As We Gather This Weekend

Some plan to gather with groups for a weekend event. Will it be an unforgettable event or a memory you want to delete? How you remember that event will depend upon you, how you react . . . or what you hope to convey to others.

Labor Day weekend, my eldest son flew in for a family visit. Hugs & Joy! Sure sibling ribbing flamed, and mom fell into ancient ways of über mommy posturing. Thank God my kids let forgiveness and mercy guide them, as they’re twenty-something adults.

Sunday we hosted a barbecue, inviting another family, the mom, a former home-schooler like my eldest son. Over an amber-tinged photo album, they recollected memories of home school cooperative field trips and projects. My eldest felt they did a poor job on a Indian Navaho village model; his former classmate disagreed, “It was the planet we tried to paper Mache, but went all squishy.” After serious banter, both agreed on the squishy planet and laughed over other memories and updates on old friends.

But there’s one memory my eldest didn’t recall, one etched in me that I hope my kids have forgotten, forgiven.

On a weekend long ago, my three kids and I joined other home school families in a pro-life event. Standing at the end of a five-mile chain, my kids and I held one white poster with three printed words, no graphic pictures. Toward the end of the event before my husband came to get us, a clunker sedan screeched up to our side. We jumped back. Inside white man in with ragged dirty blond hair screamed bombs and expletives. My husband picked up his young wife in tears, ashamed, ears burning for weeks after the event.

The room echoed. Doors shut to the other rooms. Shocked by those words, I was more shocked at how calm I became. The insults didn’t crumble my faith nor God’s love and mercy towards the one who was obviously hurting mad.

Centuries before Jesus suffered Roman expletives, scourges, and thorns, David wrote, “All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads . . .” The response Jesus gave to such insults the poet Isaiah predicted, “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth.”

The weekend approaches. The people gather. No matter what bombs or transgressions fall about you, let ultimate GOODNESS help you find redemptive ways to make a memory worth remembering.