Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

church

‘None of my business’ no more

It’s Friday, which means it’s one of two days most weeks that the kids and I trek to the bus stop near our house, ride public transportation into the city to pick up the van my husband drove to work, and drive back to our house so they can catch the school bus and I can go to work.

Every time I explain this to someone, it sounds like a chaotic way to start the day. I won’t lie: it makes me anxious every time. So much can go wrong, and I am not the kind of person who likes things to go wrong. Especially not on school mornings. Especially not before I have to embrace the unpredictability of my work day. I can only handle so much uncertainty. Most days, our morning adventure is no big deal. We walk. We board. We ride. We drive. We make it back with time to spare. Some days, though, it’s anything but easy.

Photo by Hope House Press on Unsplash

One time, the bus running our route had to be exchanged for another bus. This happened well before our stop, but it messed up the predicted arrival time on the bus finder website. Another time, the bus was super late, made more late by the driver exhibiting some odd behavior at a stop that caused us to lose a few minutes. (And minutes are crucial in our plan going according to, well, plan.) That particular day gave us all a good dose of adrenaline before 9 a.m.

Relying on public transportation means there are circumstances beyond my control. And other people’s actions affect my own. This is not something I enjoy, as an independent, first-born, American woman. I don’t like being caught in other people’s messes, especially if it means my so-called plan for the day is altered. Sure, if the kids miss the bus, I can take them to school on my way to work, but that’s not the plan, man. In truth, we have so many options. When the weather has been particularly harsh, we have opted for the rideshare plan, where I put the kids on the school bus at the normal time and call a rideshare driver to pick me up and take me to the city to get my van. This has been its own kind of adventure.

Americanism (I don’t even know if that’s a thing) tells me we should just have two cars like everyone else so we don’t have to rely on public transportation. Or so my husband would never have to drop me off and pick me up from work. (Sometimes, those seven minutes in the car are the most conversation we have without the kids present. Why would I miss out on that?)

—

The last time we rode the bus, there was a boy sleeping at the back, where we usually ride. None of the other passengers seemed to be “with” him as we rode into the city. My heart started beating faster. I imagined scenarios where he’d been left behind by a rushed parent. Likely, he belonged to the driver, I thought, but just to be sure, when our stop came, I ushered my kids to the front of the bus so I could mention it. The driver smiled and said that was his son, and my relief was probably visible. I didn’t have to save or fix anything, but it was good to be reminded that my heart is alive and well, that I can do the right thing even when it turns out to be nothing.

I didn’t used to be a person who got involved in something that didn’t seem to be any of my business. Mostly, I’m scared because getting involved often means talking to strangers or doing something that requires more energy than I think I have or could cause conflict (which I try to avoid at all costs, usually). I think that I don’t want to be bothered, but I almost never regret when I do.

One night when Phil and I were out on a date, walking through the city, I noticed a credit card on the ground. We weren’t directly outside a restaurant or bar or anything, so I picked it up. We looked at the name. Phil wondered if he knew the person because he sees a lot of cards and people at his job in the city. I wasn’t sure what to do. What if the person came back looking for the card? Would they freak out? I would freak out. But what if someone else picked up the card? Someone who had no intentions of being honest?

I kept it and after we put the kids to bed and I drove the sitter home, I did a search for the name on the card. Then I Facebook messaged the person I thought it was and tried to be as non-creepy sounding as I could. I gave the person my phone number and said whereabouts I lived so that maybe this person would trust me more. (I can be wary of strangers, but not everyone is.) We connected right away and made plans for me to return the card the next day. I met the cardholder in the parking lot of a grocery store and returned the lost item. The whole thing, including the google search and the messaging, probably took less than half an hour, and who knows what it might have prevented? It was worth the extra effort.

Photo by Gwen Weustink on Unsplash

I need to remember these things when I’m reluctant to get involved. We just heard a sermon at church about the Good Samaritan, and sure, it’s a familiar story, and those of us who have been in church for more than a few years probably know it by heart. But I was reminded that when I can’t be bothered to get involved, I’m missing out on something. I’m missing out on being a neighbor to someone. I’m missing out on following Jesus, who told that story and said, “Go and do likewise.” Jesus went out of his way to meet people and heal people and get involved when others thought he shouldn’t. This didn’t make him a meddler, and I don’t remember anyone telling Jesus to mind his own business. (Spoiler alert: It was all his business anyway.)

If I want to be like Jesus (and I do, I desperately do), then I will do like Jesus. I’m increasingly convinced that the world is God’s business and He wants me to participate in it. And sometimes that will mean getting involved, depending on someone else, or abandoning my well-crafted plan. (This will not always be neat and tidy, either.)

The question Jesus was asked that prompted the Good Samaritan story–“Who is my neighbor?”–could easily have been stated, “That’s none of my business.” How easily those words slide to the front of my brain and roll off my lips. It is the fruit of a culture that values independence more than dependence. (Except at tax time, for some us, when we can claim our dependents.)

We have idolized independence as a virtue while demeaning dependence as a vice. 

Photo by Lautaro Andreani on Unsplash

I think this is one of my main complaints about the Church today. In my experience, we don’t need each other enough. We need each other in a crisis but not so much on a regular basis. Maybe I’m missing out on something because I am too independent. (Translation: Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me the church is more interdependent than I think.)

But how do we do it? I’m not totally sure. All I know is what it takes for me: time. Time to notice. To see. To consider. To decide. Getting involved in something that I want to say is “none of my business” isn’t second-nature to me. Maybe with enough practice, it will be.

It felt like grace

“Are you ready to be recognized by people you might not remember?”

My husband posed the question to our kids as we climbed the concrete stairs in front of the church just before he opened the heavy door. In all our years of attendance, we never entered the church this way. We would always walk in through the back door and wind our way through the first floor rooms to the stairs leading to the second-floor sanctuary.

We were–and still are–back door kind of people. I’ve always thought of the back door of a house as a place where family and close friends enter. The front door is for people who don’t know your ways, who have never been inside, or maybe for strangers trying to sell something.

Photo by Daniel von Appen on Unsplash

Also, visitors. That’s what we were that day at our former church. It had been more than four years since we last set foot in that building. When the door swung open in my husband’s hand, we were greeted with a big smile from the woman we considered our kids’ surrogate grandmother in our days at this church. Our daughter went right to her for a hug. Our son was more reluctant, but who could blame him? He was 3 when we moved. My husband and I also went in for hugs, then we all climbed the stairs as we had done once a week for five years.

“Do you remember this place?” I asked my son. His memory is good but has its limits. He pouted and shook his head “no” as he clutched my hand. The sanctuary looked and felt the same, and there were some familiar faces at the top greeting us. Although it was Sunday, this was not a typical gathering of the church that meets in this building but a special service for a friend of ours. Many of the faces were familiar from other seasons of our life. The pastor who married us was there with his wife. People my husband knew from his job at the retirement village. Pastors from neighboring counties whom we counted as friends. Our current pastor was there, but the setting was so unusual for our son that at first he didn’t recognize him.

Photo by Kathy Hillacre on Unsplash

We settled in for the service, which featured a good chunk of music and singing. I loved that. I stood, my hands resting lightly on the back of the wooden pew in front of us as I sang and watched my kids from the corner of my eye. I had done this so many times in this church. My spiritual life in the days of parenting young children was distracted devotion. Some days, it still is, but not always because of the children.

I closed my eyes and I could see her–the tired mom of two little ones, trying to hold everything together. The days I spent in these pews were days of demanding needs of babies and toddlers, family crises, adjusting to life 800 miles from where I was raised, giving up a career to stay home with kids, nurturing my husband’s dreams. They were days of picking up the pieces of a crumbled marriage and trying to put it back together. I cried a lot in these pews. I could feel it all again years later as I occupied the same space.

But I wasn’t sad, and that surprised me.

As the songs continued, I felt something different.

The woman who stood between those pews now was something else. She was less tired because the demands of the children have changed. She has survived crises and found her place in this home-away-from-home. She has pursued her career and creativity again. She nurtures her own dreams alongside her husband. She no longer tries to hold everything together because she has seen how God can pick up the pieces of a shattered life. She knows that sometimes a broken life is a gift.

I had spent a lot of Sundays full of bitterness in these pews, wondering why life wasn’t better, feeling sorry for our circumstances. I carried that bitterness for months after we left, and sometimes when I have gone back to a place of sorrow and hurt, those feelings have returned.

Photo by Harpal Singh on Unsplash

Not this time.

I was grateful. And even that is not a strong enough word to describe it. In my heart and soul I was deeply thankful for all of it because without it, I would not be the same person I am right now. It has been a journey full of speed bumps and pot holes and breakdowns and what feels like a whole lot of endings.

But it also has been a journey full of grace, and if grace had a feeling, I felt it on Sunday.

The tired and worn-out woman from before and the becoming-more-brave-and-whole woman from right now–it felt like grace to have both of them be me.

I didn’t have enough time to consider all of this in the moment, though I acknowledged that it was there, but when my friend stepped up to the front of the church to sing for her husband a song of his choosing on his special day–when I heard her voice fill the sanctuary, watched her use her gift of song knowing some of what it has taken for her to stand there and sing–I cried tears I couldn’t stop, and if we had not been in such a public place, I think I would have sobbed loudly at the beauty of it all.

I used to want to erase the ugly parts of my life, to forget they happened and concentrate only on the good stuff. I have wanted to dwell on the victories, the redemptions, the successes. I want to hold those things close, but I want to hold the hard things alongside them. Because without the losses, the deaths, the failures, the good things wouldn’t mean as much.

Days later I am still looking for the words to express my gratitude for the years that felt like a wasteland. They were dry and my heart was brittle and sometimes it felt like we had fallen into a valley so deep we couldn’t climb out, but the climate of our souls changed and my heart began healing and we could see the sun again.

I don’t want to forget the dark days because they are testimony of what God can do in a life. They are proof that He transforms hearts and circumstances, that what feels like the end is sometimes the beginning.

SaveSave