Glory and Grace

I was at a meeting last night as part of the responsibility of a church committee of which I am a member. At the beginning of that meeting, we were asked to list times when we have seen glory lately.

We took the youth to visit some of our older members today. Here is my list of the times I saw Glory and Grace today at Woodlands.

• The youth leaders had planned last week to arrange these visits. our pastors compiled the list, MT called the youth so that they knew the time, all was planned. We are all dealing with the loss of Jim, but I never, in my mind connected the two events. As we were leaving Mrs. Core's room, Carol asked her if she needed anything. "A ride to the funeral," she said. As she and Carol arranged for that, two things occurred to me. First, that a 100 year old would plan to leave her health care room to go downtown to a funeral was grace. Secondly, what a perfect weekend for us to take the youth to Woodlands to visit these members. Of course, all of them knew Jim. All of them are mourning his loss. It was God's own timing that we took our youth group up to see them.
• Mrs. Hensley shared with us the stories in her room -- carvings her husband had made, the stories of her "critters" on her bed, including one which was a gift from another resident of Woodlands upon the death of Hanni (and I may not be spelling it write, but it was what she called Hansford Welch), her "Amen" corner, her "show and tell shelf," and her "We are Marshall" plaque, signed by Red Dawson.
• She goes to visit other JM members at Woodlands, and then goes out in the hallway to cry. Their illnesses touch her heart.
• We saw Mrs. Wiley walking the halls. Mrs. Hensley told us that she goes to "take care of" one of her friends in the Health Care side.
• Helen showed us where Jim would sit when he came to visit her, along with her other friends. She "entertains" in her room.
• We were able to pray with all of the women we visited.

I'm glad we took the youth to visit Woodlands. I think all involved were blessed, and I think we taught the youth something about service.

I also think the timing was planned by God. I think that we went today where Jim would have wanted us to go.

Today the youth were part of church, in every sense of the word.

Image: Icy trees on Friday morning.