A surprise ending…

I love to read.

That’s no surprise to many of you. Stories and novels have provided me an endless source of enjoyment. But they have also given me handles for my thoughts and emotions – analogies and ways of talking about the world that help me (and maybe others) grasp the contours and colors of life around me.

Surprise endings, twists and turns, shocking reveals – these are some things that make stories fun. Most of the time, “predictable” is among the worst kind of criticism a book or movie can receive. But these surprises are not always fun. Sometimes they are like a gut punch that leave us disoriented. I remember hearing about somebody’s mom reading The Lord of the Rings. She reached the end of the first book and was so devastated by Gandalf’s apparent death, that she quit reading and never picked it up again!

Sometimes we just can’t handle the shock. Other stories come to mind, like in Bridge to Terabithia when Jesse discovers Leslie’s fate, or the sad parting at the end of Tuck Everlasting. I vividly remember the first trailer for Star Wars: The Last Jedi, where Luke’s voiceover seems to address the viewers directly – “This is not going to go the way you think!” How true that was!

We’re facing a sad parting ourselves. Like the rest of the country, the COVID-19 precautions are rearranging our lives. After we finish this conference in Alabama, Life Action is pulling all three teams off the road. This is not a shock given the climate, but it was not how any of us were expecting our season to end. We are saying farewell to dear teammates weeks before even our planned Spring Break. Some of these we will see next year or up at Life Action Camp, but there’s a real sense that this is goodbye for the foreseeable future.

It seems like a minor problem in compared to the ilness, death, overwhelmed hospitals, and crashing financial markets all over the world. But we don’t live all over the world. We live here and now. Right here and now, our team is grieving a travel season cut short. You can pray for all of the team as we hold tight to God’s promises, that he does all things well. In the immortal words of Samwise Gamgee, our confidence is that everything sad will ultimately come untrue.

Our family is still making our plans for the coming months. What makes the most sense right now is for us to drive to Michigan and park our RV at Life Action Camp. We’ll wait out this unusual course of events and try to think creatively about family, community, and service in a time of pandemic and quaratine.

We will continue to keep in touch with you all. Thank you for praying us through this unusual season and for continuing to pray us through the coming months.

God’s peace be with you all.

Key photo by Dustin Tramel on Unsplash