offertory

is for one in a million

Oceans * Order * The outdoors * Home office * Onions * Olives * The Olympics * Open minds * Orchards * Opportunity *
Opposites * Oatmeal cookies * Old things * Oak * Orchids * Olive oil

This morning I am deeply grateful for a new member of the family who demonstrates the value of having an open heart.

Trisha and Junior are here for a few days before loading out Junior's storage unit and moving kit and kaboodle to Charlotte, NC. While the menfolk did manly things yesterday afternoon outdoors, Trisha and I huddled around her laptop and talked wedding plans. In the process the conversation veered into the family dynamics arena. Without tumbling into a verbatim of our conversation how do I distill what I learned about her and have affirmed, again, the extraordinary young woman she is? I had to fight back tears on a number of occasions for the blessing of her observations, her clarity of situations and the chutzpah of stating the truth.

Let me share, at least briefly, a particularly meaningful chunk of wisdom that she revealed. Troubled by the behavior and ensuing consequences of a person to whom she is close, and desiring for that relationship to find right footing for both of their sakes, she came to understand that for the relationship to find footing to move toward health and stability she had to change the way she saw the other person. In her words, "I had to forgive them and accept them for where they are." It is a perspective that I learned long ago while trying to find a way through difficulty with my father, and I know it takes some serious inner work to get beyond the "me" to value the other enough to honor the wholeness of who they are. It doesn't wash away the past, but it does help to heal it and open new opportunities for the future. It is relationship-changing and life-changing. And Trisha, before she was 23-years old, had come to this wisdom.

I almost have to pinch myself to apprehend the gift that Trisha is and will be to this family. I am also grateful for the companionship she offers to me as another woman in this mix. I thank God for answering a prayer that it never occurred to me to utter because I didn't think it could ever be answered. I needed that.