Closing the Gap

 “People are not hurdles on the road to God. They are the road.”

—Martin Buber, Between Man and Man

The week of Christmas I had the responsibility of writing the eulogy and officiating my stepfather's funeral.

My mother chose a scripture verse and for days I spent circling the verse trying to figure out what to write.

The reality is relationships are complicated.

People are human and flawed and messy.

Somehow at the end of someone's life we stand and we try to say the good.

Honestly I struggled with this.

Having now lost the only two fathers I've known...........I'm aware that some of the legacy left is what they did right. And some of the legacy left is what they did wrong.

Both shape us equally. Choices I've intentionally made are the result of both the done right and the done wrong.

As I brainstormed and drafted, my mine kept circling back to this day in 2014 when I took my 3 children to Athens.

It was probably at the height of sickness with gastro. I was down 100 pounds. No one knew what was wrong. I was afraid, lonely and unwell.

I had to haul all 3 kids to Athens with me for yet another doctor's appointment solo. They were 1.5, 10 and 12.

I tried to make what was a challenging day for me fun for them. I took them to the "big" library. I took them to lunch and out for frozen yogurt. I took pictures of them with the bull dawg.

That's what I remember.

One of my kids was talking about that day a few months ago and what they remember is in the library parking lot, as we got back into the car, I realized that one of the children had drank my coke. And I yelled at them. Lost my temper.

I don't remember that. I'm sure it happened. But in my mind, that day was huge for me. I didn't eat two days before taking them so my system would remain stable. I sipped that coke to keep my stomach settled and my blood sugar stable.

As I sat to write the eulogy, I wondered if my kids were writing about that day would they write about what went right? Or what went wrong?

Someone recently defined sin as "knowing the right thing to do, but you didn't do it."

Our life is full of these choices of knowing the right thing to do. We often make the wrong choice.

Therefore there's this constant gap between us and being like Jesus.

And in that gap is the trying.

And in that trying is the peace that surpasses all understanding.

So as I wrote the eulogy, I realized that we all live in the gap.

We can either focus on the size of the gap or the steps to close it.

Mama Warriors, I'd like to think our kids are going to focus on the steps to close it.

But I think we have to give words to that for them. We have to model grace and forgiveness.

We have to give them the gospels as a colander (Adam Hamilton) to sift the world through.

Love God. Love others.

Close the gap.