Pops from the Past

I've been thinking about the past a lot this week--and it's a good thing. Sometimes it just seems like a series of events and people from the past visit our present--all at once--and we can't help but reflect. And maybe it's the time of year; April 10 is the anniversary of Jon's death. And while I don't dwell on that date anymore, I think it's still there, among my memories, even though I'm not consciously focused on it.

So last night I was having a lovely evening with a favorite friend, and I was telling him about some of the blasts from the past that I had experienced this week, which led to a conversation about some of the hard things that I've had to deal with: the death of my sister and husband, an ugly church split, trying to find a new church home with a four-year-old and two-year-old in tow, and particularly the sense of isolation I had felt through it all, the sad reality that I really didn't have many friends through much of it.

And then I realized that I had something new to bring to the story--the happy reality that God had preserved me through it all (great is His faithfulness), that we now are members of a wonderful church and hear the faithful preaching of the gospel every week, and--for this "social butterfly"--the blessing of many treasured friends. And those blasts aren't really blasts at all--just tiny pops that remind me of a rough patch on an otherwise joyful journey.