Crazy Day

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I'm in the last day, I hope, of a three-day diverticulosis attack. It kept me from the dentist yesterday. The dentist called to change my appointment to an hour earlier and I wasn't even sure I'd be able to make it by 3. So I said I would have to reschedule for a different day. I was just too weak to go through the stress. I was still in bed when they called. I had had almost no sleep the night before. I still felt like death warmed over this morning. I was debating about whether to go to Bible Study tonight. It's in a town twenty minutes away. It meets in a home on in a hilly area, and the house is on a hill. The driveway slopes down to a busy street. The house is on a corner and the only place to park is in the driveway or on the corner on the other side of the cross street. My usual ride was out of town, and she usually parks along with about five others in the driveway. I'm afraid to park there. Getting in is OK, but getting out is hard. I emailed the hostess and told her I wasn't sure I'd make it and if there were another way to see the video that was scheduled. I wanted to see it because it was an introduction to the book we were going to study. I was scheduled to lead the first actual study in two weeks, and I wanted to know what the intro covered. My friend said she had hoped to start the actual content study after the video, and she hoped I'd make it, but she really liked my questions and wanted to start this week -- tonight. She said if I couldn't make it, she was prepared to lead. I was starting to feel a bit better, so I finally decided to risk it and go. I knew someone would drive me down the hill to my car afterwards, and there was still enough light to get from my car to the house safely from the street. The way the house is set on the hill, the walk along the street and across both streets is about half a block. So I went. I crammed for the remaining 90 minutes before I had to leave, since I hadn't any idea we would start tonight until two hours before. Only about five of the usual ten women were there tonight. Three were out of town. One just had a death in the family, and I'm not sure about the other one. One of our pastor's wives who has never attended this group came tonight. I haven't seen her in ages, and was delighted she was there. She's one of my favorite people. We ate the usual salad potluck. I stuck to the delicious homemade bread one of our members always brings. I had eaten my mashed avocado and a hard boiled egg before leaving since salad wasn't something I could eat tonight. We watched the video while people ate salad. Then I did my best to lead this rather impromptu study. I had prepared the questions two weeks ago. They had been handed out. But nobody really knew we'd be using them tonight, and so I think the hostess was the only one really prepared for the discussion. In spite of that, it went well. It's a very open group that's been meeting together for about two years. Ages are mixed. I'm the oldest but a couple of others are over sixty, too. The rest are all women who either have jobs or children to take care of or both. Most of them are in their thirties. There was a lot of emotion tonight. Everyone in our group has at least one personal struggle. Cancer in the family, bereavement, raising a 13-year-old stepdaughter, losing a lease and having to find a new place to live in a high-rent area, being single and having an adopted older child who has gone back to her birth mother, and so on. When I come away from these meetings, I'm happy to pick up my own burdens and go home. They seem so light compared to what the others are now facing. I've already been through many of those things. but I hate to see the others facing those same difficulties and emotions. After we were starting to leave, the pastor's wife took me town the hill to my car and we spent another half hour in her car talking. She has a few heartaches of her own involving her grown children. I haven't really had much time to really talk to her in years. When I finally started home I missed my usual turnoff that leads to the freeway and got lost in the hills for a few minutes before I finally came out near another freeway entrance. The sky was lovely. I could see the clouds in the moonlight. I made it safely home. And I was feeling pretty good compared to morning. Sometimes we can do more than we think we can. When I finally got home, my husband wanted to know how it went. I knew he was unsatisfied with my answer. We have different ideas on how to lead Bible studies and what's important. Or maybe it's just that we take different roads to get to the same destination. Or maybe dynamics are just different when women get together and when the group is coed. He wanted to know what we covered, what points were stressed. What lessons we saw in the text. All that is important, but what made me think it went well was the quality of our interaction. And I couldn't really share that because what we say to each other in confidence doesn't leave the room except to pray about it. We share our hearts and sometimes there are tears. What we share there is love that can't be put into words. We share God's love with each other. It was a crazy day and a good day. Has anything unusual happened to you lately? Any unexpected change in plans that put you where you didn't expect to be? Did you find you could do something you thought you couldn't? Or has it been all smooth sailing?