Aging...

We are in McGehee, Arkansas, to celebrate the wedding of Natalie and Josh...eldest child of friends we made while Carl was serving his first church, and we were having first children and learning to be adults.  We were embraced in the arms of this tiny town in the Mississippi delta, nurtured and challenged, and then blessed as we moved into a different area of the world.
  
It's been a weird trip.  First, it's hard to believe any of us are old enough to have children ready to marry.  Natalie and Josh are about the age we were when we move to McGehee.  We are the age of those blessed saints that enveloped us with love.  Carl got a bit sloppy with the plane reservations, and instead of leaving at 8 am on Tuesday, we left at 8 pm...arriving in Little Rock at 1 am on Wednesday to rent a car and crash in a hotel.

I am not one to care what kind of car we drive.  POS cars (and if you don't know what that is, I'm not telling you on a blog...) have been par for the course and it really doesn't matter.  But at 1 am on Wednesday, I am standing in the airport parking lot looking at a wine-red Mercury Grand Marquis, feeling rather sick to my stomach and wondering if I have the spine to tell Carl he has to go back and get a different car.  I didn't tell him...but as I slid into the leather of the front seat...I know I aged 30 more  years.  The seats sit low...not helping the feeling I was some shrunken old lady tottering into the end stage of life...

Dinner tonight is with the young couple who are now pastor and wife of this lovely congregation.  They are the same age we were when we were here; we are the age of the stalwarts who kept the congregation functioning when we were the young couple.  My brain is completely rattled.

I am startlingly reminded of the march of time--the saints who came before, the saints who serve, the saints who will come after.  Natalie and Josh, Kenny and Sarah, you are blessed to be in this place that so often looks and feels God-forsaken, but provides the deepest care, feeding, and nurture of the soul--much like the rich delta land that encompasses it.  For those came before, who "raised" us...we are grateful and blessed and we lift you in prayers of gratitude every day.

And for those whose brains are rattling with mine...resisting the Grand Marquis while celebrating the ability to share the love we were given...well, all I can say is God is good...