it gives me a lens to see the beauty and perfection of it.  Agape.

My nephew has been chasing Agape for months.  Waiting and wishing, hoping and praying that it will claim him,  He is a very special young man, and his burning quest for this has filled my heart more than once.  Someone had shared their own experience of finding Agape with him, someone he admires, and since then ...he's been after it.  And today, he believes it found him.  Amazing how God works, because that message to me set me on the right course in so many ways.  Agape ...selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love.    My nephew likely won't understand that his discovery is mine too ...and that's ok.  Most of what we give to others we never know.
And so the over stimulation of sound and movement I see as a gift only because of my nephew's discovery.  

Phoebe was not quiet.  Her presence was obvious ....and so I pay attention and notice ...all the humming and buzzing ...the life that teems through this house.  Life here did not stop when Phoebe died.  And it might have. We might have curled up, shriveled up and become something other than who we were. Phoebe would recognize this place ...it still moves as she did.  Her entry now would be seamless ...the door still open to her.  Still, it's her home.
So my quiet, my desire for stillness to be with here is in my own head ...because that was never who she was.  Phoebe was this life in motion of sound and movement ....constant ...alive.  

To set the point home (because God knows I need lots and lots of help in seeing His ways), my friend arrives, arms full of food.  Makings for a salad, home made bread and lasagna.  She is tired after working all night, catching up on laundry, racing her kids around during the day.  She brought us dinner ...when it should be the other way around.  My friend leans against my counter and we laugh with our easy banter.  She has seven too so we often share the struggle.  
We share faith and laughter mostly ....she found her way into my life just weeks before Phoebe died.  Another thread woven into my life so perfectly for what was to come.  And she hasn't left. 
And this friend likely won't understand that she arrives as the physical definition of Agape ....and again, most of what we give to others we never know.  How could she know how she punctuates the moment?

Phoebe's last Monday ...her bags thumping at the entryway, shoes, sweatshirts dropping behind her as she moves, passing the piano and banging away, cabinet doors open and close, jumping on the counter to be swatted off by me ... She could be here  ...she is here for me.  God does not separate us from each other ...only we do! These kids moving through now echo her own noise and activity ...they live and move as she led them to ...fully invested in the moment they have.

Finding agape for me isn't finding an incredible immersion in peace, having order all around me ...in essence, everything going my way.  Finding agape is immersion into the moment, accepting it as perfection, uniquely designed and delivered by God's own hand ...letting go and noticing ...the mystery of life spinning all around.  Maybe there's more, but I'm pretty simple ...

Hey there, sweet daughter of mine,  you belong here always ... And I am reminded to step back, get out of my own way and let it be as it should.

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